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Quality of free mod aircraft


streakeagle

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The A-4E and MB339 free mods are outstanding. The only big limitations I see with them are the things that have not been implemented because they are not licensed to have and use the SDK.

 

Compare them to the Hawk, which I paid for but can no longer use and never worked good enough for me to use on a regular basis.

 

I am thoroughly impressed.

 

I hope two things happen:

 

1) The success of these mods encourages more modders to develop more aircraft, something DCS can always use in the present state of development where theaters like Vietnam, Israel/Middle East, and India/Pakistan don't even have terrains much less a decent library of flyable and AI aircraft appropriate for them.

 

2) The success of these mods encourages ED to award the best of the modders full access to the SDK with some technical support to make their mods fully comparable to the best payware mods.

 

The MiG-21bis started out as a LOMAC/Flaming Cliffs mod. I would love to see the A-4E, MB339, and many more aircraft make the same leap from a really nice mod to a full-blown DCS module.

 

From a business model perspective, I can understand concerns that free stuff could hurt sales of ED and licensed 3rd parties. All you have to do is look at the FSX/P3d environment. Despite almost infinite availability of free mods, the market for expensive, but really well done payware is still doing extremely well. People don't mind paying for great work. Competition from free mods may provide incentive to make sure ED and third party work is held to a high standard to justify the price.

 

For the record, I own every DCS aircraft and terrain module except the JF-17 (including the long gone Hawk and the never released P-40F), and I am eagerly awaiting the option to preorder many of the up and coming modules, like the M-23MLA, the F-8J, etc. If the A-4E and/or MB339 went payware or a 3rd party released fully supported modules for those aircraft, I would gladly pay for them. But in the interim, I have gained two really well done aircraft in an environment that otherwise grows very slowly.

 

Thank you to the modders!

And thank you to ED for leaving the game engine open enough to allow modders to deliver aircraft at this level of completion!

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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If the modders want the SDK there is nothing preventing them from getting the appropriate licensing from the manufacturers and ED. If they can't, or don't want, to do that... that's the end of the debate.

Де вороги, знайдуться козаки їх перемогти.

5800x3d * 3090 * 64gb * Reverb G2

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I would pay for the A-4 if the mod became an official module with access to the SDK. ED could adopt the project and its developers.

Computer: Potato

Modules: FC3 | M2000C | A/V8B | Viggen | F-5E | F-14B | F-16C | F/A-18 | A-10C | Supercarrier :mad::mad: | UH-1 | MI-8 | Gazelle | KA-50

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I like the A4 and 339 mods also but god help you if you want to file a crash log or similar because the first advice is remove all mods.

Saying this, i bought the Mig21 a whiles back and pretty much left it in the hangar due to a constant issue with the chute not deploying after an air start mission.

Removed all mods and hey presto, haven't seen it happen again.

 

I will let you make what you want of that but it was enough to put me off non-SDK mods for now at least.

 

They 100% do have a place in the community though and I am not trying to detract from the hours of work and effort the modders make. Their commitment is outstanding at times

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With recent proper mods getting a clean folder of their own in the user's saved game folder, removing/adding mods couldn't be easier and in general have nothing to do with the behavior of other aircraft.

 

When you start tinkering with the files common to all DCS World is when mods get you in trouble, and very popular things like VAICOM can wreak havoc.

 

The MiG-21bis has been a train wreck for years. The flight model has been all over the place. But recent progress has finally pulled it out of the hangar for me, yet it still has problems that have never been fixed.

 

The only problem I have observed at all regarding these two particular mods at their current revision is the MB339 causing an error in my SimShaker vibrating seat software, which itself is an unlicensed mod.

 

If I took away all the unlicensed addons I am using with DCS World, I wouldn't have VoiceAttack/VAICOM Pro, SRS, SimShaker and countless liveries. I have had some of the liveries cause problems, but they are usually somewhat older ones and all I have to do to trouble shoot is remove folders from Saved Games mods then put them back one at a time until the problem is isolated.

 

Unlicensed mods also provide an opportunity to fix problems with DCS core modules and 3rd party licensed modules that have been ignored. Problems like the radar display in the F-5 or canopy reflections that make it difficult to see anything. So, I wouldn't hold my breath avoiding non-SDK mods to guarantee tech support, or you will be stuck with "known issues" or "documented features".

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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