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

Hi Durham welcome to Sim HQ

One of the big problems here in the combat sim niche market is staying afloat and not going down like say Microprose.

With DCS and Steel Beasts one thing very much helps them to stay afloat (Military contracts) this is why we also get the very high fidelity aircraft in DCS. Steel beasts too because the Military would have very specific training and some systems need to work like the real aircraft or tank. The A-10C for example started as the A-10C desktop training System DTS. It was used for training A-10A to A-10C in the class room.

ED should do whatever it takes to stay afloat.

Sure I would like ED or 3rd Party to build a dynamic campaign and perhaps they will one day?

Quote below from the developer of steel Beasts so you get an idea of the work money involved for a dynamic campaign.
"BMS, had a head start of more than 11 million USD that Microprose sunk into the engine's development.

I'm not the least diminishishing the accomplishment of the people that worked on Falcon after Microprose went bust - the very same people make up for 80% of the current Steel Beasts programmers' team - by saying that they built the BMS pyramid on the top of a very tall mountain that Microprose bulldozed into the landscape. "
End Quote.

DCS has only real 3D ballistic battles in real time like steel beasts; DCS is OK enough to be on the ground in a tank. This limits the playable area size and unit numbers tho for DCS and has no pretend chess playing war bubble to hide the large battles. The military would need and want to create very specific training and scripting suits that, not pretend behind the scene PC battles.

There will be many more aircraft and maps in DCS such as the F14, F18, Viggen, Strait of Hormuz etc.

Multiplayer, single player will come down to mission builders and some imagination using the assets in said mission. I would like to see proper missions setup with online briefings, little or a lot of strategy going on for both sides. SEAD, HAVCAP, CAS. Not sure if this would be possible? Perhaps the mission resets every 2 hours. You can only respawn so many times? Or have so much resources? This would possibly take some setting up and not sure how automated you could do it or would even be popular for Multiplayer.

Perhaps have the gazelles and Ka-50s close in to the front and make it important the CAP tries to protects them while they take out the convoy of trucks / the resources for the red team etc. The BARCAP will also have to protect the ships from the Viggen too!

I also use BMS, they have done a fantastic job bringing F4 to where it is today. I very much recommend try it if you haven't? BMS Website. I'm not bias here to much lol, I like most of the sims, very much into the Majestic q400 these guy's only focus on this one aircraft and build IRL simulators around their software for training real pilots, it's a Crazy detailed simulation.

If you look at what MIST offers, x1 time compression, very simple AI vs AI dynamic campaign(area securing, that is moving AI ground force back and forth accordance to situation change, creating AI flight to support ground in the AO automatically accordance to situation change) is already achievable with using MIST.

We dont yet have an official developer support of "human player" actually participating in such a mission though. !!!other than "ALT+J"!!!
(Official support Im talking about is GUI or system we have in Falcon4.0, such as realtime mission planning, creating flight manually...etc)

Maybe they should stop worrying about "staying afloat" and start worrying about making a good product, finishing modules, and meeting deadlines?



Apparently, that includes pissing off customers, silencing negativity, and calling un-official 3rd-party key sellers thieves.



They made a poll about this. There was CLEAR DEMAND for a dynamic campaign. Are they even hinting about building one?? Nope!



Groan!! This again?

So BMS had a head start from Microprose... what about ED with Flanker and LOMAC? So BMS built on Microprose's $11 million investment... and ED did not put anything into Flanker/LOMAC/FC? The difference here is that one team builds upon the existing framework. The other insists on re-writing the script for no apparent reason.



That is the future. For all you know, BMS may beat DCS in VR implementation, but we're not bragging about anything until it's actually here.



So basically, you want to enjoy the sim based on the hard work of someone else. Sure, fly-ins are fun. Sure, large MP events are cool. What happens in between though? What happens when you realize that the lake is miles and miles across but really only an inch deep?

I know I and many others are happy to pay 40 bucks for the DCS: Spitfire LF Mk. IX and the Normandy map is not even out yet! The flight model alone would be worth the 40 entry for me anyway.

I do admire how you guys think how easy it would be managing a company like ED (1991). What they do is the tip of the spear in combat flight simulation. I know lots need polishing with this new engine, but I still stick with they made the right choice for their future taking the plunge to DX11. Yes it has set them back but its also setup their future moving forward.

I will always have a soft spot for F4, but for me it's starting to show it's age graphically, steal beasts next move will be to step up to DX11 this is a huge move for a small developer. F4 will keep churning along no doubt and I do hope they have VR support? Do you need DX11 for this? How does FlyInside do it for FSX? Maybe something like FlyInside would be the way to go for BMS.

I'm excited to see how things go over the next year or two. DCS will be fine, you guys are so pessimistic, I cannot wait for the F14, F18.

I do wish ED setup away to setup flights the same way in F4 BMS. Right click choose SEAD area + airport done. This would speed up flight creating greatly.

We were all very excited about DCS 2.0, NTTR, F18 yaddah yaddah 2 years ago aswell......but look where we're at. STILL WAITING for ED to actually finish everything, preventing further delays and to stop releasing half-assed content with no idea of actual release dates long after they've taken our money.

Thats why we're pessemistic. We all had optimism years ago when we were awaiting the same products that you're still waiting for now.

Been there, done that, got little return for our money. Rinse. Repeat.

They saw the campaign part, saw some quick bucks from their all too eager for anything new die hard supporters, started throwing out "meh campaigns" but completely ignored the dynamic part. That's all right "those idiots will buy anything and thank us for it". Oh well some folk would buy a bag of dead puppies if DCS was stamped on the bag.

Dog Carcass Sack

I think your main purpose in life Ice is to just be a fault finder. Instead of trying to read and understand what I had wrote you just want to pick a fight and find fault with every little word. I have stated several times that I was just repeating what ED had said in their posts, and I have provided links where possible. I also stated I wasn't trying to defend them, just passing on information. But you have to break down every little sentence and find whatever little inconsistency you can. I'm done trying to discuss anything with you because you have such a terrible negative attitude towards anything anyone says.

What you call being pessimistic is indeed and for a fact being realistic.

OH and by the way, before the (pro-DCS) argument "but ED still exists while for Microprose which developed F4 is no more and so ED is doing the right thing..." comes up again, let me remind you that the SOLEand ONLY reason why ED is still in business is because they got military contracts (certainly worth millions of USDs) while others (like Microprose) didn't and others specially the "big boys" like EA with it's Jane's series moved to more "mainstream" gaming because this pleased the shareholders the most due to the perceived (and realistic I admit) fact that "mainstream gaming" is much more profitable.

And by keeping this "strategy" (if we can call it a strategy) I would say that ED won't likely get any military contracts in the future as well. Speaking of which has DCS received any military contracts lately??

Well MicroProse did bite off more then they could chew with the Dynamic campaign and thats why ED would hold off on doing it + it may not be profitable to do? you would need to check the market. I have part of an article in the making, and some of it is about how ED is walking in perhaps some of MicroProse perhaps once planed footsteps? Or should I say Gilman Louie's footsteps and Gilman who also has done lot for the CIA too.

Falcon F3 was a better business model like ED is today. F4 was better for the flight sim gaming community, a great vision, not so much for business tho and it was very lucky it was leaked so it could see its full potential and the only way for this to happen was that it needed to be open sauce and the community to finish it for free. Why else work on F4 if not for just dedicated passion?

This part below is interesting
"Falcon 3.0 was sold as being the first of a series of inter-linked military simulations that Spectrun Holobyte collectively called the "Electronic Battlefield". Two games released in this range were the 1993 flight simulators for the F/A-18 (Falcon 3.0: Hornet: Naval Strike Fighter) and the MiG-29 (MiG-29: Deadly Adversary of Falcon 3.0) that could be played as stand-alone games or integrated into "Electronic Battlefield" network games."

DCS was Stand-alone and now is an "Electronic Battlefield" with DCSW

and this www.thebattlesim.com

Some of DCS is to also help with marketing, NTTR is a good example here for NATO or other allied nations to use and get very familiar to the area, this is perhaps as to why the work involved and the map resolution for VFR flying etc. Or perhaps if you are in the military and want to see what its like before you go and fly there. This may persuade them to get a fighter of their own built for training after experiencing the mirage 2000 or the A10C etc.

If you want to get as close as you can to experiencing what it would be like to fly a ww2 bird, jet or helicopter it's DCS.

If you want to feel and experience a very large war around you then F4 BMS.

If you want feel and experience accurately how it would be with better graphics and great voice overs, then try one of the campaigns like Operation Piercing Fury made by a real soldier.

Soon two weeks, if you want to feel and experience accurately how it would be to land an F14 or F18 on a carrier in VR then DCS. Perhaps this is something the military could use too?

And so would I, but I actually want them to 1) finish a module and 2) provide a good environment to fly in. As it is, the "modern" map is struggling and the "WWII" map doesn't have enough assets to be flying against. I could take ED's silly forum moderation if they actually released good products with good theatre support.


"Tip of the spear" and "cutting edge technology" are terms not really synonymous with ED's work; you claiming it is so without even backing it up just makes the whole situation silly. They make enough blunders just "moving forward," I doubt they needed a big obstacle such as integration of DX11 and I wonder how they imagined they could surmount it.


Ah, see, there's the crux of the matter right there. BMS has shown that "modern graphics" is not a requirement for an immersive COMBAT flight simulation; I'm sure Steel Beasts have done the same. Modern graphics will be nice, sure. So many times as I taxi out to the active, I wished I had DCS-level ground textures and grass. VR will be nice too, but I'll need some way to do cockpit work efficiently with the headset on. But these things are icing on the cake.


Might need to wait a little more than 2 years.



*sigh.... another one.
I'm not moaning and whining about the positive posts people keep putting up. I agree and support with those that are indeed true, but I challenge and contest those that do not appear to be logical. Instead of complaining, maybe you should try defending your point. Repeating what ED has said won't get you anywhere especially when what you put forward holds no water every time it's put to the test; if it did, you'd be pointing out those counter-arguments instead of what you've written above, I would bet.

If you want to discuss something, then there are two or more sides to the issue. If all you wanted was an all-around high five and pats on the the back, maybe you'll be more suited to a different, "more reputable" forum. Over here, statements and ideas tend to get challenged.



ED has already bitten off more than it could chew RIGHT NOW, they'd have an aneurysm if they tried to do a DC. Making sure missions and campaigns don't get borked post-patch seems to keep them busy enough!

Also, it's unfair and incorrect to say that it was the DC that killed MicroProse as there were definitely other factors involved. As for ED, well, there is a clear demand for a DC as their very own poll suggested, therefore there is a market for it. Are they tapping into that market? Obviously NOT! That is how *difficult* it is to manage a "tip of the spear" company dealing with "cutting edge technology".... make a poll asking your customer base what they want and then NOT do it.



Firstly, LOL @ "open sauce"... hehehehe.... As for your next question, well, why not? The DC is there, assets are there.... so yes, passion but also the platform itself was worth modding to begin with.



I'm not sure exactly how you are using the "stand alone" term here.



Or FSX/P3D/XP10/XP11. Or RoF (WWI?). Or IL2.



I may be wrong now, but so does Jane's F/A-18 and EECH in my experience years ago. But yeah, +1 to BMS/AF.



Two years, at the very least. Not two weeks. Also, what makes you think the military is interested in this? The F-14 is retired and I'm pretty sure they'll have their own simulators for the F-18 at this stage.

Well if it wasnt the dynamic campaighn then what? Not the flight model because BMS had to re do the FM (link).

11+ million on a crappy FM? No then what did they spend it on?

Some specific maneuvers were impossible to perform in F4, like knife edge pass, very low speed loop�

Many FLCS features were very poorly simulated or even worse compared to the real A/C: CAT 3, Cruise Gains, Landing Gear (LG) Gains. This lead sometimes the virtual pilot to do the exact opposite than the real pilot to perform the same action. Forward pressure on the stick to maintain landing glide slope while the real A/C demands a constant back pressure is an example,

Some FLCS features were not even simulated: Aileron Rudder Interconnection (ARI), roll rate control module, the FLCS trying to maintain 1G flight, etc�,

Total absence of aerodynamics or inertial coupling whereas this is one of the main subjects of the F-16 and 80% of the FLCS is dedicated to manage those couplings,

Stall behaviors and recovery were entirely scripted, reflecting very poorly all the departures possible for the real F-16 (roll departures for instance),

Very poor modeling of the rudder and more generally of the yaw problems,

Basic mechanics concepts like inertia were poorly implemented,

Ground behavior and continuity between air and ground was completely faked making any landing completely unrealistic,

No convincing interaction with the Air mass: wind & turbulence effects.

"From this analysis, in August 2006 we decided to develop completely new FM code that could not only handle a far more realistic F-16 but also general NFBW aircraft."



IL2 / RoF now that's funny Ice.

X-Plane is the only one that perhaps gets a little closer to DCSW with the flight models of only the top developers. The only FSX is the majestic Q400, but they use the NASA sim tech not FSX.

majesticsoftware.com
"In addition, to the advanced simulation of the aircraft systems, this product also contains an independent Flight Dynamics Engine (FDE), capable of running at a much higher rate than the default simulator FDE, and free of the inherent problems pertaining to the default aircraft flight dynamics. Our Flight Dynamics is capable of providing the realistic wind simulation, icing effects, enhanced propeller physics including the propeller discing and auto rotation, effects of the propeller airstream on the wing lift and the icing effects on the propeller, wings and the flight surfaces."

No one hits or gets close to the numbers for edge of the envelope like you can in DCSW. Take Razbam, I bet they love to see there aircraft in a sim that their aircraft completely deserve and where they really wanted them to be. Same with the harrier and I cant wait for this one too.

See in DCSW, Razbam is not held back at all which is good and bad. Slower to develop in DCS tho because it allows you to go all out high tech. But this is what all the 3rd Party's must love to do and thats why they now develop for DCSW.

Ok, you're the one making the claim that DC is the cause. Prove it.



Haha. Are you really, really, REALLY saying that DCS is at the same level as XP10/XP11 in terms of flight models? I'm betting this is along the lines of ED being "tip of the spear" company using "cutting edge technology," huh?

Please cite evidence for this also. I hope you come up with something better than what Sobek has tried to put forth.



Another claim that you fail to provide evidence for. Let's see what you got.

We are talking way different scope here and I find it hard that you cannot grasp this Ice.

Building FM's for civilian aviation is way different to military. Guys that use FSX and X-Plane do procedure flights and most of the developers only build FM's in this region because they can cost a lot especially edge of the envelope (Wind tunnel data).

To compare you would need a developer to build a stunt plane and see if you can hit the real numbers performing the same stunts performed IRL. FSX cannot do that and again the Q400 was built outside of FSX as this is used to train IRL pilots.

We know in DCSW you cant fake the numbers, because of the many passionate combat simmers ready to jump all over ED if a rivet is missing.

I'm trying to do a big write up of all this with resources soon Ice.

You should post it here at SimHQ so it can go through a proof-reading

I totally got where Sobek was coming from with the Kalman Filter theory for multiplayer code.

"Kalman filtering, also known as linear quadratic estimation (LQE), is an algorithm that uses a series of measurements observed over time, containing statistical noise and other inaccuracies, and produces estimates of unknown variables that tend to be more precise than those based on a single measurement alone."

I.E what was the plane doing (series of measurements observed over time). All calculated on the person flying the planes, on their PC. Then sent to other pc's based on this predicted estimate. This is only when it's needed(Lag)

Its just a math equation or (linear quadratic estimation) that could be use in the code to help multiplayer code stop morphing across the screen etc.

That's exactly what I was talking about in terms of "Pro-DCS argument", that argument is FALSE, period!

MicroProse demise has nothing to do with Falcon 4 dynamic campaign! You "DCS people" need to STOP this FALSE arguments! You want to argument, fine and right go ahead it's in your own right but for "Christ sake" don't use false arguments.

MicroProse financial problems started before 1996, which is well before any impact that Falcon4 with its dynamic campaign might have had on the company.
Later MicroProse was bought by the "giant" Hasbro which felt that combat flight simulations weren't the way to go (for the newly acquired MicroProse) and as such Hasbro/Microprose abandoned the combat flight sim market and as such promptly released Falcon 4 and the rest is history!

Beside, if there's any impact of the Dynamic Campaign on Falcon4, that impact is largely and overly POSITIVE (and definitely not negative) because Falcon4 still sells today (and as such still gives profit to someone) and this reason can almost solely be attributed to the Dynamic Campaign. Of course there's the BMS mod, but if Falcon4 didn't have such an awesome dynamic campaign would BMS ever made it's mode for it? My personal opinion is NO!

Anyway, you can read more about MicroProse here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroProse


It sure doesn't look like Falcon4 Dynamic Campaign was the culprit for Microprose's demise. But saying this suits your Pro-DCS agenda, doesn't it??

"MicroProse financial problems started before 1996" then it was a good idea then to spend 11+ million on development then?

F4 was not profitable and would never get it's development money even back, of course Hasbro ditched F4. That is why it was leaked too I guess because of a dedicated coder that wanted to see it finished. The owner now of the I.P (Tommo) makes a little profit yes $7 dollars on steam, but they didn't dump the millions and millions into F4. Smart move by Tommo and have now joined to support BMS another smart move. Perhaps they want to develop or invest in maps and put them on steam too? Aircraft? Not sure if this would be feasible?

I do use BMS and many flight sims, I would say I'm more pro flightsim in general. I recommend all the sims for different reasons, it depends what your after in your simming. Some like war thunder?

Falcon F3 was a better profitable business model, the problem back then was distribution and internet speeds. No steam etc. People actually had to walk into the shop to buy games, I purchased AF this way back in the day, that was around 2005.

DCSW is setup more like Falcon F3 with modules. In hindsight Microprose should have started to investing money in an infrastructure like steam and may have become valve / steam today. But that is another topic and hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Again DCS is different beast. ED is a company and needs to turnover in today's world in the combat flight sim market. ED is still here! from way back when.

So pouring money (Mega dollars) into something the military will never use doesn't sound like a good idea? DCS has only real 3D ballistic battles in real time like steel beasts; DCS is good enough to be on the ground in a tank. This limits the playable area size and unit numbers tho for DCS and has no pretend chess playing war bubble to hide the large battles. The military would need and want to create very specific training and scripting suits that, not pretend behind the scene PC battles.

So it comes down to cost and if DCSW could handle that many REAL battles going on with REAL Ballistics? It would need to be setup and faked like F4 chess playing engine. How long to develop? What is the market size and how much could ED or 3rd party sell it to the civilian market for?

It seems like the first release of Falcon 4.0 was rushed to the market in order to sell during the Christmas holidays. Was the code mature enough for this initial release?

I�d agree that the product was shipped in a pretty buggy state, but I couldn�t honestly say the first release of Falcon 4.0 was rushed. It took about 5 years to build and the last 9 months we were working 12-16 hour days (They had a hotel booked across the street, so my wife ended up staying there so that we could even see each other). It was a huge challenge to just finishing the thing; this was an incredibly complex product that really wasn�t planned out or managed well at all. Because of the complexity and lack of central design it became really difficult to find and fix the many, many bugs in the program. In the end we could have taken another year and still had open bugs, but at eventually you�ve got to get it out there. MicroProse was bleeding money at the timeand Falcon already had the stigma of vaporware, so at some point we had to determine that it was good enough and then work hard on patching the problems.

Kevin Klemmick � Lead Software Engineer

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.


What I see and have been writing about lately is how ED has walked a very different path to these big hitting players back in the nineties. ED could never have spent the money on developing Dynamic Campaign engine and perhaps never wanted to because its not viable and could break them trying, ED was never that big or powerful like these company's, ED is and always was a small privately owned company that's still here building combat sims today.

If ED or a 3rd Party was to eventually do a type of Dynamic Campaign engine then the way they are going would be the correct way.

ED and some of the 3rd party's now have a good income source, take Leatherneck with the MiG 21 and now soon the viggen in the ED shop. Good Viggen sales on launch and good steady sales for many many many years to come, same for the Mig 21. The F14/F18, well you know how this will go and how many will this pull in from all the other fight sims? How many more modules will they buy off ED and 3rd parties? So this has to be done right and ED will take the time to get it there.

ED has stuck to building up the very high fidelity modules (Best in the flightsim business in my opinion and many others agree) Now they have a few 3rd Parties that also want to build accurate simulations too at this level.

The FM and systems of ED's and 3rd parties alone are worth every cent of the entry. Only guys such as PMDG, Majestic and A2A are anywhere near this level of system and FM modeling but have no World to look after, ED now can fully focus on the NEW World and polish it up, just like BMS and many others have done for F4. Yes this will take some time because it is cutting Edge coding building your OWN graphics engine. It will be worked on and tweaked forever just like F4 has over the 17 years and is still being worked on today.

This to me was the right way to go to stay in business and make coin to invest in more development now and take the time to do it.

Such as..
Redoing the AI for (Ground, Air ww2, Air Jet, Helicopters etc)
Redoing or updating the weapon ballistics (Add proper FM's to the missiles etc)
Add better damage models this goes hand in hand with the ballistics model.
Better weather, clouds etc.
Better communications, ATC etc.

ED's 3D design and texture artists..
F18 and new maps

Because of the level of fidelity in DCSW, I'm quite surprised how far they have come, considering their size and moving up to DX11 by rebuilding a new graphic engine for the future of DCSW, ED and 3rd parties.

The Harrier FM is going to be real cool to tryout in DCSW. Go RAZBAM. Check it out in Silver Dragon's first update HERE.