homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation DCS World Campaign after Campaign - ED's new focus

With Enemy Engaged (EECH), Falcon Allied Force, Falcon BMS, Wings Over Flanders Fields, BoBII:WoV, FSX and Prepar3d with Tacpack and the entire Strike Fighters 1 and 2 Series (many of which are by the way are the sims that I currently play) we cannot for certain talk about a "wasteland" in terms of combat flight simming in the last 15 years (even if we disregard all the Russian sims).

Plus, if we didn't have the Russians developing combat flight sims than I'm pretty sure (or I strongly believe) that someone else would definitely fill in this niche market and perhaps we would even have have more immersive combat flight sims today.

So it would be pretty na�ve to think that if it wasn't for the Russians that we wouldn't have modern combat flight sims! I believe a proof of this is the new combat flight sim that's being developed, CAP2 (Combat Air Patrol 2) which is already in an "open alpha status" which came up with the objective of filling a niche market of immersive combat flight simulations, something that the Russians have failed miserably to fill and fit in!

Finally and by looking at your "list", it's interesting to note that (at least in my opinion) that the IL2 Series, namely IL2 1946 and CloD only got really good in the former case and any good at all in the later case when the Russians abandoned these sims and their development was taken over by "western developers".

Mate, I stand by my list. If it wasn't for Russian developers, combat flight simming would be dead by now.

The only one you've mentioned that I use is Falcon, and as soon as DCS releases F-18, that'll come off my HDD.

You need to have your funny bone looked at. Thanks for the pics... pity the sim doesn't play as good as it looks.



I never could understand some of the doomsday people here, acting as if we owe the ED devs just because they stepped in to fill the gap and we should all grovel and pick up the scraps that fall from their table. If there's a void, someone would step in and fill it. Or not. The world will still continue. No doomsday here.

How could you say that? You just said you fly Falcon... so combat flight simming isn't dead.


I've got a feeling BMS 4.34 may come out before DCS F/A-18. At the very least, you're looking at another year of Falcon goodness.

Most likely Half Life 3 will be out before Hornet.

depends on what effect you want to achieve - this one can take 4-6 weeks as this is a complete re-work of the original template and this is a template itself not a finished skin.



a simple version can take a couple of days - camouflage is very very work intensive because the skin is in a couple of dozen pieces that you have to connect.

Now you've just got insane.

Unlike HL3, we've seen 3d renders from Hornet. HL3 is all but admitted to have been abandoned.



The Jedi Master

And let me stand by my last point:
- I completely and totally disagree with you!




It's your loss.

You may only like to play those Russian sims, it's obviously your own right but don't come here saying that only modern Russian sims exists since (and my list proves it) this is false.

I don't think combat flight sim's would be dead, perhaps a lot WORSE off I would agree with. The delays are frustrating
yes, but I very much still appreciate what I have now in DCS and BMS.

In a year or two this will all be in the past (I hope). Yes things can always be better, this will never end.

I think what tagTaken2 means by falcon coming off this HDD? I will be perhaps in the same boat?

Once F18/F14 Carrier Ops SEAD, VR new maps.

2.5 merge with the NEW engine, then and with a lot more polishing over the next few years, yes just like BMS has done with F4 over many years, there will be no going back me thinks. One big thing BMS has got tho because of the lower fidelity with the maps lets them make very large areas plus with the bubble so performance stays good. I do like this about BMS, I still think it wont outweigh the smaller high fidelity maps and aircraft of DCS with VR and Carrier Ops.

You only need to look where DCS was 2 years ago to get an indication of what it will be like 2 years from now.....

not much progress, more unfinished modules, more announcements, ED taking on more work.....and missing all intended release dates.

Easily disproved.

You have two products. One is good, one is bad. So overall, it's 50% good.
You have one product and it is good. So overall, 100% good.
Just because there is choice does not mean it's better than less (or no) choices.



No. In a year or two we may finally have the Hornet. On Beta. Then it'll be a whole new can of worms that'll be opened. It'll be different, sure. I pray it will be better. But I'm not holding my breath.



You've obviously not been here when DCS A10C was in Beta. IMHO that was a much better product then. Further view distance, better fps, no stutters when bombs go off....



With a fast mover like the Hornet and Eagle, you'll want bigger maps if you want more realistic missions. Fuel management, A-A refuelling, etc. are all part of mission planning.

I do agree with you to an extent Paradaz. But ED took the DX11 update path for the future vision (Wags?), will it payoff, I think it is now and will even more in a few years once the NEW engine bumps are smoothed out a bit and with www2 fully setup with there own map etc... Also I'm OK with what I have in all the sims now and cannot wait for F14 FA18 etc to do SEAD carrier flights etc.

ED are into nutbagism and yes set the their own bar high and have to create all their new flightsim tech. Good idea? who knows...(Go and make goat sims, easier) Slow and painful and I take my hat off to them. If the FA18 is up with the A-10C I will be happy, even if that means waiting another year or two to get things sorted out.

Once the F18, F14, carrier ops, new maps, WW2 maps and planes, VR. DCS will then be the go to combat sim of the future. I will always have a soft spot for F4/BMS tho.

I bet ED cannot wait when this is altogether in one single package and to get to a level when they are just polishing up the product like BMS did with the 11+ million dollar F4 code.

Once together ED can then constantly (Never ending) polish up the weapon FMs, ballistics, Maps, etc. This is not far off I do hope, but as I said I'm happy now with all these great sims on my pc and are willing to wait.

Since "just polishing up the product" is not much of an income generator, I doubt they will ever settle back into that. There will have to be new content to sell to bring in more revenue.

Yes of course CyBerkut, A company should make as much money as they can to be in a good healthy financial position now and for the future, ED should and are using 3rd parties more and more which is the way to go for content (Apple itunes 30%?).

ED can then perhaps do less modules and or the technically challenging modules and some code to help 3rd parties only and really focus on their New DX11 core engine, ATC, Weapons etc and get them to a better level for quite sometime, ED also will be looking after any of the military contracts too.

We don't know but the military contracts could be one reason ED sometimes struggles with time as they would come first with requirements just like it does with steel beasts. If this is the case? It makes my point about using 3rd parties even more paramount.

I don't think ED will ever reach that 'polishing' stage either........partly because they don't actually have a roadmap for their desktop products. They are reactive to their commercial/government contracts so they have absolutely no idea where their desktop direction is actually going.

I've asked you this question before but I'll ask you again because you never answered it previously.......you're obviously optimistic that ED can deliver on all their promises and actually finish off the modules they've started - but is it just 'hope' or wishful thinking on your part because ED have never actually managed this on any of their products. For all their intent and statements about a modular and integrated world look where we're actually at in almost 2017 (8 years after their first DCS product).

It's all unfinished, the world is still in beta yet more and more products are announced. Even the mods have previously stated you will never see a 'complete' DCS, there will always be something on the go. So what makes you think that ED can actually pull it off? They have failed at every hurdle so far, they cannot hit their own intended deadlines, they don't communicate with customers very well and worst of all they don't learn from their mistakes - what gives you the confidence they can actually turn it around?

Don't get me wrong their products are great when they deliver, but it takes far too long to get there. When 2.5 is released, do you think it will be polished or do you think it will be half-baked with new issues for all other modules? Do you think ED will deliver 2.5 and then move onto the next chunk of work or do you think there will be years of follow-up bug fixing whilst new announcements dilute resources so that any developments and patches are maintained at a crawling pace? I think you already know what I think .......I just wonder what you are seeing differently to me or whether it's blind hope that gives you the optimism.

David's obviously smoking something and he's not sharing. Either that or he's just blind or ignorant (or both) about ED's track record.

First off, the move to DirectX11... was that really needed? Did that really trump all the bug-squashing and module-refining that needed to be done? I'm no master programmer, but DirectX is a graphics issue, right? "Fixing" DirectX does nothing for the non-graphically related bugs?

Second, the more they integrate stuff, the more likely it is to break in little areas. At what stage do they stop fixing stuff to move on to the next big project? We can see evidence of that now.... most things being put to the side and people are hoping "just get 2.5 out the door and things will be better." Really? I used to dread patching DCS because I knew some stuff wouldn't work or other stuff I needed for my custom views and widescreen setup would be transferred to different .lua files.

Third, what's the sense in allowing 3rd party to make modules and only get 30% if you can do the module and get 100%? Is the work needed to be done not worth the lost 70% income? I see the point of letting others do something you weren't going to do yourself anyway and thus get 30% for something you didn't really want to make, but for things like the Tomcat?

Paradaz is right.... the products are great, but they fly in a flawed environment. DCS A10C is awesome, no denying that. But when your view distance is so low and you get stutters when your bombs hit (or other people's bombs hit) and you get creamed by a sniper in a BMP, well, that becomes a different matter.

DCS is fine if all you want to do is fly around and take pretty screenshots. Maybe a little of "combat-lite" or simulating a training environment. After that, it struggles.

ED chose to rebuild from almost scratch and do the monumental task to move to DX11. Yes their choice and i believe it was the right one. Massive task!

So the modules and some fixes would be on some what of a hold here and there with the dynamic rebuilding and changing of the DCS new source code until some what lock down to a release state. I could only imagine the task at hand here.

This is mostly new sim tech and not old code, so ED will need quite a bit of time (Years) just like BMS to do the polishing up here on the new code. To me, I see it as common sense really and cannot wait till it's some what together. Not perfect of course, plus what is perfect anyway in a sim world?

So they will hold off on the weapons and ballistics updates and concentrate on having a stable 2.5 public release. Once this is to a good decent level, focus will perhaps return to weapons, ballistics and ATC.

Ice, ED could build a bigger team perhaps and make more modules themselves. I don't think they will ever not do modules, as it's a good buffer for the team perhaps anyway? But like you say Ice it would be better to keep ED focus and not get distracted and get this NEW world code with ATC, AI and better ballistics done and that alone will be a huge task. So don't try and juggle now and build bigger teams to manage and make 100% profit, well not yet anyway!

Ice, The Tomcat was probably a resources thing? F18, 2.5 etc. Good move other wise we might have seen the F14 in 2020.
Why doesn't Apple make all the content in iTunes and take 100% of the profit and not 30%?

Take the 30% and don't worry about any more management and infrastructure and focus on the work that ED should do and build the best combat fight simulation possible. I could also say here they are all unique and different artists and that's the reason Apple could never make their own content, I think this goes for ED and third parties too. It's simart to me.

Side note: ED, yo-yo is already working now on new ww2 penetration ballistics. Guess it will go well with the Normandy map.

That doesn't answer any of my questions at all. You say "i belive it was the right one" yet you don't even back up THAT statement.



Except that we can see that none of them were on hold. 3rd party aircraft still came out. Campaign DLCs still came out.



Just wanted to show you are spouting "new code" here. We'll see. I wonder how much of 2.5 will be new code vs. old code. New graphics code sure. But again, this is a combat flight simulator, not a "look at my new screenshot" simulator.

Also, do not make the mistake of comparing with BMS. Those guys had to reverse-engineer code. What do you think is harder? Making something new from scratch yourself or understanding someone's work then making it do new things?



Except that these problems existed even before the dive into 2.5. "Focus will perhaps return".... see? Even you aren't sure of that.



ED gets distracted enough as it is and yet they take on more work.



Stupid comparison. iTunes sells music, Apple develops tech. That's like saying ED is selling cakes from the ED shop.



"Best combat fight simulation"?? You're in the wrong genre, mate! Lack of spell-checking aside, sure. They want to do that. Whether they can is a different matter altogether, and we are seeing the result of it. Desire is one thing, implementation is another.



So what? What happens when mistakes are pointed out to his ballistics code?

Just exactly how does one backup a statement beginning with 'I believe'? Those two words are the backup. If someone said I believe the words in the bible, how would you expect them to back it up. A matter of faith has no backup since faith and belief are the backup.

Not taking either side here, just pointing out how silly that comment was.

"I believe that Product X is best suited for my needs because of [feature 1], [feature 2], and [feature 3]. I also belive that Product X is manufactured better because previous products from this manufacturer have been of exceptional quality. It also comes with a 5-year warranty... none of these exist with Product Y."

Belief = faith is a different thing.
Belief = firmly held opinion, especially an informed opinion, is another thing.

If he believes that ED made the right decision and is using "belief" in the "blind faith, acceptance without proof" way, then I guess I'm giving him too much credit.