Well, let’s hope it’s the latter. I would certainly buy it.
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To quote @EightBall on Reddit, “I just found out. He left me a message saying he had signed a contract and that’s it. We wish him well, as they say…” I don’t want to rush to judgement, so will keep my thoughts to myself. EightBall, I’ve really enjoy your content and your YT channel. I hope that you’ve been treated fairly. It is without a doubt, one hell of a mod.
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Ouch. I do love the OH-6. But even more I like the A-4. What happens to one can happen to the other. If the contract is with ED, then yay!
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Seeing either one as an official mod would be epic. I’d love for the A-4 to get a pilot body and bit more wear and “care” in the interior.
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I would probably buy it if it became an official module.
But unless I am missing something, I will still be able to use it ‘as is’… just no more updates?
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Hey, I was subbed to that channel! Yeah, love the videos.
Envy those that can put them out with that quality. I so would like to do a video but to cover it all ;maps, aircraft, missions, etc - would take me weeks. And it would look like crap. Ugh. Someday.
Yes, we can still use it.
I think it is quite easy to find it in the Internet as there are many download links floating around. Of course it is not optimal to have to download it from non-official parties. Don’t know if it would be legally fine to share the latest versions here? Also I am not sure, which are the latest version numbers?
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Long live the Little Bird
Someone needs to make a low illumination tracer mod for DCS, visible in NVG. Pretty sure that the 160th use one.
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Would be nice if it does become an official mod, but if so it seems Tobi threw everyone under the bus so he could take the credit for it:
https://forum.dcs.world/topic/386598-where-is-the-egg-ohahmh-6/#comment-5762173
You can change the weapons file to remove the tracers, but for whatever reason DCS has a small explosion for 30 cal rounds when they impact the ground. So it’s much more useable at night, but once the first burst lands you still SOL adjusting your fire. And 100%, low illum tracers would be excellent to have.
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It’s more just to have an SOP closer to IRL, because the AI can’t see you in the dark, unless they have radar. And for door gunners, that flash has got to be harsh.
For that matter, IR strobes on the Little Bird and MH-60 sub-mod of the UH-60L would be pretty cool too. They are on the overhead panel of the Chinook, but I haven’t used them yet.
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Um that BlackSharkDen video was fire*!
*age appropriation? guilty
As for the drama surrounding the OH/AH-6 mod. Would someone mind explaining what happened in a couple of lines? I read the reddit and ED links but after a while the follow-on comments cover the facts with white noise. What I gather is that the core dev either got bored or got a contract of some sort or maybe even a lawsuit. (I doubt the last one as TAOG is doing fine with his MSFS model.)
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All we know for sure is one of the core devs removed everything, leaving his collaborators and community in the dark.
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Thanks! All that work 
Even if my interests moved on I’d still like to see my creation live on. I don’t understand the imperative to take your ball and go home. Plus, you’ve just trashed the work of your creative partners in the process. A bit lame.
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If there had been some sort of warning or explanation why the github repository, the Discord server, and the ED forum threads were suddenly eliminated, some of the criticism might not have erupted.
Perplexingly, Tobsen checked in with the Black Shark Den Bats platoon (AH-6J, MH-6J) Discord channel asking how everything was going earlier in the day. That unit was built around the mod and gave Tobsen feedback on how it might be improved. Ironically, one of their members had been working on the video above for the last few months. A few hours later after Tobsen checked in, everything related to the mod within his management vaporized.
Much head scratching and WTF commentary ensued. AFAIK, Tobsen hasn’t yet commented.
The Bats drive on regardless and the video was released.
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So it’s a mod right? It isn’t his intellectual property from a legal standpoint. If the source code is out there and available then improvements can continue, question mark? Else, you’re stuck with the apparently pretty mature product we have now. Just keep going with that and let designers like @EightBall continue to make visual improvements that don’t require the source code. To me, he walked away. Whatever he left behind is fair game. Let him sue if he wishes.
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So This is MY GUESS.
Either, A: He was told someone else is licensed to make OH-6/AH-6 an official Module.
Or, B: Tobs & 8 B have been chosen as a developers for DCS and will re-release these officially.
Or, C: And I really hope this is not it… The real life owners of the aircraft have told them to shut it down because they hold the license. (Hughes, Boeing?)
Does that seem like the 3 choices here?
I expect the Mod Developers are bound to silence. This is a mystery.
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The project was not open source, we don’t have the compiled code sources. I think the flight model falls to this category. Scripting code (like lua) and graphical resources would be easier to extract.
But, I think it is technically still copyrighted code because it was not explicitly licenced with permissive licence like GPL or MIT.
OTOH, like @EightBall linked above, there is a very nice helicopter mod base work available in GPL licenced Nibbylot’s AH-6J demo. That would probably be better starting point, if there is interest and time to develop it further.
I think it would be nice community excercise to fine tune the flight model with help of LLMs. Might be quite a challenge and would require feedback from real pilots with said aircraft.
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Although I’ve ridden in a 206, an AS350, and an R44, I’ve never convinced anyone to say, “you’ve got the controls”. Regarding the Tobsen and EightBall’s OH-6A and AH-6J/MH-6J mod, here a couple of recent comments from the Black Shark Den Discord ah-6-oh-6 section…
“The whole “for a mod” thing is bs, it was 100% the best fm in dcs, tied with the 58D
It responded and behaved exactly like a helicopter should, and that’s based on having flown and instructed on 3 different helicopters with a combined total of of around 3800hrs, it’s very, very good.”
“Completely agree. It always felt natural to me. Then, I had a friend try my sim rig that flies the MDs, and within a few minutes he was whipping it around, right at home.”
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