Polychop Simulations OH-58D Kiowa

3 hours ago, Spino said:

Obviously 2020 has come and gone, do we have any projection on the release date?

TL;DR:

It'll be done when it's done, PC have they said they want it *mostly* feature complete.

Detail:

Last date I heard was 2021 and PC wouldn't be more specific until the module had at least been sent/met Bell's approval process.

it is very surprising that polychop has not communicated anything for months on the project.  In my opinion, there must be a problem with Bell and the commercial contract.  I'm afraid the kiowa will never come out, it's sad.

it is very surprising that polychop has not communicated anything for months on the project.  In my opinion, there must be a problem with Bell and the commercial contract.  I'm afraid the kiowa will never come out, it's sad.

2 hours ago, hanab said:

it is very surprising that polychop has not communicated anything for months on the project.  In my opinion, there must be a problem with Bell and the commercial contract.  I'm afraid the kiowa will never come out, it's sad.

Maybe because they are waiting for 2.7 to drop so they can validate the build against it and then make a plan going forward depending on how much work is required to patch it up?

See here from PC themselves.

Maybe they should communicate that, then.

Preferably where people can easily find and see it.

Like in some kind of… forum? Maybe even in a thread dedicated to communicating development process?

No one has paid for the Kiowa yet, they can take all the time they need to release a quality product. I'm excited to get it too but I know it'll be worth the wait.

37 minutes ago, Jester986 said:

No one has paid for the Kiowa yet, they can take all the time they need to release a quality product. I'm excited to get it too but I know it'll be worth the wait.

Yes, I am sure it will be a good product. But it’s true that the forum is more useful for talking to your customers rather than discord. What worries me, too, is that I haven’t seen any screenshot since December.

On 4/4/2021 at 6:04 PM, hanab said:

What worries me, too, is that I haven’t seen any screenshot since December.

There was a German twitch stream last night (Monday), the KW is looking as good as ever but missing it's damage model which AFAIK will be one of the last items done.

Here are a couple of screen shots to keep you going until after 2.7 and *perhaps* an English stream later in the month.

[expired link removed]

Highlight of the stream was probably at 03:55:40 - locking a Hornet slow pass with the MMS and lasing/hitting it with a APKWS.

Sadly, no input axis info is shown. Weapon systems work like you expect from a DCS module. A good information on the side is that DCS 2.7 might get us a performance increase on top of the new clouds.

On 4/6/2021 at 6:14 AM, RealDCSpilot said:

A good information on the side is that DCS 2.7 might get us a performance increase on top of the new clouds.

Are you talking about Vulkan?  That would certainly make it scale better over multiple CPU cores, but for people with CPU-strong systems it might not do them much good given the current GPU market.  I have heard before that DCS can't take full advantage of high-end graphics solutions like the 2080ti and 3080, like it only uses 40-50% of the GPU, but ED may have already changed that, IDK.  I wouldn't know anyway because DCS eats my GPU alive with usage around 99% most of the time, and mine is at the low end, so that's to be expected.  Right now it's paired with an R5 1600AF, and atm that works fine, but once they add Vulkan support I'll likely be completely GPU-bound, and since I already hit full GPU usage a lot, that's not likely to help me any until I'm able to swap it for a more powerful one.

10 hours ago, Spino said:

Are you talking about Vulkan?

No, i don't think we get Vulkan with 2.7. Only a slightly optimized DX11 render pipeline with raymarching feature for the clouds. They also mentioned "pre-raytraced cockpit lighting" - i'm very curious about this. In general, jumping from 2.5 to 2.7 could mean to be a big step for everything that's working under the hood. They didn't name it 2.6 for a reason.

They said Vulkan is supposed to come at some point this year, like August maybe IIRC.  I know it wasn't supposed to come with the initiqal release of 2.7.

What is noticeable in the pictures in which the Kiowa flies / hovers above the ground that no downwash will be implemented? 

10 hours ago, kotor633 said:

What is noticeable in the pictures in which the Kiowa flies / hovers above the ground that no downwash will be implemented? 

The module is WIP and ED have changed how strong the dust cloud appears.

This is from a 2.5.6 stream last year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4RJMfZ0o34&t=2120s

vor 4 Stunden schrieb Ramsay:

The module is WIP and ED have changed how strong the dust cloud appears.

 

This is from a 2.5.6 stream last year.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4RJMfZ0o34&t=2120s

 

 

Ah, okay. Thx

I think we have to wait for Mi-24 to be release and then for Ka-50 upgrade. Only then will Kiowa be released.

Otherwise the sells of EA Mi-24 could be affected, not to mention about Ka-50 third upgrade.

It means - Kiowa will be, or rather already is a damn good module, and ED can count 

4 hours ago, Glow said:

I think we have to wait for Mi-24 to be release and then for Ka-50 upgrade. Only then will Kiowa be released.

Otherwise the sells of EA Mi-24 could be affected, not to mention about Ka-50 third upgrade.

It means - Kiowa will be, or rather already is a damn good module, and ED can count 

With all due respect, thats delusional nonsense.

Not sure why its delusional. It is the same as a lot of games being pushed on the schedules to avoid launching when Cyberpunk came out. But if they keep it up I'm afraid someone will get screwed. If someone has the apache and wants to run and gun the kiowa is appealing prior to getting it. After. Meh. I dont understand how you go from a q4 release last year to a q4 this year. Tells me that it was bad info given last year. 

14 hours ago, Paladin1cd said:

Not sure why its delusional. It is the same as a lot of games being pushed on the schedules to avoid launching when Cyberpunk came out. But if they keep it up I'm afraid someone will get screwed. If someone has the apache and wants to run and gun the kiowa is appealing prior to getting it. After. Meh. I dont understand how you go from a q4 release last year to a q4 this year. Tells me that it was bad info given last year. 

You are mixing up confirmed information with supposition. PS said they were trying to get the KW out in 2020, they didn't commit to a release date. Later they said "sorry, not going to happen". They never said it was pushed to Q4 2021, again this is speculation on your part. It's funny: when a dev doesn't give an estimated date, they get flamed, when they give one and miss it because stuff happens in software development (especially something as complex as flight sim), they get flamed again.

Finally ED is not planning the release of the KW based on their own modules (AH-64 and Mi24) coming out this year. PS is a third-party, when the module is done from their side (which includes validation from Bell as far as they told us), only then do they send it to ED for approval & testing. Once that phase is completed the module can be released based on the general DCS patch schedule (meaning if the module is ready but the ED team is busy ironing out bugs in open beta to push it into stable, the release can be delayed 1-2 months), but before that point ED does not have a lot of influence over the release schedule. The work has to be done by PS, sometimes in conjuncture with ED when they need to use certain toolkits provided by ED as part of the DCS core.

Retail simulation "games" are notoriously difficult to complete. And bring to market. Back in the late 1990's and early 2000's, I'd venture a guess that at least HALF of all "simulation game" products announced, and with screenshots, video and features described... NEVER got offered for sale.  Just too many things get in the way. Ran out of money. Couldn't find a publisher at terms they could agree on. Technically too complex or not enough programming skills to actually deliver. Limits in PC hardware processing. Programmer's hard drive gave up and all work lost instantly (an Apache and Chinook project had this happen). 

These days, projects are much more likely to finish, albeit at significant delays. A delay of a year or two is... well it's the norm in retail sims, really. Much better that, than not getting anything more than screenshots to mourn over!

It's WAY easier to knock out a smart device game app that people play on their phones... make big bucks sometimes, way less effort than this simulations stuff. I used to know a guy who was hardcore into sims. Decided to become a dev. Aimed to make sims. Made a game app instead and got results. I don't know if he ever did sims anything more than a small mod or two, but I don't think he opened a simulations studio like his original plan.

Keep in mind, we are an insanely demanding bunch... most of game purchasers, those who play on their phones or tablets, don't know a PBR texture, what a tail hook does, think "flaps" belong on large trucks, and AI is the movie with the creepy robot kid. 

Patience is needed among simulations enthusiasts.

It's like the story with clouds again.

Welcome to DCS World 

yea, very much so. Some will settle for a bit of slapstick gags, while others strive for absolute perfection even when the weather doesn't cooperate for months at a time... even when it costs you LARGE fortunes!

While some fans will complain, consider that the people who are even MORE desperate to get you your sim module into your hard drives... is the developers themselves! They want the feedback to make it perfect or close to it. They want the recognition for their efforts. They want some return on their investments in time money and hardware, and efforts and blood sweat and tears. They want you to recomend their product to others, inspire a new generation of sim-geeks like us, growing the customer base and solidifying the industry's future. The last thing they want is delays!

Every time I see this thread "bold" on the list, I die a little inside each time it's not the Devs...

Il 1/5/2021 at 17:09, BIGNEWY ha scritto:

We dont have any dates to share with you all currently. 

 

When we do it will be in the newsletters.

 

thanks

OK, no dates... BTW can you confirm PC guys are still working on the project?

It is a lot we don't read news from theme, isn't it?