Damn, seems I’m a window-licking mouth-breather no-life loser idiot with schizophrenia living in my mommy’s basement.
… yeah I fly anything from Ace Combat to DCS/BMS and love it all.
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“Welcome to the Salty Spittoon, how tough are ya?”
“I play flight sims.”
“So?”
“… In full-real!”
“Oh! Come right in!”
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Don’t look at me, I brought charts and everything. 
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@PFunk, Very true, but I would take a very significant initial financial hit to make the jump. It is not worth it for me at this point. I have nothing to complain about though.
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Oh! I still have those!
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It was 1997. I was a brand new jet co-pilot with a grizzled ex-Vietnam helo pilot in a CJ up in Teterboro. In typical TEB fashion, they put us in the “penalty box” to hold for a release to CLT…estimated release in 2 hours. My Capt said F-it, and had me cancel IFR and I had to navigate us VFR at 16,500 from TEB to CLT through all kinds of airspace. That was in the days of paper VFR charts. It looked like a paper mill exploded in the front of that airplane. Hardest 90 minute VFR flight I’ve ever done. 
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What is funny is that this is the only argument you choose to see. There are several posters in this thread who have advocated for a sim-lite jet sim and how great that would be. I myself advocated in this thread that I would like to see any developer, any developer at all make a simple systems jet-sim. It is your personal rubric that it should be ED who does it.
As I was replying directly to one post, and not the thread as a whole…YES. I wasn’t replying to “several posters”. Therefore there was no other argument I was choosing to see because I wasn’t talking to them. Was that not obvious?
As for ED being the one who should do it, this is based on 2 simple facts:
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They did LOMAC and FC and FC2 and FC3. So this is not something they have never done before, asking for new ground to be trod. Whether they do it or they get a 3rd party like BST or whoever is really irrelevant. But DCS World and it all its terrain and AI and MP code already exists, so why not leverage that investment?
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NO ONE ELSE IS BUILDING JET SIMS AT ALL. PERIOD. ERGO, ED IS THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN DO IT.
Name ONE jet sim completed and released in the last 5 years that is NOT from ED. I’ll give you a month. Sure, in theory 777/1CGS could do it, but they have no radar code, no guided weapons code, nothing that separates a modern jet sim from a WWI/WWII sim, and they aren’t swimming in cash from BoX that would let them make that investment.
Or, I guess, it’s just “not your problem” because you don’t care about those types of titles? That’s a real winning argument there.
Oh, and it’s also killing the market. With more PC gaming happening than ever before in history, there are fewer flight simmers than there were 20 years ago. Flight sims went from (to make up representative numbers) 10% of the gaming market to what, .1%? If that? No other genre has collapsed so far. Many former simmers have quit and new ones aren’t coming in. Arguing against making more accessible titles to bring in more fans seems self-defeating.
I started simming when I was in HS. I wasn’t alone, just in my own school I knew a couple others. I do not know of anyone now in HS flying DCS. Maybe WT, but that’s not simming.
Wait, I am simming WT quite regularly
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Well, to be fair…it IS a stance to have. I have zero interest in WW2 content and sims, so I really don’t feel like it is my problem to advocate for their development. I put out content on the things I play, not the things I don’t. And FWIW, that genre seems to be doing just fine without me… 
For the hardcore, switch flipping crowd (of which I count myself partially) there are a few ways to look at it I suppose. I would assume they’d rather ED’s resources go toward making the content they enjoy and that ED seems to do very well.
The other perspective, and one I subscribe to, is that building some FC3 planes makes sense because it populates the servers and whether the plane you are shooting at in MP did a CTRL+HOME start or a full five minute start doesn’t really matter a whole bunch. Yes, simplifying things might give some advantages, but overall I don’t see people in the high realism planes complaining about the relaxed realism planes being on the servers.
On the ED side of things - who knows where their head is? Sometimes it ISN’T just about the bottom line…sometimes you just want to spend your time working on the things you enjoy working on. We can hope that profit and interests intersect right around the places that we desire…but that is really up to them. Personally, I hope they start to get more interested in the dynamic campaign stuff, ATC, and a few other wish list items simply because I already have enough button-smashing, knob twisting airframes to fly at the moment (and with a couple more in short order).
And one other thing I’d mention. Competition for free time is at an all time high. When we were in High School, there was no Twitter, Facebook, all of these social media outlets. There were no phones that would suck up all of your free time. So comparing the lure of software on a PC, where you sit in your house, to the lure of mobile phones and iPads where you can actually BE with your friends at the mall is not a fair barometer. The social fabric of the world has changed from when you and I grew up. I really don’t think bringing the things we liked from 20 years ago back will much change things.
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I tell this story all the time. I was tasked to write an article on the de Havilland Mosquito by my magazine editor about ten years ago. That article still haunts me. It was an awful struggle because I knew/know nothing about anything about that era…and generally, since there is sooooo much history involved there, the rivet counters really come out of the woodwork. A 1500 word article took me about three weeks to put together and I think it was still awful.
Exactly. Not caring about new entry-level simulations is a perfectly reasonable stance to have, especially in light of the fact that the one established development house still cranking out combat sims is decidedly pro-complexity.
And I’m okay with that in the sense that I’ve been left behind on other products/goods as well because of the changing tastes of the marketplace. I’ve still got tools and other products I still carefully nurse along because nobody has made a suitable replacement for it.
So, it’s no big deal. Would I like someone like DCS to make a product geared more for me? Sure. That’d be nice. Are they going to? I highly doubt it, because it would drag resources away from projects they sorely need to finish to placate their larger fanbase that is far more demanding.
I mean, good grief, Ubisoft hasn’t even made a new HAWX game since 2009, what makes me think anyone’s going to make something like a newer SF2?
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I’m kind of excited for the reworking of the Iraq/Western Asia theater that Menrva pulled together. Apparently some people are working on an updated campaign for it too…
This is a complete remake of the DS/IR terrain released long time ago by Wrench. The entire map has been retargetized and retiled using a whole new tileset, combining tiles from JSF_Aggie, Stary, Centurion-1 and my bad transition tiles. All major water bodies, lakes and some minor rivers have been hand-tiled. The Caspian Sea coast had to be hand-tiled as well. Numerous target areas have been added in order to expand playability, targets of opportunity and year span. This terrain features a fresh new 250m resolution heightmap (instead of the stock 500m resolution), allowing for greater details and precision in elevation changes; overall it provides the whole terrain with a better look.
Targets reflect Real World events as accurately as possible; for instance, after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, Kuwaiti airfields are set as Neutral, enemy targets appear inside Kuwait, etc. Some airfields won’t be available after a certain date and/or will change name according to historic changes. Various Operation Desert Storm expeditionary bases and FOBs have been added, and will appear only during Operation Desert Storm dates.
All main targets are in their Real World locations (I tried to be as accurate as possible, to such a level that even surpasses ThirdWire’s stock terrains). Shiraz Int’l Airport and Prince Sultan Airbase are beyond the Wall. However, if you have SF2NA, long range AI flights can be generated from such airbases.
And some initial information on the progress of updating the campaign…
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Name your own price and begging for feedback.
Oh…and lookie here…
“I would like to request permission to update Operation Darius to the latest SF2NA-standards, using Menrva’s newer, HD Iran-Iraq terrain.”
I like where your head is @PFunk!
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Man this thread evokes some strong feelings. A couple of things come to mind though…
1) When does abstraction mute the fundamental experience of flying the vehicle?
A simplified Ka-50 probably wouldn’t have the trimmer, autopilot, ABRIS, or INS, or the interaction between any of those and the weapon system, and certainly not the datalink. A simplified F-15E probably wouldn’t model its SAR to a tenth of its power and nuances, wouldn’t have half the attack modes, and would greatly simplify the intricacies of pilot/WSO interactions. Reliably shacking something with an inertially guided bomb is a little more complicated than marking a point on the ground and pressing pickle.
If you generate a simplified, safe flight model and a simplified control scheme for a MiG-21 or F-104, vehicles defined by pilot workload and squirrelly, unforgiving handling, are you really flying the Fishbed or Starfighter? How about the Viggen? Would it be as cool to fly with an abstraction instead of a detailed model of its unique, super analog, super 80’s INS/Radar/Bombing modes?
2) Drawing the line of simplification is not a simple task when you value realism and authenticity.
Coming from the point of view of writing a simulation, aircraft are interesting problems. They’re very nonlinear (though some parts are easily linearizable) and the interactions between flight handling characteristics, weapons systems, pilot interface/workload, and the “ecosystem” it’s supposed to be in can be hard to understand and even harder to characterize.
A low-level generalization like you see in Ace Combat or even something more true-to-life like Strike Fighters isn’t too hard. Every plane has a powerplant and general aerodynamic properties. Most planes have a radar. The workflow from initial detection to lock to launch to merge can be abstracted and generalized. But the issue with the above is… point #1. If you want to capture the quirks and idiosyncrasies that make a plane worth writing about, your modeling and sim need to be nuanced enough to actually describe those traits, which is not easy when you start from a generic vehicle template and swap around a few performance figures.
3) The limitations of a simplified model approach faster than you think.
I’ll say this upfront: I love the FC3 aircraft. The Eagle’s one of my favorite birds, period, and I love flying it in both single player and multiplayer. But, especially after a long jaunt in Falcon BMS, I can’t help but notice limitations that really hold back the experience when I’m trying to splash bandits with friends, most particularly when it comes to navigation systems (on-the-fly reference/mark points, adjusting bullseye, A-A TACAN, etc), detection systems, and electronic warfare/countermeasures.
I sometimes think about the advances in systems modeling that are going to be brought about by the Hornet and Tomcat modules and how those could easily flow into the Viggen, Mirage, Tiger, and Fishbed, and (looking forward) into hypothetical Mudhen, Intruder, Foxbat, Flogger, and Phantom (and perhaps even F-111) modules. Then I realize it doesn’t really matter, because unless there’s serious server limitations every Eagle, Fulcrum, and Flanker is going to have magical IFF, magical radar, and a dumb-as-rocks ECM. As long as the FC3 modules are anchoring the theater at their level of simulation, the environment wouldn’t be nearly as interesting as it could be.
4) The stereotype that those of us asking for realism “think we’re doing the real thing” or “demand every last rivet counted” is uncalled for and hurts.
I’m a massive nerd for aviation, science and engineering (in case you didn’t read my username), but I’m under no illusions that I’ll never sit inside a real fighter, much less drive it into combat. Which is fine- I certainly don’t desire to live that in real life either!
That said, why does that mean I can’t advocate for and enjoy authenticity as far as is practical? How long did we have to wait for the computing power and information accessibility to be at a point where we could literally flick the right switches in our simulated jet?
I can’t help but think that terms like “rivet-counter” imply that the crowd who revels in full-systems-depth modules have wants that are less valid than those who prefer lighter simulations. Eagle Dynamics is kicking butt right now due to their uncompromising attention to detail, which I think comes in part from their obsessiveness to capturing the characteristics of an aircraft beyond the basic performance figures. I understand the wish for a team who could build a Strike Fighters 3 with the same drive and resources, but why would that be mutually exclusive from a hearty and expanding basis of full-systems-depth DCS modules if the demand is as great as you claim?
5) Simulations are never perfect, but that doesn’t make the attempt futile.
A frequent attack on full-systems-depth modules is the claim that computer simulations, engineering models, or even science will never fully describe the characteristics of a vehicle, usually paired with an anecdote about a pilot pulling something off that was deemed impossible by the eggheads.
Frankly this point baffles me. Aircraft are truly complex vehicles, and the objective of a simulation, let alone a real-time simulation that can run on consumer hardware has always been “close enough” rather than “exact”. “Close enough” of course is defined by your objectives: are you trying to simulate the experience of flying a combat jet through its paces and designed missions? Nobody’s going to care if the F-14’s flat spin happens at a 70% difference in starboard/port side engine thrust at X-degrees-angle-of-attack instead of 71% and X+1 degrees. They’ll absolutely care if the flight model’s abstracted to the point that the Tomcat’s famously unforgiving handling becomes mild and predictable.
The point of the sim isn’t perfect modeling, it’s to recreate the characteristics of the vehicle as best as you can. Different players will value different extents of modeling- just because someone wants a little more detail doesn’t mean they’re asking for the impossible.
And with that, my layover has evaporated. 
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I do think it depends on what you are after. When I played with Matchbox cars when I was a kid, I didn’t necessarily make the Ferrari’s VROOM any faster than the delivery truck. But I was having fun. I think nuanced flight models and systems are fun, and I am a fan, but not too many of us have a legitimate frame of reference other than what we read in books, or from what we hear from the actual guys that build and drive these machines we simulate. If @klarsnow or @boomerang10 say that this detailed F-15E or F/A-18 are pretty good, I can go with that. I wouldn’t expect them to say that about an Ace Combat sim, but who knows…they might if it reacts to the stick and throttle the right way.
I think a lot of us that came from flight sim’s infancy have traveled the road from Falcon AT, MicroProse Strike Eagle, Jane’s sims, LOMAC, etc. If we put up Falcon AT against BMS or something like Jane’s F-18 against the coming Hornet, I think we can see that ultra realism isn’t a requirement to have fun, even for someone who prefers ultra-realism. THAT frame of reference has changed though over the decades as our sims have become more and more realistic. So what was fun twenty years ago is definitely a harder sell nowadays.
But if you are a relaxed realism simmer (and I’ll stress that I really am both), the crossover point is probably at around the SF2 level. Enough variables in flight models to make it interesting, without the switchology that a relaxed realism simmer would find burdensome. That same switchology makes some of us hardcore simmers heart’s sing because we like the process as much as the result. I’d argue some of us like the process MORE than the result.
True - but empty servers are also not super interesting right? I mean, if you really, really want to fly in an all-up realistic environment, you will have do like what the Arma 3 and other first-person shooter groups do and find a core group of like-minded players to play with. I would enjoy that, but would probably be embarrassed at my lack of proficiency. I think groups like the 476th vFG are great for how they approach the game and I think they teach people how to use the systems and fly in a realistic manner. I think the ultra-realistic modules like the Ka-50, A-10C, and Hornet are ideal platforms for squads like that.
Flying realistically (mission planning, cold starts, holding until your package is supposed to be on target) is a time commitment for sure. I regret I didn’t do more of it PK (Pre-Kid) and look forward to do it (but don’t want to get to it too fast…I enjoy this age with kids) later on when I have more uninterrupted “me” time.
I think it is the natural reaction to the perception that some people will never be satisfied with the realism we are getting with our consumer level products. As a writer, I’ve gotten angry e-mails from people that are positively outraged that I did not cover a historically inaccurate feature that I’ve either overlooked on a product, or chosen to give a pass because I felt it didn’t meet the threshold for what should realistically be expected to be included in a simulation. An exaggerated for instance of this would be someone complaining that the engines should only be able to run for X seconds in an inverted Airbus. Those kind of comments drive me crazy because despite the 99.9% of stuff that works works well in many products, there will always be people that will pursue the tiniest detail and make it their life’s work to complain about it.
I don’t think anyone is saying we can’t ask for that. I think overwhelmingly fans of DCS World are the very type of simmers that do want realism. I can’t pretend to know what the sales number for FC3 mean in the big scheme of things - but let’s face it, those FC3 sales numbers were probably back when DCS World was in its infancy and the inventory of aircraft that probably tickle the desires that the FC3 planes did are now more readily available (Mirage). Put simply, if an FC3 level detailed F-15 were put up against and full up realism F-15, even with disparate price points, I think the full real F-15 will win in sales. Weighed against development costs, I don’t know how that formula would work out though. I’m sure there is some market research and estimations that go into those decisions. Or not - again, maybe it is just Wags, Belsimtek, and others just really, really wanting to build something they are passionate about (and that’s how you get a Christen Eagle).
I agree - and that is a tough balance to strike with such a wide variety of simmer “types” that are flying in a sim like DCS World. Take for instance the upcoming Yak or Christen Eagle models. It is probably fairly easy (that sounds dismissive but I don’t mean it that way) to model that 99% of the flight model that you get in normal operations, but that very dynamic portion where things get crazy is going to be very important since that IS the part of those planes that is the reason they exist.
I think the dig at the very vaguely defined “rivet counter” is the person that IS unreasonable in their expectations of consumer level software. They sometimes won’t be happy with recreating a vehicle as best as the programming and financial requirements allow. I think we most often see this in the Great Missile Performance Debates that often populate the forums where, as a layperson, I don’t quite understand how so many people without access to classified information could ever truly be so angry about their positions. And as a pilot, it is equally baffling because I am OK with being tricked by sim behavior that I don’t have a lot of frame of reference enough to be outraged about. I love flying the Harrier. It feels like what I think a Harrier should fly like, but I don’t know that it is how it supposed to be. Maybe it is really, really, really bad. 
Anyway, the long and the long of it (I don’t do short apparently) is - I apologize to anyone that feels any of my comments make them feel like I’m marginalizing the things they enjoy in the sims we enjoy. We are all here for the same and different reasons with the ultimate goal of enjoying our sims in the way that suits each of our personal needs. I’m lucky in that on the days when I spend an hour or two on a mission where I go through a full cold start and participate in a highly choreographed mission (usually single player unfortunately) OR on the days when I hop on a MP server into a hot start slot and go fly, I’m having fun in a way that suits my time requirements. And lucky for me I’m such an awful MP player that when I get shot down I’m not good enough or smart enough to blame it on some simulator deficiency because I know there is a 99.9999% probability I just suck.
Now. With all of that said. I’m ready for the Hornet.
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Cool…someone posted this to Reddit earlier…man, I used to love making those “patch maps”…
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I would disagree, but again it would be far more an issue for the developer picking and choosing features based on their target audience then some standardized convention on what stays and goes for a “sim-lite” product. I personally wish the F-15C radar was a little more controllable (bar scan settings mainly) coming from F4 BMS, but it’s workable. For me a lot of the simplification can be made in areas that don’t address the 3 F’s of combat flight simming (flying, finding, fighting). Can you make the argument that not having a fully detailed electrical system or hydraulic system is impinging on those? Probably, but the reality of it, for most of us virtual pilots we neither know nor care that the formation lights are on a secondary 124v bus, but with an arcane use of switches, breakers, and in-flight meal sacrifices they can be put on the main bus.
I absolutely understand that some people want that level of detail, I get it. However if I’m waiting for an aircraft for an extra year (or two, or five), while they add in that sort of thing, I would prefer they skip it. You can have full aircraft combat functionality without needing to replicate every thing that can happen when a switch if flipped in the cockpit.
I’d also argue that a simplified flight model doesn’t mean it’s a bad one. As you point out:
And I think you can get 90%+ of the way there fairly easily these days. As a community there are some folks who are going to take the DCS F-14 day one and put it through a flight test program that would make Pax River proud, and god help Heatblur if the numbers don’t match the dash 1 (or whatever the Navy calls there FM’s). They are going to proclaim to the heavens that is an abomination that should never be installed, demand a refund on their early access purchase, and in general shrilly scream to the internet of the harm it will cause. My brother flew professionally for the military, and his take on their multi-million dollar sims (including the full motion ones) “it’s called a simulator rather then realulator for a reason.”
Now I completely agree with you about:
However I think the issue is we loose a lot of this by virtue of being stuck behind a PC monitor (or even with VR these days), no motion, and for most no FFB. Things that are blatantly obvious to real world pilots, just don’t translate to not being in the air moving. Some things are easy to translate, roll rate, it’s a number and the AC either does it or it doesn’t. Other likes “quirky handling,” “delicate responses,” or “inconvenient ergonomics,” WTF that does mean? We have the numbers to translate some of those things, and other aren’t unless they are exaggerated to make them readily apparent to the target audience. Again besides the published numbers how do we know something is spot on? The number of people with military fast jet stick time alive today is probably less then the number of people who have played DCS.
I have no issue with advocating for and enjoying authenticity, as you put it. I think however that developers are leaving money on the table by not offering modules that focus on the core components of combat flight simming, which could be released more quickly and with more variety.
As an example with a hypothetical Rafale module for DCS I would look at first weapons systems modeling. For 99.9% of DCS players this is going to be the area where they put the depth of their focus, and it should be modeled to a fairly high degree. Certain abstractions might be needed due to DCS’s core functionality however. Secondly sensor modeling, the finding the enemy is of course important, and how it fuses with the weapons systems. Again certain abstractions might be needed here due to DCS. Lastly the flight model, what data do we have that we can use to generate? Lets say we have plenty to be able to produce a PFM if we choose to invest the time.
Now as a developer I need to look good and hard at what can be abstracted to the player. Even if I have the source code for the stores systems, do I need to implement that, or can I use something faster and easier that provides the same result? Sensor’s same thing. Sure we could write the world best and most accurate PESA simulation, but do I need to? Flight model, can I spend 10% of the effort and release an AFM/EFM version rather than a PFM? What do I have to have in the AC to keep it’s spirit and functionality? This becomes my initial release, if it sells well I can dedicate the time energy and resources to increase the fidelity.
I get we each have different visions for flight simming, and I’m not saying your wrong. I wish however that we could tone the fidelity down a little bit if we can get more AC in in the virtual skies.
-Jenrick
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I honestly don’t think we need to tone down the fidelity, but more need a parallel group that does want to focus on more relaxed modules. I wouldn’t want to leech any resources away from the full-on simulations, but it would be pretty nifty if there were a group of programmers that wanted to develop for DCS World with FC3 type level realism. And I think we have to remember that FC3 level airplanes are still work to develop.
More airplanes in the air is usually a good thing - but I could also see implementing a server filter of some sort that would limit participation based on realism level so that there wouldn’t be a problem with mixing up of realism levels for those that want to keep the playing field level. I think enough servers would be wide open that it wouldn’t really bother people to have that option.
And as much as I like the FC3 planes…I do wish they had the full-up realism counterparts. The A-10A, Su-25T, and Su-33 would be dreams for me as fully clickable pits.
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