Okay but as soon as you want to fly in any community of sorts you will be severely limited if you don’t. Seen it multiple times unfortunately. Besides, the black sea region is visually extremely neglected, including how most units look from up close. It’s very evident when flying helo’s.
I love DCS, but it is severely flawed in the way it’s structured.
Yep, sure, you just needs to decide… or have a lot of money, the same is with real hobbies I think
I dunno man…“extremely neglected” and “severely flawed” seem like hyperbole to me. The Black Sea region still looks pretty good to me - I certainly wouldn’t call it severely limited and flawed or extremely neglected. And I would guess that there are more units that are high detailed than those that haven’t had a 3D model update. As well, isn’t there a revamping of the Black Sea terrain in progress right now anyway? I’m still pretty wowed by what we have at the moment…so the shine hasn’t worn off yet on me, despite having spent a good amount of time in the air at all altitudes over that terrain. My biggest complaint would probably be the jaggy mountains…but with the newer haze and lighting effects, I’m still blown away by how good it looks.
I agree that it looks fine from up high, but from a helo, it’s more like FS 2004/FSX then XP10/11. There’s not much reason or rhyme in the layout and design of the towns. The tree’s are extremely simple in detail and cardboard easily. This is all fine when in something that goes over 250kts, but when in a UH-1H or Mi-8 it just suffers tremendously.
I agree it’s not ideal - like not Arma quality visuals on the low level stuff…but I don’t think it is like EECH style tree awful either. And I’m guessing there are perhaps FPS considerations in their basic structure (?)…
I’m less disappointed with the way the trees look than the fact that they don’t catch missiles or cause line of sight issues for the AI. Now that would be a nice improvement when talking helos…
That is another big problem that limits enjoyment of certain aspects of helicopters. Once again, I love DCS, it’s just pretty flawed on certain aspects(which probably don’t have much priority, given how few people dedicate enough time to helo’s).
Raccoon hinted at not only trees stopping weapons, but damaged trees… clear cutting anyone?
As for the LOS, I know its a known issue, but I think its a big performance hit… I think when trees start catching missiles, something will need to be done.
I dont even know how you can state that? I mean how do you know how many people fly the helos? I think that judging from a forum, or youtube videos wont give you very good numbers for anything.
Who’s this “Racoon” and where do I send him my money?
I agree. I don’t think MP is a good judge of the number of people flying helos. We are loners by nature, flying stealthily in the weeds and playing a more tactical cat & mouse game.
Only loners pull for power… 
I think I have a pretty good overview of the love for helo’s, given that I fly with a dedicated UH-1H group that pretty much <3 everything that represents rotary. It’s by far not as popular as many of the other modules.
Again, based on one group, that covers the entire user-base and all purchases of the UH-1H (not to mention all other helos in DCS)? I think you are probably not as in tune as you might like to think. You cant account for all those that purchase DCS, never visit a forum, never play online, or play in their own little groups. So I am still not convinced… but I suppose we are drifting off the original topic…
Schrödinger’s Huey Drivers?
So, we can never say anything about the DCS userbase? Fair enough, I suppose.
No, that isn’t true - but nor can we make blanket statements that have no data to back them up. I mean, if you could roll out helo vs. fixed wing sales numbers, that’d be one thing. You are making a statement of fact. Now, you could certainly say “it feels like there is less interest in helos” and be correct because that is based on your observations and perceptions. I think what @SiThSpAwN is being defensive about is that you are claiming knowledge of a fact that has no facts to back it up.
Personally, I think judging the interest in helos based on online activity is a mistake simply because of the nature of the beast of online play. Much of it (most of it?) is red v. blue fast jets just zipping around the skies killing each other. Why would you spend 40 minutes getting a helo from your FARP to the play area, only to die by Sidewinder after a few minutes, when instead you can get in a Mirage and be in the battle in 4 minutes. (I’m not saying that is my preferred gameplay…I just think that is more how it is). Unless the online mission is balanced to attract helo drivers, you aren’t going to find many that are willing to sink the time into doing a cold start and making that 20 or 30 minute flight.
So yeah…I think we tend to be more offline players. Now, it would be interesting to see the sales statistics for things like the Gazelle, Huey, Mi-8, and Black Shark…but I’ve seen no posts or history that indicates they are any less popular than fixed wing stuff.
…and coming back to this (after making breakfast), though it has wandered from the original topic. Helicopters are near and dear to my heart. And I’m actually of the opinion that 40 minutes spent in a mission trying to get close to the enemy for 2 kills is way more satisfying than racking up 10 kills in the A2A arena. Now, see…there is a hyperbole…“BeachAV8R…10 kills”…haha…you’ll never see that. Which is why I stick with helicopters. I can be my own medevac.
