Wags require to the community

Wags request info to the community (post answers on the ED forum post)

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=151627&page=3

Maps, maps and more maps.
I'd also like to see more FC3 aircraft. The wait for high fidelity aircraft is way too long and appears beyond most 3rd party skill sets.
Vietnam war era aircraft.
Oh and better effects. I'll admit the P-51 gun smoke is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better in 1.5

I was tempted to write in "more companies to compete for our hard-earned dollars" - given how pathetic ED is half the time. In the end I decided to curb the cynicism and went with the 4th gen multirole fighters. Still waiting for a high-fidelity F-18. Once you have that, then dynamic campaign becomes the next priority in my book.

I don't really see grounds for objecting over the question being asked. Even if the cynical view is correct and E.D. doesn't choose to pursue whatever wins the poll (currently, Dynamic Campaign), it makes it easier for enterprising 3rd parties to see where the highest interest levels are. Having the information out in plain view should be a good thing.

Just wondering, are PMs still a thing or do people enjoy having it out with each other in public at the expense of the topic? How bout a poll?

Anyways since the biggest issue I have with DCS at the moment is justifying why I am risking my virtual pilot in a virtual war, I went with the DC.

DYNAMIC CAMPAIGN IS NEEDED

Dynamic Campaign is not must imo.

The point of immersion in Falcon4 IMO is UI that's being able to analyze battlefield, threats and activities (Recon) and then plan flight (Add-flight), so you feel you are reacting to the changing situation.

So I would say, "being able to create Air-Tasking-Order while mission is running"

Gents,

I temporarily locked this thread so I could do some clean up. It's a simple poll...let's not "over-think" it and devolve this topic into something that has nothing to do with the poll.

If there is a choice on the poll you want to discuss...let's hear it.

Stay on topic please.




( I voted for Dynamic Campaign)

Dynamic Campaign! DYNAMIC CAMPAIGN!DYNAMIC CAMPAIGN! DYNAMIC CAMPAIGN! DYNAMIC CAMPAIGN! DYNAMIC CAMPAIGN!

what is missing in my opinion is

^ This.

Seriously, I'd spend a lot more time with DCS if it had a DC. And I already own like 8 modules. I just don't actually fly them.

One thing that I think is going to be interesting about this poll is it kinda draws a red line in the sand so to speak. As of now the Dynamic campaign seems to be the runaway favorite, I know I voted for it cause the multi role fighter is already supposed to be well under development. In my opinion ED will now have to say ok, we hear you, let's do it!!! Or give a pretty convincing explanation of why it's not going to happen. I guess the other option would be to say; it's in the plans but don't expect to see it this decade.

Aircraft. No More Trainers! Except for the T-38
F-16
F-18

MiG-17
MiG-19
MiG-23 Should be at the top of the MiG list.
MiG-31

Maps
Vietnam
Middle East (Heck give me a generic one)
Europe

Any of these things would make me happy.

Flaming Cliffs 4

I would like more FC level aircraft, I love flying the SU-25 and I want more of the same - F-15E Strike Eagle, Mig-23, Tornado GR-1, Saab Gripen please.

Anything about mission content, AI actors (ATC, wingman, etc.), and the ability to save/edit/resume single and multiplayer flights.

DCS is a very good race car without the racetrack or race to enjoy it in.

Dynamic campaign engine.

AH64

Dynamic campaign. Nothing else is even remotely as important as this.

It's the reason I've been playing Falcon 4 and it's variants for the past 200 years.

ED once said that the vast majority of customers are playing SP (~80% IIRC).
So ANY feature in the sim that can support this group should be implemented.
Mission creation is tedious for the casual player and the mission generator
could be taken as a base to work from.

• EVER SO SLIGHTLY RELAXED FLIGHT MODEL that doesn't require constant trimming.
• Ability to increase apparent size of ground targets to make them easier to pick out with the Mk1 eyeball

Dynamic campaign, easy. Not surprised to see it sitting on top the poll results. Hopefully, they act on the poll.

It definitely needs a lot more campaigns wether dynamic or not. There's just not enough meat in the sim.

F-16, F-15 with clickable cockpit, and more maps are needed!

Dynamic campaign!

I think there are a lot of nice things to choose between.

But I voted for DC. For me a DC or at least something close to it would be nice. I have never played Falcon so I do not know how that works. But in the old days I liked games liked Long Bow Apache 2 because it really made me feel as part of a war.

Actually most combat simulators back then where good at creation immersion and reason for learning to fly and fight with an aircraft. That is something that I really miss in the DCS world. The planes, platform are so nice But I very often end up just flying around thinking nice but what should I actually do with all this stuff

I would also love to see the Apache in the game. An I am a sucker for the F16 also, but that would be lower priority.

I would also like a very basic prop trainer with some really nice training tutorials for learning basic flying stuff like making correct approaches etc. That I would more or less be able to do fulfil most of my sim needs only in DCS.

It is a pity that it is a single option

New maps to play on is very appealing ..... but ...

Proper big boy dedicated server like proper companies release (not so fussed on logging etc)
Windows and linux versions please

Judging by the way ED have created a released campaigns as DLC (with limited activations)
I think the odds of them releasing a dynamic campaign generator are slim to none
They would be cutting off a revenue stream, but time will tell on that one

DC for DCS.

Dedicated servers should be released after 2.0.

Simmers have been asking Eagle Dynamics for a dynamic campaign engine since the days of Su-27 DOS in the mid-'90s, then on Usenet with Flanker where the subject was beaten to death. Other flight sim developers back in the day saw the need:

Digital Image Design, "Let's give TFX2 [EF2000...a DOS sim] a DC for SP and Co-op MP!"

Was this ever a priority for ED? Has anything changed in 20 years?

I would think the further we advance the harder it will be to develop a DC. More time = more detail and more detail = more code, exponentially more. Then you have older staff eventually being replaced by younger guys who may not appreciate DCs of the past. Just think, if not for F4/BMS the DC might eventually be forgotten!

That, and their past resistance to implementing a Dynamic Campaign, occurred to me as well. However, since the poll initiated by Wags includes that option, I have to think it implies that E.D. is either open to developing a Dynamic Campaign, or at least to farming it out to a 3rd party. If E.D. wasn't open to it, why would they include that as a choice in the poll?

Well, the soon-to-arrive Combat Air Patrol 2 claims to include a Dynamic Campaign, so between that, and a combat aviation sim community that wants DCs, I think we can count on it staying on people's minds for quite awhile yet.

I seem to recall reading (it may have just been someone's opinion) that a factor in E.D. not seriously pursuing a DC in the past was due to the nature of the Government/Military simulator contract work they had been doing. Those big customers were supposedly not interested in having computer generated campaigns. That, and the complexity/expense of developing a DC could weigh heavily against making the attempt.

Hopefully, its more feasible for them to pursue it now.

This is strictly my own speculation and might have zero merit whatsoever...but I think the poll appearing shortly after the release of BMS 4.33 might be playing a factor in the timing of this.

While it's an impressive release...there are still many ways it can't compete with DCS. For myself being a single player however...I will be giving up some stick time from DCS and flying BMS instead as I enjoy the dynamic campaign and career aspects of BMS. The very active battlefield is something that DCS hasn't been able to accomplish yet IMO.

This is just my opinion of course...and the poll timing might have nothing to do with BMS at all.

I don't think a DC precludes a well made scripted campaign. They offer differing virtues. A DC lets you fly any plane any where in a variety of roles, so if you just want to do certain types of missions you can. It's a choose-your-own-adventure book, but it can get repetitive if the template is too narrow and there aren't enough of them. For example, the BoS campaign or Strike Fighters' infamous "bomb the comm bldg" missions.

A scripted campaign is more involved, deeper, usually more satisfying to fly and right, but offers far less replay value in most cases. It's like a mystery book--it's a better read than the adventure book, but after you read it once and know what's going to happen, it loses a lot on subsequent readings.

In my flight simming career I've flown multiple campaigns of all types, and while I tend to enjoy the scripted ones more on the first pass, I've NEVER reflown one, not once. The DC's, however, I can play over and over again and get more mileage from them although the experience isn't as great.

So, do you want to go to an excellent restaurant you can only visit once and then never again, or a more average one that you'll be able to revisit as often as you like but with food that's not as impressive?




The Jedi Master

Some valid points there Jedi.

I will say when it came to dynamic campaigns such as Mig Alley and BOBII...I really enjoyed being involved in the planning of the entire campaign and setting up flights and assigning targets for all my available forces...and then watching them play out in the 3d space.

I also enjoy strategy games, so it allowed the strategy geek inside to surface in my flight sims.

That sim looks gorgeous but after scrolling the screen shots, I see not one pic that leads me to believe this sim will have a DC approaching even EF2000 (DOS...1995).



I remember something like this with the A-10, but I'm going much further back to the DOS days when others were doing it, but not ED. Baltimore Jane's took some flack for F-15, but made a semi-DC for F/A-18 which looks pretty cool.

Of course, ED is the only ones still in business so maybe a DC is not really a good idea.

++++++++++

It's far form perfect but Total Air War has some of the best DC features, like playing real-time AWACS controller (with 3D window) and having the possibility of changing allegiances for each nation.

There have been times in TAW where I've planned deep strikes over a neutral nation, only to be intercepted and warned that I'd better leave their airspace, while being escorted across their border. Supposedly there are rules in the campaign engine where you can get away with this only so many times before you gain a new enemy.

I really think along those lines too...

I've posted this over the years, I still have it on my server so I'll post it again (apologies for the resolution).

This video shows the EF2000 DC in action. Although turn-based (ground taken or lost is calculated every 8 hours vs. real-time), it keeps a persistent world while automatically generating missions for you to choose from (or you can plan your own from scratch). The fighting continues even if you're not flying, by fast-forwarding an 8-hour cycle.

In this video the Russians are advancing south...

http://198.65.10.229/DID/Temp/EF2K_DCA.wmv
(please right-click and save)

Personally, I like the 8-hour clock method (0:00 - 08:00 / 08:00 - 16:00 / 16:00 - 0:00), it's more realistic not to be flying 'round the clock as you can in F4 and TAW. In F4 you can join a flight already in progress, in TAW you can enter an F-22 from AWACS. In EF2000, you choose (or create) a mission at the start of each cycle (or fast-forward to the next) and then fly it from start to finish. New missions are generated for the next 8-hour cycle for the given situation. Campaign progress is determined by a combination your mission score average (if you choose) and how the campaign is playing out (e.g. weak strength of airbase's defenses will make it susceptible to capture).

AWACS and refuelers are very high value as are the bases they operate from, lose an important base and you might lose this support (planes themselves are in limited quantity).

I fast-forward at least one (usually two) of these 8-hour cycles (as seen in the video) to represent my sleep time.

I voted for cold war jets, but I wanted new maps too.

For me there's nothing interesting in latest gen fighters. Just another all-singing MFD (yawn).

Steam driven avionics are where it's at. I've been reading lots of Vietnam pilot memoirs. Chinagraph on the windshield...

I think "Dynamic" part is already achieveable with current MIST engine but UI.

What! The pool only lasted one day??

Not that my vote would matter much since I would definitely vote Dynamic Campaign which was the most voted element.

Also MBot has created a single player non-realtime dynamic campaign, done within the existing tools within DCS.

Nate

If I could vote I'd go for more PSDs for various non-Third Party jets. I have some fictional Su-33 skins I want to do and right now too lazy to make PSDs myself.

DCS is just perfect as it is.

Yes, but there is no practical "briefing" nor "planning" phase in DCS Multi Player which I think is very weird and immersion killing.

Currently, what you do before flight is seeing some JPEG images and select plane slot and press fly button which reminds me of "Seven-Eleven" spirit : not always doing business but we are always open.

thus requesting UI update..such as Recon/Planning lobby, creating ATO by user from UI while in MultiPlayer mission.

Everyone saying dynamic campaign probably had Falcon 4, which had a "dynamic campaign". But in reality it wasn't. So if we'd get what we got in F4, no thanks. More maps.

EF2000 by DID had a dynamic campaign so it wasn't the only one, besides F4 was more popular.

So the Falcon Campaign played out the same every time you ran it from start to stop?

Care to explain what you posted?

You may not like Falcon 4 campaign (you have the right to have a different opinion) but with all due respect saying that Falcon 4 campaign isn't dynamic that's completely and utterly false!

There were more dynamic campaign and dynamic campaign systems developed in the past. Jane's LB2 was an another example (together with others already mentioned here such as EF2000 or TAW) but campaigns don't get more dynamic than the Falcon 4 campaign (at least none of the dynamic campaign developed so far).
Just like TheOden said, Falcon 4 Campaign plays out differently every time the player runs it from start to stop (and this not to mention if you choose to play with a different squadron).

But how different is it actually? I can see a lot of the missions being very similar even if there are minor differences.

The missions may be similar, but the situation all around you is different in a proper DC.
In DCS missions, I find that the map is often times only populated with friendlies, as well as enemies, in a relatively narrow corridor along the planned route and mission. Stray too far from that, and there is only empty land.
Not so in the F4 DC, you never know what you'll run in to, unless you recon'ed it in advance..

One of the most surreal flight sim moments that I've ever had was in the original F4 or Allied Force (don't remember). It was late dusk and I was returning to base when miles off in the distance I watched the steady glow of ground explosions and occasional tracers in the sky.

This wasn't a scripted event that was triggered for my entertainment, it was the campaign just doing its thing as it does over the entire map, and it just so happened to be close enough for me to witness from a safe distance.

Just...wow!

In TAW, I was escorting a supply plane (my mission) when I noticed in my SA MFD (linked with AWACS) that about 80m away, a friendly strike package was likely going to be intercepted by a pair of SU-27s. I broke off my mission (the sky looked clear to destination) to help out while constantly monitoring the aircraft I was suppose to be protecting (I would have turned back if necessary [don't remember what I had my wingman doing]).

I'm not saying I should have done this on my own but I did help save the strike a/c and my dedicated mission was still a success.

It's not always about YOUR mission, but all the stuff going on around you, and it's never predictable (a CAP in TAW can be feast or famine, you never know).

EDIT: Dachs above beat me to it, same thought.

MarkG is right about the environment being more than just the mission. Falcon 4.0 is the only flight simulator that actually reminded me (actually more of a flashback) of the operational flying environment, where you have so many aircraft with so much comms that you're trying not to step on anybody when talking and trying to filter wheat from chaff while listening for your callsign the rest of the time.

I've had plenty of experiences in F4 where I've flown over ground battles and could see artillery pounding the area, and I know that once I enabled Bullseye for radio comms I could develop a tactical picture by listening to the other flights on the radio.

The Falcon graphics engine may be a bit long in the tooth (even with BMS, I know I've been spoiled by the DCS virtual cockpits), but that campaign engine has never been surpassed.

Well said HomeFries.

Yes, I think a critical part of a good DC is that the war rages around you without your express participation needed.
Some of the bare-bones DCs out there focus on you alone, and outside your randomly generated flightpath there is pretty much NOTHING happening, an empty barren world devoid of air and ground units.

If the choice is a DC like that, or a good scripted campaign, well there's little point in making that DC. Again, that's what BoS gives you and it's so shallow that you lose interest in it fast. Nothing but a random mission generator with the veneer of a connection between them. Gimme a nice A-10C style campaign any day then.




The Jedi Master

I understand what you're saying but I believe that nobody here that wants, desires or refers to Dynamic Campaigns (DCs) is having the BoS campaign in mind!
For my part I could care less about that game, I simply won't play it or refuse to play it.

What you're talking about regarding "bare-bones DCs" applies not only to DCs but to everything else.
Basically what you're trying to say is that a bad designed/implemented DC is bad.
But the same also happens with everything else: A bad designed/implemented static campaign is bad, a bad designed/implemented semi-dynamic campaign is bad, a bad designed/implemented flight model is bad, a bad designed/implemented aircraft systems are bad and so on...
Resuming, I believe that nobody here wants bad designed/implemented stuff/features/elements, being it DCs or other things.

The fact that Dynamic Campaign was the most voted element in that pool (it would even have one more vote if I knew about this pool in advance), the fact the many simmers still play Falcon 4 (and prefer it to DCS) and there are groups that still updates that game as we speak while other groups do the same with other games such as the WWI Wings Over Flanders Fields (a CFS3 mod) and so on, clearly demonstrates the importance of DCs. In the end DC is a vital feature that helps perpetuate and extend the life of a combat flight simulations and for the companies still in business this could mean more customers and as such more revenue/profit.

The thing is that ED already has the border pieces of the jigsaw puzzle in game. We have "warehousing" at bases in the mission editor, which also allows for periodic replacements from other bases (i.e. Supply Lines). Additionally, scripting alone can generate semi-dynamic missions, and the Mission Generator can take some input criteria to create a random mission.

The long pole in the tent is the AI running the campaign. Not only will the engine need to create waypoints and tasks for all forces on both sides, but they will need to create these tasks in support of that side's objectives, and the waypoints may need to change depending on circumstances (e.g. armor column re-routing when a bridge is taken out).

What I would really love to see is a standard AI that could do the ATO tasking and waypoint rerouting, but have a scriptable "general" in Lua that people could give it a way of doing things (either general things like focus on air power or combined arms, aggressive vs. conservative) and plug that into the campaign on either side. Something like this was done in the Sid Meier's Civil War series, where you could choose to go up against indirect aggressive (Lee), direct defensive (Longstreet), direct aggressive (Grant), etc. It would be a blast to have that flexibility in a campaign.

Imho... who wants dynamic campaign joins one online like Blue Flag. War rages around you, no silly AI (or very little and hard to discern from the others), You can feel you are part of the action if you want. You can have real coms if that's what you are looking for. Soon you will have a little persistency so you will not feel all fades away too quickly.

This... "I want DC like in x game from 20 years ago" I don't think is going to happen too soon or too good.

First is a lot of work and I didn't hear any today games to have such thing and if it will come to DCS will come at high cost and maybe half implemented/half bugs. Closest is ARMA maybe... a game I payed twice (planed to play it with my gf with the other friends we play shooters and airsims) and barely played because of obnoxious interface/design in general (sry if somebody has ARMA as favorite game... is my humble singular opinion).

Secondly... and maybe most important for game developer... is "the feeling" older players (I'm 40 btw) searches when asking for such DC is a "fake memory". All of us played a lot of old games that seemed awesome when we remember them but that feeling vanishes in many cases if we really start playing that old game again.

Someone said that in x game campaign if you wandered away from battle zone you had no idea what you could have encountered... yes you had... no friking much I am sure but in the memory that single pixel SAM was awesome. You can make in DCS some triggers that can spawn hell on earth if you wander away from supposed battle. And you can make it quite surprising adding chances. All without any dynamic etc.

I am no fan of this dynamic stuff as you can see. I played a lot of repetitive missions because our uber beloved squad commander wanted to play dynamic campaign in IL-2 and used DCG until everyone promised to strangle him .

So in conclusion... this is 4-5G era, all games are downloadable, playing multiplayer is very easy and with just a bit of effort you can communicate good with lot of people... why bothering to simulate a dynamic medium made dynamic in real life only by people actions when you have so many people to play with?

I think if someone would ask me what I would like more ED to spend money more... on a DC engine or to collaborate with TeamSpeak Team and integrate the TS engine/app in DCS World so we would have simple straight forward communications in multiplayer, I wouldn't hesitate 1 second to say... Pay some money to TS team.

Of course.... these are just my opinions about DC. For Wags question I voted for more AI life on airfields. I want beer to be brought to my cockpit by service personnel. Cold.

@Zaelu,

Don't let a poor experience with IL-2 fool you. A good dynamic campaign does not mean a random mission generator. We're not talking about sims from the 80s and early 90s. You can download Falcon BMS 4.33 and play the best dynamic campaign engine ever made on today's machines.

IL-2 (DCG and NGen) used a dynamic mission generator (as do most "dynamic campaign engines", but Falcon 4.0 is different in that it models a full real-time dynamic environment in which you participate. In this environment, you can either have a small client/server relationship with saved games, or you can have an online persistent server that people log onto and choose missions to fly. This also requires fewer resources and logistical dependencies than a massive multiplayer evolution like Blue Flag, and lets people who don't want to be involved in a massive multiplayer event still have an immersive experience.

Zaelu, I couldn't possibly explain it as eloquently as HomeFries has, nor will I ever understand the F4 campaign as deeply as he and others do (also HF being a real-life military pilot). But my examples on this thread are sims I still play *today* (if not as much), not some distant memory that I'm reminiscing about.

Did you watch my EF2000 video of how it was done as far back as DOS for a 486?! Although I have no interest in MP (even if my ISP was capable), I believe one reason EF2000 was so popular was because it's DC supported Co-op MP.

In EF2000 you can watch the war play out to conclusion (over days) without ever flying a mission. So many possibilities exist with this kind of gameplay, both SP and MP, flying or not.

GOG has me flying the original F4 again (working great on my old Win7 laptop), I'm trying to get a deeper understand of the DC in this simpler version of F4.

MarkG, you bring up an interesting idea.

If a real-time campaign engine is too difficult to code in DCS, then 8 (or some smaller number) hour increments (like EF2000) would certainly hit the sweet spot. At the end of 8 hours, calculate all attrition and destroyed objects, track force positioning/postures and have the DCS Mission Generator create a scenario with orders for the next 8 hours. Make all flyable aircraft selectable (similar to the singleplayer missions where Client is selected for multiple aircraft in the ME). For late take-offs, have the AI fight it out (though in accelerated time like EF2000) and transition to in-game real time when the player(s) enter.

And by the way (for everybody else), it is possible to play 3DFX EF2000 in Windows!

Ugh, I've never been able to find more than 2-3 people to fly with regularly, and even then scheduling was a PITA.

I like a campaign I can run myself, on my PC, with maybe one friend joining me, so I don't have to worry about if Jaeger has a sick kid, Flaps is at a family gathering, Wheelie is suffering ISP issues, and Sir-Crash-Alot is more in the mood to play Total War than fly.




The Jedi Master

Agreed.

With kids, house and job I need to be able to fly on my schedule.

Here's another point. Steam spy shows 963,081 owners of DCS World...that doesn't include folks like myself and many here that have a non-Steam version. So let's call it an even million owners.

Out of the 1 million owners of DCS World...how many do you see online at any given time when you open up the server browser? Maybe 100-200? Even if we bump that up to 1,000 players online...that only represents 0.1% of the players. Heck...lets bump it up to 10,000 players online average...still only 1%.

I think it's time to focus on content for the other 99% of us that are hoping for more engaging single player.

IMO

Agreed. As it is, I am sure that the work on MP specific features takes a larger percentage of ED's resources than the percentage of players making use of those features.

Amen.
(Until then, may I recommend MBot's SP Campaign (MiG21 though)? I was so impressed I had to port it to MiG29, F15, P51 and MiG15)

I don't own the Mig-21 but that campaign did interest me. I would be interested in it for the F15 though. Did you upload the port for others or is it just for your own use?

Haven't talked to MBot about them but when 1.5 goes live and (if) the missions still work I'll have a word with him if it's ok to share them.
I'll let you know.

Of course single player has its share and should not be discarded.

What a dynamic campaign would look for me would be a linear story where the player starts blue and wins versus red but can lose many battles and turn the tides at any given stage in the campaign.

The dynamic medium inside each mission can be achieved very well today with the ME using triggers and scripts. But is about the quantity of work a developer has to put in creating a peripheral action in each mission... action that might not be seen by average player as he will strive for the main action thread.

And here can be said again the... not so easy acceptable thing that many dynamic campaigns look and are remembered well but in fat are "smoke and mirrors" that don't fit a very realistic simulation... especially one with its technical/software limitations (bugs, limits in software etc). I don't want to enter in many details but one can imagine that only the fact that a screen resolution differs by a lot from 10 years ago and that gives something and force something else. It's like a magic trick that is increasingly difficult to do when the audience is very close and very "informed".

Then is the aspect of multiplayer and single player proportions.

Sure... the airsims come from single player mostly experience and are still dominated by it. However... if a developer wants to gain some momentum has to think in "force multiplier" schemes. And the multiplayer is one of them. What it needs is the right recipe for its genre. Look at WoW (don't throw stones... I don't play it but I observe the player base and its explosion on market) , look at World of tanks.... millions of people came out of the bushes (it seems) and started to play a WoW with tanks. So we can't exclude unknown recipes for success.

Imho... DCS did not yet hit that sweet spot in multiplayer to really gain momentum. If it would have a world map (even unfinished) and super easy ways of communicating aka TS, Aries like system built in and persistent "virtual wars" maybe things would be different. However... Even if multiplayer still does not represent much for DCS... multiplayer is the key for development. Even if that means sad news for some single player dedicated players. Denying this only hold it down to the current player base or market share.

And speaking of single versus multi. I think most of people has the stand alone version not the steam one... yet. Me included. But while some people tries to count how many players are online in multi they never count how many are in single playing. For multi player you can count 1000 players at any given hour playing online on servers... but how many are playing single player at any given time?

Is it a bigger number?Is it bigger on how many degrees of magnitude? Is it raising or diminishing? What are the potentials? What if 99% of current buyers play single player less than 1% in multiplayer (players/hours at any given time)? What is that meaning?

Only ED probably knows this.

According to Wags poll...only around 10% voted for multiplayer...while almost 40% voted for Dynamic Campaign.

So it's safe to say most of the community disagrees with you. Immersive single player content has been something that has escaped ED titles going back to the Flanker days.

If you want to see a beloved franchise that "tried" to capture a larger audience to get a piece of that multiplayer "War Thunder" action...look at IL-2 BOS. Didn't work out so well.

I'm going to bow out after this, and toot EF2000's horn just one more time...

The DC input/output was all text-based, so you could see what's going on and get an idea how it works...

http://198.65.10.229/DID/Temp/sum0.txt
http://198.65.10.229/DID/Temp/campaign.cg.txt
http://198.65.10.229/DID/Temp/mission.cfg.txt

...allowing 3rd-parties to do cool stuff like this...












But unfortunately, as you can see by the OOB...



...the DC was never completed. There is no limited ground war (limited by terrain) and there are no Carrier Fleets as described in the Manual (pp.309-312 "THE WARGEN SYSTEM")...

http://198.65.10.229/DID/Temp/EF2K_Manual.PDF

...and that's too bad. But still, to think what they accomplished in the days of DOS (way before F4)!

I have my EF 2000 v 2.0 disc laying around somewhere...maybe I should re-install and check it out.

I have a love/hate with DID sims, but I like to show EF2000 as an example of a DC that actually worked a long time ago. Of course it's nowhere near as detailed as F4 and doesn't take nearly as long to play out (in days), but that's what I like about it.

Overall, I feel the love these Brits gave their Eurofighter sim and I wish they could have continued THIS one vs. moving on to the American F-22. I remember reading requests on Usenet to keep Scandinavia (what an AWESOME map!) and give us a Tornado!

EDIT: I would have preferred going back to the TFX1 plane set (Eurofighter/F-22/F-117A) but KEEP THAT MAP!

Again, if you can find your EF2000 v2 CD, then EF2000 Reloaded is your friend.

To be fair, a dynamic campaign and multiplayer aren't mutually exclusive, though your point in that regard probably still stands.

On the other hand, if ED were to focus on creating an immersive singleplayer environment, I actually think AI is the most significant aspect they should improve on, or implement, seeing as it's practically absent in ground forces. It feels like you're in a shooting range with some units that may shoot back, but only if you fly in their area of effect, while the enemy as a whole never really reacts to you, they never abort, pop smoke, or just hide in forests until their QRF arrives.
Air to air engagements are by default a lot less predictable so they don't really suffer from this.

To piggyback on what MarkG said about the campaign files, there is so much data in a DC that can be externalized (i.e. put in separate datafiles), allowing for flexibility and even incremental feature implementation if needed. This isn't much of a stretch with DCS either, as the miz format is really just a renamed zip file that includes the graphics, soundfiles, and the mission data in Lua format. Creating a campaign file could be a matter of adding some Lua files for orders of battle, objectives, user options, etc., that could be (for miminum implementation) imported to the Mission Generator to generate the ATO and force postures for the next time period.

I liked the way that F4, and for that manner many other games (that aren't sims) have done it.
It's sometimes referred to as "drop in/drop out" because other players can join your ostensibly SP game at will.

I can fly my campaign solo, or if my friend(s) are available they can join me for a flight or 3. The old Il-2 way where everyone had to be together at the start and you were SOL if you showed up 10 mins late is not ideal, but it's still workable.

A good DC doesn't have to be SP-only, and frankly shouldn't be if the MP allows it. It's also one of DCS' weakness in that you don't have MP campaigns, just a series of missions at best. The outcome of the previous mission can never effect the next like the scripted SP campaigns allow.

Just being allowed to fly the campaigns coop in MP would be great in expanding their value, even if it's not dynamic, since there are a lot of campaigns out there.



The Jedi Master

Not a programmer at all, but wouldn't it be possible to combine a dynamic campaign with "canned" or scripted missions?

So every once in a while during a campaign, a "special event" is triggered, which in turn would make specially designed missions available, that "tie in" with the overall dynamic campaign.

In other words, this would provide a mix of F4-style campaign-module-generated missions (let's call them "generic" for the sake of simplification) and more detailed ("interesting") missions that are more entertaining. These could also provide a narrative throughout the campaign, which would increase immersion and entertainment.

To make sure the dynamic part of the campaign module does not mess up the canned missions, the designers could, for example, generate a "bubble" around the player(s) and NPC entities during these missions - some sort of exclusion zone. After the mission is over, the results then get added to/synchronized with the dynamic campaign module.

You are wrong. Using the scripting engine only (i mean no 3rd party applications) the possibility of flying MP campaign exists. One such campaign (the only one as far as I know), flyiable both in SP in MP is MiG-21Bis Dynamic Campaign: Guardians of the Caucasus.

There is also the possibility of MP campaigns using 3rd party parsers to generate missions dynamically like this one:
Online War - Operation "Blue Flag" - 24/7 PvP Campaign.


Because of the scripting there's a lot of stuff possible.

Longbow 2 did this. IIRC, LB2 wasn't a true dynamic campaign, but had some semi-dynamic things in missions (e.g. randomly introduced bad guys), but there were definitely scripted missions thrown in to keep it interesting.

No question a lot of this is possible, but this doesn't mean that it is anywhere near implemented. Blue Flag requires a major undertaking with participants as well as "generals" on each side making moves like an operational wargame, and the logistics are similar to a PBEM turn with multiple people duking it out in real time to settle the turn.

MBot's Guardian campaign is unquestionably a masterpiece, but it has its own limitations, which are constrained by the way DCS implements ground forces. The campaign is strictly defensive because he can't code ground AI to target and capture objectives, and because that way he doesn't need to move any of the air defenses. It's really an attrition calculator with random mission generation. Not that this is a criticism, but rather he chose the scenario deliberately to mask what the DCS engine cannot do.

What JM was referring to is the ability (like Falcon 4) to have the same mission in a campaign available in single player or multiplayer, so your friends can either take part in a saved campaign or help you out with yours. This isn't a huge stretch now that multiplayer clients can share the same flight; having "conditional clients" in the 2-4 slots would be a great feature.

I am up for anything that makes single player better.

more and more I have the impression that most people buy but not play this sim, so anything that makes people spend time actually flying it is good.

and before any minions of ED post here clobbering my opinions, it is easy to see why I came to this conclusion - there is not much of an observable spike in interest after 1.5 was released.

When DCS 2.0 and the NTTR map are released, I will play it more due to the fact of having more detail at the airports and an overall realistic feel to the scenery. I think DCS needs a wider variety of aircraft and maps available to keep peoples interest.

How old is DCS, as good as it is, this is at least what 5+ years old, 1 map and about a dozen aircraft (give or take). That isn't very much. Just counted mine 15 Aircraft, several WWII and 6 betas.

To be honest, I can understand it if ED don't provide a DC. Most people who already have/play DCS already have paid for various other modules.

Expending a massive amount of money/resources on a campaign will not necessarily bring more people into the 'World' but it will mean people will be tucked into a constantly changing single player environment.......payware mission packs would be a thing of the past which ED probably see as a quick money maker for little effort at the moment.

It wouldn't makes sense though, for E.D. to put "Dynamic Campaign" as an option on the poll, if they were not willing to see it made.

ED do a lot of things that don't make sense!

Who is to say the poll was for nothing more than research or to give people hope that ED are potentially willing to create every option on the poll....specifically the winning option!

It would give a lot of people hope wouldn't it .......and potentially some respite from the people currently sitting on the fence wondering if ED can actually finish any product they start.

Let's say ED are actually entertaining development on the winning option........ which century do you think it would actually be released in?

Century?

I would happily buy a dynamic campaign as a "module" for DCS. Mind you I'm happier with free, but if the DC is a $50 module then I'm in and they're getting a return on their investment.

With all that DCS does bring to the table over and above Falcon 4 BMS, for example helo and ground ops, the potential for a DC is absolutely staggering if it's done right.

I'm sure it would be technically challenging but we're not starting from scratch here. There are myriad examples of successful dynamic campaign engines from EF2000 to IL-2 to Strike Fighters to Falcon. Surely there is somewhere in that spread that DCS can accomplish, if they're willing to put their minds to it.

It doesn't have to be a DC to be an improvement to gameplay.

More AI controls (like wingman radar silent) or the concept of packages or having flights with any number of AI/humans in MP. ATC should be lots better. A real concept of intercept (with vectoring around, Judy, gameplan between multiple assets) for GCI/AWAC.

Pretty depressing.

I'm pretty sure ED stated a while back that a DC is part of a long term plan. This was a while back, long before this pole. Unfortunately I'm unable to back this up with the proof. I hope the poll motivates them decide to make it a higher priority. As someone who frequents their forum daily I'm actually a bit supprised at the results. My personal opinion the BMS update has reminded people how awsome a DC is.

This.

Usually one of the key ingredients to having any sort of Dynamic Campaign, is having a robust mission editor. They already have this...so this part of the equation is already there IMO.

Dynamic Campaign would definitely help, but i hope ED realizes that the difference between BMS Falcon and DCS goes a lot further than just DC. Personally i think there are a lot of other problems with DCS, and the netcode is one obvious issue. But the main problem is that DCS is lifeless, while BMS Falcon provides an incredibly immersive experience, excellent performance, near DCS graphics, COMBINED with an amazing DC for multiple theatres.

Here's one example of what I mean regarding BMS:

From the manual...

Before 4.33 all AI were touching down on the runway numbers; this was not correct. The PAPI and ILS touchdown points have been adjusted for all airbases. As a consequence the AI will now touchdown at different locations according to their aircraft class and weather conditions.

The level of perfection is astounding.

I just think a DC for DCS would be a lot of work for relatively little return at this point in the series and it would reduce the amount of income (profit) for ED as the many fans would be battling it out in long periods of single player gaming.

Considering that ED like to create never-ending betas and seemingly prefer the pre-pay option to fund the development of them a DC would be at the opposite end of the spectrum and may even reduce the interest in new aircraft .......especially if a good DC were to increase the immersion in the existing platforms. I guess that most people already have a 'favourite' airframe and more so following the F18 release.

It will be interesting to see what reaction comes from the poll though.

To be honest the whole poll was a complete and utter joke

If you really wanted to canvas opinion of DCS players you would have

1. Sent out an email (which even ED can managed to do when they are shilling product) telling users about
the poll, so say 2 days before poll goes live send out the email informing people of it

2. Make the poll last at least 7 days, it is a reasonable length of time to run one.


The very limited time they ran it was completely silly

I remember another silly poll, started by a mod, in the kickstarter backers only part of the forums, when it was closed to all but the backers, asking if it was ok to drop the manuals from the rewards. This was when a large majority of the backers still didn't have access to that part of the forums. I pointed out the fact the poll was pointless at the time because of the limited access to that part of the forum and was labeled as a trouble maker from that point on.

I don't see the poll as asking what ED should focus on next, I see it as a poll to see what the community sees as the least important so ED can drop the focus.

unfortunately, it is hard to give any credit to this particular developer even when it (seems to want to) get some feedback from the community.

I only know that every time I want to change my opinion of them, something reminds me of whom I am dealing with, like when I started a few days ago to make skins for the UH-1H, and bought the add on from Steam and was reminded that, out of spite, someone from the developer banned me from posting at the DCSW Steam forums.

So unfortunately, although I would like to see a positive trend in this poll, well, I cannot .

That's totally believable. Interestingly enough, discounting the 'other' option of which few people actually suggested anything the least important feature was:

More content in the form of missions and campaigns

So either way.....ED are probably aware that they can spend a shed load of resources on a DC and probably struggle to make a profit given that it will take ages and they will inefficiently plan it from start to finish....or they could drop/reduce focus on the mission packs....in which case they will lose the revenue from regular add-ons which have minimal effort for a quick profit. Lose-lose.

I was one of those 'other' votes, and you don't have to discount the option because "More content in the form of missions and campaigns" still lost even if you didn't discount it.

One of the main problems with mission and campaign content is that it is only good for a single module. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that mission and campaign content will be map specific too. If I buy Strait of Hormuz, I can fly any aircraft I own there. If I buy "Su-27 The Ultimate Argument Campaign," I can only fly the Su-27, and only in the Caucasus. Since campaign developers will want to sell as much as they can, and the free map will probably be the most owned map, I anticipate that once the initial NTTR/SoH/Normandy rush settles down, payware maps will see a lower number of available missions, campaigns, and multiplayer servers than free maps.

I get that developers want to make money in return for their map development. This makes sense, but The stratification of content is going to hurt sales of missions and campaigns as more as more payware maps and planes becomes available. Now imagine if ED decided to release a payware AI units pack. This could potentially introduce even more gates preventing people from buying and using campaigns and missions. It would basically be dev suicide to create a campaign that requires 3 different maps and 5 different AI unit packs to play. Even if your campaign only required 1 map, 1 plane, and 1 AI unit pack, if only 25% of the community owns each of those (certainly not all overlapping), you are looking at a very small percentage of the DCS userbase being potential customers.

A robust dynamic campaign could provide content for every module on every map, and it could even handle any other piecemeal DLC ED or third parties throw at us (not that they should). DCS campaigns and missions are not like Ace Combat where I can pick my favorite plane to fly through the story. This means I'm not going to be interested in 90% of the payware campaigns, even if they only cost $2. Linear campaigns clearly have their place, but dynamic campaigns are an important step forward for DCS.

I agree with all the above........although I wonder if ED would perhaps think about a semi-dynamic campaign for specific aircraft.

That way they could release them in a much shorter space of time and possibly not have to employ as many AI routines and logic for a full wartime scenario.....a bit of a half-way house. As much as I want it myself I just think a DC will be far too much work to pull off especially as the 'World' grows and the amount of airframes increase.

I know that the mission/campaign option came last in the poll but the 29 votes for 'other' were ultimately choosing a much smaller category when people specified their own preference than the 23 votes for a single category.

My own thoughts are also that mission packs and/or a half-way house DC would also see more profit for ED as they could push them out on per-airframe basis......as a business an easy profit has to be in their thoughts whether we, as customers like it or not.

The problem is that if ED does create a DC, first it will be compared to BMS, and Falcon has a 15 year headstart. So people will complain that the DCS DC is not as deep as Falcon's. The same problem would exist if they made an F-16.

Personally, i think the best thing ED can do is create a lot more maps.

I would like to my 2 cents on a couple of issues/arguments that are somehow "against DCs" which were mentioned several times in the past and even here in this thread.

The first argument is: "DCs take a lot of work for relatively little return"
Well, I somehow disagree! Indeed creating a DC campaign engine takes a lot of work, no doubt there. However people trend to forget that once a good DC campaign engine is created the creation of new campaigns is a very quick and quite straightforward process. Basically the process of creating new DC campaigns after a DC engine is already developed/created evolves little more than setting up the initial order of battles for each sides and respective frontlines position/composition. As opposed with static or semi-dynamic campaigns the workload of creating the first campaign is similar to the workload of creating the second campaign and similar to the workload of creating the 10th, 100th or so campaigns (assuming that all these campaign have a similar length and complexity, that is).

Therefore, with a static or semi-dynamic campaign the process o workload of creating ONE new of such campaigns for one sim/game is easier than creating ONE new DC for the same sim/game but the process or workload of creating dozens of static or semi-dynamic campaigns is likely harder than creating dozens of DCs (based on the same DC engine, that is).

And this is something that I can speak from personal experience! My latest experiences with campaign editing on combat fight simulations have been both DCS and EECH, the former as we all know have Static and somehow "semi-dynamic" campaign "engines" while the later has a DC engine.
With EECH, after learning how to edit campaigns I was able to easily and rather quickly create 3 different Dynamic campaigns (DCs).
With DCS, after learning how to edit campaigns I started to build a "semi-dynamic" campaign but ended up halting the campaign's development at around 33% of completion (and I don't know if I'll ever resume the development of this campaign). I halted the development of this campaign mainly because of two reasons:
1- I became tired of having to build several individual missions for every campaign phase.
2- Together with reason 1- when developing a mission, I as the person who's developing the missions already have a good idea how each mission will eventually evolve (or know what will happen on each mission) so the playability of these missions and campaign for me personally is almost "nil". This is a situation that never occurred to me with my own developed EECH campaign since these campaign are actually managed by the DC engine and as such I was able to enjoy them as any other player.

I could be wrong, but could some of these points that I mentioned be the reason why the trend for some/many extra DCS campaigns are to become payware?



The second argument is: "If ED develops DCs campaign for DCS these same DCs will always be compared to Falcon 4/BMS"
But of course they will! And Campaigns are not the only thing that was, is and will always be compared between both games. Things such as Flight Models, Weapon modeling, Avionics modeling, Damage models, graphics, AIs, Multiplayer, etc... will ALWAYS be compared between not only both sim/games (Falcon 4/BMS and DCS) but also between ANY OTHER combat flight sim. And that's a good thing I believe. It makes (or "forces") the developers to improve their products even further as time goes by and this can only be good for us customers/players.

Besides, Falcon 4 DC campaign engine is not the only good/excellent DC engine that was developed in the past. There are other some other very good/excellent DC engines that were developed in the past and some of them were actually and already mentioned here in this thread. Examples of combat fight sims that have very good or excellent DCs while being quite different from the Falcon 4 DC are: EF2000, F22 TAW, LB2, EECH, etc...

Hi,

If one simply considers why ED/DCS's biggest competition is a 16 year old (almost 17 years!) "semi-free" sim produced in people's spare time (Falcon 4 BMS), then it becomes very clear that the Dynamic Campaign is the single most important item to a modern sim's sustainability.

Doesn't matter if ED/DCS were to make a sim that was more beautiful or have more clicks in the cockpit or better flight models or more aircraft, its lack of a Dynamic Campaign will always force people to migrate back to Falcon 4 when they want the "living" feel of a real war.

If ED/DCS had just hired one person to work on it for the past 10-15 years, they could have already have one up and running. Without a new sim from ED/DCS with a dynamic campaign, Falcon 4 will always remain the standard by which all sim are judged and the one that simmers will continue to return to, even if its development is slow by its nature.

My 2 cents (That is 0.12 cents/year for Falcon 4!)

Juggernaut

Someone remember the F-4 Falcon software and all code (include leaked code to BMS) has a commercial product, and copy any part of them (include the Dynamic Campaign) can be get legal actions by Atary, actual copyright owners, under a court with a "cease an desist" or Legal process?

I'd be very surprised if ED went for a real-time campaign, not that they'd rip off F4 code anyway.

Nate

I just don't see how ED could make a BMS Falcon level DC and not lose a ton of money in the process. I would just focus on much tighter netcode, more a/c, and more maps.

Falcon 4 is usually held up as the gold standard for a DC but ED/DCS surely doesn't have to copy the Falcon DC, meaning make one that works in the same real-time manner. Someone (MarkG?) mentioned doing something like EF2000 where your flight takes place within a block of time. That works fine. Think something like OFF or Strike Fighters. The campaign can move dynamically in between flights, and the computer does all the heavy lifting creating the missions that need to be flown.

Ideally it is planning a full ATO so that there's stuff going on all over the map, with some sort of overarching operational goal.

ricnunes' post is spot on. Create the engine once and follow-on campaigns become much easier to create for every map. Certainly easier than making a scripted campaign mission by mission that has limited replayability, even if it's branching.

Sell the DC as a module. Sell the maps as modules. Heck, sell the campaigns as modules! There is money to be made here all over.

Let's say I buy my DC engine module, my Strait of Hormuz module, and my SoH campaign that features the MiG-21, Mirage 2000, Blackshark, and A-10C. I now have an incentive to buy all of those aircraft, too.

But you will need to copy what F4 does in regards to the DC in order to give the experience we all want.Is taking all the ideas and coding it into DCS illegal?

I don't think (I don't KNOW) that creating a DC using the same idea of Falcon's is illegal.

I really love Falcon's DC. BUT I don't know that it is necessarily the only way to go. What I personally really want is for the computer to create dynamic missions that I can fly, and are dynamically created differently every time I boot up the campaign based on how the campaign is progressing.

How that is executed can take many different approaches. I hope ED won't give up the idea just because the perception is it has to be just like Falcon's. There are likely less complex engines that could be created that would be acceptable to many of us.

With all of the material in DCS, the aircraft and the combined arms module, this really is a missed opportunity on ED's part to both capitalize on new content, and entice others who maybe only have one or two modules to jump in and buy many more modules.

If they continue on this path we will be no better off in years to come than what we have now. Yes we would have more planes, more maps, but that does get kinda boring after a while, they need something that will keep buyers interested in the long term.

If they had a decent DC that stood the test of time like Falcons I think that would be a good thing, investment wise, looking ahead to the long term. The way they release projects now seems more attune to a rudderless ship and that doesn't bode well for anyone most of all ED, and obviously us, the customer as well.

Mick.

If ED making some day a DC, that will be not a priority by found cost and the research and testing necessary to build them, outside of all present DCs to not inquire on legal problems with patents / licenses.

I think ED can be "approach" to real planning (Tradocs / Field Manual, navy free docs and air-force approved release docs to get a "scope" of how build a suitable DC, with realistic immersion. Actually the A-10C JTAC can be a very "little" part of that immersion.

A good cost / efficiency on that can will be implement that by steps:
1 - Get at all "NATO" Attack / CAS aircrafts and helos access to JTAC. And build a "similar" system on Russian side aircrafts (without vulnerate none Russian law). Implement some similar on refuel, cargo, etc operations
2 - Use the USAF ATO mission system, with package mission to get some reality on mission deployment.
3 - Build a structure of "Strategy / Operational / Tactics" deep on the theaters. And build a AI to combat and win under them vs other AI player, allocate available resources to combat on them. (old TRADOCs Panflets 350 to red side, Field manuals 100-5 to blue side)

I'm pretty sure that creating a DC using the same idea of Falcon 4 in NOT illegal.

The ultimate proof of this is EECH.
This sim (EECH) uses a similar idea of real time dynamic campaign with very similar features/ideas such as resorting to reserves in order to create new units and/or to replace units lost during the campaign.
Of course that the EECH campaign is somehow "more limited" and more centered on tactical operations since afterall EECH is a combat Helicopter simulation while Falcon 4 being a Multirole/Strike fighter simulation will also center on more strategical kind of operations alongside with more tactical ones.

The Falcon 4 dynamic campaign engine is basically a real time strategy (RTS) game which runs in tandem with a combat fight simulation and this is likely the main reason why Falcon 4 DC is so great! And speaking of RTS games, how many RTS games done by very different developers and published by so many different publishers are so similar between each others?? And this wasn't or it isn't illegal, is it?


In the end, like toonces and others already said here, a DC in order to be great doesn't need to use a real time approach. It can use a "turn based" approach instead and be great as well. Like it was said here before, DC campaigns such as EF2000 used a 3 turn per day approach (8 hours per each turn/mission) while LB2 used the 1 turn per day approach (1 mission/turn equals 24 hours/1 day).
By the way, some of the best strategy games ever developed and released are turn based ones (XCOM/UFO series for example) and they usually have the advantage of being easier to develop and a DC using a turn based approach should also be easier to develop as well.

@Silver_Dragon

I couldnt agree more.

"How missions are built" is important part of immersion and that is the good point of falcon4.
ATO is must have.

ED won't ever do a Falcon style campaign because they don't want any part of the theater to run in a 2d statistics powered simulation. Whether one likes that move or not, them's the breaks.

No one said we want bubble system. whats your point?

Is that your opinion, or do you have a quote from Wags saying that?

anyone that includes

"not affiliated with ED"

is ED

I don't know why but your statement reminds me of something my Dad taught me a long time ago

"If man puts the worse HONEST in front of his name like 'Honest Jack', then he isn't".

Running simulation at major campaign scale without optimization (bubble system), is unfeasible at current gaming hardware. My rig had hard time running missions from mission generator with moderate amount of aircrafts.

This still going? Ok, a few more comments...

Total Air War (1998) uses a system of active and inactive logic. You watch the 2D full-map in real-time but when you click an object, you get a view of the action in a 3D window. The transition is seamless, I can't detect the instantaneous switch from 2D logic to 3D action.

BTW, I once clicked a train and while I was watching an A-10 came along and strafed the crap out of it!

I had a pair of MiG-29s take out my damaged plane once before I made it home, which finished my mission. I was sent back to the War Room and then jumped into an AWACS mission. I commandeered another F-22 and got revenge on these two MiGs as they were returning home. Awful example for realism I know, but man did it feel good!

I still prefer EF2000's turn-based vs. TAW's real-time, because EF2000 captures ground like F4. I can feel the urgency starting an EF2000 mission of stopping the Russian advance and driving them back across the northern Norwegian border. That's assuming Sweden doesn't enter the war for NATO and sometimes they do, just when you think it's all over (and sometimes it is anyway).

Just some examples of DC game-play.

Dc all the way. As long as with the dc you can either run a campaign solo and at any time have it multiplayer as well.

I would pay money for that.

All i am saying is MicroProse went broke, and then 16+ years of free development time went into the BMS Falcon DC. It is awesome, but ED is not going to create anything even remotely like Falcon's DC in less than 5 years. Not happening, especially considering how long one map took them to build.

Sobek's role over the years has always been to pop up and post something rude, like his last post before the one quoted above



vintage Sobek : being condescending and arrogant : "some users received an amnesty" or being just plain rude : "but it just shows that a turd don't smell of roses regardless of who drops it" ...


seldom he has engaged in providing us with oracular wisdom

at least we now know that the developer won't release a DC.

Tom,

That's pretty close to a personal attack. You're definitely skirting the edge there.

Even though we all have "history" with each other...let's try not to drag the past into these topics...there's enough controversy in the topics themselves most of the time.

I swear I saw a video of the Falcon 4 dev explaining that the DC took him one year straight of coding.This was coding purely of the DC where he did not do anything else for that whole year.Put a few guys on it and thats all they do and it will be done quickly IMO.

This is why F4 is superb....listen to their thinking here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GHOo9il_Yw

Check out the interviews section in this page also.

http://www.combatsim.com/proddata/falcon4/falcon4.htm

Specifically this page where it goes about the DC,Interesting!

http://www.combatsim.com/memb123/htm/jan99/f4-camp1.htm

I'm sure a big part of the challenge was getting it so it could run on the minimum specs on the box. Pretty meager resources back the...not as much of a problem now.

Its astonishing that it came out at all IMO.Nowadays I can see it but back then?!

I'm glad you posted a warning here cuz my response would have been much less polite than Tom's was..................then again in some ways certain folks at ED have screwed me over in such a way that my attorney said we had a great case..................

To be fair, sometimes you gotta say something about the past. Because if you don't then readers only get one side of the story and what good would that be on an internet forum.

There's nothing oracular about it, ED have stated that in the past when the DC discussion came up. Reading the comments here however doesn't really put me in the mood to sieve through a few 100s of posts.

Then grind your axe with those people. I wasn't even a translator for ED back when you were banned.

Btw. , few weeks back i have laid down all my responsibilities with ED due to my current work schedule. Hence the 'not affiliated with ED' tag. Since some of you were wondering.

The aggregation method certainly was needed at the time but I think it still is. The sort of conflict scales that warrant these aircraft and ground forces are big enough that modeling all of them at once is chore for a computer from 2016.

It would just be nice if the aggregation was more seamless.

But isn't every part of a program/application code including DCS powered by 2D statistics??
For example, isn't the progress of the current DCS campaigns run by 2D statistics?? For example how to you know if the player advances or not in a DCS campaign? Isn't is if the mission result is above 50% than the campaign progresses to the next mission/phase while if the mission result if 50% or less than the campaign will not progress? This looks like 2D statistics to me...

Yes, you have somewhat of a point there.

However that is what happens between missions. What happens during a mission takes place solely in the 3d realm without aggregation, not so in the F4 DC. There the 3d realm is the "exception" the campaign runs primarily as an aggregation, interrupted only in areas that intersect with the action radius of a human player.

One has to keep in mind that ED need to find that fine balance between what the military market wants and what is still attractive to human customers. If they were to use aggregation for the majority of what goes on inside a mission, they could no longer meet the needs of professional customers.

Sorry, he rubs me the wrong way - wont do it again.

I don't get it. Assuming ED has current military projects (they do, yes?), shouldn't these be kept separate from their consumer games? This is how Digital Image Design did it. They developed a TIALD trainer for the RAF, then made a game version of it for EF2000...

http://198.65.10.229/DID/Temp/EF2K_TIALDWN.wmv
(please right-click and save)

They also tried to attract USAF interest with an AWACS simulator, a version was added to F-22 ADF/TAW.

So keep your military projects (paid for by the military) separate from your games (paid for by consumers), give each what they want and make everyone happy!


EDIT: Apologies for having music in that video, something I've begun to dislike.

Maintaining two or more completely separate codebases means that you are negating the positive effect of developing for both markets, namely (and this is crudely simplified, i have no numbers) twice the revenue for less than twice the work. EDs doors have remained open while many other sim developers went belly up, my opinion is that this strategy had a lot to do with it.

I would like to see a working groundcrew and a mission start in a briefing room from where i can go or drive to my airplane.

A Russian game company (based in Moscow, no less) making realistic simulations of active American warplanes?!

This HAS to be two separate code bases, right? Surly there's no classified stuff in the game versions, while some stuff must be intentionally modeled wrongly as to not get into trouble with their major paying customer (USAF).

I just don't see what a 2D/3D F4-like campaign has to do with the military. The bottom line is that they can't afford to do it and stay in business?

++++++++++

OT: BTW, I think it's a misunderstanding that F4 helped to put MicroProse out of business. MicroProse didn't develop F4, did they? It was Spectrum Holobyte who developed the Falcon series, who used the MicroProse name for F4 after Wild Bill (MicroProse) convinced Chopstick Louie (Spectrum Holobyte) to purchase his fledging company, and thus they used the MicroProse name because it was better known.

Do I have this right?

Yes, some avionics code is of course altered from the original, but the game engine is much the same. The avionics code of a few modules has a lower footprint than the graphics/physics engine as well as the mission editor environment.

Remember Jim interviews..... about military market that continue actualy.
https://youtu.be/feiPqkvSfPM
https://youtu.be/gQxrHFDRV-0

Regarding the DC - since we've had several old sims with that seemed to do them in a convincing way where is the real difficulty in implementation?

I know that DCS can trigger units into and out of the 3d world in it's current form. Computing their behaviour off-screen (which only has to be the most basic stuff) has been done convincingly enough too, albeit not by ED yet.


Thoughts?

I remember these well, thanks (and RIP Jim).

So they started as a game company and "Oracle-based products"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Dynamics

...and then were awarded military projects (like DID)?

Ok, cool. Now make a DC for the consumer market. I know, it's not feasible.

I remember these interviews as well. RIP Jim.

It's not just the rendering of units that guzzles up ressources. It's also the AI, flight models, damage models, ballistic calculations, seeker logic, etc. If you add abstraction, in certain situations some things will always be oversimplified, which changes the course of battle. This is the reason for the objection.

I suppose if you work on a very basic 'probability of kill' ratio (say f15 vs a10 is always 95 percent in f15's favour) then yes, I agree, too simple. If you start to add in relative speed, heading, aspect, numbers of aircraft etc then you start to use up processing power and processor cycles are precious in DCS.

It'd be interesting to know how much resource F4 uses for the DC compared to the 3d.

Unless your AI code can mimic well trained human pilots, SAM operators, tank drivers, ship captains, officers in charge, etc., isn't this detail outside the bubble a bit overkill?

A description of Falcon's campaign can be found in several documents here, under the "Flight Guides" and "Development Notes..." sections...

http://www.lead-pursuit.com/downloads.htm

...although it's now years old.

Just a simple example for you, how do you factor in terrain advantage into a groud forces engagement? Now i guess you'll agree that depending on the terrain, changing position, sometimes as little as a few metres, can make a sizeable difference. How does one go about aggregation of such a complicated matter without drastically changing the behaviour? Some areas get so incredibly complicated so fast that you might just as well simulate the whole thing. Of course the full blown 3d world engagement isn't completely realistic to begin with, but it is a better approximation than a statistic model.

Now for some, a good statistics model might be good enough. That's all good and dandy, after all nobody is saying that the F4 campaign doesn't work for its intended use, but for the reasons mentioned before, ED do not want to take that path, at least that was what they indicated in the past. As we all know, everything is subject to change, maybe in time they come up with strategies to alleviate this problem, maybe they won't.

MarkG thanks for the link. I'll have a look later.



I hope so. I don't mind about 'smoke and mirrors' as long as the player experience is believable.

That's a bold claim, do you have any facts to back it up? Remember ground units constantly firing into the ground without any corrections, 6v6 MiGs vs Sabres - one team constantly wiping other clean without single loss. There always will be corner cases, but rock-paper-scissors model is much easier to tweak because it doesn't have to look "nice".

I think many overestimate how hard a DC is to create.

Again, many, many older simulations have done this up to and including Pat Wilson's mission generator for RoF.

If ED wanted to do it, I don't think money is the reason to prevent them doing it, nor time, and I don't think it will break the bank if they sell it as an add-on. Furthermore, it can be a plug-in, it doesn't have to be part of core code that will conflict with their military customers. Then again, I'm not a programmer, so take my opinion for what it's worth.

It's certainly easier to debug.

Yes there's oddities caused by bugs or design deficiencies.

That only applies if the AI is capable of making use of such terrain advantage, or any environmental factors. AFAIK in DCS's current state, it isn't. And you can generally account for major factors like cover, logistics and surprise the same way wargames at all operational levels have done for decades.

I am a programmer, and trust me when I say it is a massive effort to do it right. Not impossible, but a massive effort.

I sometimes pretend to be a programmer (Blitz Basic), then I take one look at the original Falcon source code in VC++6 and realize I'm not.

Another (legal) way to check out the source of a real-time campaign is EECH, if you can make anything of it (plain C). If anything, EECH gives me hope that you don't need OOP (object-oriented programming) to make a complex sim with a DC.

From what little I can make of both sources, the campaign code is no small undertaking. But then, I'm not the genius that ED programmers are so who knows...

I believe that toonces didn't want to imply that developing a DC was "easy".

He does make a very good point of mentioning other DC generators done for other combat flight sims, many of them done for free and often developed by one person or two the most.
Examples of such DC campaigns are for example Lowengrin's DCG for IL2 or OFF and WOFF dynamic campaigns. Basically these campaigns work by being a program that generates text code which generates a mission (most of the flight sim missions are composed by text lines and DCS is no exception to this), the generated mission is read the game/sim itself then the player will play the generated mission and then according to the mission's results, the results which should be text as well are read by the campaign generator and based on the last mission's result it will generate a new mission.

I believe that many players would be happy with such as solution.
Remember that this kind of solution helped to make IL2 (up to IL2 1946) what it is now (probably the most famous WWII combat flight sim of all times).

Of course that making a real time DC such as the Falcon 4 campaign or the EECH campaign would be much harder indeed but again an easier solution would be great al well.

Considering DCS already has the Mission Generator (aka Fast Mission Bulder), this isn't much of a stretch. You can already set criteria for a quick mission. It's really a matter of adding constraints to that criteria for objectives, tasking, et al., as well as applying an order of battle and FEBA based on the conclusion of the previous mission.

The hardest part would be consistently developing missions that makes sense given the context of the campaign. Right now, even with entering arguments the missions are pretty random.

At least right now the mission designer can set a path so that the terrain may work somewhat to the advantage of one party.

In DCS 1.5 I have noticed the Sabers getting really, really low. During an engagement they have surprised me lately with their new flight regimes. I am also no longer safe diving away. This brings a new level of complexity to the fight.
As far as using terrain to avoid AAA and surprise in an attack.... I think that would be asking to much of the current technology. But I know nothing of these matters.

Dynamic Campaign. Without at least the APPEARANCE of a living battlefield, what's the point? Multiplayer is especially enhanced as witnessed with Falcon Online and other Falcon BMS multiplayer communities. It's pretty exciting to come back night after night to see how the war is going, and then jump in a jet and join it.

Exactly. Stringing a bunch of missions together is not the same thing. People who think this is easy should go do one in BMS, and see what we are talking about.

Someone posted an interview with the developer of the Falcon dynamic campaign. It is in the Falcon forum. Here is a question he was asked about the DC...

...

Many recent simulators are released without even trying to code a Dynamic Campaign engine. Why do you think today’s sim developers are so scared of what you guys were able to create more than a decade ago?

Well, it’s just really hard to do. Looking back on it, I think the only reason we took on what we did is because we were too inexperienced to know better. Knowing what I do now, even given my experience on Falcon, the cost to develop such an engine would be substantial. Since flight sims don’t bring in that kind of revenue companies look at it from a cost to benefit standpoint and Dynamic Campaigns score pretty low in that regard. There is also the argument that scripted missions are more interesting which has some merit. I think if I were to do it over I would do a mix of scripted/generated missions, so that the player still feels like they’re involved in the world, but there is also some variety thrown in to keep things interesting.

...

Like I said, it would be a massive effort to do something like what they did with Falcon. Enjoy it, because i doubt anyone is ever going to try it again. But the scripted/generated mission approach may be doable. Maybe ED can take a stab at it.

Couple of points here. DCS World shows 998,771 owners according to Steam Spy. That does not include folks like myself that have not registered it on Steam. I believe Falcon 4.0 sold less then 200,000 units total.

So you have about 1 million customers to sell to. Since they charge for some scripted campaigns...I don't see why they can't call it a "Dynamic Campaign module" and charge for it. Out of the million customers you only see scattered numbers online...so you have at least 900,000 single players out there. If you write a good dynamic campaign, you automatically make all the modules a customer owns more interesting and also entice more modules to be purchased.

IMO

You could be right, but we'll have to see if ED agrees or not. But it is hard to believe they have the resources to even attempt to pull this off. Not when you consider how long it has taken for the Nevada map.

It's not the map that has taken this long. The time consuming part was primarily writing the new engine.

that many only because DCS World is free, and many download it because of that - the absolute majority spend 10 minutes and never again.

less than 10% occasionally play it

maybe 2% spend some time on it

the core of the community is less than 1% - maybe 0.5%

the market for 3rd party add ons is also much much less

DCS world is still nowhere near what Lock On Modern Air Combat was in its heyday.

Where have you taken the figures from?

i am hoping that at some point, DCS will swallow the ATAG and BMS community with future products

from here and there ...

So just a guess then.............

it is and educated guess

I agree with Tom that MOST people just dl the game and say, "I have DCS" then they go back to playing CoD or some other FPS or RPG. Not many of us are dedicated Flight Sim Junkies. But as for figures, I believe his intent here is to give an idea as to how small the community of real players is.
Case in point, I have BoS. I maintain it and I keep up with what is released and developed. I cant call myself a "player" as I turn it on once a month. I bought Falcon 4. Loaded it, looked at it and said "Naaah". Now I am trying to get 4.33 so I can try it out.
One more point to make. DCS announces their FIRST EVER tournament then says they have 120 players signed up. I am not impressed with that number. I don't expect anyone else is. We are small. However, with a community that has a lot of closet DCS players, its hard to know numbers.

the active DCS community in really really small ...



even if you consider the fact that the developer of DCSW is actively working to boycott and sideline our website, I can see that the number of DCS related downloads is too low, an average of 10+ views for every download.

people like to see what is going on, but they dont play the sim.

case in point - the L-39, almost no interest.

The good news for us is that FSX-P3D picked up the slack, otherwise we would be feeling much more the lack of interest.

no way we could run a DCSW only website the way we did for so many years with LOFC.

I must admit I rarely play DCS. I'll get the hankering to fly the Huey a bit, go through the campaign again, and then get a bit bored. I just struggle to find anything to do in DCS. As Tom mentions, L39? Couldn't give a monkeys, I'd much rather fly a multi-role jet, but there isn't one.

Like Maico, I have BOS but I don't really play it and it's one of those sims I regret purchasing.

Falcon is a different story. I've been playing that consistently for the past 15 odd years (fly a campaign in Korea, then the Balkans, then Israel, polish my medals, do another campaign).

Same here. I am also rarely playing DCS lately even with the 1.5 enhancements due to it being the same boring map with little detail. I am patiently waiting for the NTTR and Strait of Hormuz maps along with the F-18.

When we were doing Red Flag with the 159th we'd often have more than 80 signed up. We'd have had more but it was known that the server could only comfortably do about 50-60. Those other 20 or so signed up as alternates. This was (as Thomas pointed out) during the LOFC days. I still have the tracks of 30 v 30 fighting it out. We did Red Flag every couple of months and it was a huge hit, and there were no prizes. So I agree, 120 signed up isn't squat.

For the rest that are reading: I've known Thomas for years. If he steps up and specifically makes a statement about something he's most likely correct. He's updated LOF numerous times and he's a stats kinda guy. He's tracked numbers from day one and if y'all remember correctly, his site was the go-to place for all LOMAC downloads, as ED didn't have any servers set up to host files. Even today, the "real" mod makers don't post their mods on ED's site because of the TOS, which basically says that if you post it there ED owns it. So they post links to LOF and a few upload to Drop Box or another hosting site. Downloads are way down for current versions of DCS and as Tom said no one gives a rat's behind about the L-39.

IMHO ED is going to have to do something different with their business model or they're going to continue to be a small struggling software company. A dynamic campaign would most likely help but seeing as how many titles they have sold is it worth the investment for them? Only time will tell. IMHO, until they start adding new theatres and modern jets they're going to stay the small company they are. It's quite simple: In the group of people most likely to buy modules is an L-39 going to generate more "I gotta have this" than an F-16, F-18, MiG-29? Not likely.

IMHO ED is putting these trainers and WWII modules together because they're easier. So they can put 'em out faster and keep their company afloat.

all that the developer seems to have managed to do is to thread water since LOFC and LOBS came out.

there was a burst of interest with the A-10C that petered out, a pity.

They created their file hosting to divert mod makers to their website, supposedly with 10 times as much traffic as LockOnFiles has, they should be getting hundreds of downloads as soon as a file is uploaded, they get a couple of hundred after several months. So they did not manage to widen their market, they just took it away from us.

So, congratulations to the developer, we are at LOF officially sidelined unfortunately for the developer, by a shrinking community.

and now we are waiting for 2.0 to make things better, then it will be Nevada, then Hormuz ... then maybe the Hornet.

The issue I had with DCS was that it is hard (i.e. not enough time) to master more than one a/c. And the choices at the time were Black Shark and the A-10. Not really a heli guy, and the A-10 flew like a brick. It just wasn't interesting. And i can't help but agree with Ice on the strategy of ED/DCS being off. We have some parts of WW2, Korea, Vietnam, etc. but nothing really ties any of this together. They need much better focus.

They have also gone in pretty much the opposite direction of Falcon, and the fact that a 15 year old sim is still just as dominant today as it was a decade ago says something. Falcon focuses on one a/c (mostly), and then provides everything around it, including theaters, campaigns, etc. ED/DCS focuses on multiple a/c, heli's, etc., but is totally lacking on what is needed to tie it all together. At this point, the only thing DCS has on BMS is graphics, and honestly it is just not enough. And when you consider the system requirements to run DCS well today, without considering what impact all the other goodies would have on performance, you can see why BMS has the right balance. Graphics aren't over the top, but you get everything in a well balanced package, with crap loads of stuff going on.

I am one of the few who think the age of the Falcon code may actually be a strength. The whole system was designed around a lot less powerful systems, and it is lean and mean. What you give up in graphics quality you get back 10 fold everywhere else.

And the real problem is, why spend money on DCS when you can have BMS for free? I have a few DCS modules, including BS1/2 and the A-10. So I have given them support, even though I don't fly them anymore. Just not getting where they fit in. Hope they sort it out, because it is great to have so many choices.

If ED shy away from developing any form of dynamic campaign (what i can
understand taken the financial risk), they could at least document all files and data
that might be needed by a talented group or individual to program "something"?!

I agree! But to be fair this is accually backwards. I just had to spend 9.99 to get falcon 4.0 after misplacing my original copy while moving. DCS is free to play, obviously you need to pay to get the modules (I've spent a lot on DCS) and 9.99 is a steal for a sim like BMS (awesome free mod). Like I mentioned earlier I play both depending on preference, I don't see a need to rack and stack.

Best $10 ever spent. lol

Yeah, play what you like. They both have pros and cons.

83% of internet statistics are made up...

thankfully I formed my opinion based on my day-to-day experience in the community and not by researching it

The modules are far too complex, the development time, for the complexity, is far too long. Dcs in its core form is a training aid for the military. As a consumer entertainment product it sucks. It really does. It's not ment to be entertainment. Folk who think the devs are doing this for the community are kidding themselves. There is no military sideline for the ww2 modules and look how far down the to do list that has slid. The amount of trainers being developed tells the whole story. Someone said they regret spending money on BoS, I regret every penny spent on dcs. The spotting issues made the ww2 aircraft all but useless unless they were used as ground pounders. The phantom trees are laughable for 2015. At least BoS has collidable trees, it has done many things wrong but that they got right.

Great post Johnny_Redd. That's pretty much what I'm trying to say- it's a great training aid but poor game. I wrote a long dissertation on that in a thread here a while back.

IMHO most of us want a game. We want a realistic sim, too, but more than that we want to be entertained. If you stripped out the dynamic campaign from Falcon and made it a TE sim only, like DCS, I don't think it would be nearly as popular as it is. Falcon and Jane's F/A-18 were both released about the same time, and we can see who got more of the modding love.

Edit: Here's the thread I stared on this topic, and it still seems relevant today.

DCS-It's not what you want post

they mismanaged their community, mishandled its expectations, mistreated its mod makers and broke their own self imposed deadlines time and again, I am sure that they expected things to turn out different, but it did not.

yet, we all are still around and playing the sim.

any news on when can we expect to see DCSW 2 released and the Spitfire, P-47D and Normandy map, will it ever see the light of day ?

Not really
I mean, for me I'm here to read looking for news that could indicate reasons to fly DCS more often than once every update release.

At best I goof around half an hour in the P-51 or Su-25 every second week trying to figure out why the heck I'm flying.
It sure looks good but the most important aspect, the game Component, is totally missing just like toonces say.

The only thing over the last half year that got me flying a few Days in a row was MBot's "dynamic singleplayer" missin that I ported to FC3 planes and a few others but even that one is on hold until 1.5 is out so I can see targets in the P-51 Before the bump into my fuselage.

(random mid sentence uppercase characters is handed to you all by this texteditor for reasons a European like me fail to see but I can't find the effort to correct them)

I'm playing once or twice a week, usually coop/training with my squad and I'm having the time of my life with DCS as far as flightsims go. If I would play DCS exclusively offline I'd play a lot less. And I feel for those wanting more singleplayer content.

Playing on the Blue Flag campaign server was the most enjoyable gaming experience for me since the days of the old IL2 online wars.

I've been bringing up these same points for a long time. NTTR and the level of fidelity it has been created to, was the give-away. And I'm sure we're not getting what is to be used by the military. Detail wise.

-Jeff

I am waiting on NTTR to pass final judgement.

But, seriously, ED is gonna have to move away from these training and ww2 aircraft and refocus on tactical combat jets.

The military doesn't need trainers in DCS IMHO. They're literally useless when they have the following two things:

1) Real trainers
2) If in simulation, a guy watching over your shoulder.

ED is doing one trainer, and various 3rd parties are doing their own.
Those are useful in a squadron context with the right people; some want to teach US instruments, some want to teach Russian instruments.

Some want to use a higher powered trainer, some lower powered.

As for WW2 planes, they're here to stay. Both ED and 3rd parties are working on those.


So, seriously, just because you don't like some type of aircraft, doesn't mean there aren't those who can appreciate it.

The issue of concern for me (and others) is dilution of limited resources.

You are correct, however, opinions vary now dont they...?

;-)

what we have is a hodgepodge of aircraft searching for a common theme ...

The player base don't need trainers in DCS IMO. They're literally useless when we have the following things
1. Ability to respawn
2. The ability to learn a real combat aircraft without the fear of destroying it.
3. The option to save ones money and not purchase the useless module.

I see absolutely no other reason to develop trainer aircraft than as a military contract. The tired old arguments from ED and their forum moderators concerning the kickstarter money being barely enough for one aircraft FM makes the decision to develop trainers for the gaming community mind bogglingly retarded. Seriously, how many folk are going to buy those things? Not enough to make the development time financially viable I'll wager.

I completely agree redd. It strikes me this is something they developed for another customer and are flogging to the general public.

Who here even knew of the albatross before this module appeared?

I'd also add that they managed to conjure up an actual L39 pilot just to give a video presentation? No, he was on staff to oversee accuracy for the military contract would be my guess. That's an expenditure they would not have paid out for on a module for the average punter.

The problem is that most modern jets have some parts of them classified. Good luck making high quality simulation when complete information not available. Hell, probably even older jets such as Su-24 still have some parts classified. Yet people still want modern DCS quality jet.

You'll never get true authenticity, and I would have serious reservations if you did. Don't forget that these are highly sophisticated weapons and no government in their right mind would allow the average joe to have access to a truthful represention of any aircraft.

A trainer? Not really an issue.

Who here would be okay with any person having in depth working knowledge of a modern, active aircraft?

Hard to say in some cases: the Bug has been around for over 30 years and I doubt there's ANYTHING not publicly known about it now. Undoubtedly why ED chose it for hardcore love...[heh that sounds wrong?].

Trouble is, too many resources are diverted by *cough* irrelevant and obscure jets. Third party devs, sure, but still you have to think diverting ED's internal dev attention in some respects.

If they had focused exclusively on the Bug, Id wager it would be out to us on beta or better now.

Hence my ongoing frustration.

There is no reason they (ED) can't either:

1) make a best guess approximation of classified portions of a modern jet

or

2) stick with somewhat older jets that are unclassified.

The F-4 Phantom is a perfect example of a jet that has never been properly modeled in a combat environment to my knowledge. With two-seat MP capability, and a perfect adversary like the MiG-21, this could be hugely popular IMO. Certainly moreso than an L-39.

Frankly, though, if something is classified, the only ones who will know exactly how their sim jet differs from the real jet will be people "in the know." Close enough really is good enough for a video game.

Absolutely.
Also what's the point of a 100% accurate digital representation of these aircraft if it means the cost to GPU CPU means there are no collidable trees?

As a BS flier, I can reasonably suggest that if you are not flying a rotary wing, collidable trees are irrelevant.

For a title that folk like to call a study SIM the omission of collidable trees is far from irrelevant. In MP they are used as an "exploit". In SP the ai take no notice of them and like you say rotary wing purchases are flawed.

I think the people don't understand what's going on. ED is a small company. It needs a fairly constant cash influx to pay it's coders, artists, producer, etc. So ED is taking time away from a project that is taking longer (such as a new theatre or a new high fidelity dual role aircraft and they're releasing other modules that they can pump out quicker, to keep the money coming in. This is why we're seeing so many betas being released. The public is stupid enough to buy them so ED is capitalizing on that.

The community gets what it deserves.

Seriously?!

As a fixed wing flier, I can tell you that I have flown through trees on more than one occasion.

That's a little harsh...it's almost a personal insult to a whole community on this forum.

I'm sure the intent isn't to slate the community with that statement......the emphasis being that if we as purchasers of these models continue to rave about beta releases and instantly buy them without a completion date ever being in sight........we're only ever going to get more of the same so we're not helping ourselves.

I pretty much agree with that, yet I'm guilty of it myself. It's difficult when everyone has their favourite platforms and will naturally be excited by particular releases. This means betas will always sell and it's going to be difficult for the public to make a stand. ED know this and will grind out new platforms because it's a bigger money-spinner than putting more resources into new content than actually finishing something off.

The 3rd party development are no different either. The bigger problem with ED is that they will probably have more time sensitive issues from their military contracts so I've no doubt their resources are getting juggled even more.

Based solely on your own speculation, would you rather a their coders, artists and producers work at reduced or no pay just to get you the plane you want?

the greatest challenge ahead for this developer is overcoming its decades old reputation as a rather boorish developer of a flight sim that while very pretty, is no fun to fly compared with what is out there.

I could even go as far as saying that I have not seen anything yet that would convince me that ED is a game developer rather than a flight training tool developer, all they do is to prove it again and again that they are just that, a code developer.

As for what Rugg said, it was a bit harsh but true, people buy incomplete products to support the developer but dont spend any meaningful time on it.

Scuze me for not mincing words, I've never been politically correct. I wasn't slagging the community, I was pointing out that if the community continues to pay for beta software then that's what they're going to get. There are so many fanbois out there that will accept anything ED releases in any level of completeness. Now there's nothing wrong with being a fanboi (so don't get your panties in a bunch) but the message you send when you buy beta software is that it's ok to release beta software. And I'm just as guilty as the rest of you, I purchased the NTTR map.

Now that I've pissed most of you off I'll say that at least ED is quick about squashing game stopping bugs. Kudos for their auto updater.

the only snag : you have to run the sim to find that it works

Agreed , have to admit , never even heard of the L39 .

I agree and thanks for your clarification.
The point of this thread was the poll over on the ED forums to gauge the communities want. There are countless polls on those boards gauging the playerbase wants. From next fixed wing, next ww2;, next rotary wing, next map etc etc. Where in those polls were the l39, the SoH map, the F5? Those polls have been running for years. ED and their 3rd parties take no notice of them. Just saying.

Biggest concern I have is that ED squashed the CORTEX Rhino project. It looked like they may have been making better progress than ED is with their Bug. Not sure what good a hardcore Bug is to us another year from now.

Nice as NTTR will be, without a multi-role jet its still the same ol' same ol'.

Do we actually know the details of what happened there?

We have the F-15 without a clickable cockpit.

I like how personal opinion is fact now.

you posted an oxymoron : my personal opinion cannot be a fact

Opinion
1. A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof: "The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion" (Elizabeth Drew). See Synonyms at view.

Personal
1. Of or relating to a particular person; private: "Like their personal lives, women's history is fragmented, interrupted" (Elizabeth Janeway).

Fact
1. Knowledge or information based on real occurrences: an account based on fact; a blur of fact and fancy.

that said, do you know of any Blog about the Greek Armed Forces ? I am particularly interested in the Kortenaer Class and the Greek Air Force in general.

Personally, i'm really curious to see what will become the bone of contention after both NTTR and the Bug have been released.

Anything goes.

I think someone has a table for a 20-faced die to roll and pick a subject...

I'm Gonna Pick "Dynamic Campaign" It's the old reliable.

Nate

I don't know - maybe we will be discussing when DCS will look this good



my bone of contention will be : when I'll be able to get as good effects in DCS as those I can create in P3D v3 ?




don't worry, there will be plenty of things to gripe about, and the reaction of those associated with the developer will fuel a lot of it.

Since the bug is probably a long ways off, you will plenty of time to figure it out;

That's a safe enough bet surely?.....given that it was the clear winner in the 24 hour poll for what is top of the community's 'most wanted' list.

this developer always reminds me of a pretty girl left alone on prom night.

Get off my lawn!!!

Yeah an easy one alright! Probably the most often requested feature since Flanker 2

Nate

Nothing from me. :-P

By then most of us will have moved on to something else having become thoroughly numbed by the endless wait while ED toss out the scraps left from their latest military contract.
There will be an email saying "The bug is here, now you can fly this classic from the bygone age of fossil fuel."
"DCS? Oh I remember that, wow they're still in business!"

Perhaps.

I can't wait for that something else, truly... if it hasn't arrived, after falcon 4, I don't think you'll find anything to enjoy yourself.

Nate

Hopefully an F-16.

The bug will cover the desperate need for a multirole jet. .. for a hardcore Viper, I refer you TO FBMS 4.33.

A Super Hornet, a Mudhen, Harrier, Phantom, etc. Anything but an F-16 until there's a dynamic campaign. I frankly struggle to see how they'd make much of a profit releasing an F-16 module when you can already fly damn near every C block of it under the sun and many other versions for free in BMS with a dynamic campaign for a small trade off in graphics. Why pay top dollars for having just a small graphics update and get just a mere one single version of it? They're better of at least trying to sell the interest in learning other modern fighter jets with a very limited "practical" phase for them until there's a dynamic campaign.

Most of the BMS community would die laughing if they'd announce an F-16 tomorrow.

Correct. No need for an ED Viper, it will never surpass over 10 years of BMS development.

But a hardcore Bug with CV ops?

Yep.

In fact, I submit that's ALL that ED should be working on, the other stuff is a money losing pit I bet.

I think ED can make a better F-16 than BMS. I don't know about a better combat experience though.

LOL...I doubt that very much.

I dare you to propose that random thought over at the BMS forums.

Jeeez

We're gonna need lots more popcorn.

Work on the simplified avionics and weapon deployment for those of us who fly casually and just want to watch stuff go kablooey without flipping three dozen switches in the interim.

Aside from that, more places to fly, please. Also, stay with 80s-era aircraft and stay away from the 4+/5th-generation aircraft.

Sorry bud, disagree with everything you just said.