We’ve got a mix of DCS World news to get to over the last 24-hours. Controversy between RAZBAM and Eagle Dynamics has gobbled up a lot of the bandwidth and there’s a little more that’s been shared that I’ll be linking to below so you can stay up to date on what we’re hearing in the community. Meanwhile, life does appear to go on in other areas and we’ve got a new video from Matt Wagner that is part of a new series answering our questions about DCS World. There’s also a very in-depth (nerdy) description of the work they’ve done on the DCS: F-16C and its INS system.

Matt Wagner answers Q&A

First up, we have the first in a series of videos that Eagle Dynamics will be producing throughout the year. As they celebrate 15-years of DCS World, they will be releasing videos featuring Matt Wagner answering questions that were submitted at the end of last year. Apparently there were thousands of questions and they have condensed repeats of them down into shorter video segments.

The first video, released yesterday focuses on DCS World and performance issues. A lot of answers are similar in that DCS World has already implemented some performance enhancing features such as DLSS and new multi-threaded coding. There’s more to do and Matt also talks about Vulkan both for its performance and for its multi-platform possibilities – and that’s an interesting one as it sounds like Eagle Dynamics may be taking DCS World to other operating systems though he doesn’t elaborate.

There’s also talk about FSS, frame generation, and other technologies. In short, work to improve performance while expanding the scale and scope of DCS World scenarios is very much a part of their long term plan.

F-16C INS update

We’ve got another one of those engineering reports from Eagle Dynamics that goes into some deep details on how the DCS: F-16’s INS navigation system works in-conjunction with other systems.

Here’s a summary:

The navigation system on the DCS: F-16C Viper is a complicated mixture of technical solutions that are intended to supply the avionics with coordinates, velocity, and angles,  that are characterised by precision, availability, integrity and autonomy. This is achieved by the cooperative work of the Inertial Navigation System (INS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) whose navigation inputs are processed through a Kalman filter in the Modular Mission Computer (MMC). Let’s discuss each of the components in detail.

The rest of the update is very in-depth and nerdy from an engineering perspective. While I deeply appreciate the detail, I’m not the best person to repeat it in any accurate way so I recommend you head on over to the DCS World Weekend News update and read up about it.

The latest on the RAZBAM situation

For those of you paying close attention over the last few days, there’s been a public dispute that has erupted between Eagle Dynamics and third party developer RAZBAM. It’s been talked about everywhere and I’ve covered the initial public statements over here if you want to catch up.

There are a few more details have have emerged since the last post but there are a couple of statements from another RAZBAM developer, Metal2Mesh, whom some of you know as one of their visual artists. The posts have been captured by users on the r/Hoggit forum and shared below.

Of course this is one piece of the puzzle and a perspective on the dispute. It gives us more information to be sure, however, I suspect there’s much more going on that we don’t know about and, depending on how it pans out, may never know about.

We have had questions asked of Eagle Dynamics on the issue since the initial statement by Eagle Dynamics CEO Nick Grey. Their response for now is that they are looking to resolve the situation and won’t be making any statements. Here’s what community manager NineLine posted on the DCS forums.

No, we have already posted a statement on Discord and we wont be discussing it anymore until it’s resolved. We are doing our best to get it all straightened out. We have nothing more to say on it.

NineLine on the DCS World forums

Hopefully the next words we’ll hear on this are about a working solution for this dispute that has become so public. Until then, I’m sure all of our anxieties about what might or could happen will continue to swirl. My fingers remain crossed!


7 responses to “Matt Wagner Q&A, F-16C ins, and a bit more on RAZBAM”

  1. All this drama is a bummer. Raises a lot of questions, for right or wrong, and will certainly have people holding on to their wallets for a bit. I love my DCS, but dropping the next $100 would be easier if things were made more clear. This is the first time I’ve considered putting off a DCS purchase and making one for MSFS instead. A week ago that would have been unthinkable. And it sucks because I enjoy DCS much more than MSFS.

    And ED is being ED, deleting threads, locking threads, and pretending it’s not really happening. At least they are predictable. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I was definitely going to get the Afghanistan map on preorder and sometime later the Strike Eagle. Now I don’t know anymore.

      Maybe in half a year only my official ED F-16 will be operational while my Tomcat and Viggen is permanently grounded and Strike Eagle is no longer available for purchase… And maybe 3rd party maps stop working too. I do not like this uncertainty!

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      1. As long as there is no positive news, the negative will grow exponentially. ED needs to step up.

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      2. Urgent Siesta Avatar
        Urgent Siesta

        I highly doubt it will get that bad for a number of reasons.

        Unless we have another 3rd party dev break cover with a similar story of non-payment, my thinking is this situation is limited to a dispute between ED & RB, and nothing to do with other devs. Nor is it (AFAWK) a reflection on ED’s solvency.

        So while it’s perhaps reasonable to hold off on further purchases (I will be ordering the Phantom any day now because I’m cheap that way 😉 ), I can’t see this going the way of VEAO’s Hawk or the doomsday prediction you outlined.

        Cheer up – it’s in EVERYONE’S best interest for this to be resolved and to get back to just the normal level of bickering over pixel planes. 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

  2. I don’t like how DCS, the community and RAZBAM developers are used as leverage by the person(s) in charge of RAZBAM and Eagle Dynamics because of a business deal gone bad. The uncertainty is hurting all, and it must be especially tough for those developers. I’m hoping this can be resolved soon, also to prevent further fallout.

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  3. Urgent Siesta Avatar
    Urgent Siesta

    Meh – IMHO, Metal2Mesh and CaptainSkippy (?) should keep their mouths shut.

    As unwise as it is for RonZ to have commented publicly, it’s 10x so for these guys to do so.

    If RB has a substantive claim, they should’ve made it through legal channels. Full Stop.

    All that’s going to happen now is that too much money goes to the lawyers, RB modules might be left in development purgatory (there are rumors that the FM dev and 3D dev have actually quit…), and…

    …if ED are contractually correct, they WILL take their pound of flesh from RB, one way or the other (welcome to business – it gets nasty behind the scenes).

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  4. …and the DCS forums are down again.

    Not their best week.

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