Caucasus Texture DLC by Starway

Caucasus Texture DLC by Starway, the website for the donation is online

I hope he get the 3000$

Greets Veteran66

Link:
https://starwayblog.wordpress.com/

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=167780

Hopefully, since $2000 will only get a texture pack that won't work in the future (v2.5).

What a mess. Apart from being critical of making something as simple as this a DLC, I must say that ED demonstrated extreme carelessness in arranging with him and approving of him making it as a DLC without even verifying they could protect the content. Amateurish in the extreme.

And really? Donating, not pledging? Really fun for everyone who's donated if the donations stop at $1900 and no one gets anything. Or maybe $2800, so people get the first version, but get shafted when 2.5 comes around.

yes maybe!
you can spend 10$ for a great Modder or you can drink Bier for 10$ it is your judgment

it is a pity that I can't support a product advertised in a website that censor links to LockOnFiles , otherwise I would do that.

that said, the way this DLC is being sold one is very good and US$10 is a fair price.

I'd have no problem buying this DLC for $10 (it actually looks REALLY good), but there is no way I'm donating on the hope that it get's released.

Tom, I'm not sure If I understand Your post correctly. You can donate directly via link on his blog, without even getting close to ED website.

I will happily donate $10. ( Its worth a punt ) but I would certainly be more inclined to donate a larger amount if I knew I would definently get a return on my investment.

Way I see it, I can spend $10 to support maybe getting access to a mod, which should never have been made into a product to start with, and with zero transparency. Seriously, donating instead of pledging + no transparency = Good luck with that, I'd rather literally speaking burn money before sending it his way.

I meant providing free advertising, posting in our front page - I'll probably buy it when DCS 2.0 gets merged and is stable.

It isn't going to work that way. If the donation goal is reached, the product will be free to all. If it is not reached it will not be available to anyone.

Sold!

Donation on its way

That's how I understood it. Either way, whether you choose to donate or not, when you get it I can guarantee you'll like very much what he's produced.

Nate

I'm happy to support such an ambitious project, from what I've seen this is well worth the price of 3 beers in a pub over here.

3? I can barely get 2 for that price

Nate

Ah, Ireland! We spent our summer vacation there 2 years ago. Beautiful country, but boy your beer is expensive!

I bought it - I don't quite understand why not make this the price, this way we are paying for others to get it free.

IMO he should make this donation-ware with a minimum price.

Interesting concept. Though I am a bit confused with how it works. Is it $2,000 plus $1,000 for the next version, or $5,000? And after the $3,000 goal is set, will there be further areas in which we must donate further for each new version of DCS?

he should clarify that - the $10 gives you access to later versions ?

also - he should modify now rather than later the price, make it $10 for everybody, if he makes more than $3000 or not.

unless there are only 300(*) people active in our community, he should make the $3000

(*) if there are 6000 active members, he should make $3000 with ease).

Well, it's either a high-quality beer in an expensive setting (Paulaner at XinTianDi) or a crate and a half of beer with my brother-in-law (Hans Beer)... but in my opinion it's worth it.

Donationware would've been better yes. And I didn't see a progress bar or something, I think people that are still doubting will have it easier if they realise the goal has almost been met. Looking at the thread at the ED forums it should not be too difficult to reach 2 and even 3k.

first Day Donation now 1.314,04 $

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2796555&postcount=124

That was five hours ago.

can someone explain what T3 and T4 is - and DCS 2.5, what is this ? DCS 2.0 is not even out of beta and we are going to have another version as well ?

DCS 2.5 will be the merged (1.5 + 2.0) build of DCS. The Caucasus map will see certain improvements (new mesh!) with this merge.

T3 is the texture set for the current (1.5) version of the Caucasus map. T4 is the texture set for the 2.5 (future) version of DCS.


BTW

" Dear all lovely backers,
I am very proud to announce that today, we reached our first goal. Right now we are at 2.266,89!

The first version of the DLC will go public tonight, at 9.00 pm CEST.

Thank you so much for your support and team spirit!

All the best,
Starway"


Thanks to everyone who donated!

thanks !

this map I bought of the Caucasus - I don't have 1.5 installed, so it wont work in 2.0 ?

The 2.0 alpha version is (officially) exclusively for testing the NTTR map.

The Caucasus map needs 1.5 (stable or beta version).

There have been some (unofficial) tricks to get the Caucasus map to work in 2.0 but I have no idea if the textures would work on such an installation and what problems/bugs it could cause.

No problem - I can wait until they release the 2.xx version, in 2018

Glad to see the first goal was reached and it will be released tonight. Starway's textures do look excellent.

Also waiting for the 2XX version....

Well, now that I see how far we got in 24hrs, I certainly feel a lot better about donating. Will be sure to do it later this week.

I am surprised he had any doubt - I guess I know more about what can be done in our community than he did.

I don't think he really had any doubts, he knows best how popular his previous work has been. I guess he's just happy with the overwhelming trust shown by the community.


BTW the new textures look gorgeous!

I will only know later.



I only discovered that there was a DLC recently - did not even know about any previous work, I really don't browse that place.

well, he has my donation.

Any performance hit with the new textures?

As it's 'only' the textures that are replaced, there should not be a performance issue.

...T4 level has also been reached and it seems the donations keep coming in. Good show! I've installed the textures (very painless process using JSGME, I had donated the first day after the donation page was opened) and they do make the landscape feel more realistic.

Love his work! But sure don't understand the business model...

You get X amount of folks to pay, and the rest get it for free. Versus just asking for a per pay.

Can someone explain?

I doesn't make a lot of sense to me either... but, now with the goal reached, I'm going ahead and pay for it anyway. This deserves all the support it can get.

The textures are great and in my opinion good enough to be used as Caucasus default by ED.........as long as they compensate the community and pay Starway for the work themselves at commercial rates and not $3000 for 12 months work.

I'd like to see stairway get the SDK so that he and a small crew can produce totally new maps instead of texturing the old map. I didn't contribute. If I had to pay I could quite easily do without the textures simple as that. I did download though and Honestly I don't see what texturing an outdated map brings to the sim. Why is the SDK treated like some kind of treasure to be kept away from the general community? I don't understand EDs policy. There are undoubtedly talented modders in the community that would expand the sim immensely. It's a head scratcher.

now that DLC is the way to go, and Starway discovered that people are willing to pay if the price is right, he will certainly make other maps.

the wonderful thing about DLC is that it allows mod makers to star making money out of their work.

I am sure that we will see plenty more of this in the future.

The future is bright for payware in DCS.

He Doesnt make terrains, He Textures them, Big Difference.

I don't make skins, I make textures

I am a texturizer.

He won't make other maps without the SDK. Just as you don't make more aircraft. Without the SDK starway is limited to skinning the old map, nttr and whatever maps third parties with access to the SDK produce.
I don't think the future is bright for payware. I can see why this particular dlc was popularly received, because it's the same old map, that folk who have chosen not the purchase nttr, have been stuck with forever. When the third parties get their act together and start releasing new maps I'm sure the popularity of payware mods will drop. And that all depends on ED getting their act together and unifying the game and finally getting 2.0 out of beta.

If Starway gets the SDK and continues to re-texture the maps that are available to a higher level than ED's or any 3rd parties textures, he will be successful. Who doesn't want better textures on the maps?

Personally I can do without it.

Seriously, who answers that question?

Someone who is more interested in engaging gameplay, flight dynamics and weapon deployment than messing around with modifications from a sim in which the developer doesn't really help 3rd parties to integrate their work, and especially when the core game is 'updated' or changed so much that it can become a chore to keep mods updated and working?

Get over yourself.

Jeezus f*cking christ.

Can't you guys accept ANYTHING related to DCS without the need to #%&*$# on it?

I donated and am using Starway's Caucasus textures......but I also have the ability to understand that they aren't for everyone, especially those that are fed up with the 12 year old Caucasus map in the first place and that everyone is entitled to air their opinion too.



Opinion: Look it up
Forum: Look it up

Some people talk about DCS, some people like to talk about the people playing DCS.

Who's #%&*$# on the map skin? It's very good work. Imagine what could be achieved with the SDK? Instead of spending a year texturing an old outdated map we may have had a new theatre to be flying in.
Can't you guys accept any criticism of DCS without foaming at the mouth? Seriously it's like the church of ED some times.

Yeah, that's not what you said though. Besides, I don't think you understand how time consuming is to make a proper map.

So, how time consuming is it then?
Please enlight us.

And what exact did I say? Yeah it is time consuming to make a Map.. It took ED years to make nttr and it's still not finished. Maybe release the SDK and see how long someone with dedication takes

Starway has madskillz. I'm going to donate.

It is a pity that we can't promote his work, he sure deserves it.

Very.



You answered a question that you literary don't have to answer, a rhetorical question. Just to make an argument, to have the last word.

Your mind reading skills are lacking old boy.
I answered a question that was asked, rhetorical or not. I do not share your opinion, big life tip here, nor do a lot of folk. Who doesn't like cheese on their burger? I would assume a lot of folk do, I would also assume a lot of folk don't. I don't assume that because I have a passion for cheeseburgers that everybody else in the world should too. I would also respect their choice to answer that question. I would also welcome their input.
Ask a question and expect debate. Asking a question and expecting nods of agreement is somewhat foolish on the internet. Expecting the world to share your views is borderline delusional.

Debate my ass. Whenever you're called out you cry about being bullied by the bad fanboys and the Church of ED...

Also, what kind of debate is that?

"-Who doesn't want better textures on the maps?

-I can do without!"

What comes after that? "Bravo for being you"? That isn't starting a debate, that's being obnoxious.



Imagine me going into Tom's threads about plane skins and posting that I could do without them...

Oh good grief...

We're talking about paying for stuff here. Textures that replace the originals. Stuff that I can quite honestly do without if I have to pay for them. It's that simple. If you get so bent out of shape about an answer, that is not to your liking, to your questions maybe you should think twice about posting questions. Maybe the internet is not the place for you? Maybe the ED forums with their censorship and sanitized view of DCS is where you should be posting questions.
Tom does some great work. He's going to start charging, that's fair enough and good luck to him he deserves some reward for his hard work. Personally I can do without aircraft skins I won't be purchasing any. I believe Tom will accept that.
My question is why there is no SDK. Why spend a year making textures for an old outdated map when the talent in the community could have taken us beyond that old map.
"I don't think you realise how long it takes to make a new map"
"How long?"
"Very"
Very insightful Remon, thanks for clearing that up.

The reason for not releasing some sort of SDK, is that ED want total control over anything DCS related

BIS are a good example of how to treat your customers , provide basic dev tools and let them have at it

let me put things back in context - if I may.

the problem with DCS DLC and payware is that it replaces freeware

if you don't live in the Euro Zone or the US , DCS is an expensive product .

no one is forcing anyone to buy DLC and payware, that does not make any better, since you end up missing the stuff.




not any time soon - I would only do it if it were to be released by a developer as part of its work , otherwise, I am freeware.

in defense of Starway - for a new map, he would have to wait a while for the code to be ready, meanwhile he did a new texture for an old map, and I dont believe that E***e D******s does have yet an SDK that he could use to make a new map without him having to add a lot of new and complex new code.



a lot of people are migrating to the BIS community - it is a whole different and it seems more free world.

Right back at you. Again, crying foul because you're criticized.



If I had told that you shouldn't post here everyone would be up in arms about personal attacks etc etc.



He should. But that wasn't what I said. Who's lacking reading comprehension now?



Starway is part of the community. He is not an ED employee, and no ED employee spend a year making textures for an old outdated map. Also, what is the purpose of discussing the lack of maps in this thread about this mod/dlc?



We have basic dev tools out right now. And it'snot like BiS is universally loved by their community.

I don't feel like I've been criticized. And I'm not crying foul. I'm giving my point of view, one that you clearly disagree with



i'm not telling you not to post here I'm suggesting if you get so clearly upset because some folk don't have the same point of view as you, you may reconsider posting until you receive some form of counselling.


What exactly did you say?

The purpose is to highlight the fact that starway could bring a great deal more than he already has by giving the SDK to the community. (hint: whole new maps)


Basic Dev tools? What would they be? And what does it matter that BiS are or are not universally loved by their community? The fact is they provide the tools to make new maps. Their community is larger than DCS I believe because of that.
I fully understand your support for DCS, contrary to your beliefs most folk, myself included, support the potential that the game has. Unfortunately the choices that ED have been making have hindered the potential.

"You don't agree with me, you need counseling. No, I'm not telling you not to post here."



"Imagine me going into Tom's threads about plane skins and posting that I could do without them..."



Again, what do ED's choices have to do with Starways mod/DLC? What is the reason to discuss them here? What is the point of turning every discussion here about ED?



I don't think there's much overlap there. One being an FPS and the other a flight sim.

going to Arma is a big change - if it weren't for P3D I would have gone, P3D and DCS have enough in common for me to stay in both.

I'm not attacking Starway, he has shown a great deal of passion for the platform, passion that should be applauded. However his passion and talent are being restricted by the choices ED have been making with regard the SDK and the integration of EDGE. The guy clearly has talent and the DCS community is richer for his contributions. Yourself too Tom.

Thanks

what P3D and FSX do with SDK is the opposite of what E***e D******s does with its SDK , Starway has to dance according to the tune.

I flew enough over the Crimea to last me a lifetime, for newcomers, it is all new, hopefully he will do other maps and then he will be able to sell his DLC, my guesstimate is that the Crimea being available as part of DCSW shell, made it impossible for him to sell his map as DLC.

Yes I saw. Care to explain the meaning of the post?


It's the DCS forums

was going to answer the content of that inane post , you saved me the trouble Johhny. thanks dude

Lets back up here. At $15 I am going to pass on updated textures for a very out dated map, much of which is over a decade old in some aspects. I can do without them if that is the price of entry. $1-3? Yes, I might consider it. More than that I'm not paying. I can do without them. It takes work and time but I'm not going to pay more than that for textures for a old and ugly map. For free I'd download them right away, of course.

A new map built from scratch would indeed take a long time but I'm sure members of the community would be able to put out something decent. Obviously that is not likely to happen because ED wants to sell terrian pieces at $60+.

I don't think it's that hard. I'd look like an ass.



So, I'm guessing it's OK to go on every thread here and praise ED then? Again, I'd look like an ass.

Next time Tom posts a skin I'll just make a "What a great company ED is for letting us make skins" post.

Hate to be the one to break it to you but...

Nah, if I was an ass I would be complaining the whole #%&*$# time on every #%&*$# post about irrelevant things. Isn't that what you were trying to say?

Like asking someone in the screenshots thread why they're putting a rose tint on their own images?

I think the time has come to start appreciating that the forums are for everyone and not just about what Remon does or doesn't like!

Hah, funny that you thought that as a complaint. You're a funny dude.



No, it's for Paradaz and friends to make the same posts time after time without anyone arguing with them.

The same posts will continue "time and time again" until the problems with DCS are sorted out. Some folk want what they paid for. Some folk are running out of patience, Some folk are bewildered by the choices made by ED. Etc, etc, etc. If you want to argue against that go right ahead. If you don't want to read grievances, nobody is forcing you, I take it you're an adult? Paradaz, myself and others have no issue with counter arguments. It seems, however, that to counter many of the grievances some folk will attack the poster rather than face the issues.
I said that I could do without DLC textures and that it was a pitty that Starway, and the rest of the community, don't have access to the SDK to m make new theatres. All you focused on, Remon, was the "I could do without the textures". You totally missed my point because you were raging at that one point. You have done more to derail this thread than anyone else.

The thing is, posting "ED sucks" here time and time again accomplishes nothing, zilch, nada, except you and your buddies feeling better about yourself. You're not the saviours of DCS. That would be the people who actually contribute something (like testing, content creation, etc.).

People aren't complaining about the same issue over and over again, ED are making the same mistakes with every module and are simply not learning from them.

You and others seem to have a 'double-jeapardy' rule or something whereby no-one can point the finger at ED for the same thing twice......e.g. if they have a delay to a module and then then a delay to the Hormuz map. You fail to appreciate different discussion, different reasons and different rationale........and just refer to hearing the same argument over and over again.

Like Johnny says, it can be sorted very easily it ED pull their finger out and start learning from previous mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes but I seriously cannot think of a single software company gaming or otherwise with a track record as bad as ED where they CONTINUE to show utter incompetence an display the same faults over and over and over again.

For starters, are they EVER going to release anything without a major delay?......do anyone have this amount of trust in them? I certainly don't because they haven't given ANY indication over the last 8 years that any of their planning has changed or improved.

The fact that the unplanned split dev branch, no idea of release (if anyone cares to argue that then they obviously have no confidence whatsoever in publishing the information) and current situation shows if anything, that it's as worse as it's ever been.

I don't see anyone claiming to be the 'saviour' of DCS, however interesting you bring the testers up. Whilst I'm sure they are doing some great work they're obviously letting some very big issues slip through the woodwork. What's the QA excuse?.......does ED actually have any? I refer you to the Hawk module with audio problem - that was beyond incompetent that it was tested and released in such a state.

By "folk" you mean the same 4-5 people that make these posts every time? And again with the perceived personal attacks. When someone tells you that you've repeated yourself endlessly isn't attacking you.

Dude I'm a customer. I've paid the price of admission.

Lucky you! You get to download them for free. Thanks to the generosity of others.


Nate

indeed we are costumers .




like me.

and I can't install it as I don't have 1.5, anyone knows ETA for the version compatible with 2.0 ?



excellent post !

There never will be a 2.0 version. The updated version will be compatible with v2.5 but there is no ETA on when that version will appear.

OK ! I can wait, no hurry

Did i say you can't do it? To my best knowledge, i did no such thing. I did mention what it accomplishes, though.

Don't kid yourselves, this serves no other purpose than banging your own drum.

I really don't care if you say I can or can't do it. That's irrelevant, I'm gonna do it anyway. If it "serves no other purpose than banging my own drum" why do you feel the need to continually repeat the same lines when myself and others criticize?
When is it ok to complain that ones purchase is still not out of beta? 2 years, 3, 4, 5? When is it ok to complain when the products you've paid for are still not released? 2 years, 3, 4, 5?
Tell me sobek, in your personal life, how long does it take for you to complain if your purchase a home appliances that craps out on you?
You may not want value for your money but I work hard for my money because that's what I do and what my employer pays me for. I'm damn proud of the work I do, I expect those folk that get my money to be working hard also. What I'm seeing from the products I've purchased is a complete lack of dedication, hiding behind the "beta" tag, a total disregard for the customers. Basically "shut up and wait".
If I'm banging my own drum, you're banging your own by responding.
I'll make it easy for you
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/toggleignore/User/21507

Can't seem to get this installed with JSGME. Followed the instructions best as I could. Made a _MODS folder, put the Starway textures there and made a snap shot of my install within JSGME right before it. Claims it is activated, but textures look like the default ones.

What I did notice is there are now massive frame rate drops when panning around, especially in the cockpit (10 or so frame rates). Not sure if the recent patch caused this or JSGME/Starway. I did remove both and the poor performance still remains. Essentially the game has become unplayable now, either due to the patch or JSGME/Starway.

We seem to have fundamentally different understandings of crapping out and warranty.

If something craps out, i talk to customer support to get a replacement or my money back. I can't recall any incident where putting myself on a soapbox in market square and telling the people that walk by that the company that made said product sucks furthering my cause.

If i fail to inform myself of whether a product covers my needs, i don't rush off to the soapbox to blame the manufacturer.

This boils down to something really simple, actually. You do not have stake in ED. You don't get to tell them how to run their company. Don't like what they sold you? Get a refund. Don't like how they do busines? Tough titties, make your own company. I'm not saying that you can't be unsatisfied with what is on offer. But your way of dealing with your lack of satisfaction is unproductive. That's all.

I came to the conclusion a while ago - a few years ago, that this particular Developer, E***e D******s and many associated with them, have absolutely no idea, none whatsoever, on how to deal with their consumers.

And that is not all, they do not realize that they are a game company, that depends on the goodwill and word of mouth to keep their games popular.

Many of the people they antagonize the most are our community opinion makers.

That a softer touch is always better when dealing with consumers and critics, specially in the game industry.

an example : Steam , they learned that pretty quickly.

Sobek - perhaps for no fault of his own, personifies all that is wrong with E***e D******s.

And on top of that - if all that I wrote was not bad enough (because believe me, it is) they lack even a basic understanding of what a community forum like the one I run or this one ( where I have been a member since 2002 ) is for.

No wonder that many people are drifting away.

And what would that be?



And what you don't realize is that they don't have to take the piss and undue provocation/plain disregard of their house rules on their own boards. No company does. Again, tough titties. That's not mistreatment of consumers. It would do A LOT more harm if EDs boards were a free for all where people would just constantly quarrel with each other.



Again, i have an entirely different point of view. Those that get booted are the ones that can not submit to the etiquette of EDs boards, and they then continue with their behaviour in a place that does not reprimand them. Contrary to you, i'm not really convinced that many people care about the naysayers opinions in this place any more. There's just too much noise and mimimimi.




Just because they don't want anything to do with you does not mean they mistreat their users. You and i both know that there is a much longer story between you, ED and LOF than you care to admit publicly. Your personal crusade prooves nothing.



And you base this on the bubble that is the SimHQ DCS forum? Just because people wash up here after being banned from EDs own forums doesn't mean that in general, EDs community is running away. I doubt that module development could have picked up the pace like it did if user numbers were waning.

Believe me I've tried. They don't give refunds. You know that so what's the point of posting that? If they were to give refunds to my self and other unhappy customers a lot of views would change. A lot of the complaints would cease. However they have the money and they're keeping it. Yet the products remain stalled while new modules are released in beta increasing their work load.

you are just taking the cue from the others.

your post is proof of everything that I wrote.

-

I am not even going to comment on what you posted, I will only say that my actions speak for themselves - I run the nicest website there is and I don't want anything in return from you or anyone connected with the developer.

You may sort of have a point. Of course they don't give refunds if you've held the license for an extended amount of time and suddenly start feeling like you don't want it any more. I have seen lots of refunds given (i used to help out in the ticket system after TEZ sadly passed away), when it was appropriate though. There's still the option to sell your key and be done with it.



I think you are mixing up complaints about ED and complaints about 3rd parties here.

The TDW move, go in with some outrageous statements, when said statements are being scrutinized, victimize oneself while pointing at services to the community. I don't use neither your website or your skins. I owe you about as much as you owe me so start acting like an adult being when critisized or stop with your accusations.

This is the cop out of cop outs.

Sobek, Tacpack is now compatible with P3D v3.3, that is good because I updated P3D v3.2 to 3.3 and it would not run thanks to a Tacpack incompatibility , thankfully I learned to keep a backup, so I reverted to 3.2, one of the good features of P3D is that regardless of the P3D client installed, you can run multiple versions of it.

Now I have to wait to lunch time to update.

By the way, I am releasing later today another request, an Israeli Mirage, it is nice that M2M M2K is the same as the DCS version, just a tweak and they are both ready.

tons of things to do, have a nice day !

Ah yes, you noticed that only until well after i replied. Well don't let me keep you.

If that's the case, why are you on these boards trying to dissuade customers from having an opinion all the time? I think these boards have probably helped many members make an informed decision and possibly saved some members money on making a bad purchase.

ED has control of their own boards and also heavily sanitize's the Steam forums...so SimHQ is a necessary resource.



The problem here, is that ED's offerings remain in an unfinished state for an extended amount of time...years in most cases. How do you know if it's worth the money until it reaches retail status?


The bottom line is...no matter how much you derail threads and attack members for having an opinion you don't agree with...isn't going to change a damn thing here. Too many threads ends up in the same tired argument about what opinions are the right ones to have instead of debating the actual topic. It's getting nauseating...make a point about what's being discussed or move on.

Thank you Force10!

Spoken like someone who has never owned a business.

The only files that can cause performance issues (apart from the massive textures themselves, obviously) are all the altered .lua files responsible for visibility range, shadows rendering etc. You'll find a path to them by checking folder structure in Starway's package.

If You disabled them correctly in JSGME, default files should be copied back and the game should get back to previous performance. If that doesn't happen, maybe You did mess something up during the installation process after all.

Find these specific .lua files in Your DCS install, check the dates if they're new ones, or old, default ones. If You're not sure, You might remove them and run a game repair command to get a fresh rebuild altogether.

Then try with the mod installation again. It's very simple really, as the folder structure in the package is already set up to work with JSGME "out of the box". First - Check if You have the latest 1.1 mod package downloaded (it went through two new revisions yesterday). Open it and unzip the "Caucasus map DLC by Starway" folder to Your _MODS folder located in the main game folder (I gather Your JSGME is already in the main game folder, and if not, all paths are set up in JSGME correctly? That might be the source of issues). Open JSGME, move the mod from left to right, close, play the game, period.

Let us know if You've managed to make it work this time.

Not the best outlook for an employee of a business, either.

Not a good outlook for anything at all.

Don't like your washing mashine? Make your own company.
Don't like how houses are built? Make your own company.
Don't like Windows OS? Make your own company.

Sure, it might work on some instances (Lamborghini comes to mind!) but where do you draw the line, really?

Also, just to be clear... I don't think people are TELLING them how to run their company. Surely this is not achieved by posting on some 3rd-party forums. If I were to TELL someone how to do something, I go to THEM and TELL them, not get on a soapbox in the market square. Personally, I am unhappy with the direction ED is going and I am baffled why they are not running their company in Way X, Y or Z instead of their current path.

Lastly, you don't need to be a 3-star Michelin chef (or any chef for that matter) to know if a dish is good or not.

Where did i do that? Seriously, what are you on about? What, i can't be of the opinion that the way how some folks deal with their dissatisfaction is unproductive? Could you be any more impartial in the matter?



I don't recall any of EDs modules spending years in open beta. 3rd parties, yes, ED, none come to mind.



How do you know it's worth the money when it has reached retail status? Hold off and see what more eager people think about it if you don't want to potentially burn the money. It's called self restraint.



Hey, i at least *try* to argue about opinions, points of view, facts. I'm willing to accept some responsibility but it's not always my fault that discussions get derailed, case in point, this time i was late to the party. I mean, god forbid you step in and moderate when someone you don't agree with is being called an ass (that wasn't me, in case you're wondering).



It would be much easier to have a civil discussion if Justitia wasn't blind on one eye around here sometimes. Or at least a bit more proactive. You know, a word here and there if *either* side commits a dialectic fallacy. CyBerkut does this really well, e.g.

Also you give me too much credit. There's enough threads being derailed without my help.

I'm a little tired right now to reply to all of what you wrote but this stood out
It took ED years, YEARS, to get EDGE out the door, it's still not fully integrated. That in its self has hindered 3rd parties progress along with their own failings. How many times have we heard from 3rd parties that a delay was due to integration with EDGE? To allow 3rd parties a licence to sell product that are to be integrated into EDs core game, based on EDGE, knowing it's still a way off from being fully released and taking a percentage of those sales, makes ED jointly responsible in my mind. To absolve ED is just plain naive.
Certain modules need to be pulled and a full refunds given for all who bought them (hawk, c101). ED to this day is still allowing their sales. Those products need to be pulled. 3rd parties need to release a fully finished product before they are allowed to sell betas, just to show they can actually accomplish something. What I'm seeing from AVIO and VEAO is total incompetence. To allow it to continue shows EDs incompetence.

thank you for your kind words Sobek, I appreciate them.

I wanted to let you know that I finished the weathered+worn M2M version, as you can see, both my P3D and M2M M2K versions look very similar, it is all a matter of tweaking

P3D

DCS


by the way, Tacpack is working very well in P3D, you can update it without any worries.

bye

Very nice skins Tom. The reflection is excellent.

Thanks !!!

Tomorrow I will make the cleaner version then a bit of testing and I can upload them.

Still getting the same issues as before. All the .lau files are at least a few months old, so I am not sure what else can be wrong. Perhaps the general update a week or so back broke the game itself? I can do a complete reinstall, but ED's download gives garbage speeds. And I don't want to loose activations/deactivations again. I just installed a new OS recently and lost some. The HOTAS setup didn't import 100% either and I had to rebuild it for a number of aircraft, so I am very worried about re-downloading it.

Between the last MIG-21 show stopping bugs I encountered last week and now this, you have to wonder when ED/3rd parties will get their #%&*$# together. Every time you want to load the game up something is broken. I've spent a good number of hours the past few weeks looking for bug fixes and rebuilding profiles, and have had zero actual game time. Perhaps it is time they give up on the updater and move to Steam completely, and learn to integrate the game with Steam Cloud so we don't have to manually re-do our profiles each time we re-install because copy/pasting the config files doesn't work.

All I can say is I am amazed that Starway & ED actually thought they could sell this. Their implementation of it and terrible instructions make free mods look like professional AAA game studios. I suppose it is a good thing they ran into DRM problems, because this would have been a nightmare for paying customers had it been payware.

Never reinstalled DCS in time I've been playing it (for two years exactly), as a repair script fixes any corruptions the same way, just makes it more simple and faster (checks for missing and altered files and redownloads only these - just like Steam's integrity check). My reasons are the same as Yours - I don't want to spend hours downloading and setting up stuff. But I don't need to and don't intend to do it in the near future. Whenever any crap hits the fan, use repair! It's really very useful. Doesn't require deactivating/activating either, as it doesn't remove licence keys from Windows registry.

Some preformance hit even on stock textures has been reported by some guys with certain hardware configs after recent updates, so maybe You're in that unfortunate group.

As for controller profiles, first of all, once You've got one You're happy with, save the folder where they're stored in (located in Your C:\Users\....\Saved Games\DCS\Config\Input\) and just copy it to any of Your new installs. Works perfectly even when copying configs between 1.5 stable, 1.5 OB and 2.0, even though it's not officially recommended (The only case it might not work 100% is if an update introduced new control functions for certain aircraft, then some bindings will need to be reassigned again, obviously). For this reason I don't even bother with using Save/Load buttons in controllers options menu, as copying the folder in Windows does exactly the same thing much faster.

IF for some reason You really, really want to use these in-game buttons still, remember, that You save bindings for every controller piece separately, i.e. You click the joystick column, save file, then hit throttle column, save another file, then hit keyboard column, save another file etc. Maybe that's why You had issues the previous time.

On the other hand for me after deleting windows 7 and installing windows 10 on clean slate the game just worked without need of installing... I just started it from the separate partition it was sitting after OS install. All I needed were the shortcuts from old desktop and the serial keys for the modules (I forgot to make a deactivation and now I am down to... 8 on almost all modules)

Also my 25GB worth of mods worked flawlessly.

As for controllers, I had a backup of my entire old user folder so all the settings were there and I just copy pasted them and then I needed to rename the diff files from old controller code to the new. To clarify a bit... Each time DCS starts on a clean OS it will detect attached controllers and create new diff files with a unique name. Each time. So if my old G940 joystick diff file was named: Logitech G940 Joystick {C6206340-E6FA-11e2-8009-444553540000}.diff now it is named: Logitech G940 Joystick {4C8A52E0-1C6F-11e6-800E-444553540000}.diff. So I need to rename the old ones with the new name and obviously delete the new ones that were just blanks/defaults.

Also Starway's mod works flawlessly but did modified it a bit to my likings. Here are few Shots:

http://imgur.com/a/8P8NJ

I must say, Barthek's textures look a bit more detailed. But it seems to be just ground textures, not buildings and grass for the time being. Some screen shots someone else took:

Both compared.

May give Barthek's new version a try. I did get Starway's to work eventually but the performance issues still exist. Frame rate counter may read 70-140 frame rates but there will be massive stutters so I assume it is a botched patch. Overall, I don't notice much of a difference in Starway's textures VS the default ones. I suppose if I were to switch back I would find the difference to be much more striking. Although they certainly are an improvement, just not night and day.

Doubt this will happen, but it would be nice if another stretch goal was announced for donations and if met ED would include it in a future update for free. Starway gets some money, ED gets some money for their trouble of implementing it, and everyone else benefits by having it by default.

I don't agree with that and it would set a precedence for DLC that would come back and haunt us.

The community should not be paying/donating for DCS content so ED can include it in their builds. ED are a business....if they want something they should pay for it, and should pay the author at commercial rates for the amount of time spent on it too. If 'we' paid for it you can guarantee we"d pay for it again further down the line somewhere else when ED 'deliver' it

In any case, the last thing ED needs is more content to tweak, integrate and test for every update they roll out when they are clearly struggling to get the core game sorted out in the first place and merged into a single dev branch.


EDIT: To be clear, that's not to say I disagree with the community paying for mods...quite the contrary. I'm all up for modders charging for the time, effort and resources that are put into their work.

Starways pack has the Noise1 texture (the base texture that covers almost all the map) made to look good from high altitude and not create a repeating bad pattern. This does work high but low is bad. I used B3OP Noise textures (made to match colors with Starway's pack) and things look a lot better down low.

Also the Small Noise texture is a blurry one and down low looks bad... like a bump mapping from older games. Really ruining for me. I used Barthek's small noise texture to get things a lot clearer down low.

The lua file for mirror is making for me a lot of FPS loss. Turning mirrors Off or editing that file for lower quality must increase FPS, also Pressing ALt+Enter to swith for true Full Screen helps.

Other than these... Starways pack is a lot better than what we had before. The trees make finally some sense, the hills, the Mountains... All is better.

He seems to have left the community from his last post.

Another mod maker I never heard of, it is a pity so many mod makers keep themselves to that forum, well, that is the way it is.

Link??

Check last post in his texture thread. Unless the mods deleted it.

it is somewhere in that forum

they did not delete the link, they deleted his attempt of adding a donation button, that, it seems, is a no-no.

You are confused. You are talking about Barthek, not Starway. Different person, different terrain mod, different donation issue.

at first, I confused Bartok with Barthek

Starway got his donation page while Barthek got his knuckles rapped, he should have asked before he attempted to add his donation button, the developer policy requires that they share in any profits accruing from using their platform, as per EULA.

Not to stray too far off topic, but are the Bartek textures still available for download somewhere? I can't find a download link in the first post in the thread at ED.

Starway's look good, but would love to try to the other's as well.

his thread was closed - he hasn't been banned yet, maybe he will find a way to come in agreement with the developer, thus earning some coppers out of his own work.

He had some less than positive remarks to make about forum management when he left, and he mentioned that the closing of the thread wasn't by his request at Reddit. Would expect the Forum Cheka to have acted sooner in light of that.

I am always sorry for people who dedicate so much time and effort to a game, just to end up like that.

If he really likes texturing maps, he should move to P3D-FSX, it is an open world where you can do as you please and even earn some money.

Thats a shame , is there anyone out there who has the download link

for this texture mod (Barthek) GROUND TEXTURES MOD 6.0

I don't know much about maps - but unless he keeps updating it, pretty soon it will not be compatible.

Just to steer the thread back to original topic, Starway has released update 2 for his pack, basically rework of most of the textures. Link for a new archive here:
http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2795895&postcount=1

Starway did a superb update with his 2.0! Looks much better than before!

Yes, the updated textures look fantastic, a big improvement!

They're much more resource-hungry as well, though, so it might be useful to keep the 1.1 zip somewhere, just in case (I did and had to revert back )

For these who struggle with uncompressed 8k textures of 2.0 update, here's a little addon for boosting up the performance with negligible drop in quality:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2811873&postcount=897

Hey, I just had a look at Starways new update. This looks so fantastic. It is the best mod I have seen so far. Unbelieveable that ED does not use this textures as standard. Would be a win win from my pov.

FYI:


---------------------------------------
DLC Update 2.4
---------------------------------------


The new 2.4 version of this DLC is ready for release

The testing phase is over which means the file will be available for public.

In this update, the main focus is on the distant textures. More than 16.0000 texture files have been edited. The result is a much more volumetric looking terrain with more contrast. The snowy mountain tops have been exchanged so it fits better to the overall look and the high resolution mountain textures. All the remaining high res textures like fields, grass and village textures have been retouched, to make them blend perfectly into the distance.











Download sources:

Direct download

Torrent:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:abzgn2h6bea3eqyyi7ysmjrotiipb7ek&dn=Starways%20Black%20Sea%20map%202.5.rar&xl=2222273347&fc=1

Installation via JGSME. Unzip file, copy and paste the complete content into your JGMSE-mod folder and overwrite old files.

Thanks again for all the people who are helping this product to grow with a donation!
You can find the donation button on my website: https://starwayblog.wordpress.com

Happy flying!
Starway

Anyone else seeing trees flicker when they get close to the aircraft with v 2.4?

Not a deal breaker by any means! The overall result is a great improvement! Thanks!

is that the new Mig-29 model?

New MiG-29A Model introduced in 1.5.4

I am a bit out of the loop - is it available in 2.0 as well ?

No.

a pity - I suppose there is also no template either.

Not that I know of, the templates usually dont show up until they know they are done adjusting the model.

I am sure that eventually it will be released.