Oh I happily remember those days, chasing a MiG21 flying using keyboard.
Dogfighting.
Using keyboard.
Jeez.
So immersed in the storyline too.
Good days.

To not run totally off topic I'd say I'm all with toonces on this.

Edit: just look! http://www.old-games.com/download/4437/strike-commander

What I want more than anything is the most realistic flight model possible while also retaining the ability to have single or multi player air-to-air combat. DCS, more than any sim I have ever flown, is approaching what I have always wanted. It is just a matter of building up the plane set to have the huge library I loved so much in Jane's Fighters Anthology and the SFP1/SF2 series. Historical dueling pairs such as the P-51D/Fw190D9 and F-86F/MiG-15bis are a great way to go given the slow rate of DCS development. Now where is my all-time favorite F-4E to fight the MiG-21bis?

I play this game dead while everyone around me playing with quake 1. :-)

Thanks for the link. I found a bunch of sweet simulator memories. (Atac, 1942 PAW, Aegis, Tornado, Dogfight, ) :-)
OH my god... What a sim paradise.

Agreed, I am really hoping that the multicrew feature leads to an F-4E. Even if it means that my back-seater is AI like in the Huey. Maybe an ROI menu like in the Huey as well.

Of course I would have no problem joining another player in the back seat of their aircraft in multiplayer. It was so much fun in Arma 2, less so in Arma 3 but still worthwhile.

[quote=apelles... I found a bunch of sweet simulator memories. (Atac, 1942 PAW, Aegis, Tornado, Dogfight, ) :-)
OH my god... What a sim paradise. [/quote]
Including ED's Su-27 Flanker which introduced me to Russian aircraft and got me very involved in their sim world. Not that I actually need the link for it...I still have the CD.

For me the Fleet Defender is the ultramaxf******sim. :-) I live in the eastern block, then I fly an US Navy bird. :-) Thats a big big pleasure. :-)

But i see the link in below for ironhand site. Do you make new videos for DCS planes. I learn corner speed concept, and air to ground tactics from Ironhand videos. I like it.

Alwyas wanted a A-G radar for DCS. Air to air is fun for a while, but A-G gives so many ways of finding the enemy and killing him that is where the real fun begins. If we add a working FLIR I will be in heaven, but In top of that add carrier ops, and I know what I will be flying around for a long while. Just can't wait.

Fleet Defender was one of the first military flight sims to really grab my attention.

No new videos, I'm afraid. Each of those tutorials for 1.x took about 30+ man hours to make. I just don't have that kind of time anymore. Plus there is aready so much out there on YouTube, etc for DCS that anything I did would be redundant. The little sim time I have these days isn't enough to maintain proficiency in any of the airframes, anyway.

Yes, I think the limited resources needed to make a sim that is also a good game is the reason it falls short.

DCS started life as a contracted simulator that was then adapted for game use. That adaptation didn't have the amount of resources it needed to be like Jane's the Next Generation.

DCS, like most other flight sims now, is stuck in a vicious downward spiral. The ones still buying are demanding ever more realism, alienating the casual users, who buy less, and get less say as a result. The majority audience is inexorably slipping towards the "nothing less than A-10C!" crowd which, they do not want to realize, is incapable of supporting the sim themselves unless they want to spend $150+ per module.

The hardcore audience has shrunk but at a far slower pace than that of the entire audience. So while they used to make up say 1/4 of it, maybe now they're 1/2 or more? Not because there are more of them, but just so many less of the rest.

So instead of say 250,000 out of a million simmers being the hifi devotees, we've now got 200,000 out of 400,000. Yet the products are appealing to that 200,000 and ignoring the other 200,000 when in the past it would appeal to the 750,000 and less to the 250k. This is causing that total size to shrink ever more.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years the total market is 200,000 of which 150,000 are the hardcore and a piddling 50,000 casual...and the products will stop because that won't support development.



You know why we don't get an FC A-10C implementation of a plane alongside the DCS A-10C? Because it took so much to make the DCS one as it is, no one wants to make the FC one. Yeah, a sale means you can later buy the DCS one for an FC price, but money isn't really the object. As Pfunk pointed out, all the time is spent on the top end. At the simplified level little attention is paid, and it becomes a real turn off if you do NOT want to use the TGP for everything and program in wind speeds and such.

Bottom line you can't fly the A-10C like the A-10A with LGBs. Why is it wrong to want that?
The casual fliers say "I don't care how hardcore you want it, go ahead, just let me fly my way" and the hardcore say "NO! It must be as REAL as possible, and no one should want less!"??






The Jedi Master

ED could always include a "simplified avionics" version (I specifically do not mean an "arcade" version) for those who don't want to learn all the systems up front. Maybe even with a couple steps in between, where you can add "realism" step by step by switching on features via the options menu.

Would ease new players into the module by giving them a chance to simply jump in an blow stuff up, who might get increasingly curious about the systems and might start to learn how to operate all the systems manually.

Even more important in the long run IMO would be a more immersive gaming experience, which could very well be done by a third party developer. Voice acting, an environment that is "alive", heavily improved ATC....

I wonder how one would design a simplified systems airplane that wasn't designed as "an arcade mode for noobs that don't want to learn" but more as a teaching tool to teach core concepts and naturally lead into the real mode.

FC3? That's the niche it fits, pretty much. More than arcade but not so systems heavy that it makes your eyes cross.

I don't know that ED is looking for advice, or a way forward from us, the community. Like you said, DCS is a civilian adaptation of their commercial product. I don't really know what ED's angle is with respect to other parts, like Combined Arms. I would like to think that it's a nod to us gamers, but it could easily be ED's attempt to get a piece of the Distributed Operations in the military. This is where I just don't know enough to even speculate well.

From a gamer's perspective, I think there are a few things that would improve the appeal of DCS (does it even need to improve its appeal?):

1. More attention to the FC3 level of simulation.
2. A new planeset/environment package.
3. A dynamic campaign.

1. Any number of posts have indicated that many folks simply don't have the time or inclination to learn the complexity of a DCS:A-10 level aircraft. You know, this makes sense. If you accept that the A-10 is modeled very accurately, then it is reasonable to accept that a certain level of effort is required to fly it accurately. An Air Force pilot spends years learning to employ an A-10 properly; we're doing it in our spare time.

I have to think that an area where ED could simply kill in this regard is the Korean War era. While no doubt it takes a lot of work to build a DCS:F-86, it can't be as hard to make as an A-10.

2. Building on point 1, too many folks have expressed an interest in era-specific environments. I'm going to take a wait-and-see on how Nevada and Hormuz are received by the community. I expect them to be very successful. The first person to build a Korea terrain can probably expect to be very successful.

3. My entering argument for starting this post is that most folks want a game, and not a simulator. I understand these aren't mutually exclusive. But once you have your super-realistic plane, you want to play with it without having to invest a lot of work and time to create the fun. Even something as superficial as the Thirdwire campaign system would be welcome by many. I think almost everyone would buy this as a module. Is this just not a profitable idea?

There is no real competitor for the 1950-1980s flight sim other than Thirdwire. ED could lock up this part of the market by default. I am not sure why there isn't more emphasis in direction to this market. Using DCS:F-86 as a starting point, you build a DCS:MiG-15, create a Korea terrain, and then a couple of FC3 level other aircraft, and you simply have nobody else competing with you. And with multiplayer you offer something even TW doesn't offer.

Anyway, I'm rambling and going off subject here.

If i had to venture a guess, i'd say it's both. It definately has its origins in a JTAC training suite. Being something that appeals to the military as well as the civillian side of business, it really is a no-brainer. Development that leads to a synergy between civilian and military market is the safest bet they can get.



This is a bit puzzling, tbh. You have been following their roadmap, have you?

I agree with Jedi Master here, I think rivet counters, sofa jockeys are ruining flight simulators. Wish ED can organize a real poll about what aproach to take.

Why make a poll when they have sales figures?

Really? They have sales figures of a FC3 style western multirole jet?

I think that's a contradiction in terms. "Simulation" is about realism and accuracy.

"Rivet counting" might be interpreted as a sole focus on the mechanization of the systems in which case I'd agree. Realism is beneficial insomuch as it channelizes behavior down new and more sophisticated routes of gameplay. I've seen Ka-50 played by a bunch of airheads and IL-2 played like it was real life. Good flying is determined by more factors than just how accurate the airplane is. The effort-benefit ratio to improving the quality of the experience can suggest accepting errors in the systems to prioritize AI, mission text, etc. that isn't rivet related.

Of course a polite "this has 10 rivets, it really should have 11" which is factual and non-demanding (or at least understanding of other priorities) should never be demonized.

You can do that with DCS as the ME can coax players to conduct a task a good example is BFT missions which teach players to fly at the exact spped/altitude and heading.