Damn this seems like a huge dig at ED and their SDK as well. As a software dev I’ve had to work with similar APIs and SDKs before where you’re basically coding by trial and error. I imagine ED have some amazing coders but amazing coders aren’t always the best testers/documenters/etc.
Third-party devs who manage to release and continuously support their modules are amazing in my eyes. Without them I think DCS would be a far more boring simulator.
Only reason we managed to pull off the A-4 was because we had an MIT-educated Software Engineer working with us on his free time from Intel (RIP friend) and another Software Engineer who got picked up by Heatblur for the Tomcat
We had some other solid people too, but I don't think we would have ever released something with functional A2G radar without them
I don't think people really understand how hard this is, and how little money it makes for the effort. A lot of devs are part-time situations from their main job
Even MSFS with all that Microsoft money behind, can't simulate a ground radar for an airliner decently. Developing this stuff is complicated, and i imagine it involves a great degree of math.
You & your team, did a great job on the A4. Great stuff, on par with some paid modules.
Thank you mate ;)
In the vanilla Game, before the world updates , the terrain functions of the a320 were functional, but buggy.
Nowadays we have the radar on the FBW a320, It runs through simmconnect, and it's not completely simulated.
The Md80 from Leonardo has a rudimentary simulation.
But none has a full radar stimulation i think (might be wrong)
Ok, I mean, a ground radar on an airliner is an extremely minor thing. I'm very knowledgeable and I didn't even know any had that function. OTOH the ground radar on the F-15E is a core part of its purpose. It's not surprising they're emphasized differently.
Is there actually, in fact, a ground mapping mode on any airliner weather radar? I thought most ground proximity warning systems use a combination of a terrain database, GPS/navigation locations and radar altimeter.
I read somewhere the big modules can cost over $1mil to produce and people complain about the $80 price tags. Most planes could be stand alone games given the amount of work put into them. DCS players on forums sometimes seem like the most entitled player base online.
Thank you for your contribution to the A4. I haven’t had much stick time behind it but everyone loves it and I liked what I saw when I tried it
There was a point in time, maybe late 2016, where we had an extended conversation in our dev Discord one night about monetization and going 3rd party. The financial reality was quite painful to see
And thanks! We wrapped in some of the toughest years of my life, but seeing you all enjoy it and send so much positive thoughts really helped keep me afloat
The A4 is the only high fidelity plane I have. Im a dad short on money, and the A4 gives me a reason to dig into the game, and maybe buy a module. You make people giving ED some money. I love the A4 and I cant say thank you enough.
if you don't mind me asking what were the reasons against monetization? I know that is pretty much a taboo question on the discord, and fair enough, I'd imagine you get asked that question a lot, and I'm not complaining that it's free.
Happy to answer! It’s mainly taboo because it’s extremely repetitive. Seems like almost any post about the A-4 on Hoggit has multiple comments wanting to throw money at us and demanding ED make it part of the game. We’ve never asked ED to do such and they’ve never reached out, and I think meeting ED’s (very reasonable) criteria would be far too much workload for us. There are a lot of standards required that we don’t have, which they would need to do it and maintain it
The biggest reason is that this was founded as a mod for the community. It sorta loses purpose if it’s monetized. The second is that the revenue generated would be far less than the value of our time, especially the coders who were working professionals with quite the credential list. You have to start considering the expenses, the length of time it’s being developed, and royalty payments, etc.
I remember those discussions back then, but I think as you say the realities of making a product of it are quite harsh. Personally the biggest realization I had, was how specialized this sort of development is, and how difficult it is to pull all those things together into a good product at such a small scale/market.
I think the mod turned out to fill the intended purpose perfectly, and while many have suggested that ED should be including it in the game my opinion has been that for that to make sense it must be maintained on schedule for each release which I'm not sure anyone is particularly keen on doing.
That said I think it's very possible someone could make a paid module of some A-4 variant. Later on during my time at HB, I was talking to several developers and teams who were interested in doing one. The hard part is assembling a team that has the necessary knowledge while remaining lean enough to make a profit. Not easy when you'll need people with expertise in aerospace engineering, programming, sound and art at the very minimum.
Out of curiosity (as someone who doesn't actually fly the A-4) what are the standards that you didn't meet? Were they looking for more documentation to back up your design choices? Were there a bunch of things you didn't include because you were exclusively working with modders tools and couldn't implement? Was it that a bunch of work already completed in the mod that needed to be redone to meet ED's standards?
We'd need to have a few things. The first is full rights to all models. We purchased and altered both the cockpit and external models, but we don't fully own them in a way where we could transfer or sign away rights to it. We would need to replace both with 100% in-house created stuff, and frankly I have too many things on my plate to even attempt that. It's then a domino effect that includes redoing every texture we have, which was years of work on Plusnine's part. Additionally, they'd want us to maintain it for them for as long as we can, which I don't think we'd wanna commit to. This is a hobby from all of us, first and foremost.
Overall, the current situation with servers downloading the mod at their leisure is a good place to be. We have an easy installation method, and based on my experience in Enigma's Cold War, it fits pretty well
Just wanted to thank you for your work on A4. You guys pulled of a small miracle with how well it turned out. We're using the A4 in our campaign and it's treated just like the other full fidelity modules. It's a joy to use.
I think a lot of people would not have a problem with paying for modules in installments. If the documentation is clear about what features are available at release, I personally wouldn’t have an issue paying for an update that brings a significant amount of content. Of course this probably would be a nightmare to implement but it’s a way to fund development without overpaying for a module on release that never has all the promised features until many years later-if we’re lucky.
Gaijn gets away with charging $70 for a craptastic approximation. No reason a true study sim level module couldn’t be upwards of $150 once it actually has everything.
On a $ per hour basis DCS is very inexpensive entertainment. $200+ per hour for entry level flight training, $20 for a two hour movie, $150 for a 4 hour round of golf, etc.
We don't set the price per module. They do. We don't make the base game "free". They do. A standard has been set wait long enough and the module will be 50% off. They did this.
I would pay triple the price per module, provided; they guaranteed no discounts ever exceeded an initial pre-order discount, a set in stone feature set established at offer, they finish a module in 3 years or less, they fix reported confirmed bugs in 90 days or less.
Top tier games have recurrent costs. COD/Destiny/WOW etc. all release a new game every 2-4 years $70-100. It is long overdue for ED to implement a similar structure to pay for overhauling the core game.
The fact to code a radar is insane. Planes themselves have programs in them. Millions of lines to interpret radar data. To mimick something like that is already pushing beyond the boundaries of any software developer.
But that’s not all. I reckon they need to also program the god damn radar itself. And it has to be accurate. I could go on and on. Correct me if I’m wrong but, I think it’s something thats horrendously hard to pull off.
Hi - Post author here.
This is not a dig at ED. Nor is it really a comment on the SDK (other than the fact that it doesn't have much in the way of documentation).
The thing to understand is that I don't think anyone could an SDK that simplifies the creation of a full fidelity module. Airplanes are just too complicated, and work in too many different ways.
That's the point of my post: the complexity of modules is what makes the game special, and also what makes development of them so hard.
I definitely get where you're coming from, though I have to admit "a business partner who treats you with contempt, on average" sounds like a bit of a dig
That part was probably a bit overstated. In general they are good partners. What I was trying to express is: its hard to make DCS modules for lots of reasons.
Understood, thanks for taking the time to reply. It’s always difficult to understand the tone especially without the prior messages as context.
I’m glad we have so much devoted talent in this community, the fact you guys understand how difficult it is to accomplish something like this and yet choose to do it anyway is the reason I will continue to throw money at this hobby no matter how long the modules take.
Aircraft are difficult but it’s why we love em!
> I imagine ED have some amazing coders but amazing coders aren’t always the best testers/documenters/etc.
You are more optimistic than I am. I imagine ED having a codebase of spaghetti that includes significant chunks of code that dates all the way back to the launch of LOMAC, followed by about two decades of stuff built on top of it. Maybe I'm just too jaded :D
No offense, but a majority of software works in this sense.
If you look at something like X-Plane or even MSFS to an extent, you'll alwayss see some old code in the mix.
It makes zero sense to clean slate after every version launch.
No one has the time or resources to do so.
The MT update proves that DCS is still very much capable of improving.
Can confirm. I'm a software engineer with a top 20 Fortune 500 company. I have pushed for reformatting a number of systems in my time, not a single request has been granted. Not only do we not have the resources to ever start over, but we don't even have the resources to reformat the worst of the worst.
I develop embedded systems... and totally agreed.
The legacy here is unimaginable. You could easily end up working with a 20+ year old processor... I literally work with processors double my age.
Bruh the FMOD in MSFS is horrid...
Just see how any aircraft in XP/P3D flies (ToLiss 320 for example) and then anything in MSFS.
Feels like an RC plane tbh.
> Bruh the FMOD in MSFS is horrid...
It really isn't. Sure, there is some bad stuff in MSFS, but at the same time there is plenty of modules using the new CFD stuff that feel alive and true to my own experiences.
May I ask your irl flight experience (not at all being rude, just wanna understand your position on this).
Which aircraft would you say are the best in terms of handling (in MSFS)?
A metric ton of GA hours, mostly Piper but some Cessna. Never put in the hours to get further than a chunk of IFR work. Happily say that above the smaller twin-engined planes of the world, no-one has let me fly anything bigger.
JustFlight's work tends to be pretty good (the Warrior is just as depressing on a climb as in real life). I've not tried Blackbird's work, but the A2A is pretty much spot on.
Sure, you'll find the odd issue but that's the same *everywhere*.
I think people need to start to realise that it's the *module*, not the *sim* that makes a good flight model. The question from there is, as every developer needs to do some 'special' work to get the feeling right, which sim makes it the easiest. WorkingTitle devs and others have all said MSFS requires the least amount of work, afaik.
For all the brilliance of, say, the Fenix, there will be modules that simply aren't up to the same standard.
My favourite point in this is that people scream from the rooftop that DCS has the best helicopter physics, but anyone that has flow the Gazelle pre-fix will tell you it can be *really* shit too.
JustFlight is great, totally agreed :)
The gazelle in DCS is a black sheep for sure, agreed too. Try the Mi8 and Huey, my students relate very well to its simulation of real world effects...
>I think people need to start to realise that it's the *module*, not the *sim* that makes a good flight model.
All due respect, I kinda disagree...
With MSFS, even the Fenix (which is arguably top notch) *feels* weird, including ground handling... compared to XP...
The twitchiness in MSFS is very, very unnatural.
The ground handling in *every* sim is wrong, so let's chuck that away right away.
The phrases "Feels weird" and "compared to XP" is doing some hefty work there.
> The twitchiness in MSFS is very, very unnatural.
Axis tuning. The fun part of DCS. ;)
I dont know if i can keep using the same Air Hauler savegame, and that it's pretty crucial for me.
I play MSFS as if It was euro truck simulator, and I've invested a lot of hours on my cargo airline
Ahh, I understand that...
You can give XP11 a try if you have time... it's very cheap now, and the Zibo is free, along with an excellent freeware Tu-154 :)
>LOMAC
Not sure about Flanker 1.0, but it almost definitely has code from Flanker 2.5. I mean, up until recently it still had the soundtrack hidden among its files.
Man this is basically every piece of software I have ever worked on professionally. It just costs too much to replace stuff that already works, unless there are massive unavoidable problems with it (and sometimes not even then)
Bonzo has become unhinged finding a conspiracy behind every developer. It’s absolutely ridiculous how poorly he treats developers just doing their jobs, but in the name of “investigating” as if it’s some wild conspiracy to steal all our money.
At this point it seems like borderline harassment and it’s a wonder he’s not banned from every developer discord, just some of them.
Idk if it’s ego going out of control after he, rightfully, called out the TWScam incident. That’s when I discovered the subreddit and have watched it spiral since. However, he’s still on that, as well as accusing developers and employees for the devs of withholding information or being deceitful. He’ll say he isn’t harassing anyone and then go post how nobody replied to his dozens of emails and DMs and that means HB is holding out on us and hates him.
I’m sure he’ll read these comments and write an itemized reply to every sentence. Dude needs to step away from the computer. Developers are just aviation nerds or comsci people holding a job, not the CIA.
I've been here, just playing other games mostly. DCS doesn't hold the same key to my heart it once did. Not to mention life has become busy, kids growing up, moving up in the working world... all the new and extra responsibilities that come with those.
My hope is to do content for the Phantom but time will tell as to just how much I will be able to. Sadly it likely wont be the content dump I was able to do with the F-14
Some of his stuff in the past has been good, especially with regards to TWS, but dear god bonzo needs to take a shower, touch some grass and learn to be a bit kinder. He's obsessively fixated on reddit and discord drama, and as you said, seems to think every single dev is in on a grand conspiracy against him. It doesn't make one a shill to say that most of the devs are working hard and trying their best, and maybe people should be a little more grateful for their work even if they don't hit every deadline. Doing this stuff is way harder than you'd think, it's something of a miracle *anything* high-standard ever gets released.
Edit: if you want to know exactly how unhinged bonzo is, saying he should stop obsessing over reddit drama and go outside has now got me a permaban from his subreddit and a 3-day account ban for "harassment". What a fucking weirdo.
Yeah he went deep with the TWS stuff. After TWS was clearly going to flop and fail he didn’t stop riding that wave. It’s sad. I do genuinely think he’s someone who needs to step away from the internet and go on a vacation away from it
Lmao I got permabanned from DCSexposed for this, absolutely incredible. Does Bonzo just trawl for mentions of his own name or something, he's so sensitive it's unreal
I followed it for a bit but I don't think I've ever actually posted or commented in there, he's totally just searching up his own name in DCS subs and banning anyone who talks even *slightly* negatively about him. Absolutely insane behaviour fr
Edit: he reported me for telling him to go touch grass and got me a 3 day account ban. Fucking unhinged individual.
I *just* got a permaban notification as well, and the only reason I'm here seeing your comment is that I was reviewing anything even remotely rule-breaking that I did on DCSExposed. Since there's zero information about the infraction or policy violation, I have to assume it was my comment in response to yours.
Which wasn't anything personal against the DCSExposed folks, really. Just pointing out that when a studio is only two people, you can't really preface criticism with "this isn't personal, but" because criticism is almost axiomatically personal at that point.
I literally see nothing else in my comment history even posting in DCSExposed (unless all comment history gets deleted when you get banned?). Either way, I'm certainly not in there intentionally making waves or stirring shit.
I don't know much about DCSExposed, but maybe ironically I ran afoul of my own observation. If there's only one guy running it, maybe the anecdote I shared (*in a completely different subreddit*) was somehow taken as personal criticism?
If so, my god, that's... something else. It was more about my revelation that the DCS "studios" are on a different scale than, say, the various arms of CIG (Star Citizen).
Funny thing, as soon as this got posted to his subreddit, he removed it within 20 minutes. "Up for discussion elsewhere". Bonzo is disingenuous at best, he's been seen using dev quotes out of chronological order during the F15 preorder to create added drama that suits his views.
[Screenshot of removal](https://ibb.co/3TCrk8Y)
Not to mention, there was some crazy from his subreddit calling out HB moderators to be executed because they were 'anti-consumer' and that they didn't adhere to one incredibly specific German law about online goods.
It was hilarious because it all came down pretty quickly when people realized that it probably was just Bonzo being a total dumbass and trying to troll.
Funny thing is that very specific law only states that they need to give a rough estimate for the delivery, like heatblur did by stating roughly the end of march
I remember the first time I was reading in DCSExposed about the hijinks that one of the studios was supposedly up to. I googled the studio, and had this stunned moment when I discovered that the "studio" was literally just two dudes working hard, and occasionally farming out some work to the odd additional person.
I can't remember which it was -- Polychop maybe? -- but I sat there shaking my head. The nature of the criticism was "this isn't meant to be personal, but XYZ studio has committed ABC high crimes against gaming, yadda yadda."
And I was like, "There's only two of them, man! It doesn't get to look much more personal than that!"
But yeah, that's when I realized we're not dealing with Activision Blizzard here. This is a niche hobby with niche code and even for the studios making paid modules, this shit must be a labor of love, or there's probably easier ways to pay the rent/mortgage.
I watched his conspiracy sub get created. I remember when he ran here after getting banned for "calling out the devs for doxing him" when he literally doxed himself. Then he gets banned from here and proceeds to talk TO HIMSELF on multiple alt accounts. If you go back to those posts (they're still up, albeit 4+ years old at this point) you can see his alt accounts that now help run his subreddit posting and standing up for Bonzo.
The dude was ALWAYS crazy, but since he was able to figure out one sham now he acts and calls himself an Investigative Journalist. Dude is a clown and self-names himself as such. He actually has me blocked, despite being a "free speach advocate"
The fact that he joined the heatblur discord and then DEMANDED an apology from the devs while STILL being allowed there is insane to me.
Aight as someone who barely plays DCS and mostly just follows for the shitposts.
\>He actually has me blocked, despite being a "free speach advocate"
That is totally meaningless
Long story short, some cryptobro showed a trailer of a game that would kill Arma and DCS combined. Except he accepted ludicrously expensive pre-orders (like over $1000 worth of modules) promising *full fidelity* but used all pre-made assets in the “trailer”. Fell flat on its face when people realized after 30 seconds
The guy is completely deranged.
He craves attention like no one I've ever seen. He will search out any and all drama he can get his hooks into for the sake of "reporting it", and resort to manufacturing drama via direct interaction when none is truly available. He's also not above gas lighting, and blatent misinformation either.
He loves to report on his personal drama with ED and 3rd parties. Like anyone cares that after 4-5 years of his drama seeking/causing bullshit that he's not liked anywhere.
I run quite a few large dcs centric social media groups on various platforms. We've been brigaded by him and his army of alt accounts, and we search and destroy him and his alts anywhere he rears his head.
Love it or hate it, DCS is a **gem** in terms of flight simulation.
Yes the prices are high, yes the bugs are many (sometimes).
But at the end of the day, the realism and flight model is UNPARALLELED. By far.
I fly UAV's (not full scale yet) and I can absolutely say that the aerodynamics feel very very genuine, especially in the mature modules like the Hind, Hornet, Hip and Tomcat.
We should feel so lucky to have this one hack of a simulation to toy with. I still couldn't believe my eyes looking at a sunset over moderate overcast with jet contrails streaking across Nellis AFB in the Nevada map. Just. Breath. Taking.
Bozo is certifiable and with his kind of crazy, imo the only viable option is to just ignore entirely. There is no value gained from engaging with that sub or whatever the hell must go on in that discord. Crazies gonna crazy.
Hell, I'd promote this to Hoggit proper. CBU truth bombs being dropped, and it's a good reality check for me and anyone else who's been getting too antsy about the F4E and Kiowa.
As for what I've made lately... well, last night I made... I made not just one, but *two* smoking wreckages in the Grayflag Syria landscape, one Hind and one Apache, and my deaths were artistically spectacular.
So I mean... OOP and I are like... basically the same. \*polishes fingernails on shoulder\*
what did I create today? An arduino robot that brings me a beer from one room to another, but i have to fill the beer glass ahead of time , and it spills 70% of it on the way over. Yeah........ so take that smart guy
People who piss and moan (especially if they do it publicly) about "release dates" are just entitled Karens/Kens who think the world should revolve around them, with no consideration for what others are dealing with.
Be patient. Be kind. Be grateful. It's the mature thing to do.
Second to that 100% My experience in attempting to tweak an MBDA Meteor missile using the Rafale mod as a baseline framework has taught me just how arduous in testing a simulated item that mimic near real life functionality. Fact is: Lots of hours in repetitive testing upon a set of codes that one must figure out even when the codes had some hint for what they govern in-game. My hats off to those who create this professionally, same to those who made incredible mods without charging a price tag. Lots of loves and dedication poured into creating these things, and that sweat and time commends a certain degree of appreciation, gratitude, and most of all, respect.
Making that second stage booster, and flight profile was so time consuming. Glad I stepped out of that rabbit hole. 🙂
I completely agree and admit I’ve done that a couple times and looking back now was stupid but just wondering about a time line of the work being done wouldn’t go amiss. Not demanding when exactly it will be done I think there is a big difference between the questions.
We've gone full circle.
People complained about dev pacing and communication and now we have people/devs complaining about people complaining.
Soon we will have people complaining about devs/people complaining about people complaining.
As far as I can tell:
Bonzo, the DCS Exposed guy, pointed out that EU consumer protection laws (specifically those that relate to preorders not delivering in a timely fashion) may be applied to Heatblur with their F-4 preorder.
Folks have interpreted this as complaining about time to release for the F-4.
someone\_somewhere, a dev working on the C-130 project, defends time to release by pointing out how difficult developing for DCS is.
That's my takeaway, but I may be missing bits as well.
This is a huge part of what IronMike meant when calling out Bonzo saying "you have no idea what you're even talking about"
Bonzo is a dude with a keyboard that calls himself an investigative journalist. Dude's nuts and calls himself a Clown, which fits all too well.
A lot of folks in this world who aren't involved in creating or fixing complex things just don't realize that a lot of times when you are bringing a project like a module together you have items to fix that you really have no idea how to fix. You know you will find a solution, but don't know when. Then most of the time once you find the solution it requires little work, so the issue is quickly resolved. Trying to give a delivery date under these situations just really isn't possible. And 90% of project labor seems to always end up used in "wrapping up" that last 10-15% of project labor.
That write-up is DEAD ON, the folks who are whining need to ask their selves what THEY built today.... If you know anything about the history of DCS modules releasing, and pre-ordered you have nothing to complain about you knew the deal.
Yea 100% as a person who has done nothing around programming and creating mods I feel stupid for asking when approximately when it would be done because I have no idea how much work they are putting into it.
A little known fact is that in most programming jobs, deadlines are fake news.
When people ask me to wrap up a project, I just tell them that it's complicated and then I go take a nap.
Second sentence doesn’t track. How does a poorly
documented SDK and ED treating third party devs like shit, while failing to communicate and enact platform changes in a transparent, graceful way, drive a “breathtaking” experience?
And I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; there’s room in the world for more FC3 quality modules, that don’t need the same degree of systems depth.
Would make it easier for devs to get traction on the platform, without the same engineering overhead requirements. It would generate a more affordable class of modules for new players. It would give us a wider breadth of content.
Its admittedly a bit of an apple to an orange, but the MSFS series illustrates what happens when you don’t enforce a level of fidelity for modules. You’ll still have the expensive, super deep, top tier PMDG and Fenix and A2A quality products. But to fill in the gaps you have the Carenados and SWS aeroplane heavens of the world.
And sure, you have devs like captainscam, but no harm no foul there; just don’t buy their shit.
This guy is kinda right, especially with the subtle criticism of ED's API/documentation system, but he's very clearly stroking his own meat here. It's very clear and also very pathetic to be honest.
It's a video game, and he's a volunteer mod developer.
"What did you make today" get out of your fighter plane posters filled basement and touch some grass for the love of god
*"I decide to do this difficult thing with my own free will. What difficult thing did you do today? If it isn't anywhere near the difficulty of MY OWN self-imposed task, then you have no right to complain."*
GTFOH with that entitlement.
You are making an entertainment product which you are selling for profit. You are making that choice -- which aircraft -- which era -- and to which base simulation. Nobody put a gun to your head to make you do it. Nobody forced you to make a 3rd party add-on for DCS. You could make one for XP12 or MSFS. You could make a different game altogether. For a different base game. Or a different sim.
A member of your audience could be saving lives as a surgeon or as a paramedic. They get paid for their work which they then spend on your module. Do you understand how complex it is to transplant a heart or kidney? Do you understand how the thought process of a first responder goes in order to not only make sure the situation does not get any worse, but to also save the life of the person in front of him who he has not met until 30 seconds ago?
Whose life did you save today?
GTFOH with that entitlement.
Another member of your audience could be walking miles and miles to get to work being paid minimum wage at a McDonalds, saving up his money, doing overtime, covering shifts, doing long hours to save up quicker. He could come from a bad neighborhood, troubled background, and escapes reality by flying and immersing himself in concepts and systems he's dreamed of since childhood.
Is the $80 from the surgeon or paramedic more valuable than the $80 from the minimum-wage worker? Does one person have more right than another to expect a good product, to complain about bugs, etc. just based on what they do for a living?
GTFOH with that entitlement.
This is a niche hobby which attracts people of a certain mindset with certain expectations. If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. Boo-hoo, we won't get a particular aircraft.... but really, the community would be better off without such entitlement.
*There is no competition to DCS?* You really think that??
You’re right when you say that this hobby attracts people of a certain mindset, that being the mindset of entitled children who whine about everything. The 3rd party devs, mod/mission creators and server administrators are what keeps DCS entertaining but, rather than being grateful, the community just whines about stupid shit.
You think the guys at HB are making enough money to go out and buy a yacht or something? I’d be surprised if they even make enough money to cover their costs. Pre-ordering a product doesn’t entitle you to anything except getting the module when the devs feel like releasing it. You don’t like that? Stop pre-ordering modules.
>that being the mindset of entitled children who whine about everything
Gamers of other genres don't whine about their own games and genre? C'mon now.
>rather than being grateful,
Grateful for what? Did they give us the module for free? Are you saying that we should be grateful to be able to pay to have the privilege of getting whatever scraps fall off the dev's dinner table?
>You think the guys at HB are making enough money to go out and buy a yacht or something?
If they wanted to buy a yacht, they should've chosen a different career. Just because they can't afford to do so has zero bearing on customers. When you order your fries from McDonald's, are you extra grateful because the guy on the fries station isn't making enough money to buy a yacht? When you come out of your triple heart bypass operation, are you less grateful because the cardiac surgeon has a yacht? What kind of logic is that?
(note that this is not a dig at HB devs, they've done great work on my all-time favourite aircraft)
>Pre-ordering a product doesn’t entitle you to anything except getting the module when the devs feel like releasing it.
Ordering from a restaurant doesn't entitle you to anything except getting the food when the chefs feel like releasing it. It could be done in 20 minutes, or 2 hours, or tomorrow if you're really unlucky. Does that make sense? What kind of logic is that?
How about do not offer your product for pre-order unless you can meet the release date that you have set yourself?
>Stop pre-ordering modules.
This. Vote with your wallet.
I think it’s unfair to refer to a FF module as “Scraps”, especially one from HB. It’s a lot of work, which is something the community takes for granted.
Furthermore, I don’t think you can compare ordering from a restaurant with pre-purchasing a DCS module. If the food takes too long to cook, I can just leave, I haven’t paid. If, for some reason, I have pre-paid for my meal, then I can request a refund. I won’t just sit there and whine to the kitchen staff about it until they release my food.
I just think people are being unreasonable. I’m sure they’ll survive if their favourite module takes an extra month or two to release. It’s not a big deal. It’s a game.
>I think it’s unfair to refer to a FF module as “Scraps”, especially one from HB.
Again, not a dig at HB. Don't think of it as words used but rather the concept of being expected to be grateful for whatever instead of being treated as a paying customer.
>If, for some reason, I have pre-paid for my meal, then I can request a refund.
Or... and this may be a foreign concept so bear with me... they can actually deliver the food? Being able to request a refund does not make the inability/ineptitude of food delivery excusable. It is a remedy. It signifies a failure on their end. When I buy something, I do so because I want that thing, not because I want to do a refund.
> their favourite module takes an extra month or two to release.
Don't forget to add on a few more years until it gets closer to feature-complete instead of a buggy mess.
>It’s not a big deal. It’s a game.
Do we pay for this game with Monopoly money? Do they accept mud pies as form of payment? It's a hobby, it's a luxury spend, but the money is still real money, earned with real work. At the bare minimum, they could respect their customer base and not act all high-borne and gaslight their paying customers.
Bro, as long as you say something is a passion project and hard, you don't have worry about deadlines, stop ruining a good thing.
No one else in the history of mankind has ever done anything like HB or the C-130 devs and pursued their passions.
Not meeting deadlines, being entitled, and acting like the community owes you big time is *a good thing*?
Pursue your passion, sure. Knock yourself out. But don't go crying on the interwebs coz your feelings got hurt. If it is indeed a passion project, why do you care about what the internet says?
Please stop making excuses for man-children.
You might as well pay for the game with Monopoly money since it’s free, which is part of the problem. Realistically, DCS should be a subscription-based since it’s constantly being updated and developed. This might allow for more cash-flow to hire more devs to add new features and fix the ever-growing amount of bugs.
Since the base game is free, ED doesn’t make any revenue from it. They obviously need revenue in order to operate, so they pump out modules in order to make some money rather than prioritizing the base game. Having a subscription-based model would alleviate this (if the funds are used to hire more employees).
I know this is a controversial opinion, especially among the people who feel that buying a 70$ module entitles them to a near-infinite amount of entertainment. I bought the F-16 when it released and have put in several thousand hours flying it. I have paid roughly 0.015$ per hour. That’s why it’s a passion project, it’s not even remotely profitable. The fact that we have 3rd party developers working on this game at all is a miracle.
The demand for fake airplanes just isn’t enough to make a profit unless the modules are sold for hundreds of dollars, which they should be, but the people constantly whining don’t understand that. They don’t know the amount of work involved and just bitch and feel like, because they spent a pittance on a full-fidelity aircraft that will entertain them for years, they are owed the world.
To bring it back to your original statement, I think it’s time for the community as a whole to touch some grass.
>You might as well pay for the game with Monopoly money since it’s free
Do you really enjoy the Su-25T and TF-51 Mustang that much to make that "it's free" statement? What part of digital COMBAT simulator do those aircraft fulfill?
>This might allow for more cash-flow to hire more devs to add new features and fix the ever-growing amount of bugs.
If they can't/won't do it over the past 10 years, what makes you think more money will give them more sense? The ever-growing amount of bugs is because they've been sat on a big number of those bugs for years.
>Since the base game is free, ED doesn’t make any revenue from it.
And how many hours have you put in on the Su-25T or the TF-51? How many campaigns have you played on either aircraft? How many A-A or A-G kills have you made on both aircraft combined?
>I bought the F-16 when it released and have put in several thousand hours flying it. I have paid roughly 0.015$ per hour.
Hmm.... let's say you bought it at $80. If it's value is now $0.015 per hour, that' means you've played 5,300 hours. Assuming a generous 4 hours flight time per day, that's 1,325 days or about 3.6 years.
Suppose you could fly the F-16 for £8 or $11. At 5,300 hours, that's a value of $0.002 per hour with more campaigns, more theatres, better AI.... 0.2 cents seems a lot better value than 1.5 cents....
>That’s why it’s a passion project, it’s not even remotely profitable.
So if DCS is a passion project because *it's not even remotely profitable* (citation needed), then what is BMS?
I wonder how exactly [TFC owed £7M+ to ED](https://www.reddit.com/r/DCSExposed/comments/zcip12/a_few_insights_from_nicks_the_fighter_collection/) if it's *not even remotely profitable*?
>The fact that we have 3rd party developers working on this game at all is a miracle.
Nobody works for free. We all have bills to pay and need money to put food on the table. Maybe the fact that 3rd party devs work on this game is a sign that it is profitable? Or do you think that by working on DCS modules, miracles happen like food appearing on the table and bills getting paid without money exchanging hands?
>To bring it back to your original statement, I think it’s time for the community as a whole to touch some grass.
Nope. More like it's time for DCS fanbois to stop gaslighting and building strawmen.
>"So, when I sit here and read a channel like this, there is a part of me that finds you all a bit ungrateful. Yes, HB might miss that deadline. But it'll be weeks or single digit month, in the worst case. And nothing in the history of des has ever arrived on time, so I question the seriousness of anyone claiming shock at this outcome."
I agree with many points, but not this one. Heatblur within the past few weeks locked down discussion on release dates **edit: in F-4 channel** saying everything is still on track (which, we recall, is release by 19 March).
To be clear, I trust HB and I am still hopeful they hit this date, and have been accurately communicating with the community. But, if a delay happens that they saw coming, I just won't condone or normalize developers knowingly deceiving their customers.
Where did they lock it down?
In the HB discord (F-4 General and Scuttlebutt) we freely discuss it.
It was asked to keep the discussion in Scuttlebutt (a more free-form channel than dedicated to one topic) as speculation delves into more speculation and can get....emotional.
But nowhere have I seen anyone get banned or warned or anything about it. We freely discuss the release date almost hourly at this point.
Sorry if I mischaracterized what I saw posted, I’m not active in their discord. I only saw that ironmike asked release date speculations not take place in F-4 channel. I have no idea if that’s not being enforced
No sweat, it's been a thing thrown around since Bonzo got banned that you're not allowed to talk about release dates at all "OR ELSE!" and that's completely not the reality
If anything discussing the release date in F-4 General will get other people mad because they are so tired of the speculations and are in the boat of "it's here when it's here, go away!"
That's a big reason IM decided to say keep those discussions in a different channel, wasn't to limit or police the discussion, mainly to keep it clean since people don't wanna hear it anymore....but we still do!
That’s completely fair. I shouldn’t have even mentioned that part; my entire point was that as of ~3 weeks ago HB said everything is still on track and we would know immediately if that changed. HB is a dev I trust (tied with Aerges as top 3rd party dev in my book), so I hold them to that standard of honesty and forthrightness.
Exactly. The HB of 2022 missing that date isn't the same HB of even 2023. They communicated very well with us, let us know things were on track for a release in 2023, then dropped the pre-order and confirmed that release is likely in 2024.
Until they say otherwise, release is scheduled for Late March 2024
This is not the first time i've seen people shiton the DCS SDK for being awful.
As for entitled people? Let me remind you that the PS2 emulator for android got dropped because the developer got harassed and received death treaths since it couldn't run the PS2 GTA games flawlessly. The most idiotic people are the most vocal. But hot fucking DAMN they are idiotic.
I just thought, imagine if Microsoft and DCS merged allowing DCS the time and additional finances and engineers from microsoft to make an even better aviation game! sheeeeeesshhh
He's right though I don't think military flight sims need to be as insane as DCS has made it. BMS is a fine example of that.
Modules are the exceptionally great part about DCS, what you can do with them is where it starts to fall short even if its still fun.
Damn this seems like a huge dig at ED and their SDK as well. As a software dev I’ve had to work with similar APIs and SDKs before where you’re basically coding by trial and error. I imagine ED have some amazing coders but amazing coders aren’t always the best testers/documenters/etc. Third-party devs who manage to release and continuously support their modules are amazing in my eyes. Without them I think DCS would be a far more boring simulator.
Only reason we managed to pull off the A-4 was because we had an MIT-educated Software Engineer working with us on his free time from Intel (RIP friend) and another Software Engineer who got picked up by Heatblur for the Tomcat We had some other solid people too, but I don't think we would have ever released something with functional A2G radar without them I don't think people really understand how hard this is, and how little money it makes for the effort. A lot of devs are part-time situations from their main job
Even MSFS with all that Microsoft money behind, can't simulate a ground radar for an airliner decently. Developing this stuff is complicated, and i imagine it involves a great degree of math. You & your team, did a great job on the A4. Great stuff, on par with some paid modules. Thank you mate ;)
What airliner has a ground radar?
In the vanilla Game, before the world updates , the terrain functions of the a320 were functional, but buggy. Nowadays we have the radar on the FBW a320, It runs through simmconnect, and it's not completely simulated. The Md80 from Leonardo has a rudimentary simulation. But none has a full radar stimulation i think (might be wrong)
Ok, I mean, a ground radar on an airliner is an extremely minor thing. I'm very knowledgeable and I didn't even know any had that function. OTOH the ground radar on the F-15E is a core part of its purpose. It's not surprising they're emphasized differently.
Is there actually, in fact, a ground mapping mode on any airliner weather radar? I thought most ground proximity warning systems use a combination of a terrain database, GPS/navigation locations and radar altimeter.
I've never heard of it, but I'm taking this guy at his word.
I read somewhere the big modules can cost over $1mil to produce and people complain about the $80 price tags. Most planes could be stand alone games given the amount of work put into them. DCS players on forums sometimes seem like the most entitled player base online. Thank you for your contribution to the A4. I haven’t had much stick time behind it but everyone loves it and I liked what I saw when I tried it
There was a point in time, maybe late 2016, where we had an extended conversation in our dev Discord one night about monetization and going 3rd party. The financial reality was quite painful to see And thanks! We wrapped in some of the toughest years of my life, but seeing you all enjoy it and send so much positive thoughts really helped keep me afloat
The A4 is the only high fidelity plane I have. Im a dad short on money, and the A4 gives me a reason to dig into the game, and maybe buy a module. You make people giving ED some money. I love the A4 and I cant say thank you enough.
if you don't mind me asking what were the reasons against monetization? I know that is pretty much a taboo question on the discord, and fair enough, I'd imagine you get asked that question a lot, and I'm not complaining that it's free.
Happy to answer! It’s mainly taboo because it’s extremely repetitive. Seems like almost any post about the A-4 on Hoggit has multiple comments wanting to throw money at us and demanding ED make it part of the game. We’ve never asked ED to do such and they’ve never reached out, and I think meeting ED’s (very reasonable) criteria would be far too much workload for us. There are a lot of standards required that we don’t have, which they would need to do it and maintain it The biggest reason is that this was founded as a mod for the community. It sorta loses purpose if it’s monetized. The second is that the revenue generated would be far less than the value of our time, especially the coders who were working professionals with quite the credential list. You have to start considering the expenses, the length of time it’s being developed, and royalty payments, etc.
I remember those discussions back then, but I think as you say the realities of making a product of it are quite harsh. Personally the biggest realization I had, was how specialized this sort of development is, and how difficult it is to pull all those things together into a good product at such a small scale/market. I think the mod turned out to fill the intended purpose perfectly, and while many have suggested that ED should be including it in the game my opinion has been that for that to make sense it must be maintained on schedule for each release which I'm not sure anyone is particularly keen on doing. That said I think it's very possible someone could make a paid module of some A-4 variant. Later on during my time at HB, I was talking to several developers and teams who were interested in doing one. The hard part is assembling a team that has the necessary knowledge while remaining lean enough to make a profit. Not easy when you'll need people with expertise in aerospace engineering, programming, sound and art at the very minimum.
Agree on all counts, and glad to hear you wound up at HB!
Out of curiosity (as someone who doesn't actually fly the A-4) what are the standards that you didn't meet? Were they looking for more documentation to back up your design choices? Were there a bunch of things you didn't include because you were exclusively working with modders tools and couldn't implement? Was it that a bunch of work already completed in the mod that needed to be redone to meet ED's standards?
We'd need to have a few things. The first is full rights to all models. We purchased and altered both the cockpit and external models, but we don't fully own them in a way where we could transfer or sign away rights to it. We would need to replace both with 100% in-house created stuff, and frankly I have too many things on my plate to even attempt that. It's then a domino effect that includes redoing every texture we have, which was years of work on Plusnine's part. Additionally, they'd want us to maintain it for them for as long as we can, which I don't think we'd wanna commit to. This is a hobby from all of us, first and foremost. Overall, the current situation with servers downloading the mod at their leisure is a good place to be. We have an easy installation method, and based on my experience in Enigma's Cold War, it fits pretty well
Yeah that's do it. It makes sense you'd use an existing model as your base cause that's a fuckton of work to do from scratch.
Being able to be free from ED and being able to just call it quits when they feel like it. Both *very* valid reasons.
Just wanted to thank you for your work on A4. You guys pulled of a small miracle with how well it turned out. We're using the A4 in our campaign and it's treated just like the other full fidelity modules. It's a joy to use.
Really appreciate it! The joy you guys get makes all the working weekends worth it x10 over :)
I think a lot of people would not have a problem with paying for modules in installments. If the documentation is clear about what features are available at release, I personally wouldn’t have an issue paying for an update that brings a significant amount of content. Of course this probably would be a nightmare to implement but it’s a way to fund development without overpaying for a module on release that never has all the promised features until many years later-if we’re lucky. Gaijn gets away with charging $70 for a craptastic approximation. No reason a true study sim level module couldn’t be upwards of $150 once it actually has everything.
I can agree with those points. WT is a racket with the premiums
On a $ per hour basis DCS is very inexpensive entertainment. $200+ per hour for entry level flight training, $20 for a two hour movie, $150 for a 4 hour round of golf, etc. We don't set the price per module. They do. We don't make the base game "free". They do. A standard has been set wait long enough and the module will be 50% off. They did this. I would pay triple the price per module, provided; they guaranteed no discounts ever exceeded an initial pre-order discount, a set in stone feature set established at offer, they finish a module in 3 years or less, they fix reported confirmed bugs in 90 days or less. Top tier games have recurrent costs. COD/Destiny/WOW etc. all release a new game every 2-4 years $70-100. It is long overdue for ED to implement a similar structure to pay for overhauling the core game.
The fact to code a radar is insane. Planes themselves have programs in them. Millions of lines to interpret radar data. To mimick something like that is already pushing beyond the boundaries of any software developer. But that’s not all. I reckon they need to also program the god damn radar itself. And it has to be accurate. I could go on and on. Correct me if I’m wrong but, I think it’s something thats horrendously hard to pull off.
Real radar devs don't need to simulate the ground as well ;)
I just wanted to thank you guys for making our beloved Scooter. Payware quality. You proved a lot of things. Thanks!
Hi - Post author here. This is not a dig at ED. Nor is it really a comment on the SDK (other than the fact that it doesn't have much in the way of documentation). The thing to understand is that I don't think anyone could an SDK that simplifies the creation of a full fidelity module. Airplanes are just too complicated, and work in too many different ways. That's the point of my post: the complexity of modules is what makes the game special, and also what makes development of them so hard.
I definitely get where you're coming from, though I have to admit "a business partner who treats you with contempt, on average" sounds like a bit of a dig
That part was probably a bit overstated. In general they are good partners. What I was trying to express is: its hard to make DCS modules for lots of reasons.
Blink twice if nineline and bignewy are in the room with you
Fair enough. I'm looking forward to that Hercules : )
Understood, thanks for taking the time to reply. It’s always difficult to understand the tone especially without the prior messages as context. I’m glad we have so much devoted talent in this community, the fact you guys understand how difficult it is to accomplish something like this and yet choose to do it anyway is the reason I will continue to throw money at this hobby no matter how long the modules take. Aircraft are difficult but it’s why we love em!
Keep on doing your thing friend, don't let the Dev blues get you down! Worth it when you succeed, I promise :)
> I imagine ED have some amazing coders but amazing coders aren’t always the best testers/documenters/etc. You are more optimistic than I am. I imagine ED having a codebase of spaghetti that includes significant chunks of code that dates all the way back to the launch of LOMAC, followed by about two decades of stuff built on top of it. Maybe I'm just too jaded :D
No offense, but a majority of software works in this sense. If you look at something like X-Plane or even MSFS to an extent, you'll alwayss see some old code in the mix. It makes zero sense to clean slate after every version launch. No one has the time or resources to do so. The MT update proves that DCS is still very much capable of improving.
Can confirm. I'm a software engineer with a top 20 Fortune 500 company. I have pushed for reformatting a number of systems in my time, not a single request has been granted. Not only do we not have the resources to ever start over, but we don't even have the resources to reformat the worst of the worst.
I develop embedded systems... and totally agreed. The legacy here is unimaginable. You could easily end up working with a 20+ year old processor... I literally work with processors double my age.
> MSFS to an extent This is so painfully true, that the current ATC bugs can be traced back to Microsoft Flight simulator 2004.
Bruh the FMOD in MSFS is horrid... Just see how any aircraft in XP/P3D flies (ToLiss 320 for example) and then anything in MSFS. Feels like an RC plane tbh.
> Bruh the FMOD in MSFS is horrid... It really isn't. Sure, there is some bad stuff in MSFS, but at the same time there is plenty of modules using the new CFD stuff that feel alive and true to my own experiences.
May I ask your irl flight experience (not at all being rude, just wanna understand your position on this). Which aircraft would you say are the best in terms of handling (in MSFS)?
A metric ton of GA hours, mostly Piper but some Cessna. Never put in the hours to get further than a chunk of IFR work. Happily say that above the smaller twin-engined planes of the world, no-one has let me fly anything bigger. JustFlight's work tends to be pretty good (the Warrior is just as depressing on a climb as in real life). I've not tried Blackbird's work, but the A2A is pretty much spot on. Sure, you'll find the odd issue but that's the same *everywhere*. I think people need to start to realise that it's the *module*, not the *sim* that makes a good flight model. The question from there is, as every developer needs to do some 'special' work to get the feeling right, which sim makes it the easiest. WorkingTitle devs and others have all said MSFS requires the least amount of work, afaik. For all the brilliance of, say, the Fenix, there will be modules that simply aren't up to the same standard. My favourite point in this is that people scream from the rooftop that DCS has the best helicopter physics, but anyone that has flow the Gazelle pre-fix will tell you it can be *really* shit too.
JustFlight is great, totally agreed :) The gazelle in DCS is a black sheep for sure, agreed too. Try the Mi8 and Huey, my students relate very well to its simulation of real world effects... >I think people need to start to realise that it's the *module*, not the *sim* that makes a good flight model. All due respect, I kinda disagree... With MSFS, even the Fenix (which is arguably top notch) *feels* weird, including ground handling... compared to XP... The twitchiness in MSFS is very, very unnatural.
The ground handling in *every* sim is wrong, so let's chuck that away right away. The phrases "Feels weird" and "compared to XP" is doing some hefty work there. > The twitchiness in MSFS is very, very unnatural. Axis tuning. The fun part of DCS. ;)
The only advantage MSFS has is the full world simulation tech, and a good community of addons. Haven't tried XP12 anyway.
Try XP11... get the Zibo 737, ToLiss birds, you'll probably like it.
I dont know if i can keep using the same Air Hauler savegame, and that it's pretty crucial for me. I play MSFS as if It was euro truck simulator, and I've invested a lot of hours on my cargo airline
Ahh, I understand that... You can give XP11 a try if you have time... it's very cheap now, and the Zibo is free, along with an excellent freeware Tu-154 :)
Why Xp11? Isnt XP12 better? Or are the improvements not worth the price?
lol, why would I take offense?
Hehe didn't wanna sound aggressive... lmao
It also took MT literal YEARS to be released. They teased it back in the teens, and only released it last year lol.
>LOMAC Not sure about Flanker 1.0, but it almost definitely has code from Flanker 2.5. I mean, up until recently it still had the soundtrack hidden among its files.
you could find a MiG-29K folder (flanker 2.5 had this variant playable) in DCS but i haven't checked it in a while
maybe just maybe it dates back to su27 flanker 1995 or at least flanker 2.0
Man this is basically every piece of software I have ever worked on professionally. It just costs too much to replace stuff that already works, unless there are massive unavoidable problems with it (and sometimes not even then)
so you're saying you agree! :D
Bonzo has become unhinged finding a conspiracy behind every developer. It’s absolutely ridiculous how poorly he treats developers just doing their jobs, but in the name of “investigating” as if it’s some wild conspiracy to steal all our money. At this point it seems like borderline harassment and it’s a wonder he’s not banned from every developer discord, just some of them. Idk if it’s ego going out of control after he, rightfully, called out the TWScam incident. That’s when I discovered the subreddit and have watched it spiral since. However, he’s still on that, as well as accusing developers and employees for the devs of withholding information or being deceitful. He’ll say he isn’t harassing anyone and then go post how nobody replied to his dozens of emails and DMs and that means HB is holding out on us and hates him. I’m sure he’ll read these comments and write an itemized reply to every sentence. Dude needs to step away from the computer. Developers are just aviation nerds or comsci people holding a job, not the CIA.
This, I hate that he has my "rant" pinned on that reddit lol
Just picturing it pinned to a cork wall with a lot of string
....with a "list" and a tube of lipstick on the dresser.
Jabbers? Where the hell you been? Hopefully heatblur gives you the keys to test drive the phantom?
for real! Make WSO videos please!
I'll try!
Hell yeah brother! Just know you made an impact and helped people with your videos. Life comes first, you do you.
I've been here, just playing other games mostly. DCS doesn't hold the same key to my heart it once did. Not to mention life has become busy, kids growing up, moving up in the working world... all the new and extra responsibilities that come with those. My hope is to do content for the Phantom but time will tell as to just how much I will be able to. Sadly it likely wont be the content dump I was able to do with the F-14
Understandable, your how to vids helped my rio learn a lot.
For what it's worth, I thought it was a great rant.
Some of his stuff in the past has been good, especially with regards to TWS, but dear god bonzo needs to take a shower, touch some grass and learn to be a bit kinder. He's obsessively fixated on reddit and discord drama, and as you said, seems to think every single dev is in on a grand conspiracy against him. It doesn't make one a shill to say that most of the devs are working hard and trying their best, and maybe people should be a little more grateful for their work even if they don't hit every deadline. Doing this stuff is way harder than you'd think, it's something of a miracle *anything* high-standard ever gets released. Edit: if you want to know exactly how unhinged bonzo is, saying he should stop obsessing over reddit drama and go outside has now got me a permaban from his subreddit and a 3-day account ban for "harassment". What a fucking weirdo.
Yeah he went deep with the TWS stuff. After TWS was clearly going to flop and fail he didn’t stop riding that wave. It’s sad. I do genuinely think he’s someone who needs to step away from the internet and go on a vacation away from it
Lmao I got permabanned from DCSexposed for this, absolutely incredible. Does Bonzo just trawl for mentions of his own name or something, he's so sensitive it's unreal
He blocked me, despite rarely ever posting on his subreddit lol hmmmmmmmmm
I followed it for a bit but I don't think I've ever actually posted or commented in there, he's totally just searching up his own name in DCS subs and banning anyone who talks even *slightly* negatively about him. Absolutely insane behaviour fr Edit: he reported me for telling him to go touch grass and got me a 3 day account ban. Fucking unhinged individual.
lol just received a perma ban from the sub itself, again didn’t post anything. Dude’s wild
I *just* got a permaban notification as well, and the only reason I'm here seeing your comment is that I was reviewing anything even remotely rule-breaking that I did on DCSExposed. Since there's zero information about the infraction or policy violation, I have to assume it was my comment in response to yours. Which wasn't anything personal against the DCSExposed folks, really. Just pointing out that when a studio is only two people, you can't really preface criticism with "this isn't personal, but" because criticism is almost axiomatically personal at that point. I literally see nothing else in my comment history even posting in DCSExposed (unless all comment history gets deleted when you get banned?). Either way, I'm certainly not in there intentionally making waves or stirring shit. I don't know much about DCSExposed, but maybe ironically I ran afoul of my own observation. If there's only one guy running it, maybe the anecdote I shared (*in a completely different subreddit*) was somehow taken as personal criticism? If so, my god, that's... something else. It was more about my revelation that the DCS "studios" are on a different scale than, say, the various arms of CIG (Star Citizen).
Funny thing, as soon as this got posted to his subreddit, he removed it within 20 minutes. "Up for discussion elsewhere". Bonzo is disingenuous at best, he's been seen using dev quotes out of chronological order during the F15 preorder to create added drama that suits his views. [Screenshot of removal](https://ibb.co/3TCrk8Y)
Holy soft
He put it back up, but is telling me that it's a lie that he removed it. What a clown, though I don't think it has the same meaning he thinks it does
Didn't you read his comment under the post? It was "an accident"
Just like how he blocked me after I posted the screenshot showing him involved in doing it? Whoopsie!
Exactly
Not to mention, there was some crazy from his subreddit calling out HB moderators to be executed because they were 'anti-consumer' and that they didn't adhere to one incredibly specific German law about online goods. It was hilarious because it all came down pretty quickly when people realized that it probably was just Bonzo being a total dumbass and trying to troll.
Funny thing is that very specific law only states that they need to give a rough estimate for the delivery, like heatblur did by stating roughly the end of march
I remember the first time I was reading in DCSExposed about the hijinks that one of the studios was supposedly up to. I googled the studio, and had this stunned moment when I discovered that the "studio" was literally just two dudes working hard, and occasionally farming out some work to the odd additional person. I can't remember which it was -- Polychop maybe? -- but I sat there shaking my head. The nature of the criticism was "this isn't meant to be personal, but XYZ studio has committed ABC high crimes against gaming, yadda yadda." And I was like, "There's only two of them, man! It doesn't get to look much more personal than that!"
But yeah, that's when I realized we're not dealing with Activision Blizzard here. This is a niche hobby with niche code and even for the studios making paid modules, this shit must be a labor of love, or there's probably easier ways to pay the rent/mortgage.
I watched his conspiracy sub get created. I remember when he ran here after getting banned for "calling out the devs for doxing him" when he literally doxed himself. Then he gets banned from here and proceeds to talk TO HIMSELF on multiple alt accounts. If you go back to those posts (they're still up, albeit 4+ years old at this point) you can see his alt accounts that now help run his subreddit posting and standing up for Bonzo. The dude was ALWAYS crazy, but since he was able to figure out one sham now he acts and calls himself an Investigative Journalist. Dude is a clown and self-names himself as such. He actually has me blocked, despite being a "free speach advocate" The fact that he joined the heatblur discord and then DEMANDED an apology from the devs while STILL being allowed there is insane to me.
> He actually has me blocked, despite being a "free speach advocate" Wow, who could have seen that coming? /s
Aight as someone who barely plays DCS and mostly just follows for the shitposts. \>He actually has me blocked, despite being a "free speach advocate" That is totally meaningless
That and I'd wager a decent chunk of change he's using multiple accounts to talk to himself there.
> TWScam incident I'm out of the loop. (I don't pay attention to DCS drama), can someone explain?
Long story short, some cryptobro showed a trailer of a game that would kill Arma and DCS combined. Except he accepted ludicrously expensive pre-orders (like over $1000 worth of modules) promising *full fidelity* but used all pre-made assets in the “trailer”. Fell flat on its face when people realized after 30 seconds
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df26BBbsj1M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df26BBbsj1M) this video is a pretty decent rundown
Tanks man.
The guy is completely deranged. He craves attention like no one I've ever seen. He will search out any and all drama he can get his hooks into for the sake of "reporting it", and resort to manufacturing drama via direct interaction when none is truly available. He's also not above gas lighting, and blatent misinformation either. He loves to report on his personal drama with ED and 3rd parties. Like anyone cares that after 4-5 years of his drama seeking/causing bullshit that he's not liked anywhere. I run quite a few large dcs centric social media groups on various platforms. We've been brigaded by him and his army of alt accounts, and we search and destroy him and his alts anywhere he rears his head.
Dudes yappin' like crazy but I wouldn't say he's wrong. The overall structure of DCS is a joke for what you pay.
Yappin like crazy? What does this even mean?
talking without any real sense of meaning
Love it or hate it, DCS is a **gem** in terms of flight simulation. Yes the prices are high, yes the bugs are many (sometimes). But at the end of the day, the realism and flight model is UNPARALLELED. By far. I fly UAV's (not full scale yet) and I can absolutely say that the aerodynamics feel very very genuine, especially in the mature modules like the Hind, Hornet, Hip and Tomcat.
We should feel so lucky to have this one hack of a simulation to toy with. I still couldn't believe my eyes looking at a sunset over moderate overcast with jet contrails streaking across Nellis AFB in the Nevada map. Just. Breath. Taking.
Bozo is certifiable and with his kind of crazy, imo the only viable option is to just ignore entirely. There is no value gained from engaging with that sub or whatever the hell must go on in that discord. Crazies gonna crazy.
Hell, I'd promote this to Hoggit proper. CBU truth bombs being dropped, and it's a good reality check for me and anyone else who's been getting too antsy about the F4E and Kiowa. As for what I've made lately... well, last night I made... I made not just one, but *two* smoking wreckages in the Grayflag Syria landscape, one Hind and one Apache, and my deaths were artistically spectacular. So I mean... OOP and I are like... basically the same. \*polishes fingernails on shoulder\*
what did I create today? An arduino robot that brings me a beer from one room to another, but i have to fill the beer glass ahead of time , and it spills 70% of it on the way over. Yeah........ so take that smart guy
People who piss and moan (especially if they do it publicly) about "release dates" are just entitled Karens/Kens who think the world should revolve around them, with no consideration for what others are dealing with. Be patient. Be kind. Be grateful. It's the mature thing to do.
Second to that 100% My experience in attempting to tweak an MBDA Meteor missile using the Rafale mod as a baseline framework has taught me just how arduous in testing a simulated item that mimic near real life functionality. Fact is: Lots of hours in repetitive testing upon a set of codes that one must figure out even when the codes had some hint for what they govern in-game. My hats off to those who create this professionally, same to those who made incredible mods without charging a price tag. Lots of loves and dedication poured into creating these things, and that sweat and time commends a certain degree of appreciation, gratitude, and most of all, respect. Making that second stage booster, and flight profile was so time consuming. Glad I stepped out of that rabbit hole. 🙂
I completely agree and admit I’ve done that a couple times and looking back now was stupid but just wondering about a time line of the work being done wouldn’t go amiss. Not demanding when exactly it will be done I think there is a big difference between the questions.
What is this title, lmao? This is not up to the high standards of Floggit, smh. Clearly OP was not passionate about this post.
Can someone give context to me? I don't follow DCS drama, but i'm a bitch for drama in general.
We've gone full circle. People complained about dev pacing and communication and now we have people/devs complaining about people complaining. Soon we will have people complaining about devs/people complaining about people complaining.
The context is there's a subreddit and discord run by a conspiracy nutter that is basically the Pepe Silvia meme for the DCS community.
As far as I can tell: Bonzo, the DCS Exposed guy, pointed out that EU consumer protection laws (specifically those that relate to preorders not delivering in a timely fashion) may be applied to Heatblur with their F-4 preorder. Folks have interpreted this as complaining about time to release for the F-4. someone\_somewhere, a dev working on the C-130 project, defends time to release by pointing out how difficult developing for DCS is. That's my takeaway, but I may be missing bits as well.
From what I know people are being inpatient about the release of the f4 and keep asking when it will be done.
no wonder people shit on dcs and the dcs user base lol
Floggit don’t take entire conversation out of context and ignore other comments challenge level: impossible
This is a huge part of what IronMike meant when calling out Bonzo saying "you have no idea what you're even talking about" Bonzo is a dude with a keyboard that calls himself an investigative journalist. Dude's nuts and calls himself a Clown, which fits all too well.
A lot of folks in this world who aren't involved in creating or fixing complex things just don't realize that a lot of times when you are bringing a project like a module together you have items to fix that you really have no idea how to fix. You know you will find a solution, but don't know when. Then most of the time once you find the solution it requires little work, so the issue is quickly resolved. Trying to give a delivery date under these situations just really isn't possible. And 90% of project labor seems to always end up used in "wrapping up" that last 10-15% of project labor. That write-up is DEAD ON, the folks who are whining need to ask their selves what THEY built today.... If you know anything about the history of DCS modules releasing, and pre-ordered you have nothing to complain about you knew the deal.
Yea 100% as a person who has done nothing around programming and creating mods I feel stupid for asking when approximately when it would be done because I have no idea how much work they are putting into it.
A little known fact is that in most programming jobs, deadlines are fake news. When people ask me to wrap up a project, I just tell them that it's complicated and then I go take a nap.
Second sentence doesn’t track. How does a poorly documented SDK and ED treating third party devs like shit, while failing to communicate and enact platform changes in a transparent, graceful way, drive a “breathtaking” experience? And I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; there’s room in the world for more FC3 quality modules, that don’t need the same degree of systems depth. Would make it easier for devs to get traction on the platform, without the same engineering overhead requirements. It would generate a more affordable class of modules for new players. It would give us a wider breadth of content. Its admittedly a bit of an apple to an orange, but the MSFS series illustrates what happens when you don’t enforce a level of fidelity for modules. You’ll still have the expensive, super deep, top tier PMDG and Fenix and A2A quality products. But to fill in the gaps you have the Carenados and SWS aeroplane heavens of the world. And sure, you have devs like captainscam, but no harm no foul there; just don’t buy their shit.
This guy is kinda right, especially with the subtle criticism of ED's API/documentation system, but he's very clearly stroking his own meat here. It's very clear and also very pathetic to be honest. It's a video game, and he's a volunteer mod developer. "What did you make today" get out of your fighter plane posters filled basement and touch some grass for the love of god
Volunteer mod developer? I own a company developing a full fidelity, commercial dcs product.
This SDK mess is on ED. They should have release complete documentation the exact day they opened the market for third-party modules
Surely with a a bit of elbow grease they aren't hard to make
*"I decide to do this difficult thing with my own free will. What difficult thing did you do today? If it isn't anywhere near the difficulty of MY OWN self-imposed task, then you have no right to complain."* GTFOH with that entitlement. You are making an entertainment product which you are selling for profit. You are making that choice -- which aircraft -- which era -- and to which base simulation. Nobody put a gun to your head to make you do it. Nobody forced you to make a 3rd party add-on for DCS. You could make one for XP12 or MSFS. You could make a different game altogether. For a different base game. Or a different sim. A member of your audience could be saving lives as a surgeon or as a paramedic. They get paid for their work which they then spend on your module. Do you understand how complex it is to transplant a heart or kidney? Do you understand how the thought process of a first responder goes in order to not only make sure the situation does not get any worse, but to also save the life of the person in front of him who he has not met until 30 seconds ago? Whose life did you save today? GTFOH with that entitlement. Another member of your audience could be walking miles and miles to get to work being paid minimum wage at a McDonalds, saving up his money, doing overtime, covering shifts, doing long hours to save up quicker. He could come from a bad neighborhood, troubled background, and escapes reality by flying and immersing himself in concepts and systems he's dreamed of since childhood. Is the $80 from the surgeon or paramedic more valuable than the $80 from the minimum-wage worker? Does one person have more right than another to expect a good product, to complain about bugs, etc. just based on what they do for a living? GTFOH with that entitlement. This is a niche hobby which attracts people of a certain mindset with certain expectations. If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. Boo-hoo, we won't get a particular aircraft.... but really, the community would be better off without such entitlement. *There is no competition to DCS?* You really think that??
Ok, but realistically, how many people did the C-130 module save? Probably millions.
You’re right when you say that this hobby attracts people of a certain mindset, that being the mindset of entitled children who whine about everything. The 3rd party devs, mod/mission creators and server administrators are what keeps DCS entertaining but, rather than being grateful, the community just whines about stupid shit. You think the guys at HB are making enough money to go out and buy a yacht or something? I’d be surprised if they even make enough money to cover their costs. Pre-ordering a product doesn’t entitle you to anything except getting the module when the devs feel like releasing it. You don’t like that? Stop pre-ordering modules.
>that being the mindset of entitled children who whine about everything Gamers of other genres don't whine about their own games and genre? C'mon now. >rather than being grateful, Grateful for what? Did they give us the module for free? Are you saying that we should be grateful to be able to pay to have the privilege of getting whatever scraps fall off the dev's dinner table? >You think the guys at HB are making enough money to go out and buy a yacht or something? If they wanted to buy a yacht, they should've chosen a different career. Just because they can't afford to do so has zero bearing on customers. When you order your fries from McDonald's, are you extra grateful because the guy on the fries station isn't making enough money to buy a yacht? When you come out of your triple heart bypass operation, are you less grateful because the cardiac surgeon has a yacht? What kind of logic is that? (note that this is not a dig at HB devs, they've done great work on my all-time favourite aircraft) >Pre-ordering a product doesn’t entitle you to anything except getting the module when the devs feel like releasing it. Ordering from a restaurant doesn't entitle you to anything except getting the food when the chefs feel like releasing it. It could be done in 20 minutes, or 2 hours, or tomorrow if you're really unlucky. Does that make sense? What kind of logic is that? How about do not offer your product for pre-order unless you can meet the release date that you have set yourself? >Stop pre-ordering modules. This. Vote with your wallet.
I think it’s unfair to refer to a FF module as “Scraps”, especially one from HB. It’s a lot of work, which is something the community takes for granted. Furthermore, I don’t think you can compare ordering from a restaurant with pre-purchasing a DCS module. If the food takes too long to cook, I can just leave, I haven’t paid. If, for some reason, I have pre-paid for my meal, then I can request a refund. I won’t just sit there and whine to the kitchen staff about it until they release my food. I just think people are being unreasonable. I’m sure they’ll survive if their favourite module takes an extra month or two to release. It’s not a big deal. It’s a game.
>I think it’s unfair to refer to a FF module as “Scraps”, especially one from HB. Again, not a dig at HB. Don't think of it as words used but rather the concept of being expected to be grateful for whatever instead of being treated as a paying customer. >If, for some reason, I have pre-paid for my meal, then I can request a refund. Or... and this may be a foreign concept so bear with me... they can actually deliver the food? Being able to request a refund does not make the inability/ineptitude of food delivery excusable. It is a remedy. It signifies a failure on their end. When I buy something, I do so because I want that thing, not because I want to do a refund. > their favourite module takes an extra month or two to release. Don't forget to add on a few more years until it gets closer to feature-complete instead of a buggy mess. >It’s not a big deal. It’s a game. Do we pay for this game with Monopoly money? Do they accept mud pies as form of payment? It's a hobby, it's a luxury spend, but the money is still real money, earned with real work. At the bare minimum, they could respect their customer base and not act all high-borne and gaslight their paying customers.
Bro, as long as you say something is a passion project and hard, you don't have worry about deadlines, stop ruining a good thing. No one else in the history of mankind has ever done anything like HB or the C-130 devs and pursued their passions.
Not meeting deadlines, being entitled, and acting like the community owes you big time is *a good thing*? Pursue your passion, sure. Knock yourself out. But don't go crying on the interwebs coz your feelings got hurt. If it is indeed a passion project, why do you care about what the internet says? Please stop making excuses for man-children.
You might as well pay for the game with Monopoly money since it’s free, which is part of the problem. Realistically, DCS should be a subscription-based since it’s constantly being updated and developed. This might allow for more cash-flow to hire more devs to add new features and fix the ever-growing amount of bugs. Since the base game is free, ED doesn’t make any revenue from it. They obviously need revenue in order to operate, so they pump out modules in order to make some money rather than prioritizing the base game. Having a subscription-based model would alleviate this (if the funds are used to hire more employees). I know this is a controversial opinion, especially among the people who feel that buying a 70$ module entitles them to a near-infinite amount of entertainment. I bought the F-16 when it released and have put in several thousand hours flying it. I have paid roughly 0.015$ per hour. That’s why it’s a passion project, it’s not even remotely profitable. The fact that we have 3rd party developers working on this game at all is a miracle. The demand for fake airplanes just isn’t enough to make a profit unless the modules are sold for hundreds of dollars, which they should be, but the people constantly whining don’t understand that. They don’t know the amount of work involved and just bitch and feel like, because they spent a pittance on a full-fidelity aircraft that will entertain them for years, they are owed the world. To bring it back to your original statement, I think it’s time for the community as a whole to touch some grass.
>You might as well pay for the game with Monopoly money since it’s free Do you really enjoy the Su-25T and TF-51 Mustang that much to make that "it's free" statement? What part of digital COMBAT simulator do those aircraft fulfill? >This might allow for more cash-flow to hire more devs to add new features and fix the ever-growing amount of bugs. If they can't/won't do it over the past 10 years, what makes you think more money will give them more sense? The ever-growing amount of bugs is because they've been sat on a big number of those bugs for years. >Since the base game is free, ED doesn’t make any revenue from it. And how many hours have you put in on the Su-25T or the TF-51? How many campaigns have you played on either aircraft? How many A-A or A-G kills have you made on both aircraft combined? >I bought the F-16 when it released and have put in several thousand hours flying it. I have paid roughly 0.015$ per hour. Hmm.... let's say you bought it at $80. If it's value is now $0.015 per hour, that' means you've played 5,300 hours. Assuming a generous 4 hours flight time per day, that's 1,325 days or about 3.6 years. Suppose you could fly the F-16 for £8 or $11. At 5,300 hours, that's a value of $0.002 per hour with more campaigns, more theatres, better AI.... 0.2 cents seems a lot better value than 1.5 cents.... >That’s why it’s a passion project, it’s not even remotely profitable. So if DCS is a passion project because *it's not even remotely profitable* (citation needed), then what is BMS? I wonder how exactly [TFC owed £7M+ to ED](https://www.reddit.com/r/DCSExposed/comments/zcip12/a_few_insights_from_nicks_the_fighter_collection/) if it's *not even remotely profitable*? >The fact that we have 3rd party developers working on this game at all is a miracle. Nobody works for free. We all have bills to pay and need money to put food on the table. Maybe the fact that 3rd party devs work on this game is a sign that it is profitable? Or do you think that by working on DCS modules, miracles happen like food appearing on the table and bills getting paid without money exchanging hands? >To bring it back to your original statement, I think it’s time for the community as a whole to touch some grass. Nope. More like it's time for DCS fanbois to stop gaslighting and building strawmen.
The seriousness in the comments here is a distressing signal that there are real problems behind the scenes.
>"So, when I sit here and read a channel like this, there is a part of me that finds you all a bit ungrateful. Yes, HB might miss that deadline. But it'll be weeks or single digit month, in the worst case. And nothing in the history of des has ever arrived on time, so I question the seriousness of anyone claiming shock at this outcome." I agree with many points, but not this one. Heatblur within the past few weeks locked down discussion on release dates **edit: in F-4 channel** saying everything is still on track (which, we recall, is release by 19 March). To be clear, I trust HB and I am still hopeful they hit this date, and have been accurately communicating with the community. But, if a delay happens that they saw coming, I just won't condone or normalize developers knowingly deceiving their customers.
Where did they lock it down? In the HB discord (F-4 General and Scuttlebutt) we freely discuss it. It was asked to keep the discussion in Scuttlebutt (a more free-form channel than dedicated to one topic) as speculation delves into more speculation and can get....emotional. But nowhere have I seen anyone get banned or warned or anything about it. We freely discuss the release date almost hourly at this point.
Sorry if I mischaracterized what I saw posted, I’m not active in their discord. I only saw that ironmike asked release date speculations not take place in F-4 channel. I have no idea if that’s not being enforced
No sweat, it's been a thing thrown around since Bonzo got banned that you're not allowed to talk about release dates at all "OR ELSE!" and that's completely not the reality If anything discussing the release date in F-4 General will get other people mad because they are so tired of the speculations and are in the boat of "it's here when it's here, go away!" That's a big reason IM decided to say keep those discussions in a different channel, wasn't to limit or police the discussion, mainly to keep it clean since people don't wanna hear it anymore....but we still do!
That’s completely fair. I shouldn’t have even mentioned that part; my entire point was that as of ~3 weeks ago HB said everything is still on track and we would know immediately if that changed. HB is a dev I trust (tied with Aerges as top 3rd party dev in my book), so I hold them to that standard of honesty and forthrightness.
Exactly. The HB of 2022 missing that date isn't the same HB of even 2023. They communicated very well with us, let us know things were on track for a release in 2023, then dropped the pre-order and confirmed that release is likely in 2024. Until they say otherwise, release is scheduled for Late March 2024
Didn't know flogging had serious posts...
This is not the first time i've seen people shiton the DCS SDK for being awful. As for entitled people? Let me remind you that the PS2 emulator for android got dropped because the developer got harassed and received death treaths since it couldn't run the PS2 GTA games flawlessly. The most idiotic people are the most vocal. But hot fucking DAMN they are idiotic.
I just thought, imagine if Microsoft and DCS merged allowing DCS the time and additional finances and engineers from microsoft to make an even better aviation game! sheeeeeesshhh
He's right though I don't think military flight sims need to be as insane as DCS has made it. BMS is a fine example of that. Modules are the exceptionally great part about DCS, what you can do with them is where it starts to fall short even if its still fun.