I agree DCS really needs the competition. It will be better for all of us. I bet ED would release multithreading a month after this sim would get a consumer version XD
People really underestimate what it takes to make processes multi threading. If it would be that easy everyone would do it but it simply ain’t. One problem of running tasks on different threads is that you need to make sure they deliver the output at the same time when it is needed. A problem UE5 will not magically solve for you. Where Unreal5 is great though is to be able to deliver great geometry and texture detail especially for environments. But be aware this will have an impact on download size and DCS will appear small in comparison 😅
@ whatever it is, what we have now sucks, we have basically is module simulator, not combat one, ground war is non-existant, and air war is mostly dogfight without any electronic jamming, intelligence part.. its like 10 % of air war and 5 % of all war (ground and air)..
@ You need multi-threading (or more precisely: parallel computing) these days for most about anything "big" these days. CPUs have - since quite some time - stopped going up in frequencies, but started scaling horizontally. This trend has been completely slept through by ED (and many other companies). You are also correct in that it requires developers to have a clue what the benefits are, what the limits are, what to watch out for, etc. But seeing DCS and seeing the design choices that they still defend and not touch, like: - Missiles fired in multiplayer by player A are not simulated on the server, receiving guidance through update messages of player As plane through some sort of interface, no. They are simulated entirely on player As computer, everyone else does not get position updates, but they get their own predictive simulation (which then desyncs as little chaotic randomness effects sum up), .. and in the end you see a missile missing you on TacView, but because for player A it hit, you then magically detonate. Then take a look at how many weapon systems that are the same are implemented all over again on different aircraft (AGM-88) or AGM-65. These are fundamental indications at a design process that allows very bad design decisions to be signed off and be implemented. And this will add a huge technical debt to your code base. And we can tell that without knowing the actual code, just knowing that reacting to something that will have to be reacted on for the AGM-88 means they will have to do it in two implementations instead of one for example. There is something fundamentally wrong with how ED develops software, just as there is something fundamentally wrong with how ED interacts with and responds to it's paying customers. I sadly have no alternative, maybe Falcon BMS once VR support comes out, but I really, really don't wish ED all the best without a big restructuring, involving community managers and (lead) developers.
I’ve always wanted the “world”aspect to DCS. being able to simulate ground troops with a good level of detail and being able to get out of your cockpit or into it just because is something I’ve always wanted and hoped would come into DCS in the future. Seeing full simulated ground combat with even infantry not being ugly meshes of polygons is something that would sell me immediately if this new simulator came to market.
I've always felt that DCS totally missed the environment outside the cockpit and spent all their efforts inside. The atmosphere is just so sterile or at least it feels that way to me
DCS has always been on my computer but even as an ex air force pilot that instructed a lot of the techniques in this game I find it has always been missing something that keeps me playing. The multiplayer needs a ton of work at the world needs more attention. If they're only at the point where they can do either weapons mechanics or scenery but not both then definitely it has to be weapons mechanics. I'd just like some more polished missions and campaigns as well as some fresh new ideas for multiplayer which should evolve to being their main focus now. My dream is to have a massive combined arms game with dedicated communities in all 3 elements in a persistent map
@@MAYDAYSIMULATIONS Not exactly what I meant. I'm talking about a much larger scale with playable land and sea vehicles that can talk on datalink with everyone as well. With massive communities like world of warship or world of tanks but with first person vehicles as intricate as DCS aircraft. We're not quite there for computing power yet, I've played DCS combined arms and it's pretty meh
You said it; I've wished for some time that Arma/VBS and DCS and Command Modern Operations with Tac Tools and even Steel Beasts Pro PE could all be fused or made interoperable on a global scale, all of it with a superb AI. It's not about graphics either (Graphics are already more than good enough). What would be needed in such a game would be to leverage multi core CPUS with a virtual machine headless server on each thread so that a 16 core AMD CPU with 32 threads could have say 4 threads running the game and then the other 24 threads running headless servers that were purely there for strategy and tactics, each thread embodying a Hetman Artificial Commander to make the opponents responding to situations according to tactics straight from their known military doctrines. That would be wargame nirvana. I've seen it done on some of the more advanced clans' servers and it's results in Arma are amazing. Also, hearkening back to the old SPI wargames, more attention to the dictates of terrain so that you don't have forces racing through swamps, or forests or up and down 45 degree mountainsides in the same manner that they race across firm open ground.
Of course, the trailer looks slick and full of detail. I bet, just like many a sim before, that when you actually get to use the sim and look at the detail, it will be dialled back.
I'm sceptical. While Unreal Engine 5 _might_ be do the trick, replicating the amount of functionality implemented by DCS, from airplane models to "tactical logic" would require an astronomical effort. If it works, however, it would mean it might be a good idea to "port" DCS to UE5.
We can only speculate how well DCS's Codebase and Assets would work in UE5. Presuming the Assets are easily portable, I'd say for the Sim it would take at best half the time of starting from scratch plus all the visual and weather stuff that just isn't written for unreal. Porting dcs would mean huge effort for no real benefit, and bringen DCS's Core engine up to the Hardware utilization standard of something like UE5 would very much me a simpler task. Any ED Engine Architects feel free to correct me :)
Way smaller local companies have been making sims and combat management for their respective countries' air force. If Metrea gets enough revenue from government contracts they probably can do it.
The issue here isn't about the game engine. It's about the abilities and resources the developer has. A game engine is just like literally any other software creation suite, like Windows Visual Studio (which is a programming suite). The program is designed to do anything you tell it to. It's the programmer's job to know how to tell it what to do.
If you ever wondered, why the focus of simulations is so much on "exterior rivets, chocks and modeling objects" instead of improving AI tactics, behavior, pathfinding, aerodynamic effects and systems modeling or bug fixing, just watch 18 minutes raving about visual fidelity to promote a potential competitor for flight simulators.
This whole thing strikes me as another Arma vs. VBS thing. If they are targetting the military training market, I have my doubts that this will be affordable to common users, or even available at all. It all sounds good, but I am highly doubtful this is going to be a game.
When I bought my first ever personal computer ZX Spectrum, that's back in 80s. My first software I got is Fighter Pilot by DI. A crude flight sim game. After a while I upgrade my computer to Atari XE then C64 then Amiga then at last to PC. All this is because I love Flight Sim. My quest is to try all kind of flight sim with this retro machine. At the end PC is the only best Computer to play Flight sim with a caveat that you needed to upgrade whenever the new Sim required a good spec. That's where I stopped doing this madness. My last flight sim is FS2004. I never ever try all this DSC like. In my opinion if you play flight sim on your PC it's still a game...no more not less. It's depend how you interpret this in your capabilities. I stopped long time ago because it's not worth it. Sorry this my opini
@@MHMajid-yi8iu No need to be sorry, but before judging DCS, especially based on your experience in good old sims and FS2004 at the latest, you probably want to get it for free (from ED website), grab a 2 week trial for any high fidelity module and then talk on how much of a game it is. You might be surprised.
@@tomaszwota1465 Thanks for the kind words, maybe I have to pass this. All that glory of DCS that's I has read and watching in YT is really mouth watering but, yeah that's it, it's all over for me now.
Imagine a combination of DCS and arma 3 or Escape from Tarkov for example. A fully detailed aviation simulation with all the physics and systems, damage simulations and hit boxes, AND fully simulated ground combat with all the weapons, attachments, tools and accessories, ballistics and health system. That's a true digital combat simulator .
We've been waiting for a ridiculously long time for multi-threading in DCS. Competition might be good. I've invested FAR too much money into DCS to just abandon it overnight though.
Regarding the aircraft and vehicles looking "too good": keep in mind that these days, there are large libraries of 3d objects already built by freelance artists that can be bought instead of making a whole new low-detailed 3d asset for yourself. It might actually be CHEAPER to buy the high-quality asset. As to what you seem to think is low detail of terrain meshes at high altitude: I think this is more an artifact of the "cinematic" style of the trailer than actual failings of the terrain mesh. On most of the high altitude shots, the "camera focus" is on the aircraft, meaning the terrain is out-of-focus. On the very-low-altitude shots, the terrain is in focus, with the aircraft flying through the frame.
Came here to say something similar. Also AFAIK I believe UE5 can work with hi-poly assets and scale them appropriately, so it could indeed be the case that an existing hi-poly well textured asset was sourced and not built specifically by the NOR artists.
That hose doesn’t look like an A/C cart to me. It looks like what we used to call a “huffer cart”. Basically a jet engine on wheels that could supply pressurized air for systems and engine starts if needed. 5:30
Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). As stated, it's a small jet engine pushing high pressure air to start jet engines in airliners/jets that either don't have their own APU, or there is an issue with their APU. I've used them many times in the past. They're scary as hell when the pilot doesn't 'crossfeed' in time, because they bloody vent the excess air through the wastegate, causing the bloody APU to bang loudly and jump around the apron! 😂😂
It looks to be a GPU that's integrated into the ramp seeing that it is surrounded by posts. I don't think this clip is showing Nellis though, those would be one helluva hazard on a busy flightline. In my USAF days in the 90's all we had were the portable, turbine powered -60's for power and hi-vol/low-press air (hot) for starting the old school planes or, more commonly, to use for operational checks when bleed air is needed. If this is supposed to be Nellis, which I doubt, I would guess it is down by Transient Alert which would be the most practical place to have it. It could be Luke AFB too. Still though, these units are most likely designed for the sim.
One huge difference is, DCS supports online public multiplayer. That’s vulnerable to hacking and such. If hacking is not a concern, the programming design considerations are tremendously different. You can make radically different design decisions that make it a lot easier to produce a performant game which supports much larger areas and regimes
...and as evident by the rather poor performance of DCS, it was spawned from a product for a military contractor as well (was it USAF or US National Guard or something? Either way somebody that wanted an A-10 sim afaik).
@@almightyIrie I played "DCS" back since the good old days of 2003 when it was known as "lock on modern air combat", it was definitely not a sim produced for the US military, the A-10C came years later. It is amazing to play DCS today and realize how much of it is still unchanged from those early days
Competition is great, yes! However, ED also do a great job. EDGE which with parallel processing just got an updated announcement today. Regardless, thinking that something will be even remotely as good as DCS when it isn't even released is just speculation. Until it happens, I hope it does, it can't be replied upon.
TWS, NOR, DCS 🤯 A lot players maybe wondering about the good graphics in trailers ..but it is the contemporary graphical Level for the 2020s. Graphics in DCS and IL2 are in some points outdated (not a critic at all, I like them). Interesting will be the physics, AI and strategical or tactical mechanics.
Maybe it’ll be a sim for ground crews too, like for running external checks, all the under the hood stuff for crew chief training or something - especially if it’s VR capable with walk around type stuff, could be good for training people without them needing to actually be on base or taking time away from staff legitimating serving jets. I can see your argument, but if they can make it look that detailed, they might as well, right? It doesn’t have to mean it’s being market for the gaming market. Though I’ll be very happy if you’re right.
Well the argument would be that having people do stuff out in the field for servicing is not actually expensive to train. And doig it in VR would be tricky given you would need a very large "game room", not to mention awkward VR gloves and stuff that probably won't work all the well. Just being out on the base would be super easy and simple though. So I'm not convinced about that. And with regards to "if they can make it look that detailed, they might as well, right?" - well, this would be painstaking man hours and modelling, which equals development time and money. Seems somewhat unnecessary. I'm just speculating of course :)
best way forwards is scalling, ground war to platoon level, but as you scale up(zoom out or whatever) you see basic units that move slower (as you progress with your platoon from 1 quadrant to anootehr-lets say quadrant would be 1 km2), so on bigger scale you see the tank units more and plattoon units move like DCS, but closer zoom (that air game wouldn't see) would move like CoD style..
Well if simulating for ground crew checks you wouldn't be using the bleed air hose directly as they try and avoid using that and putting wear and tear on the ECS system versus using the ground cooling carts. Perhaps that is something more seen in foreign militaries as the USAF doesn't have ground setups like that. I've seen those on Naval air stations though.
For not flying it's much easier to use real life hands on learning for ground crews. It's even cheaper to take apart actual jets to teach mechanics than to train them in VR.
God the $100s I’ve spent on DCS modules alone. Not including all the flight controls. Probably the most expensive sim-game to play. I really hope this puts them on notice and they incorporate new technology.
Supposedly Eagle Dynamics is *working* on a Dynamic Campaign system akin to Falcon 4.0 for DCS - - But when or if we'll see it....who knows? But if Nor turns out to be a legit consumer product with study-sim fidelity. God I hope they bring a similar system. Still one of the greatest things about Falcon/BMS is the Dynamic Campaign.
BMS (falcon 4.0) dynamic campaign was good at the release, but it isn't golden standard these days. It is old, and simple. There's requirement for much more than what it delivers. But compared what DCS offers, BMS is totally superior.....
@@paristo It's not Gold Standard because it's hard to do. Falcon 4.0 (BMS or Not) is the only true Dynamic Campaign system I've seen. The guy who lead the development on Falcon 4.0's campaign was pretty much given a blank check to do whatever he needed to do. It was a huge undertaking. I don't think anyone else has attempted it since because it's just a massive amount of work. Still...I'd love to see a similar system come to DCS - - maybe one day. But I can't think of any other sim that has a dynamic campaign quite like Falcon's.
@@Getz2oo3 Yeah they claim to work on a dynamic campaign since KA-50 Beta came out. I remember that so well because I kept asking over and over again lol. That was more than 12 years ago. How long they took to implement multi-crew? 7, 8, 9 years? Something like that... It might take another decade or so lol. I'm afraid Star Citizen will be out before the dynamic campaign will be out 🤣 The missing campaign is the main issue I have with DCS, aside from false advertisement, lies, banning critical postings and accounts and incompetence they showed since they announced the KA-50.
i think the detail in wheel chocks may not point towards a gaming product, but just helps selling the product to military clients.. like, imagine hearing about all the (potentially) awesome features of the sim, then seeing perfect visuals in the presentation until you get to the wheel chocks.. they'd stick out too much making the whole visuals look faulty if they'd be done in lower res / less poly.. at least that's what i think - rather make sure the presentation is as perfect as you'd make the product appear when selling it (to whomever, hopefully not only military) EDIT: Tunguska detail might be because they got a JTAC sim in there as well? Or marketing, as my thoughts on wheel chocks
From the Meta website - "NOR platform brings the cutting edge technology and accessibility of commercial gaming engines to the high-end military training AND SIMULATION MARKET" ... I would translate from that, that they fully intend competing with DCS but are shooting in high hopes for a possible contract with military aviation as well. Their marketing strategist has worded this to entice the civilian into thinking that he is getting a superior flight simulator product because they read somewhere that it is somehow connected to "military." While the Military is reading that they are specifically targeted and therefore this is the one they should invest their time into.
Yeah you can read between the lines from both aspects really. Unfortunately though for now they have delivered on military contracts, and we as consumers don't even have a little demo :( Hopefully later down the line!
Hey, NOR! With your incredible attention to detail you missed a bit... Where the vid is paused during the trailer at around the 3:55 mark, the F-16 appears to be sitting in a BPO/Pre-Flight config on the line with the NLG torque links connected but why is there a torque link pin still installed into the RH side of the NLG wheel axle as if it's getting ready to be towed? 🤔🤗 In case no one knows what I'm talking about. The pin used to connect the torque links that connect the upper and lower NLG strut doubles as a tow bar attachment point. So, before towing an F-16 one would disconnect the safety locking pin on the torque link pin then remove the pin from the torque links separating the lower strut from the steering actuator on the upper strut. That pin would then be inserted into the RH side of the NLG axle to facilitate the connection of said tow bar.
@@CommandT Absolutely, the military flight sim/game scene hasn't had anything other than DCS to speculate about. Microsoft Flight Simulator is great for general & commercial aviation, but for military stuff it's like flying models around with no campaign infrastructure. So yeah, this trailer is obviously, well, a _trailer,_ complete with reshade and cherry picked scenes, but it is being presented as a serious, professional level effort, and that makes it worth speculating about. I kinda hope you're right in some of your conjectures about this, it truly would give DCS a shot in the arm as well. But I'm watching this, and it looks great but I question whether it will have the breadth and depth and scope of DCS. It appears, certainly, that the creators want it to have that and more. Maybe that will help it get there?
So one of the peculiar misses on detail here is on a high level on the F-16. Yes they got a lot of small details but it is super odd that they would have taken a parked F-16 with a TGP on it and show it with the TGP sensors facing forward. The only time you see it looking like that is if it is in use. Even on but stowed the sensors are off to the side and not front facing to protect it from a bird strike. Fully shut down the TGP sensors aren't visible at all on the older TGP. Sniper is different of course.
"the future of military simulation" Ok so it looks amazing! But if they never thought they would release this for consumers why even show it for us? Sounds like a marketing scheme saying "no it's for military only" to create a 'demand' and then later say "due to popular demand we are selling it to consumers now". Well it worked on me. Hmmm..
Command T, you're very suceptible to just a trailer :) It looks awesome but it didn't show much gameplay. No multiplayer, no big combat, no ai... I think this will be another Star Citizen project, awesome but years away. Competition is good though.
Well, perhaps. But I will say this: The amount of money I have invested into DCS is staggering (for a computer sim) and it will take a lot to get me to change over. And I am not talking about a few extra frame rates, a few cool eye candy features or any modest increase in any aspect. It will have to be a leap of magnitude. New to combat sim players may opt to go a non DCS route, but established simmers who have hundreds of dollars tied up in DCS will be a tough sell. And DCS is always improving, and with competition they will only get better. Not to mention having to learn a whole new system. Hell, just figuring out the editor in DCS is a monumental triumph of time and effort.
I have nearly every dcs module. Probably closer to thousands than hundreds at this point. I would jump to a different sim tomorrow if it offered a better built in campaign generator or better vr performance. I'm sick of using 3rd party apps to make decent missions. This isn't a cheap hobby, I've spent over $4k on my cockpit and PC, I'll gladly drop a few hundred more to get better software.
I certainly agree that competition drives inovation, that's severely lacking atm (DCS sits alone, with all the stagnation as a result). Something like NOR needs to happen, we need alternatives. With that said, we need to be careful with "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" being a possible reality. As I see it, eye-candy and respective performance advancements are just one part of the equation. Business model, costs, and hardware requirements are too. Physics, avionics, AI, gameplay and features are even more important, I'd argue. For example, you only have to look at Falcon BMS and how a 20+ year old platform can still feel as immersive and, perhaps, more accomplished than DCS in more than one aspect... (PS: can't wait for the promised major update!)
Ahhh so its DCS’s turn now. I remember how years ago there were all kinds of videos about how Arma needed a good competitor. And people starting drooling over videos of VBS, Titan Vangaurd, and Realtime Immersive. All of which are military applications. They did show off some insane things. Like a sub hunting helicopter. Where you actually sat in the back looking at the sonar screen, being able to use all the buttons. I think the best bet for something like this for commercial rather then military application. Is outerra sandbox, its on the microprose youtube channel. The outerra engine is capable of full fidelity aircraft. There used to be a free demo of a cesna which was pretty good.
As for the level of detail in NOR, if its indeed made with unreal engine. Then i think you are simply misunderstanding how that engine works. The whole point of Nanite in Ue5 is that artists can directly import thier blender creations. Without having to reduce the number of polygons. Without having to make several LOD’s of the same object. The lighting engine in UE5 means you wont have to do baking. You save lots of time and really only have to create the 3d model. And texture. The engine does the rest That tunguska could literally be a 30million polygon 3d asset purchased from a store, and it would run in UE5 because of the engines global illumination system, and the Nanite technology which creates LOD dynamically.
It's bad enough one almost needs a Super Computer to run DCS. I don't need to see caterpillars in the trees and ants on the ground. So while graphics are extremely important to most SIM Pilots, there is a point when the cost becomes prohibitive.
Here is the ting, DCS is a Russian company and their business model is EXACTLY the same as other Russian companies like Wargaming who makes World OF Tanks and World Of Warships and Gaijinn who makes War Thunder. They DON'T care about the customer base at all. All they care about is making new airplanes which they know the customers will buy and keep the cash flowing in. I mean DCS has been around what FIFTEEN years old and they STILL don't have a dynamic campaign, something Microprose did with Falcon 4 in the 1990's. DCS does not care about "Fixing" their game because they know they don't have to, all they have to do is keep pumping out new modules and people will keep buying aircraft and keep bitching about how crappy the actual game is.
I hope you’re right that this is gonna come to consumers but my worry is if it’s designed to run for military then computing power is less of an issue as they could design it to run on tipping top of the line computers cause the us will pay
It's definitely consideration but but it also doesn't really look any more demanding than any of the consumer gaming AAA titles. So hopefully it's a possibility.
@@CommandT true it doesn’t look far better than AAA but AAA has a huge budget to spend on the best optimizers around to ensure that the game will run smoothly with the best graphics they can (although idk how design really works this is just coming out of my ass)
All being said I would never B T C H about DCS because it is my go to game.. I have been gaming since 15 years or so and I am fed up playing the games that don't follow most the rules of physics(just mindless flexibility allowed in games like ARMA, Project reality,battlefield etc for flight dynamics) .This one game respects flying and is a replica of what it feels like to fly such fighters both technically and gives you a sense of accomplishment.. it's a aviation fan's game and it should never disappear .I wish Eagle Dynamics give us more and more content and not just loose focus..
If nor is what they say it is it will 100% not be competition because it will have classified information that they won’t allow the average consumer to see.
Lots of assumptions here... am positive that if you actually got to play with the sim itself you would be less enthusiastic. Would be interesting to know what area the UR5 engine permits them to map, before it becomes a CPU/GPU nightmare to handle. I imagine it's not that large. DCS World should be given a great deal more credit, as they're not new to the world of sim. They've been evolving their product for many many years. Sure, new players can come along, but do they live up to the hype? Lets wait and see.
Have you watched Tricker's video on his experience actually flying the NOR sim? It sounds amazing. I highly recommend: th-cam.com/video/O1nr7fmIrqE/w-d-xo.html
Short answer. No it will not. Meta Aerospace/NOR has stated its a US Military Contracted Simulation and does not ever see a civilian application or release because the aircraft used in the simulator are current aircraft with current sensors and technology which are currently classified. Will they ever produce aircraft which have had their systems declassified, unlikely.
In my opinion Trailers dont matter anymore, they always look great but the actual game is most of the time different... so i dont get exited for that until they show real Gameplay. Until then DCS is the lonely Military Flight Sim out there...
Well I think 'demise' is a bit hyperbolic, isn't it. It has quite a head start, and quite a lot of people using it, and enjoying it. Having said that, the potential competition will be good for ED.
Likely exactly for reason that they are feeling pressure to remind payers that they too are caring about performance. That based from wording they used, and how much information they left out, telling us really nothing than praising themselves. ED had 10 years time to make multitasked game engine. Since dual core processors became quad core, v they should have already had engine supporting that. We are now 8-32 thread processors, and they offer one core performance for simulation, and other thread for audio. Just alone separating ground and air units from executing in same core would have been huge factor.
This is a Pentagon level marketing video. I’m sorry you have confused it for an actual product. Look through the DoD budget for a given year and count up simulation expenditures. You imagine some complete simulation turnkey simulation product when I’m fact most are pieces and portions. The military simulation market is billions - the combat flight sim market isn’t. This video is a talking piece for marketers - demoing their “capability” to old men. Those old men are getting better at not wasting resources on eye candy - but presentations like this are a “conversation starter” Throughout the video you remark on how silly the LoD is constantly - but you don’t seem to take it to heart. This isn’t a product. Portions suitable to demo may exist - but they won’t run on a PC. Military simulators tend to run on blade servers
What would be sick, is if they release a "declassified" version for the public consumers. That way the military can have their realism with the capabilities they know their equipment has. We can have ours from publicly released information. Companies like this would be absolute idiots if they didn't try to have 2 versions. I mean the military will spend a shit ton if they do buy into it...but the people would spend just as much if not more.
A "declassified" version is what we are going to get with TWS. They are also contracting with DoD and various military branches. They plan on releasing the unclassified parts of the sim as a "game".
when i look at this i just keep thinking about R6 and its E3 demo... Also, with that amount of detail I think you'll need a beast of a PC to just run this game. The cockpit of the typhoon looks really nice though.
Unreal Engine 5 is going to the be the demise of all games that came before it. We have entered a New Age with it's release. Previous flight sims like DCS (and even ARMA ) are just not going to be able to compete with the graphics and power of the new Unreal.
NOR seems to be an updated Prepar3D...which was also created for military and industrial use by Lockheed Martin, and taken over by simmers. With the technology increases from P3D to now, it seems logical. Also, as P3D was almost cost-prohibitive compared to FSX and X-Plane (at the time, over $200 for the "real version), if this comes to fruition, you can expect high cost of both the system AND your CPU/GPU system...with that kind of resolution, only the highest-end graphics cards will be able to handle it.
They've gone to town on the internal and external aircraft modeling, and yes It may be better than DCS in some aspects and details (and not in others, like you mentioned, the leading edge of the wing did not have as much detail as the missiles) but as far as airport lights, terrain and clouds...it's not really any better than DCS and it's a few thousand leaps behind MSFS. The first person aspect is the most striking aspect of this game, but then again, it's a trailer, who knows how much of it is just made for the trailer. DCS's biggest draw back are the maps. Their details, graphics and content is just so bad after we've been spoiled with MSFS. Also, the Combined Arms and FPS are almost laughable. DCS has the right title name to actually be the best digital combat simulator, if it just had the world/terrain and weather of MSFS, the FPS and vehicles of Arma 3 and the Naval assets control of Cold Waters or upcoming Sea Power. Then, it'd be the "Star Citizen" of the real world.
The more combat flight sims we have, involving semi-modern aircraft the better. I just want DCS with a Dynamic Campsign engine and at least BMS level ATC and bullseye references during combat. Gets old telling the dumb DCS AI wingmen to loiter while you go ATTEMPT to land after requesting landing all to avoid any collisions….yet you might still get a random AI spawn on the runway or cut you off during your CLEARED approach. PS. The bubble will always be a thing when it comes to rendering in air combat. I doubt I’ll live long enough to see 300 square miles of fully rendered (no details removed) terrain along with various assets on that 300 sq miles fully rendered as well doing it’s own thing. Also, with the military, sims are mostly used as procedural trainers and “what if” scenarios. Once they get to any kind of actual training they are off to actually fly the jet.
Yes true, howver sim technology and computers are evolving relatively quick, so I think it's not improbable that we will at least see a few thousand units on the battle space. And totally agree re-AI in DCS when it comes to landing, it's actually painful to watch. I hope they implement some sort of AI landing logic to come in for at the very least a simple overhead break without doing mad yoyo's.
They have a long way to go just to catch up to DCS. There are a great deal of fixed and rotary wing aircraft that are simulated in detail nowadays. Bringing something to market with just one avionics/flight model won't be good enough no matter how shiny. On the other hand we as customers can only benefit.
If they are making modules of current generation technology in a true to life simulation there is no way we will be able to access that in the public domain. Classified information would be found everywhere! As for going the extra mile, polygon count on wheelchocks etc, well a contract to develop software to train Western Airforces could go for crazy amounts of money! So why not make it look good?
Because they get paid anyway and the military don't care..... more money for less work sounds more likely than more work for no reason other than it looks pretty
I think the biggest problem with this sim is that it probably contains military classified stuff, which makes it impossible to release to the public. They would have to "declassify" the sim by removing all the modern technology which is still classified before they could even think about releasing a public version. That's one of the reasons DCS doesn't contain the most modern airplanes.
@Skauber, why couldn't they just disable/exclude any classified functionality? E.g. on some of the DED pages, just show NOT IMPLEMENTED like DCS does? Yes it would be two different builds but ought to be managed by flags/asset packs.
@@anthonymoloney3671 I think they would have to do a similar approach as DCS, every airframe is a "module" and only the ones not containing classified systems, i.e. older airplanes could be released to public, same with weapons and missiles, take out the classified ones.
The higher you are, the less detailed.. the lower you are the more detailed. . . sounds like Nanite in UE5 in action :) As to "wasting their time on very little details on the models", well, lots of high-end 3D assets out there are available that can be purchased, which probably are a lot cheaper to buy than model them... they can reskin those if needed.
You mentioned the crazy level of details and polygons. Unreal Engine 5 has a feature (Nanite) allowing an almost unlimited number of polygons for 3D assets. Creating a different level of geometry assets for the same object is what is the most time consuming in the development workflow. Talking about workflow for the development team, UE5's has been designed to ease open world game creation. I guess it would be a nice improvement for simulation games in general Ealier version of Unreal Engine 5 had issues with trees and is now patched allowing the same level of detail as any other type of objects. Love your content by the way ! Cheers !
Thanks! Yes. You're right about nanite. That's the sort of tech we need to improve ground terrain details without killing all performance! I wonder if they actually use nanite in NOR though. Not everything with UE5 uses nanite?
@@CommandT Nanite is a built-in feature. You can import almost any type of model from most of the modeling softwares, activate Nanite on the asset and UE5 takes care of the rest. Pretty neat. I would be curious to see Nanite's performance in another context than FPS.
They're gonna need that level of detail if they've got ground force training integrated with combat flight perations. CAS & training with ground forces close by requires this level of realism on soldiers skins and object textures. The grass was waving in the wind in one shot; why waste CPU cycles on that unless ground forces will play in the dirt while pilots fly overhead? Textures are one thing that's required if it's gonna be sold as a procedures/tactics training sim since BDA checks, and close formation requires detail that allows the pilot to use markings on the jet (or on soldier's uniforms) for formation positioning, especially high-fidelity VR use. If used by FTUs for procedures and initial qual in the jet(s) then preflight walk-arounds could be modeled, although this seems superfluous when the real thing is sitting in a hangar or in a revetment. The boxes with hoses on the tarmac are Palouste air starting systems for the F-5s at Fallon. You hook the hose up to the jet, it spins the turbine blades to achieve enough RPM to start the engines.
Will it be available for public? No. Why? If it's designed for military it probably has classified data included. End of topic. Unless they would cut out all of that. For an example - if it's for military it should have accurate AMRAAM model (all the flight parameters, distance, maneuverability). Military would not be happy to share it to the public. Unless NOR is not as accurate, so it's just DCS for military with some better campaign and graphics... Right?
So, 1, I do not think NOR will ever evolve into a consumer game. 2. The reason why I believe they chose Unreal engine 5 is because UE5 provides a lot of functions that scales beautifully with more powerful platforms like super computers. The military cares most about physics especially with flight sims and now they have a game engine capable of keeping up with their physics models and in turn, allows them to add even more detailed physics models later. Regarding the graphic details, it is not as hard with UE5. So fusing it with the military capabilities, I most definitely expect to see some overkill level of detail.
I think that "air conditioner" may be ground air supply. Just a guess. So DCS has something that this probably won't have, and that is accessibility. You can download the base game for free, and all you have to do is buy the module you want, and you're good to go. With this sim, I wouldn't doubt that you will need a monthly subscription with a USB key stick to unlock everything. Either monthly, or a really large one time payment for a key. If it is being developed for the military primarily, I wouldn't be surprised if the average armchair pilot would have to do this. In going with this theory because that's how "Steel Beasts" operates, and that was developed for the same reason. I couldn't see people dropping dcs for this. Thats the only way it could be a DCS killer. If ppl stop buying modules and go for this instead. I could see ppl having both on their computer, if they have the hard drive space. Only time will tell.
Kinda late into this party, but since NOR is most probably using Unreal Engine (based on the fact that they're mainly looking for UE developers), there is next to zero chance of NOR ever becoming a DCS contestant. Sim fans expect DCS competition and they do so rightfully, but sadly this also draws in a lot of unrealistic expectation/speculation. I have taken a look on NOR videos and I see no evidence of having a big world combined with xMO multiplayer capability. There are also this TWS (Track While Scan, renamed to Training and weapons Simulation) project which also tries to so something similar and it also states it does on Unreal. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. On NORs credit, they don't act like if they're planning to release to (civil) public.
From a proof of concept to a DCS killer would be 30 to 300 person-years of developer effort. Team of 10 amazing people, 3 years, MAYBE. Team of 20 amazing people, 8 years, maybe. Maybe never.
I don’t think NOR will compete with DCS. There’s some capability overlap between the two, but NORs target market are military clients looking for an affordable training capability. Their focus won’t be delivering a fun “player” experience, but building a simulation environment to accomplish very specific military objectives. For security and infrastructure reasons I doubt NOR will be available to the public. For what it’s worth, as a beginner to the DCS game I’ll say that it’s pretty darn fun and comprehensive for what it is. There’s flaws, but on balance they have a good game here. Unlike a certain vendor whose name rhymes with “Ronin” ….😂
i would like to see a comercial version of the NOR...with a certain number of full fidelity aircraft...with all it armament...including nuclear ordenance...and open source to allow the users community to create content...some day fusion full aviation simulation with full ground combat simulation...a species of Arma...i think im dreaming too quickly...but if it possible...it would beat DCS and Arma both together
I'm still not impressed with NOR's latest video. It's time for ED to fix DCS, all bugs should be fixed, switch to vulkan, new graphics, deecently optimized VR, full dynamic campaign, that's what we need.
No, I don't think that it's a competitor to DCS. My belief is that NOR WILL eventually be the update to DCS. Let me explain my logic with a few points: - What aircraft did you spot in the video? Me, I think that I saw and F16, F5, F18 (just the nose, but it was there), Typhoon, F14 (rear), Su27 (in a hangar, though I didn't check it). Every one of those aircraft are already in DCS, with the exception of the Typhoon, and we know that Heatblur is already working on that, and "might" have already provided early access views. Just why would a different group release pretty much the same plane set? - I've never heard of META, or METREA as I believe they're now called. Yet they claim to have been providing sims to the military for a number of years. Funny that you could say the same about ED - Not sure if you've noticed, but the "Battle Sim", which used to be the military version of DCS, went AWOL last year, almost as though ED have closed it down and renamed it - ED supposedly has a big team working on the game engine update, yet what we've seen as releases has been a bit pants. Why not simply shuffle all of the game logic into a different game visual engine? - I did think that I'd read a comment about the Unreal team working with ED, but with no details behind that "If" the above is true, and quite clearly I could be completely wrong, the next question is almost certainly going to be "why haven't they told us". Here's my thoughts on that: - Quite clearly, Unreal 5 is still being developed. For example, v5.1 recently unveiled a new expansion to the capabilities of the "nanite" functionality. Maybe there's something really important that ED are waiting for from Unreal as a pre-requisite - As I understand it, Unreal 5 doesn't as yet support VR. Imagine releasing a "non-VR" version of DCS and the noise that it would create? - Building NOR is going to be a massive undertaking, regardless of who's doing it and with it's complexities, predicting timescales for built can be very difficult - Lastly, and this is the big one. Would YOU tell the DCS player base that a new version is coming? You just know what would happen. It would probably go like this: "can we have it now, please, just with a small map and one aircraft, yes we know it's not finished" "we demand it NOW. What the hell are we paying for" "thanks for agreeing to release it, can't wait" "what do you mean you've delayed the release by two days. May GODS WRATH descend upon you" "It's here, WHY CAN'T THE SERVERS DOWNLOAD IT" "installation problems....." "why is my frame rate down 17.458347% against DCS v2.8" "when do I get the next aircraft" "want, want want......." etc Personally, I would wait until it's genuinely ready. Better to under-promise and over-deliver than the other way around.
No, not even close, this isn't even a competitor for DCS in the commercial market. This is only being marketed in the military space, should that change, it might actually be good for DCS, as it might make them move faster in the commercial space. Competition is good, but as of right now it doesn't look like this is intended to complete with DCS at all in the commercial market.
I don't see how competition will change lead times of software engineering. Conflating all competition with progress and quality improvement is a capitalistic mirage. If DCS was plagued by obvious internal political issues and wrong calls based in trying to please people, then yes, competition helps. When it comes to solving the issues with old complexity on a small team, which is what DCS is struggling with, there is no reason what so ever that competition will be of help. (It probably won't hurt though) However, a bigger market for combat flight sims will lead to a wider knowledge base and drive tech forward. That's in the scale of decades though. In the short term a competitor could do something better than DCS, and that would benefit the players who decide to use the competitor. It still would not make DCS devs any better.
Of course they went overboard on the 3d level of detail in their trailer. They are spending a few hundred thousand to go after multi-million dollar contracts. Generals and politicians don't ask if this trailer is the current level of real-time 3d rendering. Also by the time this is bought and it's time to deliver the product, they will be at that level technology wise- i.e. both hardware and software capabilities.
so basically they are creating dcs for the military. I'd love to play that lol. the fact you can coordinate ground troops with air force sounds like dcs mixed call of duty. Aka the perfect game.
You do realize that back in 2008 or so, DCS was (as the Ka-50 simulator and A-10C procedure trainer for the US ANG) exclusively for the military market too, right?
@@bronco5334 But yes and no. They had announced that they were working on a consumer version of the KA-50 some time in early 2007. If I remember correctly they wanted a title called Tank Killers. It was going to be the Ka-50, A-10C, AH-64D, and the SU-25T.
Your watching a buffed Cinematic and fooling yourself into believing they have any relevant systems modeled....which is 90% of what DCS is. This could be a "Call of Duty Trailer" for all you know.
I think this is the future. I am surprised at how many people are saying “DCS sucks” because it is the best commercial product available, and Eagle Dynamics themselves (I don’t know their resources) have admitted that the processing engine needs upgrading and additionally they’ve been impacted by the Ukraine conflict.
I think the people saying "DCS sucks" are those who are burnt out on the breaking bugs and waiting forever for some fixes to take place. Also the people who see great potential for the sim to be more than a cockpit simulator. The DCS business model of pumping out new modules rather than fixing the base game may be required for financial stability, but is pissing off part of the player base. I've been playing a version of this SIM since LOMAC and find it hugely frustrating when things like the radar are often broken. Nothing is more immersion breaking than not even having a properly functioning radar. I mean have they even fixed the track file life bug for the F/A-18C yet? They also need to seriously fix their testing regime (not just expect the public to do their alpha testing). How can seriously breaking bugs not be picked up when all it takes is to load the sim and fly around for 5 mins? TLDR the sim doesn't suck but people have legit gripes with it. Ok, rant over.
This doesn't seem like a competitor at all. If it's meant for pilot training then the models will all be developed with military information about systems and physics for current in service platforms. It will necessarily be more accurate than DCS. And that makes it unreleasable to the public.
This not an issue at all. Tweaking systems or models to avoid any classified material is not difficult. This exactly what ED do themselves for thee same modules we have in DCS and the ones they create for their military contracts.
The thing is, flight simmers WILL PAY for good products. They spend a small fortune on add-on software, their PCs, flight sim equipment anyway. NOR could be 5x, 10x the price of DCS but if it offers a genuine improvement in the sim experience and fidelity, people WILL PAY FOR IT. It might not sell huge, huge numbers but the military market is comparatively small and will have limited aftermarket opportunities beyond software maintenance. Air forces might need a couple of ultra-high fidelity aircraft models depending on the types they operate but that's about it 🤷🏻♂️
"DCS is the only combat flight simulator out there" "I wish there were options other than DCS" I am shocked noone is saying anything here. Falcon BMS which recently entered 4.36 is worlds ahead of DCS when it comes to aircraft realism and actual gameplay. Yes, it only simulates the F-16. Yes, it's not as beautiful and yes, it's not as seamless and easy to set up as DCS but for those who are willing to make a little bit of effort and check it out - it's a much better game overall than DCS and much cheaper to get into. I've played both for good 6 or so years now and although DCS has made significant progress - so has BMS and the only reason the former made a huge (and I mean huge) jump in popularity and the latter hasn't - is that a lot of mainstream youtubers have started picking up DCS. Give BMS a shot guys, you won't be disappointed.
That unit seen with the F-16 is almost certainly use to provide compressed air for jet engine starts. In the Navy (and presumably the Marine Corps) they're called huffers; I don't know if the Air Force has a different name for them. There are some cinematic things DCS has incorporated for the sake of "game play," even when in simulation mode, that are depicted in ways that don't follow reality (and I'm mostly not criticizing DCS for these things): Depth of field - Because our eyes focus so rapidly, we really don't notice depth of field in our interactions with the real world. Depth of field does in fact exist in eyesight, but our refocusing happens so quickly we don't notice it. I have depth of field turned off for that reason. Heat blur - The heat blur from aircraft afterburners is all wavy. In reality, the hot gasses are escaping so fast from the engines that there's really no blur. Lens flare - In human eyesight we do experience glare, but not lens flare, and there's a difference. Lens flare happens when light bounces between the various individual lens elements in a complete optical device lens, as seen by the polygonal ghost shapes (from the lens iris that changes the amount of light being admitted to the sensor or film) that move as the relationship to the light source changes. However, our eyes only have a single lens "element," and our irises aren't polygonal in shape. So while the lens flare looks nice in DCS, it's not accurate. Shadows - Similar to depth of field, our eyes, via our irises, quickly adjust to varying light levels. (It's not so quick in the middle of the night when you open the refrigerator and are blinded!) So for example, if we see an airplane in a dark hangar we see it properly, and when it's towed out we also see it properly in bright sunlight (although we won't see both properly at the same time). I noticed that near the end of this video an F-16 is exiting a pitch black hangar interior. Our eyes wouldn't perceive it that way, but it's cinematic and looks dramatic, just like in DCS. In some cases, DCS is really poor with shadows, like the shapes of those cast by objects, even including the shadows that are completely missing under a parked aircraft. One area DCS or NOR could really go overboard with detail is the modeling of of parasitic drag features. When I was first in the Navy I was amazed by how much "junk" there was that added drag, specifically the sealing compounds, that looked like a bad grouting job, used between rarely-opened panels, and the sandpaper-like non-skid surfaces that would see a lot of foot traffic on the aircraft skin, like on top of some jet engine intakes. Overall, I'm impressed with what DCS has accomplished although I'll always want more. I've done 3D modeling and animation (but not real-time) and I know the difficulties on optimizing 3D models for fast rendering. What we have now is bordering on miraculous. Pump up the end-user computer processing power beyond what we have now and the results could be absolutely stunning... although I'd rather be able to run complex missions with lots of assets - aircraft, ships, ground vehicles - and much, much better artificial intelligence, which sometimes isn't all that intelligent. I'd even be willing to trade realism boosters like clouds and wind in exchange for more flexibility in creating and running missions.
I don't think NOR will become available for consumers. The company as far as I can see is strictly a defense contractor. As far as my experience goes I miss a more involving, cohesive but still dynamic campaign. Even if that is considerably more "gamey". For example I like to fly IL2:GB. However it doesn't really matter how you perform in a pilot career. The type of mission depends on your squadron of choice and since it is historic the war will always go the way it was no matter your performance. In DCS a campaign is just a set of missions to completed in order. I don't want to judge the quality here, its just about how it works. It would be more interesting to me if front lines would actually move depending on your performance and mission types would change their makeup. And I don't meany simplistic in terms of whether a mission was successful or not but rather how successful it was or not. Its difficult to describe and I get that this would basically mimic a sort of "Ace Combat" campaign outcome in which a single pilot would have way too much influence on the war which is utterly unrealistic. But still I would find that motivating and I would actually rather gladly give up historical accuracy in terms of made up history and factions. I remember back in the day several simulators had those e.g. I think Falcon 4.0 and something from Jane's... I think Longbow 2? Something like that.
If Nor doesn't make it's planes with real world data and schematics, it wont compete with DCS. As cool as Unreal 5 is, people like to buy into the hype that every game will be better if it's on the current new unreal engine, people said the same thing when unreal 4 came out. It will just turn into Arma. I wouldn't even be surprised if they took DCS/Modder assets to create their planes, or used them as reference. The reason why DCS doesn't have competition is because it is already a niche market and nobody goes the extra mile to release genuine planes. They don't even develop and release planes unless they can actually get hands on with them and aren't being "data locked". Meanwhile there was another "DCS killer" that was announced that said people will be able to fly F-35s....yall tripping, it's going to be a Battlefield F-35. And nah the explosions and fires look way better in DCS, but they could optimize DCS a bit better.
I agree DCS really needs the competition. It will be better for all of us. I bet ED would release multithreading a month after this sim would get a consumer version XD
Indeed!
People really underestimate what it takes to make processes multi threading. If it would be that easy everyone would do it but it simply ain’t. One problem of running tasks on different threads is that you need to make sure they deliver the output at the same time when it is needed. A problem UE5 will not magically solve for you.
Where Unreal5 is great though is to be able to deliver great geometry and texture detail especially for environments. But be aware this will have an impact on download size and DCS will appear small in comparison 😅
@ whatever it is, what we have now sucks, we have basically is module simulator, not combat one, ground war is non-existant, and air war is mostly dogfight without any electronic jamming, intelligence part.. its like 10 % of air war and 5 % of all war (ground and air)..
@ You need multi-threading (or more precisely: parallel computing) these days for most about anything "big" these days. CPUs have - since quite some time - stopped going up in frequencies, but started scaling horizontally.
This trend has been completely slept through by ED (and many other companies).
You are also correct in that it requires developers to have a clue what the benefits are, what the limits are, what to watch out for, etc.
But seeing DCS and seeing the design choices that they still defend and not touch, like:
- Missiles fired in multiplayer by player A are not simulated on the server, receiving guidance through update messages of player As plane through some sort of interface, no.
They are simulated entirely on player As computer, everyone else does not get position updates, but they get their own predictive simulation (which then desyncs as little chaotic randomness effects sum up), .. and in the end you see a missile missing you on TacView, but because for player A it hit, you then magically detonate.
Then take a look at how many weapon systems that are the same are implemented all over again on different aircraft (AGM-88) or AGM-65.
These are fundamental indications at a design process that allows very bad design decisions to be signed off and be implemented. And this will add a huge technical debt to your code base. And we can tell that without knowing the actual code, just knowing that reacting to something that will have to be reacted on for the AGM-88 means they will have to do it in two implementations instead of one for example.
There is something fundamentally wrong with how ED develops software, just as there is something fundamentally wrong with how ED interacts with and responds to it's paying customers.
I sadly have no alternative, maybe Falcon BMS once VR support comes out, but I really, really don't wish ED all the best without a big restructuring, involving community managers and (lead) developers.
It will be "two weeks" after.
NOR for the public is a lot like dating a super model; it's a nice fantasy.
That sounds like ur saying it’s worse than it seems
speak for yourself bud
I’ve always wanted the “world”aspect to DCS. being able to simulate ground troops with a good level of detail and being able to get out of your cockpit or into it just because is something I’ve always wanted and hoped would come into DCS in the future. Seeing full simulated ground combat with even infantry not being ugly meshes of polygons is something that would sell me immediately if this new simulator came to market.
Sorry for being nosy, but are you the "War Daddy" of the Grim Reapers?
@@mickemike2148 not being nosy but I’m not. I didn’t even know there was. I’m the war daddy of DCS tho. That’s my handle
@@War_Daddy23
Okay! Cheers anyway!
I've always felt that DCS totally missed the environment outside the cockpit and spent all their efforts inside. The atmosphere is just so sterile or at least it feels that way to me
Dude, 100%.
DCS has always been on my computer but even as an ex air force pilot that instructed a lot of the techniques in this game I find it has always been missing something that keeps me playing. The multiplayer needs a ton of work at the world needs more attention. If they're only at the point where they can do either weapons mechanics or scenery but not both then definitely it has to be weapons mechanics. I'd just like some more polished missions and campaigns as well as some fresh new ideas for multiplayer which should evolve to being their main focus now. My dream is to have a massive combined arms game with dedicated communities in all 3 elements in a persistent map
There is already a combined arms player driven server up and running in multi player....easy to find there's often 40+ players in it lately.
@@MAYDAYSIMULATIONS Not exactly what I meant. I'm talking about a much larger scale with playable land and sea vehicles that can talk on datalink with everyone as well. With massive communities like world of warship or world of tanks but with first person vehicles as intricate as DCS aircraft. We're not quite there for computing power yet, I've played DCS combined arms and it's pretty meh
You said it; I've wished for some time that Arma/VBS and DCS and Command Modern Operations with Tac Tools and even Steel Beasts Pro PE could all be fused or made interoperable on a global scale, all of it with a superb AI. It's not about graphics either (Graphics are already more than good enough). What would be needed in such a game would be to leverage multi core CPUS with a virtual machine headless server on each thread so that a 16 core AMD CPU with 32 threads could have say 4 threads running the game and then the other 24 threads running headless servers that were purely there for strategy and tactics, each thread embodying a Hetman Artificial Commander to make the opponents responding to situations according to tactics straight from their known military doctrines. That would be wargame nirvana. I've seen it done on some of the more advanced clans' servers and it's results in Arma are amazing. Also, hearkening back to the old SPI wargames, more attention to the dictates of terrain so that you don't have forces racing through swamps, or forests or up and down 45 degree mountainsides in the same manner that they race across firm open ground.
Of course, the trailer looks slick and full of detail. I bet, just like many a sim before, that when you actually get to use the sim and look at the detail, it will be dialled back.
I'm sceptical. While Unreal Engine 5 _might_ be do the trick, replicating the amount of functionality implemented by DCS, from airplane models to "tactical logic" would require an astronomical effort.
If it works, however, it would mean it might be a good idea to "port" DCS to UE5.
We can only speculate how well DCS's Codebase and Assets would work in UE5. Presuming the Assets are easily portable, I'd say for the Sim it would take at best half the time of starting from scratch plus all the visual and weather stuff that just isn't written for unreal. Porting dcs would mean huge effort for no real benefit, and bringen DCS's Core engine up to the Hardware utilization standard of something like UE5 would very much me a simpler task. Any ED Engine Architects feel free to correct me :)
Way smaller local companies have been making sims and combat management for their respective countries' air force. If Metrea gets enough revenue from government contracts they probably can do it.
The issue here isn't about the game engine. It's about the abilities and resources the developer has. A game engine is just like literally any other software creation suite, like Windows Visual Studio (which is a programming suite). The program is designed to do anything you tell it to. It's the programmer's job to know how to tell it what to do.
exactly my thoughts
Using generic game engines for unusual use cases causes a lot of its own problems. There are good reasons why ED are using their own game engine
If you ever wondered, why the focus of simulations is so much on "exterior rivets, chocks and modeling objects" instead of improving AI tactics, behavior, pathfinding, aerodynamic effects and systems modeling or bug fixing, just watch 18 minutes raving about visual fidelity to promote a potential competitor for flight simulators.
This whole thing strikes me as another Arma vs. VBS thing. If they are targetting the military training market, I have my doubts that this will be affordable to common users, or even available at all. It all sounds good, but I am highly doubtful this is going to be a game.
end up with a Steel Beasts Pro/Steel beasts Pro PE situation
In my opinion a simulator (DCS, Arma...) It's NOT a game...and it's good that to be that...
When I bought my first ever personal computer ZX Spectrum, that's back in 80s. My first software I got is Fighter Pilot by DI. A crude flight sim game. After a while I upgrade my computer to Atari XE then C64 then Amiga then at last to PC. All this is because I love Flight Sim. My quest is to try all kind of flight sim with this retro machine. At the end PC is the only best Computer to play Flight sim with a caveat that you needed to upgrade whenever the new Sim required a good spec. That's where I stopped doing this madness. My last flight sim is FS2004. I never ever try all this DSC like. In my opinion if you play flight sim on your PC it's still a game...no more not less. It's depend how you interpret this in your capabilities. I stopped long time ago because it's not worth it. Sorry this my opini
@@MHMajid-yi8iu No need to be sorry, but before judging DCS, especially based on your experience in good old sims and FS2004 at the latest, you probably want to get it for free (from ED website), grab a 2 week trial for any high fidelity module and then talk on how much of a game it is. You might be surprised.
@@tomaszwota1465 Thanks for the kind words, maybe I have to pass this. All that glory of DCS that's I has read and watching in YT is really mouth watering but, yeah that's it, it's all over for me now.
Imagine a combination of DCS and arma 3 or Escape from Tarkov for example. A fully detailed aviation simulation with all the physics and systems, damage simulations and hit boxes, AND fully simulated ground combat with all the weapons, attachments, tools and accessories, ballistics and health system. That's a true digital combat simulator .
In 15 years hopefully. Ai will increase coding speed I think
We've been waiting for a ridiculously long time for multi-threading in DCS. Competition might be good. I've invested FAR too much money into DCS to just abandon it overnight though.
Regarding the aircraft and vehicles looking "too good": keep in mind that these days, there are large libraries of 3d objects already built by freelance artists that can be bought instead of making a whole new low-detailed 3d asset for yourself. It might actually be CHEAPER to buy the high-quality asset.
As to what you seem to think is low detail of terrain meshes at high altitude: I think this is more an artifact of the "cinematic" style of the trailer than actual failings of the terrain mesh. On most of the high altitude shots, the "camera focus" is on the aircraft, meaning the terrain is out-of-focus. On the very-low-altitude shots, the terrain is in focus, with the aircraft flying through the frame.
I've always wanted ED to do this for DCS. Just buy some nice AI assets to replace all the ancient AI models.
Came here to say something similar. Also AFAIK I believe UE5 can work with hi-poly assets and scale them appropriately, so it could indeed be the case that an existing hi-poly well textured asset was sourced and not built specifically by the NOR artists.
@@anthonymoloney3671 My guess the high detail is because of UE5 nanite..
That hose doesn’t look like an A/C cart to me. It looks like what we used to call a “huffer cart”. Basically a jet engine on wheels that could supply pressurized air for systems and engine starts if needed. 5:30
"Chief, Connect Ground Air Support"
@@mzaite *supply 😏
We call them AGPUs in the Army
Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). As stated, it's a small jet engine pushing high pressure air to start jet engines in airliners/jets that either don't have their own APU, or there is an issue with their APU. I've used them many times in the past. They're scary as hell when the pilot doesn't 'crossfeed' in time, because they bloody vent the excess air through the wastegate, causing the bloody APU to bang loudly and jump around the apron! 😂😂
It looks to be a GPU that's integrated into the ramp seeing that it is surrounded by posts. I don't think this clip is showing Nellis though, those would be one helluva hazard on a busy flightline. In my USAF days in the 90's all we had were the portable, turbine powered -60's for power and hi-vol/low-press air (hot) for starting the old school planes or, more commonly, to use for operational checks when bleed air is needed. If this is supposed to be Nellis, which I doubt, I would guess it is down by Transient Alert which would be the most practical place to have it. It could be Luke AFB too. Still though, these units are most likely designed for the sim.
One huge difference is, DCS supports online public multiplayer. That’s vulnerable to hacking and such. If hacking is not a concern, the programming design considerations are tremendously different. You can make radically different design decisions that make it a lot easier to produce a performant game which supports much larger areas and regimes
...and as evident by the rather poor performance of DCS, it was spawned from a product for a military contractor as well (was it USAF or US National Guard or something? Either way somebody that wanted an A-10 sim afaik).
@@almightyIrie I played "DCS" back since the good old days of 2003 when it was known as "lock on modern air combat", it was definitely not a sim produced for the US military, the A-10C came years later.
It is amazing to play DCS today and realize how much of it is still unchanged from those early days
Competition is great, yes! However, ED also do a great job. EDGE which with parallel processing just got an updated announcement today. Regardless, thinking that something will be even remotely as good as DCS when it isn't even released is just speculation. Until it happens, I hope it does, it can't be replied upon.
TWS, NOR, DCS 🤯 A lot players maybe wondering about the good graphics in trailers ..but it is the contemporary graphical Level for the 2020s. Graphics in DCS and IL2 are in some points outdated (not a critic at all, I like them). Interesting will be the physics, AI and strategical or tactical mechanics.
Everything in DCS is outdated. They are at the limits of their engine. Time to move on to a Modern Engine, and start again.
Maybe it’ll be a sim for ground crews too, like for running external checks, all the under the hood stuff for crew chief training or something - especially if it’s VR capable with walk around type stuff, could be good for training people without them needing to actually be on base or taking time away from staff legitimating serving jets.
I can see your argument, but if they can make it look that detailed, they might as well, right? It doesn’t have to mean it’s being market for the gaming market.
Though I’ll be very happy if you’re right.
Well the argument would be that having people do stuff out in the field for servicing is not actually expensive to train. And doig it in VR would be tricky given you would need a very large "game room", not to mention awkward VR gloves and stuff that probably won't work all the well. Just being out on the base would be super easy and simple though. So I'm not convinced about that.
And with regards to "if they can make it look that detailed, they might as well, right?" - well, this would be painstaking man hours and modelling, which equals development time and money. Seems somewhat unnecessary. I'm just speculating of course :)
best way forwards is scalling, ground war to platoon level, but as you scale up(zoom out or whatever) you see basic units that move slower (as you progress with your platoon from 1 quadrant to anootehr-lets say quadrant would be 1 km2), so on bigger scale you see the tank units more and plattoon units move like DCS, but closer zoom (that air game wouldn't see) would move like CoD style..
Well if simulating for ground crew checks you wouldn't be using the bleed air hose directly as they try and avoid using that and putting wear and tear on the ECS system versus using the ground cooling carts. Perhaps that is something more seen in foreign militaries as the USAF doesn't have ground setups like that. I've seen those on Naval air stations though.
For not flying it's much easier to use real life hands on learning for ground crews. It's even cheaper to take apart actual jets to teach mechanics than to train them in VR.
God the $100s I’ve spent on DCS modules alone. Not including all the flight controls. Probably the most expensive sim-game to play. I really hope this puts them on notice and they incorporate new technology.
most expensive sim game is one of the train simulators
I really want to see BMS falcon like digital campaign implementation in new simulator
🤣
Supposedly Eagle Dynamics is *working* on a Dynamic Campaign system akin to Falcon 4.0 for DCS - - But when or if we'll see it....who knows? But if Nor turns out to be a legit consumer product with study-sim fidelity. God I hope they bring a similar system. Still one of the greatest things about Falcon/BMS is the Dynamic Campaign.
BMS (falcon 4.0) dynamic campaign was good at the release, but it isn't golden standard these days. It is old, and simple. There's requirement for much more than what it delivers.
But compared what DCS offers, BMS is totally superior.....
@@paristo It's not Gold Standard because it's hard to do. Falcon 4.0 (BMS or Not) is the only true Dynamic Campaign system I've seen. The guy who lead the development on Falcon 4.0's campaign was pretty much given a blank check to do whatever he needed to do. It was a huge undertaking. I don't think anyone else has attempted it since because it's just a massive amount of work. Still...I'd love to see a similar system come to DCS - - maybe one day. But I can't think of any other sim that has a dynamic campaign quite like Falcon's.
@@Getz2oo3 Yeah they claim to work on a dynamic campaign since KA-50 Beta came out. I remember that so well because I kept asking over and over again lol. That was more than 12 years ago.
How long they took to implement multi-crew? 7, 8, 9 years? Something like that...
It might take another decade or so lol. I'm afraid Star Citizen will be out before the dynamic campaign will be out 🤣
The missing campaign is the main issue I have with DCS, aside from false advertisement, lies, banning critical postings and accounts and incompetence they showed since they announced the KA-50.
1:26: DCS is not the only combat flight simulator out there though. Falcon BMS would like a word.
i think the detail in wheel chocks may not point towards a gaming product, but just helps selling the product to military clients.. like, imagine hearing about all the (potentially) awesome features of the sim, then seeing perfect visuals in the presentation until you get to the wheel chocks.. they'd stick out too much making the whole visuals look faulty if they'd be done in lower res / less poly.. at least that's what i think - rather make sure the presentation is as perfect as you'd make the product appear when selling it (to whomever, hopefully not only military)
EDIT: Tunguska detail might be because they got a JTAC sim in there as well? Or marketing, as my thoughts on wheel chocks
Yeah the marketing aspect is what I think too potentially :)
From the Meta website - "NOR platform brings the cutting edge technology and accessibility of commercial gaming engines to the high-end military training AND SIMULATION MARKET"
... I would translate from that, that they fully intend competing with DCS but are shooting in high hopes for a possible contract with military aviation as well. Their marketing strategist has worded this to entice the civilian into thinking that he is getting a superior flight simulator product because they read somewhere that it is somehow connected to "military." While the Military is reading that they are specifically targeted and therefore this is the one they should invest their time into.
Yeah you can read between the lines from both aspects really. Unfortunately though for now they have delivered on military contracts, and we as consumers don't even have a little demo :( Hopefully later down the line!
Hey, NOR! With your incredible attention to detail you missed a bit...
Where the vid is paused during the trailer at around the 3:55 mark, the F-16 appears to be sitting in a BPO/Pre-Flight config on the line with the NLG torque links connected but why is there a torque link pin still installed into the RH side of the NLG wheel axle as if it's getting ready to be towed? 🤔🤗
In case no one knows what I'm talking about. The pin used to connect the torque links that connect the upper and lower NLG strut doubles as a tow bar attachment point. So, before towing an F-16 one would disconnect the safety locking pin on the torque link pin then remove the pin from the torque links separating the lower strut from the steering actuator on the upper strut. That pin would then be inserted into the RH side of the NLG axle to facilitate the connection of said tow bar.
Well spotted!!
It's a lack of good coding, not a lack of processing power.
Detailed model could be for ground crew VR maintenance training, just like for Airline maintenance training.
You've got to be kidding me. You base all your speculation on a video trailer? LOL! Please.
People love to speculate :)
@@CommandT Maybe they ought to educate themselves before speculating too much...I know we're in the "iT's jUsT mY oPiNiOn" era but that's no excuse.
@@CommandT
Absolutely, the military flight sim/game scene hasn't had anything other than DCS to speculate about. Microsoft Flight Simulator is great for general & commercial aviation, but for military stuff it's like flying models around with no campaign infrastructure. So yeah, this trailer is obviously, well, a _trailer,_ complete with reshade and cherry picked scenes, but it is being presented as a serious, professional level effort, and that makes it worth speculating about.
I kinda hope you're right in some of your conjectures about this, it truly would give DCS a shot in the arm as well. But I'm watching this, and it looks great but I question whether it will have the breadth and depth and scope of DCS. It appears, certainly, that the creators want it to have that and more. Maybe that will help it get there?
So one of the peculiar misses on detail here is on a high level on the F-16. Yes they got a lot of small details but it is super odd that they would have taken a parked F-16 with a TGP on it and show it with the TGP sensors facing forward. The only time you see it looking like that is if it is in use. Even on but stowed the sensors are off to the side and not front facing to protect it from a bird strike. Fully shut down the TGP sensors aren't visible at all on the older TGP. Sniper is different of course.
"the future of military simulation" Ok so it looks amazing! But if they never thought they would release this for consumers why even show it for us? Sounds like a marketing scheme saying "no it's for military only" to create a 'demand' and then later say "due to popular demand we are selling it to consumers now". Well it worked on me. Hmmm..
Command T, you're very suceptible to just a trailer :)
It looks awesome but it didn't show much gameplay. No multiplayer, no big combat, no ai... I think this will be another Star Citizen project, awesome but years away. Competition is good though.
Well I'm just speculating of course!
Well, perhaps. But I will say this: The amount of money I have invested into DCS is staggering (for a computer sim) and it will take a lot to get me to change over. And I am not talking about a few extra frame rates, a few cool eye candy features or any modest increase in any aspect. It will have to be a leap of magnitude. New to combat sim players may opt to go a non DCS route, but established simmers who have hundreds of dollars tied up in DCS will be a tough sell. And DCS is always improving, and with competition they will only get better. Not to mention having to learn a whole new system. Hell, just figuring out the editor in DCS is a monumental triumph of time and effort.
I have nearly every dcs module. Probably closer to thousands than hundreds at this point. I would jump to a different sim tomorrow if it offered a better built in campaign generator or better vr performance. I'm sick of using 3rd party apps to make decent missions. This isn't a cheap hobby, I've spent over $4k on my cockpit and PC, I'll gladly drop a few hundred more to get better software.
Can we rule out the possibility that ED is already acquiring the rights to use this technology in the next game engine?
Yep
DCS already has me, I have every module except a few WW2 birds. It might be good for improvements though
I certainly agree that competition drives inovation, that's severely lacking atm (DCS sits alone, with all the stagnation as a result). Something like NOR needs to happen, we need alternatives.
With that said, we need to be careful with "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" being a possible reality. As I see it, eye-candy and respective performance advancements are just one part of the equation. Business model, costs, and hardware requirements are too. Physics, avionics, AI, gameplay and features are even more important, I'd argue. For example, you only have to look at Falcon BMS and how a 20+ year old platform can still feel as immersive and, perhaps, more accomplished than DCS in more than one aspect... (PS: can't wait for the promised major update!)
We - The Simpilots need competition for DCS, this could improve things a lot for us... Eagle Dynamics might not think so 😛
Competition is always good for the consumer.
Ahhh so its DCS’s turn now.
I remember how years ago there were all kinds of videos about how Arma needed a good competitor. And people starting drooling over videos of VBS, Titan Vangaurd, and Realtime Immersive.
All of which are military applications.
They did show off some insane things. Like a sub hunting helicopter. Where you actually sat in the back looking at the sonar screen, being able to use all the buttons.
I think the best bet for something like this for commercial rather then military application. Is outerra sandbox, its on the microprose youtube channel.
The outerra engine is capable of full fidelity aircraft. There used to be a free demo of a cesna which was pretty good.
As for the level of detail in NOR, if its indeed made with unreal engine. Then i think you are simply misunderstanding how that engine works.
The whole point of Nanite in Ue5 is that artists can directly import thier blender creations. Without having to reduce the number of polygons. Without having to make several LOD’s of the same object.
The lighting engine in UE5 means you wont have to do baking.
You save lots of time and really only have to create the 3d model. And texture. The engine does the rest
That tunguska could literally be a 30million polygon 3d asset purchased from a store, and it would run in UE5 because of the engines global illumination system, and the Nanite technology which creates LOD dynamically.
It's bad enough one almost needs a Super Computer to run DCS. I don't need to see caterpillars in the trees and ants on the ground. So while graphics are extremely important to most SIM Pilots, there is a point when the cost becomes prohibitive.
Yeah, it's like DCS has suddenly become DESPERATE to up its graphics, at the cost of the game being actually able to run.
Here is the ting, DCS is a Russian company and their business model is EXACTLY the same as other Russian companies like Wargaming who makes World OF Tanks and World Of Warships and Gaijinn who makes War Thunder. They DON'T care about the customer base at all. All they care about is making new airplanes which they know the customers will buy and keep the cash flowing in. I mean DCS has been around what FIFTEEN years old and they STILL don't have a dynamic campaign, something Microprose did with Falcon 4 in the 1990's. DCS does not care about "Fixing" their game because they know they don't have to, all they have to do is keep pumping out new modules and people will keep buying aircraft and keep bitching about how crappy the actual game is.
ED is such a toxic company and I hope that a competitor can render them obsolete.
I hope you’re right that this is gonna come to consumers but my worry is if it’s designed to run for military then computing power is less of an issue as they could design it to run on tipping top of the line computers cause the us will pay
It's definitely consideration but but it also doesn't really look any more demanding than any of the consumer gaming AAA titles. So hopefully it's a possibility.
@@CommandT true it doesn’t look far better than AAA but AAA has a huge budget to spend on the best optimizers around to ensure that the game will run smoothly with the best graphics they can (although idk how design really works this is just coming out of my ass)
All being said I would never B T C H about DCS because it is my go to game.. I have been gaming since 15 years or so and I am fed up playing the games that don't follow most the rules of physics(just mindless flexibility allowed in games like ARMA, Project reality,battlefield etc for flight dynamics) .This one game respects flying and is a replica of what it feels like to fly such fighters both technically and gives you a sense of accomplishment.. it's a aviation fan's game and it should never disappear .I wish Eagle Dynamics give us more and more content and not just loose focus..
If nor is what they say it is it will 100% not be competition because it will have classified information that they won’t allow the average consumer to see.
Lots of assumptions here... am positive that if you actually got to play with the sim itself you would be less enthusiastic. Would be interesting to know what area the UR5 engine permits them to map, before it becomes a CPU/GPU nightmare to handle. I imagine it's not that large. DCS World should be given a great deal more credit, as they're not new to the world of sim. They've been evolving their product for many many years. Sure, new players can come along, but do they live up to the hype? Lets wait and see.
Have you watched Tricker's video on his experience actually flying the NOR sim? It sounds amazing. I highly recommend: th-cam.com/video/O1nr7fmIrqE/w-d-xo.html
Short answer. No it will not. Meta Aerospace/NOR has stated its a US Military Contracted Simulation and does not ever see a civilian application or release because the aircraft used in the simulator are current aircraft with current sensors and technology which are currently classified. Will they ever produce aircraft which have had their systems declassified, unlikely.
I believe it when there is a release. I saw so many vaporware with astonishing video that then they cannot compete
In my opinion Trailers dont matter anymore, they always look great but the actual game is most of the time different... so i dont get exited for that until they show real Gameplay.
Until then DCS is the lonely Military Flight Sim out there...
Well I think 'demise' is a bit hyperbolic, isn't it. It has quite a head start, and quite a lot of people using it, and enjoying it. Having said that, the potential competition will be good for ED.
I would listen to the pilots using DCS. They DO claim some issues. They also claim that some mods are very true to life.
Funnily enough DCS have just released an update for their multithreading work in progress.
Likely exactly for reason that they are feeling pressure to remind payers that they too are caring about performance.
That based from wording they used, and how much information they left out, telling us really nothing than praising themselves.
ED had 10 years time to make multitasked game engine. Since dual core processors became quad core, v they should have already had engine supporting that. We are now 8-32 thread processors, and they offer one core performance for simulation, and other thread for audio.
Just alone separating ground and air units from executing in same core would have been huge factor.
DCS slowly has changed… but it is a very very old program.
VTOL VR is similar to DCS for VR air combat. DCS is not the only VR air combat flight sim. Try it out.
hmmm visually it doesn't look as good as DCS. The Viper certainly doesn't look near as good especially in the cockpit.
This is a Pentagon level marketing video. I’m sorry you have confused it for an actual product. Look through the DoD budget for a given year and count up simulation expenditures. You imagine some complete simulation turnkey simulation product when I’m fact most are pieces and portions. The military simulation market is billions - the combat flight sim market isn’t. This video is a talking piece for marketers - demoing their “capability” to old men. Those old men are getting better at not wasting resources on eye candy - but presentations like this are a “conversation starter”
Throughout the video you remark on how silly the LoD is constantly - but you don’t seem to take it to heart. This isn’t a product. Portions suitable to demo may exist - but they won’t run on a PC. Military simulators tend to run on blade servers
What would be sick, is if they release a "declassified" version for the public consumers. That way the military can have their realism with the capabilities they know their equipment has. We can have ours from publicly released information. Companies like this would be absolute idiots if they didn't try to have 2 versions. I mean the military will spend a shit ton if they do buy into it...but the people would spend just as much if not more.
A "declassified" version is what we are going to get with TWS. They are also contracting with DoD and various military branches. They plan on releasing the unclassified parts of the sim as a "game".
when i look at this i just keep thinking about R6 and its E3 demo...
Also, with that amount of detail I think you'll need a beast of a PC to just run this game. The cockpit of the typhoon looks really nice though.
ED should really focus their entire effort on making the game run as smoothly as humanly possible, new models can wait
Unreal Engine 5 is going to the be the demise of all games that came before it. We have entered a New Age with it's release.
Previous flight sims like DCS (and even ARMA ) are just not going to be able to compete with the graphics and power of the new Unreal.
To be fair, there's a lot more to a sim than amazing graphics. You'd need to make every aspect of it come together!
NOR seems to be an updated Prepar3D...which was also created for military and industrial use by Lockheed Martin, and taken over by simmers. With the technology increases from P3D to now, it seems logical. Also, as P3D was almost cost-prohibitive compared to FSX and X-Plane (at the time, over $200 for the "real version), if this comes to fruition, you can expect high cost of both the system AND your CPU/GPU system...with that kind of resolution, only the highest-end graphics cards will be able to handle it.
I'll take it! Even if it's expensive, it looks like it would be next level :)
They've gone to town on the internal and external aircraft modeling, and yes It may be better than DCS in some aspects and details (and not in others, like you mentioned, the leading edge of the wing did not have as much detail as the missiles) but as far as airport lights, terrain and clouds...it's not really any better than DCS and it's a few thousand leaps behind MSFS. The first person aspect is the most striking aspect of this game, but then again, it's a trailer, who knows how much of it is just made for the trailer. DCS's biggest draw back are the maps. Their details, graphics and content is just so bad after we've been spoiled with MSFS. Also, the Combined Arms and FPS are almost laughable. DCS has the right title name to actually be the best digital combat simulator, if it just had the world/terrain and weather of MSFS, the FPS and vehicles of Arma 3 and the Naval assets control of Cold Waters or upcoming Sea Power. Then, it'd be the "Star Citizen" of the real world.
The more combat flight sims we have, involving semi-modern aircraft the better.
I just want DCS with a Dynamic Campsign engine and at least BMS level ATC and bullseye references during combat.
Gets old telling the dumb DCS AI wingmen to loiter while you go ATTEMPT to land after requesting landing all to avoid any collisions….yet you might still get a random AI spawn on the runway or cut you off during your CLEARED approach.
PS. The bubble will always be a thing when it comes to rendering in air combat. I doubt I’ll live long enough to see 300 square miles of fully rendered (no details removed) terrain along with various assets on that 300 sq miles fully rendered as well doing it’s own thing.
Also, with the military, sims are mostly used as procedural trainers and “what if” scenarios. Once they get to any kind of actual training they are off to actually fly the jet.
Yes true, howver sim technology and computers are evolving relatively quick, so I think it's not improbable that we will at least see a few thousand units on the battle space. And totally agree re-AI in DCS when it comes to landing, it's actually painful to watch. I hope they implement some sort of AI landing logic to come in for at the very least a simple overhead break without doing mad yoyo's.
I dont think NOR will compete because its only going to be for the government but training and war simulation will definitely compete
Well let's give it some time :)
They have a long way to go just to catch up to DCS. There are a great deal of fixed and rotary wing aircraft that are simulated in detail nowadays. Bringing something to market with just one avionics/flight model won't be good enough no matter how shiny. On the other hand we as customers can only benefit.
If they are making modules of current generation technology in a true to life simulation there is no way we will be able to access that in the public domain. Classified information would be found everywhere!
As for going the extra mile, polygon count on wheelchocks etc, well a contract to develop software to train Western Airforces could go for crazy amounts of money! So why not make it look good?
Because they get paid anyway and the military don't care..... more money for less work sounds more likely than more work for no reason other than it looks pretty
I think the biggest problem with this sim is that it probably contains military classified stuff, which makes it impossible to release to the public. They would have to "declassify" the sim by removing all the modern technology which is still classified before they could even think about releasing a public version. That's one of the reasons DCS doesn't contain the most modern airplanes.
@Skauber, why couldn't they just disable/exclude any classified functionality? E.g. on some of the DED pages, just show NOT IMPLEMENTED like DCS does? Yes it would be two different builds but ought to be managed by flags/asset packs.
@@anthonymoloney3671 I think they would have to do a similar approach as DCS, every airframe is a "module" and only the ones not containing classified systems, i.e. older airplanes could be released to public, same with weapons and missiles, take out the classified ones.
This also might be combined with Vrgineers' XTAL Mixed Reality headsets.
The higher you are, the less detailed.. the lower you are the more detailed. . . sounds like Nanite in UE5 in action :) As to "wasting their time on very little details on the models", well, lots of high-end 3D assets out there are available that can be purchased, which probably are a lot cheaper to buy than model them... they can reskin those if needed.
Could also just be the usual LOD protocols
You mentioned the crazy level of details and polygons. Unreal Engine 5 has a feature (Nanite) allowing an almost unlimited number of polygons for 3D assets. Creating a different level of geometry assets for the same object is what is the most time consuming in the development workflow.
Talking about workflow for the development team, UE5's has been designed to ease open world game creation. I guess it would be a nice improvement for simulation games in general
Ealier version of Unreal Engine 5 had issues with trees and is now patched allowing the same level of detail as any other type of objects.
Love your content by the way ! Cheers !
Thanks! Yes. You're right about nanite. That's the sort of tech we need to improve ground terrain details without killing all performance! I wonder if they actually use nanite in NOR though. Not everything with UE5 uses nanite?
@@CommandT Nanite is a built-in feature. You can import almost any type of model from most of the modeling softwares, activate Nanite on the asset and UE5 takes care of the rest. Pretty neat.
I would be curious to see Nanite's performance in another context than FPS.
@@Kabouly Ah, that's pretty cool!! Thanks for the reply :)
They're gonna need that level of detail if they've got ground force training integrated with combat flight perations. CAS & training with ground forces close by requires this level of realism on soldiers skins and object textures. The grass was waving in the wind in one shot; why waste CPU cycles on that unless ground forces will play in the dirt while pilots fly overhead? Textures are one thing that's required if it's gonna be sold as a procedures/tactics training sim since BDA checks, and close formation requires detail that allows the pilot to use markings on the jet (or on soldier's uniforms) for formation positioning, especially high-fidelity VR use. If used by FTUs for procedures and initial qual in the jet(s) then preflight walk-arounds could be modeled, although this seems superfluous when the real thing is sitting in a hangar or in a revetment.
The boxes with hoses on the tarmac are Palouste air starting systems for the F-5s at Fallon. You hook the hose up to the jet, it spins the turbine blades to achieve enough RPM to start the engines.
Will it be available for public? No. Why? If it's designed for military it probably has classified data included. End of topic. Unless they would cut out all of that. For an example - if it's for military it should have accurate AMRAAM model (all the flight parameters, distance, maneuverability). Military would not be happy to share it to the public. Unless NOR is not as accurate, so it's just DCS for military with some better campaign and graphics... Right?
So, 1, I do not think NOR will ever evolve into a consumer game. 2. The reason why I believe they chose Unreal engine 5 is because UE5 provides a lot of functions that scales beautifully with more powerful platforms like super computers. The military cares most about physics especially with flight sims and now they have a game engine capable of keeping up with their physics models and in turn, allows them to add even more detailed physics models later.
Regarding the graphic details, it is not as hard with UE5. So fusing it with the military capabilities, I most definitely expect to see some overkill level of detail.
I think that "air conditioner" may be ground air supply. Just a guess. So DCS has something that this probably won't have, and that is accessibility. You can download the base game for free, and all you have to do is buy the module you want, and you're good to go. With this sim, I wouldn't doubt that you will need a monthly subscription with a USB key stick to unlock everything. Either monthly, or a really large one time payment for a key. If it is being developed for the military primarily, I wouldn't be surprised if the average armchair pilot would have to do this. In going with this theory because that's how "Steel Beasts" operates, and that was developed for the same reason. I couldn't see people dropping dcs for this. Thats the only way it could be a DCS killer. If ppl stop buying modules and go for this instead. I could see ppl having both on their computer, if they have the hard drive space. Only time will tell.
Kinda late into this party, but since NOR is most probably using Unreal Engine (based on the fact that they're mainly looking for UE developers), there is next to zero chance of NOR ever becoming a DCS contestant. Sim fans expect DCS competition and they do so rightfully, but sadly this also draws in a lot of unrealistic expectation/speculation. I have taken a look on NOR videos and I see no evidence of having a big world combined with xMO multiplayer capability. There are also this TWS (Track While Scan, renamed to Training and weapons Simulation) project which also tries to so something similar and it also states it does on Unreal. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. On NORs credit, they don't act like if they're planning to release to (civil) public.
From a proof of concept to a DCS killer would be 30 to 300 person-years of developer effort. Team of 10 amazing people, 3 years, MAYBE. Team of 20 amazing people, 8 years, maybe. Maybe never.
I don’t think NOR will compete with DCS. There’s some capability overlap between the two, but NORs target market are military clients looking for an affordable training capability. Their focus won’t be delivering a fun “player” experience, but building a simulation environment to accomplish very specific military objectives. For security and infrastructure reasons I doubt NOR will be available to the public.
For what it’s worth, as a beginner to the DCS game I’ll say that it’s pretty darn fun and comprehensive for what it is. There’s flaws, but on balance they have a good game here. Unlike a certain vendor whose name rhymes with “Ronin” ….😂
i would like to see a comercial version of the NOR...with a certain number of full fidelity aircraft...with all it armament...including nuclear ordenance...and open source to allow the users community to create content...some day fusion full aviation simulation with full ground combat simulation...a species of Arma...i think im dreaming too quickly...but if it possible...it would beat DCS and Arma both together
Having a monopoly on something is not a good thing it's good that DCS will have competition. It'll keep both of them on their toes'...
I'm still not impressed with NOR's latest video. It's time for ED to fix DCS, all bugs should be fixed, switch to vulkan, new graphics, deecently optimized VR, full dynamic campaign, that's what we need.
No, I don't think that it's a competitor to DCS. My belief is that NOR WILL eventually be the update to DCS.
Let me explain my logic with a few points:
- What aircraft did you spot in the video? Me, I think that I saw and F16, F5, F18 (just the nose, but it was there), Typhoon, F14 (rear), Su27 (in a hangar, though I didn't check it). Every one of those aircraft are already in DCS, with the exception of the Typhoon, and we know that Heatblur is already working on that, and "might" have already provided early access views. Just why would a different group release pretty much the same plane set?
- I've never heard of META, or METREA as I believe they're now called. Yet they claim to have been providing sims to the military for a number of years. Funny that you could say the same about ED
- Not sure if you've noticed, but the "Battle Sim", which used to be the military version of DCS, went AWOL last year, almost as though ED have closed it down and renamed it
- ED supposedly has a big team working on the game engine update, yet what we've seen as releases has been a bit pants. Why not simply shuffle all of the game logic into a different game visual engine?
- I did think that I'd read a comment about the Unreal team working with ED, but with no details behind that
"If" the above is true, and quite clearly I could be completely wrong, the next question is almost certainly going to be "why haven't they told us".
Here's my thoughts on that:
- Quite clearly, Unreal 5 is still being developed. For example, v5.1 recently unveiled a new expansion to the capabilities of the "nanite" functionality. Maybe there's something really important that ED are waiting for from Unreal as a pre-requisite
- As I understand it, Unreal 5 doesn't as yet support VR. Imagine releasing a "non-VR" version of DCS and the noise that it would create?
- Building NOR is going to be a massive undertaking, regardless of who's doing it and with it's complexities, predicting timescales for built can be very difficult
- Lastly, and this is the big one. Would YOU tell the DCS player base that a new version is coming? You just know what would happen. It would probably go like this:
"can we have it now, please, just with a small map and one aircraft, yes we know it's not finished"
"we demand it NOW. What the hell are we paying for"
"thanks for agreeing to release it, can't wait"
"what do you mean you've delayed the release by two days. May GODS WRATH descend upon you"
"It's here, WHY CAN'T THE SERVERS DOWNLOAD IT"
"installation problems....."
"why is my frame rate down 17.458347% against DCS v2.8"
"when do I get the next aircraft"
"want, want want......."
etc
Personally, I would wait until it's genuinely ready. Better to under-promise and over-deliver than the other way around.
Thank you for this video, very fun to watch.
Glad you enjoyed! :)
No, not even close, this isn't even a competitor for DCS in the commercial market. This is only being marketed in the military space, should that change, it might actually be good for DCS, as it might make them move faster in the commercial space.
Competition is good, but as of right now it doesn't look like this is intended to complete with DCS at all in the commercial market.
I don't see how competition will change lead times of software engineering. Conflating all competition with progress and quality improvement is a capitalistic mirage. If DCS was plagued by obvious internal political issues and wrong calls based in trying to please people, then yes, competition helps. When it comes to solving the issues with old complexity on a small team, which is what DCS is struggling with, there is no reason what so ever that competition will be of help. (It probably won't hurt though)
However, a bigger market for combat flight sims will lead to a wider knowledge base and drive tech forward. That's in the scale of decades though.
In the short term a competitor could do something better than DCS, and that would benefit the players who decide to use the competitor. It still would not make DCS devs any better.
Of course they went overboard on the 3d level of detail in their trailer. They are spending a few hundred thousand to go after multi-million dollar contracts. Generals and politicians don't ask if this trailer is the current level of real-time 3d rendering. Also by the time this is bought and it's time to deliver the product, they will be at that level technology wise- i.e. both hardware and software capabilities.
so basically they are creating dcs for the military. I'd love to play that lol. the fact you can coordinate ground troops with air force sounds like dcs mixed call of duty. Aka the perfect game.
I came across this last year. I think that DCS is safe as this is totally for the Military market.
For now anyway.
You do realize that back in 2008 or so, DCS was (as the Ka-50 simulator and A-10C procedure trainer for the US ANG) exclusively for the military market too, right?
I do indeed sir been with DCS since 2008
@@bronco5334 But yes and no. They had announced that they were working on a consumer version of the KA-50 some time in early 2007. If I remember correctly they wanted a title called Tank Killers. It was going to be the Ka-50, A-10C, AH-64D, and the SU-25T.
@@bronco5334 lolno, DCS started out as a game. Look up Flanker and Lock On.
Im hoping! But i have learned to always doubt when there is a trailer from nowhere showing a fantastic "might be ingame" scenes
It is. People have played it at the expo in Orlando. Supposedly it's amazing :)
multi thread is the biggest problem for me. We got 8 core 16 threads an we using 1 off them
YEP.
UE5 will end that.
Your watching a buffed Cinematic and fooling yourself into believing they have any relevant systems modeled....which is 90% of what DCS is. This could be a "Call of Duty Trailer" for all you know.
This guys Debbie Downer. We sure are spoiled.
I think this is the future. I am surprised at how many people are saying “DCS sucks” because it is the best commercial product available, and Eagle Dynamics themselves (I don’t know their resources) have admitted that the processing engine needs upgrading and additionally they’ve been impacted by the Ukraine conflict.
I think the people saying "DCS sucks" are those who are burnt out on the breaking bugs and waiting forever for some fixes to take place. Also the people who see great potential for the sim to be more than a cockpit simulator. The DCS business model of pumping out new modules rather than fixing the base game may be required for financial stability, but is pissing off part of the player base. I've been playing a version of this SIM since LOMAC and find it hugely frustrating when things like the radar are often broken. Nothing is more immersion breaking than not even having a properly functioning radar. I mean have they even fixed the track file life bug for the F/A-18C yet? They also need to seriously fix their testing regime (not just expect the public to do their alpha testing). How can seriously breaking bugs not be picked up when all it takes is to load the sim and fly around for 5 mins? TLDR the sim doesn't suck but people have legit gripes with it. Ok, rant over.
I'm not sure it can compete with DCS. Have you seen the helipads in DCS?
Cool, but how's it a competitor if it's military only? Different market entirely. Nobody here will ever play with it.
I have my doubts.. will this sim be able to replicate Aircrafts system like DCS in a short time ?
Nope lol.
Well it almost certainly does this already if it's an actual military sim trainer.
This doesn't seem like a competitor at all. If it's meant for pilot training then the models will all be developed with military information about systems and physics for current in service platforms. It will necessarily be more accurate than DCS. And that makes it unreleasable to the public.
This not an issue at all. Tweaking systems or models to avoid any classified material is not difficult. This exactly what ED do themselves for thee same modules we have in DCS and the ones they create for their military contracts.
Something new comes along, everyone thinks its the end of the original. Turns out to be nothing but hype. Have to wait and see.
lets see if this too is a scam just like TWS.
Me a poor console player watching all this cool shit go down
The thing is, flight simmers WILL PAY for good products. They spend a small fortune on add-on software, their PCs, flight sim equipment anyway.
NOR could be 5x, 10x the price of DCS but if it offers a genuine improvement in the sim experience and fidelity, people WILL PAY FOR IT.
It might not sell huge, huge numbers but the military market is comparatively small and will have limited aftermarket opportunities beyond software maintenance. Air forces might need a couple of ultra-high fidelity aircraft models depending on the types they operate but that's about it 🤷🏻♂️
Meta Aerospace was sick they have 4 ex-RSAF KC-135R to contract air to air refuelling training
"DCS is the only combat flight simulator out there" "I wish there were options other than DCS"
I am shocked noone is saying anything here. Falcon BMS which recently entered 4.36 is worlds ahead of DCS when it comes to aircraft realism and actual gameplay. Yes, it only simulates the F-16. Yes, it's not as beautiful and yes, it's not as seamless and easy to set up as DCS but for those who are willing to make a little bit of effort and check it out - it's a much better game overall than DCS and much cheaper to get into. I've played both for good 6 or so years now and although DCS has made significant progress - so has BMS and the only reason the former made a huge (and I mean huge) jump in popularity and the latter hasn't - is that a lot of mainstream youtubers have started picking up DCS.
Give BMS a shot guys, you won't be disappointed.
That unit seen with the F-16 is almost certainly use to provide compressed air for jet engine starts. In the Navy (and presumably the Marine Corps) they're called huffers; I don't know if the Air Force has a different name for them.
There are some cinematic things DCS has incorporated for the sake of "game play," even when in simulation mode, that are depicted in ways that don't follow reality (and I'm mostly not criticizing DCS for these things):
Depth of field - Because our eyes focus so rapidly, we really don't notice depth of field in our interactions with the real world. Depth of field does in fact exist in eyesight, but our refocusing happens so quickly we don't notice it. I have depth of field turned off for that reason.
Heat blur - The heat blur from aircraft afterburners is all wavy. In reality, the hot gasses are escaping so fast from the engines that there's really no blur.
Lens flare - In human eyesight we do experience glare, but not lens flare, and there's a difference. Lens flare happens when light bounces between the various individual lens elements in a complete optical device lens, as seen by the polygonal ghost shapes (from the lens iris that changes the amount of light being admitted to the sensor or film) that move as the relationship to the light source changes. However, our eyes only have a single lens "element," and our irises aren't polygonal in shape. So while the lens flare looks nice in DCS, it's not accurate.
Shadows - Similar to depth of field, our eyes, via our irises, quickly adjust to varying light levels. (It's not so quick in the middle of the night when you open the refrigerator and are blinded!) So for example, if we see an airplane in a dark hangar we see it properly, and when it's towed out we also see it properly in bright sunlight (although we won't see both properly at the same time). I noticed that near the end of this video an F-16 is exiting a pitch black hangar interior. Our eyes wouldn't perceive it that way, but it's cinematic and looks dramatic, just like in DCS. In some cases, DCS is really poor with shadows, like the shapes of those cast by objects, even including the shadows that are completely missing under a parked aircraft.
One area DCS or NOR could really go overboard with detail is the modeling of of parasitic drag features. When I was first in the Navy I was amazed by how much "junk" there was that added drag, specifically the sealing compounds, that looked like a bad grouting job, used between rarely-opened panels, and the sandpaper-like non-skid surfaces that would see a lot of foot traffic on the aircraft skin, like on top of some jet engine intakes.
Overall, I'm impressed with what DCS has accomplished although I'll always want more. I've done 3D modeling and animation (but not real-time) and I know the difficulties on optimizing 3D models for fast rendering. What we have now is bordering on miraculous. Pump up the end-user computer processing power beyond what we have now and the results could be absolutely stunning... although I'd rather be able to run complex missions with lots of assets - aircraft, ships, ground vehicles - and much, much better artificial intelligence, which sometimes isn't all that intelligent. I'd even be willing to trade realism boosters like clouds and wind in exchange for more flexibility in creating and running missions.
I don't think NOR will become available for consumers. The company as far as I can see is strictly a defense contractor.
As far as my experience goes I miss a more involving, cohesive but still dynamic campaign. Even if that is considerably more "gamey".
For example I like to fly IL2:GB. However it doesn't really matter how you perform in a pilot career. The type of mission depends on your squadron of choice and since it is historic the war will always go the way it was no matter your performance.
In DCS a campaign is just a set of missions to completed in order. I don't want to judge the quality here, its just about how it works.
It would be more interesting to me if front lines would actually move depending on your performance and mission types would change their makeup. And I don't meany simplistic in terms of whether a mission was successful or not but rather how successful it was or not. Its difficult to describe and I get that this would basically mimic a sort of "Ace Combat" campaign outcome in which a single pilot would have way too much influence on the war which is utterly unrealistic.
But still I would find that motivating and I would actually rather gladly give up historical accuracy in terms of made up history and factions.
I remember back in the day several simulators had those e.g. I think Falcon 4.0 and something from Jane's... I think Longbow 2?
Something like that.
If Nor doesn't make it's planes with real world data and schematics, it wont compete with DCS. As cool as Unreal 5 is, people like to buy into the hype that every game will be better if it's on the current new unreal engine, people said the same thing when unreal 4 came out. It will just turn into Arma.
I wouldn't even be surprised if they took DCS/Modder assets to create their planes, or used them as reference. The reason why DCS doesn't have competition is because it is already a niche market and nobody goes the extra mile to release genuine planes. They don't even develop and release planes unless they can actually get hands on with them and aren't being "data locked". Meanwhile there was another "DCS killer" that was announced that said people will be able to fly F-35s....yall tripping, it's going to be a Battlefield F-35.
And nah the explosions and fires look way better in DCS, but they could optimize DCS a bit better.