DCS 2.5/2.7 Update Thread (2021)

Oooh, beautiful!!

Found a better word: Atmospheric!

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Appears there was 1 shot from the A-6 cockpit.

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@komemiute will freak out for sure :wink:

edit: itā€™s still only AI plane (you can get that kind of shot through custom camera placement from F4 view)

edit2: the clouds update is planned for March.

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Hmm whats that tadpole doing there? :a6:

Also DAM son! Thatā€™s one helluva trailer they put out! Sierra Hote
malik isaac taylor omg GIF

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just saw this on hoggit :grinning:
(from discord I guess)

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Sorry for the belated messageā€¦ I had to pick up my jaw from the floor and pamper my wife.

I have to ensure myself enough leeway to buy that thing day one without repercussions.

I am absolutely flabbergasted.
Itā€™s too awesome to be just an AI model.
Yes the camera placed inside the cockpit is probably a gimmick so I only lost a few heartbeats on that.

The thing is it features so prominently that it does mean something. Anything.

Iā€™m ok with having it AI first and eventually transition to Playable.
Iā€™m fine with waiting three more years.

Iā€™m fine. Actually I feel great. :smiley:
Look at all the rest too, clouds, terrains, optimisationā€¦

Mudspikettes and Mudspikers- the future couldnā€™t look any brighter!

Thank you Eagle Dynamics.

Edit : as @EightBall pointed out, I was right.
But then again, it wasnā€™t that hard to guess. HB stated that many times in the past. This is just further confirmation.
Iā€™m so happy!

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Damn, I canā€™t wait

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The clouds look fantastic.

do want i need it GIF

I hope they will not compromise VR performance.

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:
c6c55a2d472b553a7287ea899ad35a19

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Was it me; did anyone notice a new terrain in there? I couldnā€™t tell - CUZZ ALL THOSE DANG
CLOUDS were in the way! :wink:

Get those clouds off my lawn! :wink:

E.D. now can we work on the AI?

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Fighter pilots make movies. Bomber pilots make history.

An A-6 is a day 1 buy for me. I still havenā€™t finished learning the one module I have. But Iā€™ll buy another if its an A-6ā€¦

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Same here. Maybe day 2.

Like you Iā€™m unable to stay proficient in the modules I currently own. Thatā€™s one of the key values in this sim to me; to ā€˜get goodā€™ on any hi-fi module takes an amount of time representative of the real thing. At least from my perspective. Then ya gotta git guud at AR. And landing at the boat. Andā€¦andā€¦

And their flight models. Along with VR I get to pretend I understand this stuff and feel like Iā€™m actually commanding a thing through the atmosphere.

I give Eagle Dynamics credit: Iā€™d imagine the bean counters might argue itā€™s more profitable to give the masses a continuous supply of fish sticks, rather than a fishing rod & reel. Thank goodness there are enough people out there that like to fish.

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Iā€™m really excited by the Hornet tutorial campaign rumors. I think that good, dynamic, on topic tutorials would be great for not only getting to know the planes but also staying current in them. Iā€™m not a hard user. I donā€™t know how to create missions to hone my skills, I donā€™t do a lot of multiplayer, and I spend long periods of time without playing. Maybe there are more people like meā€¦

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'Cept I do play often. What you just described has been going through my head as Iā€™m writing a little ā€˜Lua Thingā€™ for DCS. I stepped back from the code for a bit and realized I was building something similar to what you are speaking of. Mostly as part of the process of testing various paths but now you have me thinking some moreā€¦hmmā€¦

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You know, I think about it a lot. I had a lot of fun learning to fly the Hornet, obviously I had a lot of fun inside DCSā€™s sandbox, with all itā€™s sophistication. But it almost felt I was having fun despite of DCS. ITā€™s juts the barebones nature of it, that leaves so much to the user, made the experience a lot more frustrating and occasionally boring. Why not did the interface, software and content held my hand a little better, maybe had me see more and more certifications that I could collect as I was doing more and more complex stuff, progressively. Maybe told my graduating story with some recurring characters, the hardened grumpy old instructor. The supportive colleague, you know? Because learning all that took like 60-80 hours of gameplay. More than most games Iā€™ve playedā€¦

I know game logic donā€™t apply to a lot of stuff on simulators, but I feel a missed oportunity there.

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Good idea, for sure.

However, Iā€™m not big on the theatrical side of things (just no talent/imagination on my part) but thatā€™s just me, personally.

And being in the aviation world for so long I miss the professionalism (nothing is 100% of course :slight_smile: ); working in an eviron where there were rules and procedures; dedication to the big picture; a system where individual ā€˜personality traitsā€™ werenā€™t at the forefront - there was a job to do and everyone did it, despite those traits. No hyperbole.

Some, but not all, campaigns seem to feel the need to lean more towards drama, that isnā€™t necessary IMO. The task of getting all that stuff working, with or without combat, was dramatic enough. I had drama every single day it seemed likeā€¦

But whateverā€¦Iā€™m hoping this ā€˜thingā€™, well at least the audio, sounds more like what you would actually hear in the real world and less likeā€¦hmmmā€¦CB radio chatter. Are CB radios still a thing (thinking out loud)?

So far, given the limitation of DCS (a big one is handling radio frequencies, but thatā€™s another topic - Iā€™ve resolved it, mostly, with a ā€˜hackā€™), Iā€™m starting to see something that should better represent a system that one might encounter in the wild.

Then you have a campaign where that environment is both consistent and at a high level realistic; mix in a syllabus for each aircraft and, vi-ola! something you can jump into and do a refresh. I guess sorta like ā€œwork upsā€ I hear the Navy does/did prior to the fleet deploying. Most likely a series of mini-campaigns as the campaign system progresses linearly.

The trick (WORK!) is making these mission easier - faster - to produce. Thatā€™s where 90% of my sweat is being spent at the moment. A scaffolding, or structure, where you can spend most of your time adding the details and less duplicating the environment. Then thereā€™s contentā€¦it always boils down to creating a LOT of, in this case audio, content.

The work keeps me outta trouble :slight_smile:

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I actually work with that, soā€¦ No wonderā€¦ Lol. But still, maybe itā€™s up to the mission makers, maybe, someday Iā€™ll be able to script something like it myself.

Getting the tools out there and having this content multiply is definitely the way to go. I remember how amazing it was to finally be able to fly Sedloā€™s first campaign for the Hornet and actually get the missions done, all from the cold start.

I just think that the learning experience for the newbies like me could be made more exciting. I doubt it would take much away from seasoned aviators that can actually just get used to most aircraft in a few months, and it could really make DCS more fun.

Cool. If I do it right (been a long time since I did any ā€˜seriousā€™ coding) you should be able to add any voice actors you want (I have 3-4 right now and Iā€™m building a separate app to help with this in parallel), and the idea is you wonā€™t have to get too deep into the weeds for all the supporting stuff to happen.

Iā€™ve ben able to build a mission, complete with the comms support, for mission like weā€™re talking about, with about 1 page of Triggers in the mission editor. Would be even less if I didnā€™t have to hack around a curve-ball DCS is throwing at me (re; the aforementioned frequency thing).

A bonus, for me anyway: I got the code working for your wingmen to give you their fuel state a few weeks ago. Woohoo! No real coding feat but Iā€™m finding it comes in pretty handy.

And make a JOKER calls too.

Always annoyed me that I had no idea what their state was until the ā€œTwoā€™s BINGOā€, followed a minute later by ā€œā€¦punching outā€. In factā€¦I think I mentioned this recently tooā€¦they seem to do much better on gas now, based on the reports while testing. In normal, non-maneuvering, cruise they actually burn less gas than me [as the lead]. They do burn more when weā€™re attacking something. Only tested the Hornetā€¦

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joined one of us GIF

Yeah man. A lot of missions are a lot about the boom and not much about the zoom. I canā€™t speak to being a military pilotā€¦but I would bet dollars to donuts that they get a lot of ā€œoff missionā€ stress as well. Low weather, low fuel, and they are airplanesā€¦so something is always going wrong (inverters, MFD failures, warning lights, ā€œwhat does that mean?ā€ā€¦). Much of our content in DCS World are perfect airplanes with 99% of the focus on the targetā€¦so I appreciate the mission makers that add the tension of normal operations calamitiesā€¦ :rofl: (Like the FBO being out of hot cookiesā€¦that kind of crisisā€¦)