GGTharos

No one even attempted to claim that the FCS in Combined Arms is realistic. CA was billed as giving the ability to a human to control some aspects of the battlefield on the ground, and first person control was added because people asked for it and would enjoy it. No one said it would be realistic - quite the opposite, it was specifically said to be low-realism. Same thing with armor/penetration simulation and a bunch of other things. I may as well complain that aircraft in SB aren't realistic ... without mentioning the FCS of the tanks. Have you seen the aircraft FCS' in DCS? Just saying.

Right, and there have been other RFIs like this that have gone nowhere, but they might not have necessarily been as public I didn't take it as such, I was mostly responding in reference to sim-lite ... or sim-med...or however you want to divide it up I think you will find that the environment of DCS is very unpleasant for the ground commander right now. There are things you cannot do - for example, right now armor has no counter-measures against any type of attack at all. No effective smoke for example, etc. So until and unless the devs at ED change this, it's a very different type of ground warfare and units get attrited brutally and quickly. I believe you under-estimate how much damage a good commander can do while fielding something like a Tunguska, a couple MANPADs, and if there's anything that flies at medium altitudes, an Osa or Tor or two The 16 helis thing doesn't really happen much unless in some dedicated heli server, but, one thing's for sure, the gaming style is different and does not compare with what I have experienced at TGIFs. We do have some events like the TGIF, but they're not easy to organize and I'll leave further comment on that subject there.

Disclaimer: I moderate and test for ED. I also own a previous iteration of SB (I haven't assigned funds to getting 3.x yet, but I will as soon as I can). Wags asking for the info doesn't necessarily mean they will be modeling a tank. They've asked for information about things before and there has been no related project. I don't see anything wrong with 'sim lite' of anything. Not everyone is interested in a very deep simulation for a bunch of reasons. As for using the sim unrealistically, I've used SB unrealistically (Gasp!). None of this siphons people from realistic simulation. Why? Because people interested in realistic simulation tend to have the same mindset that you have ... and they are also in the minority. The peeps at DCS are interested in both the hi-fi simulation, and the casual folks that want to take things up a notch from plain gaming. As for ground forces vs. a 4-ship of helis ... you can always pack ADA with your formations, and be covered by A2A flights. I think you're the one oversimplifying this time But sure, often enough people want to shoot stuff - but how they enjoy their game is their business. Neither SB nor DCS will intrude on each other's territory any time soon. I think you can figure out the reasons yourself

Why do you think you know eSim's business better than they know it? ...

Very nice Tacbat, and a very good point Mogwa, the next module isn't dictated by what would be bested matched up to the previous one, at least currently - it is dictated by what is being made for some military contract typically. The radar set detector isn't terribly necessary for the areas this chopper operates in. I'll add that it was originally not accepted into service because the Russian Army Aviation wanted the sensor replaced with something better (and night capable) as well as the addition of an RWR set. The chopper is currently well equipped to deal with armor and infantry however who wield either IR or laser guided/directed weapons, and even better so against rebels/terrorists, which is where these choppers have been used. They are uniquely suited to mountainous terrain as well. And you're right, the way it flies might not be perfect for a sim. But it IS a sim, and if you do want to simulate flying the chopper, fly it the way you're supposed to

Problem taken care of with driver re-install. I was running 180.66 beta, switched to .50WHQL.

Here is a screenshot. This affects all vehicles for me - in the instant action mission. (I haven't tried others yet) I have done a complete uninstall and re-install of SB PRO. The graphics card is an nvidia GTX260.

It seems I have no TIS object textures ... I think. Eg. a tank is completely black.

Black Shark has a very, very dark night - as much as possible to prevent the fiddling with gamma settings. The difference is, of course, that you may also use NVGs and you have other navigational inputs such as your moving map, barring that your navigation computer, a radar altimeter with alarm, and hopefuly a pre-planned flight path that you are familiar with. In terms of combat, support craft can drop illumination flares to help you aim your weapons, otherwise you're just mostly transiting. I don't think making the night 'as dark as needed' is a big deal if you apply sufficient lighting with moonlight, and work other light sources if it's an overcast/moonless night, which would present a serious challenge. Further, I think the fact that pretty much just about every playable vehicle has a thermal sight helps, and it helps train the night-fighting scenario where your sensors are superior to the other guy's. If you don't make scenes as dark as they ought to be, I personally find that then people DO fiddle with the gamma settings and brightness to get an advantage over those who do not.

You're doing him a disservice saying that, Mower. That IS used as an RL gunnery trainer after all But one thing's for sure - if you're just playing form the gunner's PoV you're missing out on the rest of the sim. I started in the gunner's PoV, and it does seem the natural place to start from, at least for a sim. At this point I rarely take control of the gun, usually riding in as the TC, spending a lot of time looking out with binocs, map, etc. When I want someone evicted, I point him out to my gunner and having trained him well, he usually gets rid of any squatters quite efficiently

It sounds like you don't think that upgrades are hard work. I would imagine that this is because you do no software work whatsoever, so let me put it this way to you: Would you accept to not charge for work done on oil changes for a customer you sold a car to? It's just 'maintenance'. Would you not accept not charging for adding that spoiler? It's just an 'upgrade' after all. It doesn't really make a car faster nor does it get you points for anything But hey, you know what ... you SHOULD do those things for me ... for free! 'Cause that's what your work is worth. That's what you've said here.

There is no problem. People just seem to think that 'updates' should be free since somehow updates (or even bugfixes) involve no work. It isn't really their fault, and obviously not everyone thinks this - I think people are just spoiled by the gaming industry in general, and expect stuff for free. You got my support. -(Someone who knows when you do software business, bugfixes, changes, etc, are included or amended to the contract or support contract in exchange for moneys).

I would expect early february but don't quote me on that.

So are you taking pre-orders now, or when you release the newsletter?

Let's see ... average programmer cost with overhead is $2000 or something like that - if you considered it will take something like 30 man-days to implement a new vehicle ... that's without any profits, and fairly minimal overhead.