DaveWG
Charter Member
True, but if you want the discount for the P3d v4 version you need an active maintainance contract for which you have to pay.
VRS TacPack & SuperBug now available for P3dv4
- Thread starter DaveWG
- Start date
True, but if you want the discount for the P3d v4 version you need an active maintainance contract for which you have to pay.
DaveWG
Charter Member
It does work for more than a year Rick, it's just the personal download link that expires.
hschuit
SOH-CM-2024
No Tacpack for me, if I get the occasional urge to blow things up I go to DCS with the Nevada map. For combat flying DCS is lightyears ahead of P3D + TP in terms of immersion, graphics, smoothness, quality of the addon aircraft and systems realism. The only advantage I can think of with P3D and combat flying is that P3D covers the entire globe. The best military jets are developed now for DCS like the Razbam Harrier which is much better than it's FSX/P3D predecessor. Judging by the preview videos the upcoming DCS F/A-18C will blow it's big VRS brother out of the water. Once the Belsimtek DCS F-4E Phantom is ready, I will send the Milviz one I have in P3D to the boneyard.
Rick_Piper
Charter Member
Thanks Dave
It's a really great addon but far far to expensive and will mean many won't bother upgrading.
better to sell 3x as many at half the price in my view.
but I doubt they care to be honest.
Rick
It's a really great addon but far far to expensive and will mean many won't bother upgrading.
better to sell 3x as many at half the price in my view.
but I doubt they care to be honest.
Rick
scotth6
Charter Member
Having recently returned from a country where the 'Opposition' strike aircraft drivers think civilians, aid workers, medical volunteers, hospitals and anything 'Red Cross' are legitimate targets I have no interest in dropping bombs or shooting down 'Unsuspecting Airliners' AT ALL Scott.
I'll stick to ROF for my air combat operations, where it's Man to Man without any technical gimmicks.
It's all a matter of personal taste.
Dude! I was trying to give you advice about getting your VRS Hornet working and you turn around and reply with that! Number 1 I don't shoot down "unsuspecting airliners" for real or in the sim and if you look at the post above the helpful reply I gave you, you will see I was replying with a lighthearted play on the quote another user made. Number 2, if you have such a problem with simulated military aircraft, why would you be on this forum?
I am totally sick of people having a go at others for using military simulators because of real world bull%^$@.
What I do on my PC has nothing to do with the real world and I resent the implication that it does.
spatialpro
Charter Member
It is no surprise to me that they're charging again for a P3D v4 release and I was braced for this, so to speak. In v3 I was a SB & TP user, but given the price, and my relative lack of SB flying, I'm likely to save money by only buying TP.
I'm also actively looking into the FREE vACMI by SSW as a viable alternative.
I do fly DCS, but the ability to fly anywhere in the world, with a greater variety of aircraft, with things that also go bang, is what keeps me coming back to P3D + TacPack. I also love the TacPack-ed JF Hawk, whereas the Hawk in DCS is still only Early Access after aaaaaggggggeeessss of waiting.
Another alternative I'm looking into is weapons in X-Plane 11, which seem promising. I'm flying more and more XP11 these days, so it'd make sense.
I'm also actively looking into the FREE vACMI by SSW as a viable alternative.
I do fly DCS, but the ability to fly anywhere in the world, with a greater variety of aircraft, with things that also go bang, is what keeps me coming back to P3D + TacPack. I also love the TacPack-ed JF Hawk, whereas the Hawk in DCS is still only Early Access after aaaaaggggggeeessss of waiting.
Another alternative I'm looking into is weapons in X-Plane 11, which seem promising. I'm flying more and more XP11 these days, so it'd make sense.
jmig
SOH-CM-2024
As I recall, when TACPAC first came out, VRS Management said that if they sold it to Professional users, they would no longer have control of selling it to other Pro users. I think, and these are my thoughts only, they were afraid that a flight sim company would buy one or two licenses and then use it for all their sims. Remember, LM's primary market are the corporate flight sim world and military customers of the world. A country like Iran could buy one copy, crack it and then provide it to all their sim locations. Or, maybe LM put pressure on them. I have gleaned from reading posts by Varmint that LM doesn't like VRS. Maybe it is because VRS is Boeing? Regardless to what the reason was, VRS stated that after long discussion a decision was made to only sell to Academic and that decision was final.
jmig
SOH-CM-2024
Having recently returned from a country where the 'Opposition' strike aircraft drivers think civilians, aid workers, medical volunteers, hospitals and anything 'Red Cross' are legitimate targets I have no interest in dropping bombs or shooting down 'Unsuspecting Airliners' AT ALL Scott.
I'll stick to ROF for my air combat operations, where it's Man to Man without any technical gimmicks.
It's all a matter of personal taste.
Many years ago, I dropped bombs in Vietnam. I understand war and its "collateral damage," a pitiful euphemism, if there ever was one. I was speaking tongue-in-cheek when I said unsuspecting airliners. Obviously, if you want to learn the weapons systems in the VRS F-18, you do so on AI aircraft, and bomb autogen buildings. That being said, I can understand your reluctance to attack "civilian targets."
jmig
SOH-CM-2024
To all the DCS users out there. Will DCS allow you to operate the sim via external controls and switches in a simpit? Does, it have a version of FSUIPC or something like it? I have never tried DCS. But, I have hear a lot of good things about the program.
wombat666
Administrator
Scott, I did say "It's all a matter of personal taste."
Check your PMs, you might see my POV.
I would gladly pay for that if it would also work on non SSW aircraft!
Cheers,
Mark
I'd use the academic version if I wouldn't also develop for P3D. If one does so one's stuck with the Professional version.
Can't have it all, as it seems. But I won't buy the academic version just to run Tacpack.
My only hope is that maybe someone who is a good coder would start a freeware / open source project that has this functionality.
Cheers,
Mark
IanHenry
Charter Member
Sorry, I can't answer your questions directly, but I can tell you that DCS World is free to download and use, although with just two aircraft but of course you can install it yourself and find the answers to your questions.
It is a truly spectacular simulator and I suspect once you have been "bitten" it could then start costing you money.
Personally I rarely fully master the various weapons systems of the modern aircraft (that would involve quite a lot of time) but I enjoy just flying them around.
Try it and see for yourself.
Ian
henrystreet
Charter Member
Full disclosure: I haven't actually dug into this...
DCS has native Lua scripting builtin. In fact a lot of the addons and components are run by Lua programs. Regards the interfaces between hardware simpit and the simulator, there are at least a couple of options. One of the options (the acronym name is escaping me) is designed specifically for controlling the VC's of the aircraft.
Sorry I don't have more information...on vacay with wife and child right now so flightsim time is restricted :-(
Naruto-kun
Charter Member
2c here to those comparing VRS to Milviz and other devs and complaining about the upgrade price (P.S. I don't work for VRS but having spent 7 years in this industry working for Milviz I do have the perspective of just what sort of sacrifices are often made to make these products).
1: The "maintenance" charge is a legit fee to cover server costs. VRS largely bypasses this though by releasing installers in their support forums when they do upgrades. Milviz can largely get away with lower profit margins due to not charging clients for this service because of the shear number of prodcuts we have available. We have 29. VRS has 1 aircraft, 1 utility (add 1 to each of the preceding if you count the separate P3D/FSX versions), and 3 scenery packages. That's only 5 products. These things don't sell like hotcakes. For a military addon, 1000 sales is a blockbuster release.
2: With the previous in mind, Jon Blum has hired new developers for upcoming products who have to be paid as well. But otherwise the core VRS team consists of 2 people. Jon Blum and Chris Tracy. Chris has a fulltime job to take care of and is the key guy behind the difficult programming that makes VRS products so good. And believe me, creating an aircraft to the level VRS has achieved is not your run-of-the-mill task that some of the other mil aircraft devs have. It is replicating almost single-handedly a feat of engineering that took a whole team of engineers years to complete. Yes it is a lot easier since it is virtual, not real, and we have the luxury of working backwards from the finished product, but the amount of things to design and keep track of is far greater than most of you can appreciate. Jon is full time VRS with a family to support. By comparison, Milviz is over 20 people, many of them part time or able to get income from other lines, with a few full timers and of course Colin has more than one source of income.
If you still think it is less than fair of VRS to expect an upgrade fee (P.S. I have observed a very active and helpful support in their forums contrary to the experience described by some here, which also takes of Jon and Chris's time), that's your choice. I will leave this post here however, to give you all an objective insight into the behind-the-scenes life of developers which I believe many of you take for granted.
1: The "maintenance" charge is a legit fee to cover server costs. VRS largely bypasses this though by releasing installers in their support forums when they do upgrades. Milviz can largely get away with lower profit margins due to not charging clients for this service because of the shear number of prodcuts we have available. We have 29. VRS has 1 aircraft, 1 utility (add 1 to each of the preceding if you count the separate P3D/FSX versions), and 3 scenery packages. That's only 5 products. These things don't sell like hotcakes. For a military addon, 1000 sales is a blockbuster release.
2: With the previous in mind, Jon Blum has hired new developers for upcoming products who have to be paid as well. But otherwise the core VRS team consists of 2 people. Jon Blum and Chris Tracy. Chris has a fulltime job to take care of and is the key guy behind the difficult programming that makes VRS products so good. And believe me, creating an aircraft to the level VRS has achieved is not your run-of-the-mill task that some of the other mil aircraft devs have. It is replicating almost single-handedly a feat of engineering that took a whole team of engineers years to complete. Yes it is a lot easier since it is virtual, not real, and we have the luxury of working backwards from the finished product, but the amount of things to design and keep track of is far greater than most of you can appreciate. Jon is full time VRS with a family to support. By comparison, Milviz is over 20 people, many of them part time or able to get income from other lines, with a few full timers and of course Colin has more than one source of income.
If you still think it is less than fair of VRS to expect an upgrade fee (P.S. I have observed a very active and helpful support in their forums contrary to the experience described by some here, which also takes of Jon and Chris's time), that's your choice. I will leave this post here however, to give you all an objective insight into the behind-the-scenes life of developers which I believe many of you take for granted.
jmig
SOH-CM-2024
Thank your for the explanation. I now understand and will upgrade.
jmig
SOH-CM-2024
I have downloaded the product and bought the Flaming Cliffs and Nevada Red Flag packages. I will have to do some reading, however.