BlackShark already abandoned the frame1-frame2 thing.

If you hit a unit, it starts smoking or burning, then it explodes after a few seconds of burning. Some targets also cause secondary explosions.

That sounds promising, need to re-install BS while waiting for Maddox and ED to finalize their work.

I would welcome an up-date of the "BlackShark" series....

Not going to be Dx11 !!
 

Latest news from the producer.

Originally Posted by Wags
"Although the team has been working hard on DX11 support, there is still a long way to go and it will not be ready in time for A-10C unfortunately. Work continues though and we hope to have it in the next DCS aircraft."

Thats not good. I guess it would have been the first flight sim to incorporate DX11.

I sort of was going to using it as a justification to upgrade to DX11 card. Guess we'll have to wait and see what happens with ROF and SOW!

But I guess there are pressures to get the sim out of the door.

It does highlight the point that Black Shark and the A-10 series are two seperate title.

I guess we are lucky that in the past Oleg&Co have been giving us compatable upgrades and expansions.

Cheers and thanks for the news.

Sorry, I don't understand. How is the fact that now both titles use the same DX9 an indicator that they are not compatible?


I also don't think that leaving DX11 out is a bad decision. As posted in another thread, the main advantage of using DX11 is to speed up rendering. But rendering of the world graphics is much less a priority for DCS as the phyiscs behind the FM, the DM and the avionics. So buying a top-notch DX11 card for DCS was a pretty superficial excuse. ;)

@proton45:
It was posted a long time ago, that it's planned to upgrade older modules with the enhancements published in newer versions 1.) to maintain compatibility between the modules and 2.) because the system is designed modular, just like Oleg's SoW-engine.

So, unless something unforeseen happens, I bet there will be an update for BlackShark.

I'm probably be wrong, but my understanding was that A10 would be released as a seperate sim. Both sims would work together in multiplayer a bit like Silent Hunter and Destroyer Commander (or Comanche and Werewolf if you want to go back further). They were two seperate titles that could work together in multiplayer.

This is different to the IL-2 series that the newer version merged in with the older ones into one sim.

Like I said I might be completely wrong but that was the impression I got.

Cheers!

Silent Hunter and would be great to combine IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 and arma2 3 simulations in a simulation all connected with an excellent interface.

I think that DCS is the title and that A-10 is purley an add-on. They have a standard 'base' version of the software (I'm guessing that this is the engine part), when A-10 is released the base version will be upgraded across all versions. So you won't be able to play the A-10 without upgrading your current version to the new 'base' version.

I think SoW may go down this route..?

No, if you meant it this way, you're right. (though I still don't get the idea how you concluded that from what you wrote before)

BlackShark and Warthog are two separate modules of the same series, but they are not separate titles or series, just to make that perfectly clear. It's aim is to combine all modules of the series and upgrade earlier modules with patches to bring them up to latest release standards. Well, at least that's the plan.

The decision to have modules rather than upgrades is a question of the business-model and of course workload and detail.

1.
- Modern aircraft have a lot of avionic systems that need to be modeled additional to mechanical and DM. These things are also not only limited to the aircraft itself, but also in terms of multiplayer-features, as you have very high-tech systems interacting with each other. This limits the number of aircraft and new features included in each release - for DCS that's one aircraft a time.
- When adding a WW2 aircraft, the number of different avionics is rather limited, the way the function are even less. The implementation is also rather limited to the plane itself, as it can simply be added into the game without any complex dependencies. This way, if you have the basic engine, it's comparably easy to add new planes. As such, more planes can be included into an addon. Especially, if they are "just" modifications of the same plane.

2.
- Oleg's business-model was criticized a lot for the need to buy the modules. If you wanted to play at later states, you not only had to download a large number of free updates, but you also had to buy addons or bundles. If you didn't you were stuck with the old version and unable to play with other people with more upgrades.
- ED releases single aircraft modules, which work together with previous and later releases. As such, you can choose the aircraft you want to fly, buy the addon(s) you want and the only downside is, that you are limited in your choice of aircraft.

IMHO each has it's pros and cons.