Missing page for AV-8B guide, and is the guide updated for the new version of Tpod?

Hello Everyone, I tried to download the AV-8B chuck’s guide but it says the page is not found, also is it going to be updated for the new version of the TPod (i took a forced break due to life, and when I got back many things is changed).

thanks for help

Pinging @Chuck_Owl

The Harrier is currently undergoing major system reworks and RAZBAM staff has stated that they could not update their documentation for at least 6+ months due to manloading issues. Every patch brings new changes that are sometimes not adequately documented and/or spread across multiple forum threads.

I tried to keep up with the changes for a few years since 2018, but I have recently reached a point where this is no longer feasible. I get PMs every week asking me why feature X works differently (or has been removed altogether) from the guide, and the list keeps growing with each new patch. Even I am getting confused with all the back and forth, to a point where I don’t know if I can trust any procedure on the Harrier.

I asked RAZBAM staff on their Discord if their documentation updates and feature updates could be better synchronized since it would greatly help me bringing my guide up to standard for the playerbase. The answer I got does not lead me to believe that things will change for the coming months.

I have two options in front of me:

  1. Try to guesstimate things and increase the number and frequency of guide revisions, which leaves a lot of room for error (and can further confuse Harrier drivers)
  2. Wait until RAZBAM’s design is finished and then resume work on the guide.

So far, the only reasonable option is the second one. Therefore, the Harrier guide distribution is temporarily halted in order to avoid negative training.

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I’m just going to say that it wouldn’t hurt for them to exercise common courtesy with their comms to you…I get that they are busy but it wouldn’t take much extra effort to be civil.

Honestly, Ive bought half my flight sim modules not least because I read your guide on them, got interested and decided I wanted to try them out. So really they are shooting themselves in the foot.

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Yeah, that’s kind of a stinker response. RAZBAM may be under no obligation to provide @Chuck_Owl with documentation, but to be dismissive of his contributions and accomplishments is disrespecting about the last person in the community who should be disrespected.

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Yup, RAZBAM_Helljumper lost me at “Dude”. You DO NOT address Mr. @Chuck_Owl as “Dude”. What a wanker.

Option 3. … no guide for RAZBAM! :slight_smile:

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I’d simply have that message screen shot’ed into the start of the guide along with the explanation given here. Considering how many people pretty much consider @Chuck_Owl 's guides as THE guide the publishers should be putting out, Razbam may be surprised by the ammount of community feedback they get.

If I was a DCS dev (and I’m not in anyway shape or fashion), I would pay @Chuck_Owl to do the “players guide” in a heart beat. Yes their needs to be a full manual, but having a usable quick reference guide is going to really shave down the number of customer questions or complaints.

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Sigh. It’s just Razbam being Razbam with the attitude and poor comms.

I love the Harrier module but man they don’t make it easy.

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I’m actually pretty shocked with the response. The guides that @Chuck_Owl provides to the
community are known over the whole world as the defacto resource for learning how to fly these aircraft in DCS. If the option is there, I always use chucks guides over the sometimes very hard to get through user manuals that are supplied (unfinished a lot of the time) by the dev teams.

A bit of common courtesy wouldn’t be too much to ask there. Being as the guides @Chuck_Owl provides have definitely increased sales of some modules. I read the Sabre guide before I purchased it and it definitely made my purchase a certainty.

What a shame.

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@Chuck_Owl oh my god , i didn’t know this is their respond, no worries you are a legand and i learned all my moduls from your guides, you are already doing whats great to the community even by not submitting the guide as that will be false info.

Good luck and wish you the best

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Ouch! I haven’t been posting as much recently but this certainly deserves attention.

Did you ever get any response via the new community manager, Elmo? (Razbam_Elmo @ ED Forums).

I would expect that your workmanship on the manuals would earn some more direct access to developers but I wonder if less direct approach might work, in the same way that Nineline and BigNewy have managed to push community concerns to ED that were rebuffed on more direct routes directly.

I’d happily send Elmo a PM myself, but I believe you deserve the first shot in that regard.

I had to highlight these points as they follow in line with my immediate reaction, and confirm a question I had, if the Guides do in fact generate sales.

It’s quite easy to grasp how the guides can remove buyer’s remorse (for letting a module get dusty in the virtual hanger by not having time to make a deep dive) which may help turn buyers into repeat purchases when a dev releases another module, and the player has throughly enjoyed the first purchase, thanks to the guide.

The pre-sales decision making factor, requires users being vocal like this though for us to find out with any certainty.

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Yes they do generate sales, only when i read the guides of the Mig-21, Mi-8, AV-8b then i bought the modules, i was really scared of the Mi-8 and Mig21 before i got the guides then made the shot.

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No, but I don’t think his answer would be any different.

Feel free to do so… but I wouldn’t bother.

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@Chuck_Owl is by far the greatest servant to the community on this forum. And his contributions transcend any one sim or genre. But Razbam has to do what they feel works best for them and their limited resources. I think we all have at least a fuzzy concept of the difficulty in maintaining a module under the constantly changing “DCS World” umbrella. The Harrier is a bit of a mess right now. But it does work as an effective fighting unit in the servers I fly. Part of me sympathizes with Razbam. Whatever they promise as an end-state functionality will be held to them for eternity. From their perspective it is probably safer to keep us in the dark than to arm us with bullet points to be pissed about later. Devil’s advocacy is a dangerous game usually played by people who want to be loved by all or hated by all. I want neither. But the word “screenshot” alarmed me.

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I’ll add my words to the chorus, not that they’re needed. I’ve looked over all of Chuck’s guides for every plane I own, and even made the rare step of going back and looking at the ones for things like the Ka-50 that I flew for probably a decade before I even knew his guide existed!

Do I blame RAZBAM for being too busy to provide Chuck with all that he needs? Not really, I have no idea the size of their team or the workload ED’s code changes provide to them. They can’t manage it, so be it.

That dismissive response, though, was uncalled for. If he was having a bad day, respond another day. Have another team member respond. Or just say “I’m afraid we’re too swamped with work to assist you right now”! One simple sentence that is not insulting or fawning, purely neutral, and doesn’t harm their public image which I must say is not the best compared to some other 3rd party devs.

Chuck should rest assured that on top of our vocal minority there is a silent majority that readily appreciates his gold standard of written guides. Some people prefer video guides, such as GR’s or RK’s, but there is no substitution for having something written to refer to while in the pit and a lot of the module manuals are way behind their development state besides being written as a “this is what is” instead of a “how to”.

If the developer doesn’t appreciate it, F 'em, I know Chuck isn’t doing it for them but for US.

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Well that’s a damn shame.

Personally, I was a bit disappointed when I heard RAZBAM were the ones bringing the Harrier to DCS; an opinion I’ve tried to keep mostly to myself.

Considering Chuck is helping them by painting a pretty flattering picture of the product, a little appreciation is more than due; even if they can’t keep him closely in the loop.

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Just as a FYI, the guide is back online and updated with the current DCS 2.7.2 standard.

https://www.mudspike.com/chucks-guides-dcs-av-8b-harrier-ii/

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Thanks for all the work you do with these guides. You make it look easy. :+1:

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