An "sim lite" - Lock-On/Flaming Cliffs style, without click-pit featuring some of actual DCS modules - for "casual players".
Quote
Key Features of MAC: • 14 exceptional combat aircraft from the United States, Russia, China and Czech Republic. • Shallow learning curve with consistent key controls between aircraft, and easy to fly with just a keyboard. • Professional level flight models, but with option for forgiving flight dynamics. • Play instant action, single missions and campaigns for most aircraft in single player or fly online. • Supports Virtual Reality like Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality. • Includes the Caucasus map and portions of Nevada and the Persian Gulf. • Purchase MAC aircraft individually or as a pack at a reduced price. Flaming Cliffs 3 owners can purchase the MAC pack at a great discount.
"More than a quarter of a century delivering high fidelity combat simulation"
LIES!
There are so many things that makes this game not only a shallow combat game but also the opposite of FIDELITY COMBAT SIMULATION (eg. useless long range missiles, useless proximity fuze, etc..)
Problem with DCS is that it sucks as combat simulation but also as simple plain combat game.... but i hope things will DRASTICALLY change
The difficulty with DCS is I need to keep my hours up in an aircraft to know how to fly it, and I just don't have time for maintenance flight time
True, that is a very real thing aboot the high-end modules and probably the reason I do not fly A-10C since forever. Still I think repacking the current planeset will show a mistake and give ED another section of disgruntled customers. All they needed to arrange was 4 brand new FC3 level planes and ship them as pack #1 in MAC. Who the hell runs that place?
The difficulty with DCS is I need to keep my hours up in an aircraft to know how to fly it, and I just don't have time for maintenance flight time
True, that is a very real thing aboot the high-end modules and probably the reason I do not fly A-10C since forever. Still I think repacking the current planeset will show a mistake and give ED another section of disgruntled customers. All they needed to arrange was 4 brand new FC3 level planes and ship them as pack #1 in MAC. Who the hell runs that place?
(was my Canadian accent spot on?)
lol theOden, you horribleSwede, you are bang on! Me mom's a brit so there's that too
The difficulty with DCS is I need to keep my hours up in an aircraft to know how to fly it, and I just don't have time for maintenance flight time
True, that is a very real thing aboot the high-end modules and probably the reason I do not fly A-10C since forever. Still I think repacking the current planeset will show a mistake and give ED another section of disgruntled customers. All they needed to arrange was 4 brand new FC3 level planes and ship them as pack #1 in MAC. Who the hell runs that place?
(was my Canadian accent spot on?)
I don't see the problem with that. My problem is the plane selection is fairly lame, IMO. I already own the MIG-21 and it isn't that complex. My understanding is the F-5E is fairly similar. Meaning there isn't much of a difference between those and the higher fidelity models. L-39? I'm sure it is somewhat fun to fly, but for those of use who want something simpler we're more interested in the combat and the L-39 is underwhelming for that task to put it lightly. Trainers make sense for high fidelity modules, little for something like MAC. Same with the MIG-15 and F-86. Again, practically no difference between the high fidelity versions. Even worse though, there isn't much time period equipment for them to fight against...
I'd love to see a F-18C or F-16C, which are coming as full fidelity modules later, added in a sequel bundle. I wouldn't care one bit if they offered a full fidelity version of them. I'd even be interested in more modern variants of the FC3 aircraft. An Su-27SM2, MIG-29SMT or MIG-29K come to mind. A Mirage 2000-5F or -5 would also be interesting... I am sure the flight dynamics and external model are close enough to the C variant in game to modify. Main work would be a few new weapons, counter measures, and cockpit. But I'd certainly be interested in that, as it clearly isn't possible to model anything more than a C sub variant at the full fidelity level.
But the line up for MAC? Not very interesting. We'll see how much they ask for those that own FC3 to upgrade.
It seems to be aimed strictly at new customers who haven't played any ED sim yet and aren't into "clickability" anyway. Not much content for us old farts (though FC3 owners will appreciate tweaks to their planes). The concept is sound, but plane selection, not so much? I agree with Flogger. I'm not sure if it's the right time to employ FC3 sequel just yet. More coherent lineup released next year would probably be more successfull in my opinion.
My big gripe about MAC is that most of the load is on the System Modelers to get it out by fall. Resources are being taken that could be finishing the Hornet systems. ED now has a big backlog of aircraft to put out with my favorite the F-4E Phantom at the end of the line.
On the plus side, Magnitude 3 LLC should get some money from MAC for the MIG-21bis. We are also getting dedicated servers by fall. Hopefully we get some netcode improvements with that.
I'm IN! Looks great to me. Just jump in a DCS aircraft and fly without a lot of learning. Sounds like a lot of fun! I liked Jane's Strike Fighters when it didn't keep crashing.
Main PC: ASUS P8Z77 - Intel I7 3770K OC to 4.4GHZ - Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro GeForce GTX 970 16 Gig G.Skill Ares DDR3 Samsung EVO SSD 500GB Plenty of storage Windows 7 64bit ASUS PB278Q @ 2560x1440
SIMPIT: ASUS Prime Z370-A, I7 8700K, H80i-V2 watercooler ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 2080 Windows 10 64bit 32GB 2400 DDR4 memory Thrustmaster Warthog - 2-TM MFDs Saitek Combat Rudder Pedals,4 -FIPs, TPM, Radio, Multipanel, Switch Panel, Pro Flight Yoke 3 - 32" Samsung monitors-1920x1080, 22" Samsung monitor
If they 're gonna pair up aircraft from both sides, the F-5 and the Mig-21 are a ridiculous grouping. F-4 makes more sense. But then again, there's no F-4 for ED to rehash.
Meh, this just adds to the sense that they have no idea what to do with their platform. Instead of fragmenting their effort even more, I'd rather have them work more on the existing bits of DCS to make them coherent and less of a messy sandbox (and also optimise the performance...), but it really doesn't look that this will ever happen.
Wait, I get to pay for the exact same thing I already have, at greatly reduced cost, and the possibilities are endless, wow, what a deal. You DCS guys, you. I didn't know what I was doing.
You guys are looking at this from the vantage point of someone who already owns some of this stuff. They're going after the ones out there who don't. I just don't see anything wrong with that. The success of BOX should show that this is what most people want. It's a beautiful game, with just enough complexity to make it interesting but simple enough that anybody can get in and fly those airplanes. That's who they're going after. And those people aren't worrying about whether airplanes aren't matched up correctly. There's a bigger market for survey sims such as that than there is for DCS study types. This could be a real moneymaker if it's marketed correctly. It's a buisiness, boys. And that's where the money is.
"From our orbital vantage point, we observe an earth without borders, full of peace, beauty and magnificence, and we pray that humanity as a whole can imagine a borderless world as we see it, and strive to live as one in peace." Astronaut William C. McCool RIP, January 29, 2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia
Did not mention it, but it is fairly clear from the post really over the top, that they are targeting FC3 owners, if not as their primary customer, whether you choose to read between the lines or not. If someone who owns FC3 tries to purchase it, and the server says "no", let me know.
You guys are looking at this from the vantage point of someone who already owns some of this stuff. They're going after the ones out there who don't. I just don't see anything wrong with that. The success of BOX should show that this is what most people want. It's a beautiful game, with just enough complexity to make it interesting but simple enough that anybody can get in and fly those airplanes. That's who they're going after. And those people aren't worrying about whether airplanes aren't matched up correctly. There's a bigger market for survey sims such as that than there is for DCS study types. This could be a real moneymaker if it's marketed correctly. It's a buisiness, boys. And that's where the money is.
I have to agree. I own most of the Study sims, but I just don't have the time to study, become proficient and stay proficient in even one study sim anymore. I probably won't buy any of these dumb'ed down modules because I need to upgrade my computer to use DCS with good (I love the eye candy) results. Honestly I have pretty much stopped using DCS because of the spec requirements, but if I can ever afford to upgrade again I honestly probably will buy some of theses, especially if they offer a discount to me. To those that can maintain being proficient and have fun with one or more of the study sims, my hat's off to you in respect, but I don't see any reason to shame those that can't or do not want to anymore for whatever reason they might have. As Pooch said,"The success of BOX should show that this is what most people want". Once my intial Track IR and Hotas are set up I'm off to learn the FM and characteristics of the Sim and in relatively short time I can achieve decent proficiency and maintain it rather easily. I think there are probably a lot of customers out there that want to fly the modern stuff but don't really care to sort through 5 different radar modes, scan at different altitudes and pre-cool the seeker heads on the missiles before they can find a target to engage, if they find it at all. Again, my hat's off to all that do, you are better pilots than I am, but I believe ED has seen the huge potential market that did fly Flaming cliffs 3 and would buy in to be able to fly in DCS again at that level as the time and effort needed is easier to budget into RL. This is IMHO of course. Carry on!
In case anyone still wondering why ED started to sell FC3 modules as separate modules, it's because they didn't want you to buy FC3 but get more revenue when planes are bought separate and oh if you did buy them as separate, you will not get a discount from MAC.
Give a man fish and he gets food, give a man a fishing rod and he asks for another one.
