two questions about A10-C and DCS/FC Series

Lonewolf, the answer to your question is in the part you quoted: "We will finalize such plans AFTER A-10C is complete."

 

There's still a good bit of work to be done with A-10C and it is folly to make predictions before the work is done or nearly done: especially in this forum where people often take words like "we are thinking about doing X at some point" as "we promise you to have this done by saturday" and then the flamewars start. ED has learned to be careful about saying anything about "the future". :)

"That is probably for the best" he said with a sigh, as he put out his torch and returned his pitch fork to its special carrying case.

After A10C is finalized, the dev team will sit down, make a list of changes that would have to be made to make A10C mp comapatibile with BS/FC2.0. Make a rough estimate of how long it would take, and then decide whether it's going or not going to be mp compatibile.

 

Actually the first thing the development team will do once A-10C is finalized...is take a well-deserved vacation. They went from Black Shark, to FC2 to A-10C, back to back to back.

I hope they take some well deserved vacation.

I think the whole FC2 / DCS BS / DCS A-10C separation should be done away with in time. They should combine all three into one install and all planes are in one sim world. The only differance is the DCS aircraft will have more detail. I think this is the best approach for the future. From wags comments in those interviews of eventually heading towards a dynamic campaign this would be the best way to go. I'm envisioning a war going on in real time on a given map, as it progresses you pick missions to fly and jump into the sim map and fly it. You could have the option of any aircraft in the FC2 or DCS series, by the time this happens you could have the option of an apache as well. A campaign that simulates a whole conflict and the player flies the missions for various units of either a red or blue force.

We should also keep in mind that DCS is a different label that is undergoing a development in a different and more advanced direction. It's not just adding a new plane for the same engine.

BlackShark was just the first of the DCS-modules released and already had a lot of improvements, most of them apparently could be ported back to FC to make them compatible. But even with BlackShark it was my impression, that the further this development goes, the more difficult it will be to keep this compatibility to non-DCS-products. I guess that at some point, a cut has to be made.

So, I won't bet there will be a compatibility between A-10C and FC, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. :)

The point I believe Skoop is making is (which I agree with) is that we should be moving to the new engine and just adding simpified current models into it. Yes they will be lower fidelity than the DCS series, but I don't really think anyone is going to mind if it allows us all to stay together.

Not to mention its another revenue stream. Many like myself who have not purchased a DCS product would certainly be a lot more willing to do so if it allowed us to keep what we have. Personally speaking I will never purchase a DCS game for one bird. Its just me of course, but I know many who agree.

I don't think from a programming perspective it is all that hard to take a completed simplified model from FC for instance and insert into A10c.

Again I am less stressed about this than some. I think something along these lines will happen. Its too logical not to happen.

Recently I read a post by Wags somewhere, in which he stated he would do what is best for the series and not just for the forum fanboys.

Very enouraging .... to me at least.

I think there are many different aspects involved in this. Not only from the programmers or customers point of view, but also from the lawsuits.

Let's not forget that UBISoft holds the rights with LockOn and that you still need to buy the UBI title to play FC2! If you take everything from LockOn and pack it into DCS, programmers and customers may be happy, but you may still run into some serious trouble with UBI.

Just to throw in some additional thoughts.

UBI won't complain, it's more revenue for them to have a compatible game with the best sim platform available to date.

I too think there may be a time where a cut needs to be made (FC from DCS), and who knows if UBI has shook hands with ED as far as ensuring compatibility for future releases. It is, after all, business.

Still, I don't think that there will ever come a time when all DCS modules aren't MP capable. There is really no doubt in my mind that ED would patch/upgrade the previous platforms with the latest of their releases.

FC? Who cares. They're not held/created to DCS standards. I guess I'm just picky like that.

I think there are many different aspects involved in this. Not only from the programmers or customers point of view, but also from the lawsuits.

 

Let's not forget that UBISoft holds the rights with LockOn and that you still need to buy the UBI title to play FC2! If you take everything from LockOn and pack it into DCS, programmers and customers may be happy, but you may still run into some serious trouble with UBI.

 

Just to throw in some additional thoughts.

I´d like to know if there is possibility that ED will cooperate (in distribution) with ubisoft or if theyre gonna stay independent and distribute DCS on their own( that is better option for ED i think).

IMHO although i think that DCS:BS is perfect sim, it needs a lot more advertising and spread the info about it over the inet. I hope it will be better with A-10 C.

UBI won't complain, it's more revenue for them to have a compatible game with the best sim platform available to date.

You missed the point of the actual discussion. As long as FC is being updated, it's quite okay with UBI for the reasons you named. But this method has the problem posted above, that LO/FC at some point may reach a point where the engine can no longer be updated to a DCS-compatibility.

So the current discussion was about integrating the LockOn-Code into DCS to make the flyables from LO/FC available in future DCS-releases and overcome the problem described above. But this is most likely violating the contracts with UBI, hence my above post.

... I think the excersize of building FC2 (ie "porting" Lockon to the DCS engine) is an indication by Ed of their intention to try and keep it running.

The theory going that now each aircraft is considered a "module" linked off a core engine ... as long as the mode of communication between Mudule and Engine is not altered significantly, then any engine updates should "seemlesly" flow with each Module.

In practise, I'm sure it is more complicated than this, but I believe FC2 was more than just a "Last Hurrah" for Lockon, and more of a move to integrate it into the DCS work long term.

It would be great if they´d like to integrate the LOFC in to DCS but i think they intend to get rid of this appendix because it is restricting the DCS series in long term with all the agreements they have with Ubisoft because of that.

And it´s better to have non restricted DCS with unlimited options than limited DCS with LOFC integrated together.

I just hope that they keep FC2 up with the DCS releases up to about 4 DCS aircraft. 2 ground attack aircrafts and 2 fighters. After this point, I think there will be enough to get everyone together and flying together. Right now there just isn't enough to keep everyone together for very long. Yeah everyone will fly the A-10C for now cause its the coolest and newest thing! But you know down the road, they will want to have a different taste to attack and go back to an air to air combat plane that is in FC2. Once we get some air to air aircraft *some F-14/F-15/F-16/F-18 with a Su-27, 30, 33 or maybe even the Mig-29* then more people would stick to the DCS end of it and fly together all the way through to the next aircraft. That's just my though on it I could be wrong though. :P

I think integrating A-10C (and Ka-50 also) into the 1990 world of "Lock On" poses a lot of problems, especially story wise. I know that a lot of people want a "Digital Battlefield" with as many options as possible, but I think it is time slowly for DCS to go it's own way, as unhindered with the past as possible. I mean, we would still have the FC2 to satisfy our "different tastes".

I know that people were satisfied for a long time with just Falcon 4 because it's a multirole platform with a little of all the worlds. And I know that ED promise of "9 months between modules" is now extended to "when me make the military simulator first, could be 2 or more years", but I think DCS could be so much more than just an Lock On add-on. I think it's time for them to break that chain to the UBI.

Since when has DCS been a lock-on add-on?

Answer: Never.

I know, it was just... A figure of speech. Retort. Or some other laboratory glassware. :)

.....And I know that ED promise of "9 months between modules" is now extended to "when me make the military simulator first, could be 2 or more years".....

People tend to forget that the '9 month' remark related to Date from Retail release of relevant module. Now if one has regard to a rudimentary Time-Line you will see the following:

Retail release of Black Shark: April 2009

Now in a perfect world the development cycle would then have moved on to the next module, ie DCS:A10C........

However

Due to Community demand (and the Old Timers amongst us will remember the furballs all too well) ED decided to breath a new lease of life into LockOn with the development and release of LockOn 2.0. Said development was due to circumstances unforeseen delayed and took from approx June 2009 to it's release being April 2010.

Now assuming no down-time whatsoever (unreasonable but for the sake of argument let's do so) that gives one month for development of the A10C (May 2009) and then again from May 2010.

So - do the Math and effectively ED should only be in the second month of the 9 month development cycle for the A10 as stipulated originally......Leaving 7 months still for completion to adhere to the 9 month cycle. In the meantime, we have not even mentioned the BS/LockOn Compatibility patches, localizations etc etc that also was attended to.

How easy we forget......... ;)

So basically it's going to take............................FOREVER.

You missed the point of the actual discussion. As long as FC is being updated, it's quite okay with UBI for the reasons you named. But this method has the problem posted above, that LO/FC at some point may reach a point where the engine can no longer be updated to a DCS-compatibility.

 

So the current discussion was about integrating the LockOn-Code into DCS to make the flyables from LO/FC available in future DCS-releases and overcome the problem described above. But this is most likely violating the contracts with UBI, hence my above post.

Had you read the rest of my post instead of selective quoting, I hit that point spot-on...and agreed with you.

:doh:

So basically it's going to take............................FOREVER.

i would imagine so......gives me enough time to save for the hotas to go with it!

:joystick: