Not only that, but any time someone reports bugs with a module, one of the first things that ED staff pins the blame on is “external scripts.” Without those scripts we wouldn’t have a game to play at all.
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And just to clear up any confusion my ramblings cause - I personally think ED should have invented a fun and challenging scenario for us to play like the old great sims did!
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Because the developers doesn’t want it to be… 
I know, it was a rhetorical question, but hear me out.
I would like to see a smaller plane set and one map, released with a campaign. Updated for a while, And then abandoned, just like they used to be.
No infinite update of the core software. Just use the version the software is on at release and be done with it. Continue to build a new version for the next release, with a new plane set, map and campaign.
The problem with this is that you’d have a hard time finding external devs for plane and maps, as their revenue stream would be cut short and their products would be left behind.
It would also be impossible to pit all these different aircraft against each other, online, but do we really need this? I don’t. And there’s no reason why the same aircraft module couldn’t be used in forthcoming releases, but there’s no guarantee that it will live on either…
But, the developer wants a different business model, so this is what we’ve got.
All that said, it seems like ED are listening though. They are working on a new campaign model. Let’s hope it’s easy to use and that we can select our map and assets and go to virtual war. I know… But one can hope, right? 
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I am hopeful for the campaign model, but people tend to neglect to mention the introductions to the various scenarios that Falcon4 had for its dynamic campaign, and I think without that we’re still in the same boat so far as trying to find something to do in the sim - we’ll just have a system to generate the next mission once we decide what the scenario should be.
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True. We still need the storyline.
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I feel like a big part of the game lacking so much is because DCS started out as a systems simulator for the USANG to begin with. Don’t need robust AI or campaign content when you’re teaching people procedures.
But the lack of game content typically doesn’t bug me that much since I’m usually keeping up with basic currency on traps and range work anyway, but what really grinds my gears is the total lack of documentation with newly implemented features or old features that had a procedure update, then getting all pissy when the customer base keeps asking questions on how to use the bloody features that they refuse to document. Then ignoring all comments about the lack of documentation. While continuing to talk down to customers as if they should be able to waltz into Google and get a 2007 TACMAN that perfectly fits our Lot number of Hornet. Okay, well if you’re using only unclassified, publicly available documentation as you claim, then it should be perfectly legal for you to be transparent about which documents explain these new features, then you wouldn’t have to write any documentation and you wouldn’t have to answer the same question a million times. Win-win.
Questions dodged. Thread locked.
A’ight then.
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This, this, a million times this. As a military simulator technician I can confirm that flying “at work” - especially when I was back in italy with the Eurofighter sim - felt exaclty like playing DCS. Or viceversa.
And as much as I hate to pile up on Eagle Dynamics, this is sadly the very real case.
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Agreed. When the owner dude said, “…you make your own fun”. I heard, “you HAVE to make your own fun”.
I think having an API (or close enough) to allow the general public to create things - things they [ED] could not have thought of - is a good thing.
BUT…that avenue is frustrating as:
- it is incomplete
- it is not transparent
- it is only begrudgingly supported
I’m sure ED would disagree with me on all the above. It has always felt to me (I can’t prove a thing) that they stumbled on a really good flight model; decided to slap on some flight-simulation thingies; made some money with that; tried to stretch that all out.
Regardless, I am grateful to have the ability to create my own as there is no other option, nor likely to ever be one. This is it.
The holy grail: “Dynamic Campaign” keeps coming up. if I was on the board my proposal would be:
- make the API more robust and provide tools for persistency - then let the people with a passion for this get to it. Less cost (developing) for us; the ‘market’ will produce “cool stuff”, stuff that will build enthusiasm, thus prolonging our position.
There are examples, roughly, right next door, and even on servers
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Agree. I spewed forth on something similar above - so it’s not just me 
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Not eating your own dog food is a real problem in software development.
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ED’s first game that I’m aware of, Su-27 Flanker, was out for two years before they released an addon titled “Mission Disk” … this is not just because of military contracts
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DCS isn’t the only “offender” in this group. Many racing sims outside the Codemasters ones are guilty of the same thing.
Assetto Corsa, Project Cars, rfactor, etc. If you race them MP, it’s great. Single player is boring AF besides practicing car setups on given tracks.
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Sadly it seems that gaming across the board has shirked SP content in favor of getting 12 year old edgelords to insult your mother in excessively competitive MP environments.
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Just send them copies of this:
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Help is coming. I’m having performance issues 
… DCS performance falls off fast after what I consider to be a modest number of AI units. If feels like they have a memory allocation/de-allocation issue deep down in there. Hard to say from the outside.
IMHO, MP has to be less work[1] - you let the humans be the ‘bots’. I wonder how that will turn out
[1] The mechanics are difficult either way of course.
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I may be talking of my proverbial backside… and have absolutely no knowledge of programming … but, if dcs streams map data as you fly along, and if you have two maps that are linked, like Syria and Sinai both on your hard drive, when you reach the edge of one just stream the data from the other map to continue flying … please note this is based on my musings over my lunch at work today, and could therefor be total rubbish
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That’s basically the idea of the “world map” they’ve talked about a few times now.
As you can imagine, the devil is in the details.
For example, that the uhm… the ehh… in order to make the areas fit together accurately the earth needs to be round. Yeah, shocker I know. But IIRC the current maps all conform to flat earth theory perfectly, including the visual illusion of a globe on the horizon.
Another one is consistency: if there is a hill on one map, and flat plains on another, does one player see a truc hanging in mid air?
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Well, where’s the fun in not being called various epithets for racial groups and romantic preference? Yeah, it’s why I don’t tend to get deep into the weeds with discussions about DCS flight dynamics, etc.
I don’t feel like typing out paragraphs explaining why some dork is objectively wrong on flight behavior or something only for them to completely ignore what I just spent time writing out in order straw man or pass over anything they dislike.
I’d rather actually play the game or, you know, fly an actual aircraft.
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We are now in an age when the gravest insult you can make, the most offensive thing you can possibly say, let alone prove, is “you’re wrong.”
Hence the “Are you calling me a liar?” riposte, because if you’re not smart enough to know the difference between inaccuracy and lying, then any possible explanation will fly over their heads anyway.
People who are insecure you might be smarter than them, or just simply more informed or with more experience, will unapologetically attack you to cover their own shortcomings.
Honestly most people are no more emotionally intelligent as middle-aged adults than they were at 12.
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My first thought too…
And the origin for each map is unique - not, for instance, the center of our dear planet Earth.
I’m fussing with this issue with current DCS maps. For those not versed in this subject: each ‘grid’ (a map or 2D box/rectangle) has a different ‘transformation’ (math’s, to/from 2D <> 3D ← a sphere). The transformations do NOT appear to be commonly used ones either - possibilities are, basically, infinite which is why there are [many] common or standard ones (Plate Carre being the “OG” I think : ) ) . Thus the PITA nature of it.
DCS doesn’t advertise what these equations are, either. So far (but this is a very limited sample) they appear to be a simple scalar on each axis. Kinda makes sense; it’s really fast to calculate. I can get (Syria for now) in the ballpark - literally about that close - by experimentation - across the entire map. Which is close enough for they way I’m doing things.
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