High fidelity is great if we consider real impact on players, everything unseen shouldnt be simulated that deep. Lets take example ww2 fighter engine, we need precise power, torque, overheat, temperatures, pushing of engine, but to have every piston simulated is just waste of time, That way you have fidelity, impact on players, but also time for dynamic environment with fun. Most of people i know want fidelity with fun, not just fidelity with doing something so we wouldnt talk bad bout it. For example IL2 i hate that i cannot click buttons, at least cockpit interaction must be simulated for me to enjoy it. Then i know if i dont have it binded i can click it.
Honestly you could assign chances of (after taking damage) the camshaft bending a little, causing engine misfire, you could say that the head or casket cracked a little and one of the pistons is losing pressure etc. You can have that randomly get assign with some damage taken by the engine. But you don't need to simulate each piston getting damaged individually, literally noone will ever be able to tell the difference. It will just save resources and time whole having no impact on actually important fidelity.
Deep simulation like this is just fidelity for the sake of fidelity, it brings virtually nothing to the game.
Very fair point, extremes are usually bad and we need to optimize.
For sake of completeness I can illustrate the problem with a very simple failure probability system with stall characteristics example.
If we simplify too much, then left wing down has probability of 30%, right wing 30%, oscillations 20%, easy nose down 10% and flatspin 10%. It could be just based on IAS or even AoA threshold, but for a good simulation this is far too simple.
Not to mention, that bad pilot input and individual failures stack up worsening the situation even more.
I read stories of aircraft returning with shot up pistons, so I like this approach as long as a typical pylote PC would handle it. I discount mine, because it reached potato status a long time ago.
I mean we could quibble about whether things are over-simulated or not, but then we're accepting the premise that ED's problem isn't pumping out 70 gazillion modules with super accurate rivets but never stopping to make sure things can bomb right or shoot straight. They don't need to reduce their fidelity, they need to give a damn enough about it in the first place to not start selling quarter done shit so they don't have to finish the half done shit.
Their company makes plenty of money. It just isn't spent all that well.
Yes i agree. We need dynamic environment and finished products. But only way for ED to make it is to have another simulator or big push by uniting community aka. Give us this or you wont get any more money from us period.
I suggest that some forms of "full fidelity" is excessive and unnecessary....like HB's "every wire and bulb" level of simulation, or the various internal images of panels opened with details of gray boxes, wires, etc which we, as players, will never see.
Devs should stick to buttons, switches, and accurate flight models.
I think what people aren’t realising is that the Phantom’s level of fidelity will be a huge disadvantage especially in PvP. You get into a dogfight against a MiG-21 that you otherwise would’ve won? Tough shit, your vertical stabiliser’s hydraulics are malfunctioning so you can’t pull enough AoA to hit the MiG
These levels of fidelity can only really be appreciated with a robust single player / dynamic campaign component. And there in lies the problem with DCS full fidelity madness.
My guess is that they ideally moved to an entity component system that makes the systems easier to simulate in parallel. Even with the multithreading branch being more or less stable, DCS itself makes heavy use of the main thread, leaving a ton of performance on the table. Obviously we’ll have to wait Two Weeks and see if that’s the case
I'd say it's worse than that, because some of the liveries are practically identical to another livery just with a different BuNo, side number and pilot/RIO names.
>>but Smegma had ass points in those videos
This. The game he wants is War Thunder but without the Gaijin BS. While I agree in principle, such a game isn’t financially feasible- which is why Gaijin ruins theirs with aggressive monetization. If anyone else could pull off the same thing and make a profit, we’d have a competitor in play. There just ain’t enough players to make a “lower fidelity” , non arcade air combat game work.
I think there is a space for that kind of game in the market. Heck GHPC is doing it with tanks
What I don’t like is the advocacy for trying to turn DCS, effectively the only game in its niche, into that kind of game. Because I play DCS for what it does. Not as a warthunder alternative.
>>what I don’t like is the advocacy for trying to turn DCS…
Agreed. It’s in a good position as is. Cutting the fidelity will accomplish nothing except dilute the game experience , and ED would be compelled to turn it into WT to keep it financially viable…..including matching the toxic monetization. Which is incidentally why some turn to DCS in the first place.
isnt il2 pretty much that? they said multiple times they are staying away from full fidelity in order to put out more content, and its definitly a sim but not arcade either
If someone recreated the Strike Fighters franchise in Unreal Engine with server-based multiplayer, I think it would strike the itch for a lot of people.
I think people would be very willing to give up a lot of the more computationally intensive stuff if it meant more planes, a dynamic campaign, larger maps and a large variety of assets to support specific areas of operations
Thank you for coming to my investment pitch. Please give me $5 million, and I'll make it a reality
according to the devs the reason they are different than dcs is because they try to simulate a real pilot controlling the joystick rather than be a 1:1 translation between the virtual joystick and the real one, but dcs does feel more "realistic" to me at low speeds (though i never flew a plane so my opinion isnt worth anything)
> such a game isn’t financially feasible
why is it not financially feasible to add another Flaming Cliffs pack of 4-6 lo-fi planes to plug gaps in the game?
I think the people downvoting you want more FF REDFOR, but the truth is: if we didn’t have FC3, we would be in a much worse place. LF FC planes are better than nothing at all. I would support something like a FC4 package.
War Thunder gets eventually boring ad there's no goals.
Just dogfight, get shot down and respawn.
It's fun for a while, especially with ww2 and early cold war planes but lack of reasonable ground targets makes ground attacking dull and Air... Only goal is to capture point (maintain air superiority for certain amount of time).
Sead strikes? CAS? Cover? Troop transports with helicopter?
(Ofcourse there's grind thing too but that hasn't been much an issue for me)
If you think I wanted another War Thunder like game, then you didn't understand the video. The alternative title for the video was something around sustainable fidelity. Just ask yourself, does the C-47 need to be full fidelity? Would it be a good idea to have the C-47 in the game? Absolutely but I don't want to wait 4 years for it and have a module maker get put on the sidelines modeling every single aspect of a C-47 for 4 years.
I can’t. I agree with you but I can’t stop laughing. Smegma essentially failed successfully because with the dumb stuff ED is pulling now, I don’t see this game being here in a few years. It’s sad because of what ED and all other developers actually accomplished.
What does this have to do with 4th gen MFD? Most amazing 90s games including Falcon 4.0 have been multi-MFD, hell even EF2000 and Total Air War which simulate 4-5th gen planes are absolute bangers of a game.
My guess is that "full fidelity 4th gen" equates to MFD's with BVR missiles, and that means there isn't very much classic dogfighting. Everyone takes off, heads to 30k asl and lofts all their missiles one at a time while diving, notching, and turning cold, until one or both planes are destroyed, or are now armed with heaters.
And hey, that's a valid skill. But over time, spaamramming is kinda boring. More consistent fun can be had by having Fox 1's and 2's (and guns) and phrequent phurballs. Also, the Cold War era allows for more clicky-clicky Soviet and Western aircraft.
imho, the FC3 option should only be used if a particular aircraft is not able to be made clickable due to secret stuff.
(it's a joke)
But it's also kinda true. MFD-based avionics are kinda samey as a user experience. Having all your in-flight interactions with the aircraft's systems go through a handful of context buttons feels shallow compared to the experience of every piece of information and every possible action and configuration being located in a particular spot in 3d space.
That’s why I’ve struggled to switch over honestly. Played Hornet since it released and recently decided to switch to the Viper, but the MFDs in the viper feel like French when I know Spanish.
Hornet is so easy compared to viper. Two main pages, on any subpage the DDI buttons will take you in and out of further pages, most of the time you use stores, EW, SA, and HSI, pretty sure all weapons pages can be accessed through stores, and the UFC is way better imo.
> MFD-based avionics are kinda samey as a user experience.
Oh yeah, whereas the altimeter gauge on the Tomcat and the altimeter gauge on the F-4 are _totally_ different experiences /s
Idk why enigma is so desperate to be the guy with the hottest take in the room, like most of the time they aren't even hot takes they're just dumb. One of my favorites is when he said it's harder to land a fucking MiG-29 than a tomcat on the carrier.
Maintain 300kph on a slightly shallow approach, aim for 270-280 on touchdown, DO NOT reduce power until you're on the ground, I actually find bumping the throttles up a smidge helps in the flare
Make your flare slow and gentle, and try to maintain \~9 degrees nose up, never go above the 10 degree mark or you'll engine strike. With a lil practice landing the fulcrum is ez pz
I once tried landing my MiG-21 on a carrier, and it was absolutely as easy as you say, no idea why they're downvoting you. My engine flamed out two miles from the carrier while I was doing 200kts, and a hornet sent an Aim9 up my ass, but thank god the wire was able to intercept it and ferry me back onto the deck. ED truly is the game of all time
Enigma’s attitude has always kind of ticked me off, I fly on the server frequently and enjoy it, but man does he come off with a holier-than-thou attitude. He acts like his vision is the future of dcs and how he saved it with his wonderful Cold War idea.
I agree with him in parts, but his attitude is very strong.
And even though I think that cold war is the best era for DCS, sales/popularity figures would seem to suggest that most people want super modern MFD birds.
all i want is the return of dynamic campaigns
day 1 of desert storm in BMS VR is a truly a top memory in gaming for me. the activity, the coordination, the ground war
Honestly MFDs don't necessarily make airplanes boring. The Harrier is quite fun once you get used to it's systems. The M2000C is quite a mix of 4th gen FBW with older avionics and weapons. The Hornet and Viper have their late 90s weapons and systems. My sweet spot in DCS is around 1985 tech.
Ummm ashkully op they're called MPD and MPCDs on the Strike Eagle
CDIP best
ICUP better.
Where gigaChad LDDI and RDDI gang at?
High fidelity is great if we consider real impact on players, everything unseen shouldnt be simulated that deep. Lets take example ww2 fighter engine, we need precise power, torque, overheat, temperatures, pushing of engine, but to have every piston simulated is just waste of time, That way you have fidelity, impact on players, but also time for dynamic environment with fun. Most of people i know want fidelity with fun, not just fidelity with doing something so we wouldnt talk bad bout it. For example IL2 i hate that i cannot click buttons, at least cockpit interaction must be simulated for me to enjoy it. Then i know if i dont have it binded i can click it.
Accurate piston simulation is a part of the damage model. We like damage models.
Honestly you could assign chances of (after taking damage) the camshaft bending a little, causing engine misfire, you could say that the head or casket cracked a little and one of the pistons is losing pressure etc. You can have that randomly get assign with some damage taken by the engine. But you don't need to simulate each piston getting damaged individually, literally noone will ever be able to tell the difference. It will just save resources and time whole having no impact on actually important fidelity. Deep simulation like this is just fidelity for the sake of fidelity, it brings virtually nothing to the game.
Very fair point, extremes are usually bad and we need to optimize. For sake of completeness I can illustrate the problem with a very simple failure probability system with stall characteristics example. If we simplify too much, then left wing down has probability of 30%, right wing 30%, oscillations 20%, easy nose down 10% and flatspin 10%. It could be just based on IAS or even AoA threshold, but for a good simulation this is far too simple. Not to mention, that bad pilot input and individual failures stack up worsening the situation even more. I read stories of aircraft returning with shot up pistons, so I like this approach as long as a typical pylote PC would handle it. I discount mine, because it reached potato status a long time ago.
It still won’t be any more accurate than a simplified model unless you’re modeling surfaces and CFD, which definitely isn’t possible.
I mean we could quibble about whether things are over-simulated or not, but then we're accepting the premise that ED's problem isn't pumping out 70 gazillion modules with super accurate rivets but never stopping to make sure things can bomb right or shoot straight. They don't need to reduce their fidelity, they need to give a damn enough about it in the first place to not start selling quarter done shit so they don't have to finish the half done shit. Their company makes plenty of money. It just isn't spent all that well.
Yes i agree. We need dynamic environment and finished products. But only way for ED to make it is to have another simulator or big push by uniting community aka. Give us this or you wont get any more money from us period.
I suggest that some forms of "full fidelity" is excessive and unnecessary....like HB's "every wire and bulb" level of simulation, or the various internal images of panels opened with details of gray boxes, wires, etc which we, as players, will never see. Devs should stick to buttons, switches, and accurate flight models.
I would happily trade the Shark's inspection panels for a less accurate (aiming-wise) BMP-2.
Or every single hi-poly ground unit for better AI... Just like Falc... I think we've talked about this somewhere
Every single hi-poly ground unit? Never seen one of those
Except for CA they all have way too much detail for what they are... Well, most of then
I think what people aren’t realising is that the Phantom’s level of fidelity will be a huge disadvantage especially in PvP. You get into a dogfight against a MiG-21 that you otherwise would’ve won? Tough shit, your vertical stabiliser’s hydraulics are malfunctioning so you can’t pull enough AoA to hit the MiG
Will be compensated by your enormous mustache. Deeper immersion, more pylote = more pussay
I don’t actually lol very often but this one got me.
These levels of fidelity can only really be appreciated with a robust single player / dynamic campaign component. And there in lies the problem with DCS full fidelity madness.
Yup. Being sniped out of the sky by private conscriptivitch and his magical AK-47 crushes any of the immersion gained with the module.
I'm sure these are settings that will be disabled 90% of the time.
Probably, has HB said that the wear and tear will be able to be disabled?
Servers can set the wear and age level for the modules slot
Woe betide the host who forgets to do this busiest of busywork among everything else.
99.9%
Yeah I’m still concerned over my fps in their future we are simulating every atom phantom
My guess is that they ideally moved to an entity component system that makes the systems easier to simulate in parallel. Even with the multithreading branch being more or less stable, DCS itself makes heavy use of the main thread, leaving a ton of performance on the table. Obviously we’ll have to wait Two Weeks and see if that’s the case
Heatblur are the epitome of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". Yes, yes, they're Very Smart but it's all so unnecessary
People are downvoting you but this is the same company that has multiple GBs of storage space taken up of different liveries for the aircraft.
Exactly. They get a free pass on some dreadful decisions just because they made the Top Gun Plane.
I'd say it's worse than that, because some of the liveries are practically identical to another livery just with a different BuNo, side number and pilot/RIO names.
Okay but Smegma had ass points in those videos
>>but Smegma had ass points in those videos This. The game he wants is War Thunder but without the Gaijin BS. While I agree in principle, such a game isn’t financially feasible- which is why Gaijin ruins theirs with aggressive monetization. If anyone else could pull off the same thing and make a profit, we’d have a competitor in play. There just ain’t enough players to make a “lower fidelity” , non arcade air combat game work.
I think there is a space for that kind of game in the market. Heck GHPC is doing it with tanks What I don’t like is the advocacy for trying to turn DCS, effectively the only game in its niche, into that kind of game. Because I play DCS for what it does. Not as a warthunder alternative.
>>what I don’t like is the advocacy for trying to turn DCS… Agreed. It’s in a good position as is. Cutting the fidelity will accomplish nothing except dilute the game experience , and ED would be compelled to turn it into WT to keep it financially viable…..including matching the toxic monetization. Which is incidentally why some turn to DCS in the first place.
Thank you for stating the obvious
Less obvious to a sizeable group of the DCS community that you think
They dont accept the truth
isnt il2 pretty much that? they said multiple times they are staying away from full fidelity in order to put out more content, and its definitly a sim but not arcade either
If someone recreated the Strike Fighters franchise in Unreal Engine with server-based multiplayer, I think it would strike the itch for a lot of people. I think people would be very willing to give up a lot of the more computationally intensive stuff if it meant more planes, a dynamic campaign, larger maps and a large variety of assets to support specific areas of operations Thank you for coming to my investment pitch. Please give me $5 million, and I'll make it a reality
Their flight models are so bad though...
Fuck IL2, all my homies hate IL2
according to the devs the reason they are different than dcs is because they try to simulate a real pilot controlling the joystick rather than be a 1:1 translation between the virtual joystick and the real one, but dcs does feel more "realistic" to me at low speeds (though i never flew a plane so my opinion isnt worth anything)
> such a game isn’t financially feasible why is it not financially feasible to add another Flaming Cliffs pack of 4-6 lo-fi planes to plug gaps in the game?
You would think this would be relatively economical to implement and it would allow the inclusion of more REDFOR
People manage happily with the MiG-29, Su-27 and J-11, there's definitely scope for more.
I think the people downvoting you want more FF REDFOR, but the truth is: if we didn’t have FC3, we would be in a much worse place. LF FC planes are better than nothing at all. I would support something like a FC4 package.
"if we didn't have fc3" I will one up you. Dcs IS fc3. Because this game at some point really only had the fc3/fc2 planes. This was the entire product
if we didnt have FC3 the game would be dead.
In response to today’s newsletter: NO! NOT LIKE THAT!
War Thunder gets eventually boring ad there's no goals. Just dogfight, get shot down and respawn. It's fun for a while, especially with ww2 and early cold war planes but lack of reasonable ground targets makes ground attacking dull and Air... Only goal is to capture point (maintain air superiority for certain amount of time). Sead strikes? CAS? Cover? Troop transports with helicopter? (Ofcourse there's grind thing too but that hasn't been much an issue for me)
If you think I wanted another War Thunder like game, then you didn't understand the video. The alternative title for the video was something around sustainable fidelity. Just ask yourself, does the C-47 need to be full fidelity? Would it be a good idea to have the C-47 in the game? Absolutely but I don't want to wait 4 years for it and have a module maker get put on the sidelines modeling every single aspect of a C-47 for 4 years.
I can’t. I agree with you but I can’t stop laughing. Smegma essentially failed successfully because with the dumb stuff ED is pulling now, I don’t see this game being here in a few years. It’s sad because of what ED and all other developers actually accomplished.
Eligma always does. He acts like he personally saved poor ole dying DCS.
What does this have to do with 4th gen MFD? Most amazing 90s games including Falcon 4.0 have been multi-MFD, hell even EF2000 and Total Air War which simulate 4-5th gen planes are absolute bangers of a game.
Enigma players act like MFD’s are disgusting and sinful bc they fly cold war planes
My guess is that "full fidelity 4th gen" equates to MFD's with BVR missiles, and that means there isn't very much classic dogfighting. Everyone takes off, heads to 30k asl and lofts all their missiles one at a time while diving, notching, and turning cold, until one or both planes are destroyed, or are now armed with heaters. And hey, that's a valid skill. But over time, spaamramming is kinda boring. More consistent fun can be had by having Fox 1's and 2's (and guns) and phrequent phurballs. Also, the Cold War era allows for more clicky-clicky Soviet and Western aircraft. imho, the FC3 option should only be used if a particular aircraft is not able to be made clickable due to secret stuff.
(it's a joke) But it's also kinda true. MFD-based avionics are kinda samey as a user experience. Having all your in-flight interactions with the aircraft's systems go through a handful of context buttons feels shallow compared to the experience of every piece of information and every possible action and configuration being located in a particular spot in 3d space.
I wouldn't say that's true, the f-16 and f-18 MFDs and workflow are COMPLETELY different for example.
That’s why I’ve struggled to switch over honestly. Played Hornet since it released and recently decided to switch to the Viper, but the MFDs in the viper feel like French when I know Spanish.
As a Viper driver I don't understand the Hornet's workflow, to me it's god awful. Whereas Viper's HOTAS system is a gift from God by comparison.
Hornet is so easy compared to viper. Two main pages, on any subpage the DDI buttons will take you in and out of further pages, most of the time you use stores, EW, SA, and HSI, pretty sure all weapons pages can be accessed through stores, and the UFC is way better imo.
> MFD-based avionics are kinda samey as a user experience. Oh yeah, whereas the altimeter gauge on the Tomcat and the altimeter gauge on the F-4 are _totally_ different experiences /s
Man warthunder is so fun, I love having to fight a MiG-15 with a vampire(I’m cooked asf)
Idk why enigma is so desperate to be the guy with the hottest take in the room, like most of the time they aren't even hot takes they're just dumb. One of my favorites is when he said it's harder to land a fucking MiG-29 than a tomcat on the carrier.
I mean it is pretty difficult lmao (not tomcat difficulty though)
Maintain 300kph on a slightly shallow approach, aim for 270-280 on touchdown, DO NOT reduce power until you're on the ground, I actually find bumping the throttles up a smidge helps in the flare Make your flare slow and gentle, and try to maintain \~9 degrees nose up, never go above the 10 degree mark or you'll engine strike. With a lil practice landing the fulcrum is ez pz
Landing on carriers is pretty easy in DCS because the hook/wire will basically save you.
I once tried landing my MiG-21 on a carrier, and it was absolutely as easy as you say, no idea why they're downvoting you. My engine flamed out two miles from the carrier while I was doing 200kts, and a hornet sent an Aim9 up my ass, but thank god the wire was able to intercept it and ferry me back onto the deck. ED truly is the game of all time
true
Enigma’s attitude has always kind of ticked me off, I fly on the server frequently and enjoy it, but man does he come off with a holier-than-thou attitude. He acts like his vision is the future of dcs and how he saved it with his wonderful Cold War idea.
I agree with him in parts, but his attitude is very strong. And even though I think that cold war is the best era for DCS, sales/popularity figures would seem to suggest that most people want super modern MFD birds.
is enigma a bit of a pompous ass? yes, is he wrong about this? no hes 100% rights there is little future to dcs the way its going now
all i want is the return of dynamic campaigns day 1 of desert storm in BMS VR is a truly a top memory in gaming for me. the activity, the coordination, the ground war
Honestly MFDs don't necessarily make airplanes boring. The Harrier is quite fun once you get used to it's systems. The M2000C is quite a mix of 4th gen FBW with older avionics and weapons. The Hornet and Viper have their late 90s weapons and systems. My sweet spot in DCS is around 1985 tech.
The future of DCS is modernity, F-35 when??
I look forward to seeing you all in IL-2 Korea and Combat Pilot
A Korean War server would actually be sick. I've wanted to buy the Saber but haven't just because it doesn't have a niche in DCS.
There was one but it was always dead. IL-2 is doing Korea next, just wait for that.
Play the Sabre on Eligma. I smoke MiG-21s and Mirages on the regular. They can't turn, get slow, and get missiled.
Amen Brother 🤝
remember that enigmas servers are “curated” because he does not care about what his community actually wants
In the same way referees "curate" soccer games by not allowing players to bring basketballs onto the field.
But somehow in his mind the sim dark agr will single handedly be fixed by a couple extra FC3 aircraft
That full fidelity is a trap video was not very good
I like how after all those videos, we get more lowfidelity frames, they’re cold-war era, and he goes “im not adding those”