DCS Aerobatic Community being affected by latest update.

Hello. I am creating this post as a discussion of the latest DCS World update. In case you are reading this and don't know what is going on, pretty much all DCS user mods that include some sort of custom weapon or custom model, has broken. This is a big deal for the Aerobatics community because most of the teams use modified versions of a module. We are here to simply understand what is happening and why DCS has restricted the use of mods.

To understand why the DCS mods no longer work, we need to understand what is causing them to not work. Doing some testing with various community mods that are free. Me and a couple other people have determined that DCS world is either using 1 of 2 things. 1 being the DCS manifest is looking for any sort of file size change in the desired file. 2 being that the manifest is looking for any sort of change within the file using MD5 or something of the sorts. This is just a speculation and educated guess on what's happening but it seems to fit the best. Doing our test if we even put a single space in the lua file we are trying to edit, it would cause the F-18C for example, to turn into a A-10.

Going into why this affects the Aerobatic community, Most teams now a days have some sort of custom touch added to their module or have a custom model added to make the team realistic (Virtual Aeroshell Aerobatic Team and Virtual Patrouille Suisse). Then you have your casual DCS Aerobatic players that enjoy the realism and put months of work into a mod to make it realistic and functional (DCS Blue Angels Equipment). With the new DCS update, it changes all of that. It takes all of that time and effort put into mods and throws it all away. Now to be clear, none of these mods are destructive and take away from DCS sales in any way. You are still required to have the modules purchased and install to make them work.

Now comes for the understanding. The Aerobatic community wants to understand why DCS has done these changes and have a productive conversation on how to make both sides happy. Integrity check is in place for a reason so we are trying to understand the need for locking down mods. There is a reason we use DCS over any other flight sim out there. What will happen is either Aerobatic users will just stay on old versions or they will leave the community entirely which we want to avoid, but we will do what's necessary to put on good shows. We want to help DCS out and be on their side but to be honest. Doing this kind of stuff without any reasoning behind it pushes people away. None of us want that. We just want to have the most realistic flight sim experience possible and enjoy doing what we do.

In summary we hopefully want to get some sort of understanding and come to a decision with DCS World. If any DCS representatives want to explain or have questions feel free to post on this thread. That is why it's created.

Can confirm my Coremods edits are no longer working. Hopefully this can be sorted out. I may be stuck on 2.5.6.47404 for a long time.

Here is an active poll on who is being affected in the Aerobatic Community https://www.strawpoll.me/20117328/r

Hey guys, I know it's frustrating and it is not the first time this has happened, the issue is we really don't support user-made mods in that we are not responsible for changes that may break them, so we consider Open Beta a place for you to identify and fix your mods. And again, I know that many groups just use Open Beta, but then that becomes its own issue.

 

For right now, its just a matter of identifying the creator of these mods, and seeking them out to fix them. I will also submit to the team this problem, to see if there is any way we could offer better support for these mods, but I can't make any promises with ED having already a very large full plate.

 

Thanks.

How does this explain for the campaign of encrypting more and more files each update?? Seems to be a way of locking down the possibility of modding at all. I know this has been a fear talked about in a few modding communities that if your mod is in any way based of an ED asset, eventually it will just go broken when ED encrypts the files it relies on and that will be that. So essentially what you are saying is for anyone with a "broken" mod that can't manage to work around this or get their mod repaired is SOL and stuck on older versions?? in this case it doesn't seem like a file was just altered and the problem lies in locating and fixing the altered file... it sounds like DCS is actually scanning for any modified files and nixing them, which is essentially a "lockout" on modding. I am not a developer, so this is just how I understand it. Maybe someone with more dev knowledge can inform me better.

Let's keep in mind we are trying to be respectful and find some common ground so let's be careful what we say and not point fingers. Friendly reminder for all.

Hey guys, I know it's frustrating and it is not the first time this has happened, the issue is we really don't support user-made mods in that we are not responsible for changes that may break them, so we consider Open Beta a place for you to identify and fix your mods. And again, I know that many groups just use Open Beta, but then that becomes its own issue.

 

For right now, its just a matter of identifying the creator of these mods, and seeking them out to fix them. I will also submit to the team this problem, to see if there is any way we could offer better support for these mods, but I can't make any promises with ED having already a very large full plate.

 

Thanks.

Thanks for replying Line. Some of the files involved in the mods we like making are now being checked if they're modified and disables the associated module entirely. I have continually updated my mod "Blue Angels Equipment" ever since I released it and this new update prevents me from making any changes. Hope this gets sorted quickly and efficiently. Thanks for taking the time to make sure the aerobatics community has what it needs to keep rock'n it.

Hey guys, I know it's frustrating and it is not the first time this has happened, the issue is we really don't support user-made mods in that we are not responsible for changes that may break them, so we consider Open Beta a place for you to identify and fix your mods. And again, I know that many groups just use Open Beta, but then that becomes its own issue.

 

For right now, its just a matter of identifying the creator of these mods, and seeking them out to fix them. I will also submit to the team this problem, to see if there is any way we could offer better support for these mods, but I can't make any promises with ED having already a very large full plate.

 

Thanks.

Why can't ED just work with the modding community rather than continually put so much effort into locking ED assets and making it harder for the community to make mods? This effort should be into producing and finishing your guys modules. Why do you guys see the modding community as a evil that needs to constantly be roadblocked and given absolute no information. There is a lot of talent that ED doesn't want people to be able to harness and its a little mischievous at this point. Be honest with the modding community, we are tired of the lies... A lot of us are smarter than you might think ED...

I appreciate your trying to submit this problem to ED, but this doesn't seem to be the same attitude ED has towards the modding community. Thanks anyways.

So can I get a clarification here because this is the way I see it as of the current juncture:

any aircraft mod that relies on an ED aircraft as a base or otherwise uses an ED/Official asset's files in some way is dead in the water currently because of ED implementing a measure to check for modified files in the coremods?

Why can't ED just work with the modding community rather than continually put so much effort into locking ED assets and making it harder for the community to make mods? This effort should be into producing and finishing your guys modules. Why do you guys see the modding community as a evil that needs to constantly be roadblocked and given absolute no information. There is a lot of talent that ED doesn't want people to be able to harness and its a little mischievous at this point. Be honest with the modding community, we are tired of the lies... A lot of us are smarter than you might think ED...

 

I appreciate your trying to submit this problem to ED, but this doesn't seem to be the same attitude ED has towards the modding community. Thanks anyways.

"...but this doesn't seem to be the same attitude ED has towards the modding community." He said this no where in his post. DCS is not obligated to make mods compatible with DCS. I made this post to simply say "Hey, the aerobatics community has been affected big time." Also let's have a respectful conversation and not point fingers. We are here to figure out what we can do to make both sides happy.

Let me bounce back, I don't think the aerobatics community is the only one impacted by this change. Over the years mods have started to play a big role on the simulator, and today more than ever. Of course, there are mods that add content, modify content, but some of them fix problems temporarily, both in the open alpha and in the release.

I/we are aware of your wish to protect your work against piracy, and that is quite understandable, but here we are talking about product modifications that are not used for malicious purposes.

I really hope that we will come to an agreement as we did last time. Let's try to stay respectful and have a mature conversation that will lead to solutions and not let this topic get out of control.

So can I get a clarification here because this is the way I see it as of the current juncture:

 

any aircraft mod that relies on an ED aircraft as a base or otherwise uses an ED/Official asset's files in some way is dead in the water currently because of ED implementing a measure to check for modified files in the coremods?

We don't know what's going on exactly or what's causing it. All we know is our mods are breaking the modules. We are investigating.

We found the problem month ago.

ED officially confirmed thats some mods (in my case using FC dlls) are dead.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4287787&postcount=48

Encrypting a DLL so that it cannot be used by a third party or for any purpose other than its main operation, I understand it. But encrypting functions knowing full well that it would kill a large part of the mods for the basic game, sorry but that's nonsense, piracy or not.

As I said in my message, some of these mods fix core game problems that don't matter to the studio in terms of priority. So yes, it annoys me a little bit, because saying "the modders will have to adapt their mods" knowing full well that there will be no solution, I find this answer completely pre-made.

So yes in my case it's been since 2016, that I asked one thing for a module we are in 2020, and still nothing and always the same answer, it's not the priority and this and that.

I am sorry if I can be aggressive about what I say, but I think that the excuse of piracy is not justified and is simply your only argument because there are no others.

Regards.

As tango has said already, it is not just the aerobatics community that is affected. I fly in the digital Swiss Air Force and we have adapted most of our mods already to the savedgames folder.

For some mods it is just not possible. For example we need for realistic operations synchronization of the head movements up and down to give head signals in formation flight. It is one line in the fa-18c.lua and it was asked to be implemented a year ago, but never was, so we used a small mod and even these small things are not possible anymore.

I haven't testet which of our mods are broken and which can be repaired but it is for sure a brutal hit for our realistic missions.

edit: I have just heard that the mod to spawn client aircraft anywhere on the ground, like helicopters already can, is not working anymore. This is a great example why these small mods are important, because for many multiplayer missions the dcs spawn locations are insuficien, or in our case we have to place them correctly so they are standing in the hangars we placed on the airfields.

Because of the big changes regarding mods in the last year, many people within our group have stopped flying the realistic operations because the mods were constantly changing. This big blow today will probably kill the interrest of quite some more of us to fly the swiss realistic operations which is really sad because these operations were the main goal of founding the dSAF.

If these changes are really necessary, could there be at least a forum post or a mention of it in the changelog? This would help us massively in searching the cause of why some mods aren't working anymore and also in finding out which mods are affected.

edit: I have just heard that the mod to spawn client aircraft anywhere on the ground, like helicopters already can, is not working anymore. This is a great example why these small mods are important, because for many multiplayer missions the dcs spawn locations are insuficien, or in our case we have to place them correctly so they are standing in the hangars we placed on the airfields.

The plane spawn anywhere mod still works. Either the people who made that claim did not understand what we're refering to when we talk about CoreMods (a specific folder inside the DCS install) or they're using an outdated version of me_route.lua (the only file modified by this mod)

I've also seen people claiming the coalition updater mod no longer work. Again, it works fine.

The plane spawn anywhere mod still works. Either the people who made that claim did not understand what we're refering to when we talk about CoreMods (a specific folder inside the DCS install) or they're using an outdated version of me_route.lua (the only file modified by this mod)

 

I've also seen people claiming the coalition updater mod no longer work. Again, it works fine.

Yes, in the other thread I have also replied that I could get it to work again which was a huge relief. At the same time we have no idea if with any update this support could be lost, so integrating them into the basegame, or having the possibility of doing these things in the saved games area would still be hugely appreciated.

I feel like this protecting of the files is a little too much IMO. Isn't this the whole reason of the server integrity check feature? I get it, protecting the editing of core module file to prevent cheating online, but you can just use the integrity check feature on your server if you care about that and lock out any edits to the sim. This would make both the "pure" clients and the modding community happy.

Get on this thread boys and make your point, the more people that speak out the better chance we can get this decision reversed. Be polite, and keep it short, every post will help.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=274099