DC Designs has further addressed the development of their F-14A Tomcat. Super excited for this beast, which will include the A and B models.
Edit: the Tomcats have been released!
… “As many of you probably know, there were three Tomcats; the A, with its temperamental engines, raw handling and famous colour schemes; the B, with the upgraded engines that allowed it to turn-and-burn with any other fighter in the skies; and the D, which was basically a B with upgraded avionics and radar. This project will focus on the A and B models, because apart from the engines they were basically identical, which is easier on me after the intense pressure of the four-aircraft F-15 package. The focus here will be on delivering the most visually realistic F-14 yet seen in Microsoft’s Flight Simulator franchise, coupled with the DC Designs “way” of moderate systems detail and emphasis on handling and fun. With all I’ve learned from the Eagles’ development cycle, I’m confident I can now deliver an awesome F-14 Tomcat package right out of the gate, and anyway, I need to be doing it better, and cleaner, than the other guy.”…
Thanks for taking a dump in a thread dedicated to DC Designs’ implementation of the F-14 without even giving it a chance as the product is still in development. That’s SO useful and encouraging.
Good luck with that! Heatblur’s model is extensive and I can’t see them - nor fathom why they would - develop their module for MSFS when 60% of the core systems, and 100% of the combat systems wouldn’t work. Quite hard to judge DC’s F-14 by a few pictures, but hey, to each their own.
I’m hoping it’s just signs of being early in development, but the shots shared look pretty terrible for a payware aircraft, especially considering the price they’ll likely ask for it. The textures are atrocious and low res especially. I’m aware I’m being harsh but this model would be poor even in X-Plane 11. Really hoping DC Designs has learned from the backlash over the F-15 quality and ups their game, but these preview shots are not encouraging.
I know this – the same team who put out the F-15 have done a lot to improve it from the beginning of the launch and they’ll do the same with the F-14. I think it’s great!
I agree that the textures look a little low-res in that shot, but I am gonna chalk it up to being an early screenshot and give this a chance to go through some more development before any sort of judgement passing.
Not looking forward to another $40 dollar beta test plane .
Dino from India fox echo, who is about to release a really nice T-45, hopefully will bring his F14 forward and have more working components and a overall better model.
I cannot shake the feeling nearly every single aircraft announced, developed and published for MSFS as of now is hurried and of a quality nowhere near approaching the possibilities of the simulator.
Therefore, it is unfortunate to see the best representation of an iconic aircraft stuck in a game which should have long been replaced, if it wasn’t for the incapability of their dev team.
That is only partially true. The dev team for the sim is doing OK. These are growing pains. The sim is going to get better and better, you just have to be patient. It’s still very early in its lifecycle - it’s barely 6 months old and it’s an INCREDIBLY complex product with a ton of variables.
The varying quality of third party aircraft is ON DEVELOPERS. I own every commercially released aircraft for MSFS thus far. There are some who had VERY successful launches that yielded quality product - SimSkunkWorks, Iris, Wing42, Carenado, and IndiaFoxtEcho being some examples. Then there are others who rush their products early and don’t get them to the state they should be in prior to initial public release - those are AT Simulations, BT Studio, Nemeth Designs, VirtualCol, and Bredok3D who released things that are inexplicably broken upon launch and I have yet to see them get to an acceptable state. In the case of BT Studio, I would be surprised if anyone ever heard from them again. Then there are PMDG, A2A, FSLabs, and Milviz - those guys have chosen to wait until they can get their product that will be representative of the reputation they have earned in the market. They simply refuse to put out garbage, and I applaud them for it. Finally, there are developers who released subpar aircraft but have QUICKLY moved to remedy glaring issues - those are Lionheart and DC Designs. It looks like it was a learning process for them, and hopefully their future releases will be mature enough at the initial release to not suffer the harsh feedback their initial offerings have received.
That is simply the MO of different developers - it quickly reveals what their intentions are - is it an obvious labour of love coming from their passion for aviation and aircraft? Or is it a way to throw together some barely passable stuff and throw it out to start getting revenue recoupment from development time ASAP. I think the developers’ reputation is on the line. I assure you, there are quite a few people who now see the name Bredok3D and stay FAR away. That reputation will be tough to undo. Or you could be like IndiaFoxtEcho and SimSkunkWorks who have a ton of people saying things like “whatever you put out, I will buy… you have earned the TRUST from me.”
So it’s not so black and white. And the sim itself is positioned to become a shot in the arm for a sim hobby which badly needed something fresh. It’s well on its way there.
Always interesting to see folks so quick to trash-talk without actually reading the FB post that accompanied the image at the top of the thread. Anybody with a grain of common sense might have thought to do that, but common sense is in very short supply these days it seems.
The early shots from last week were quite clearly stated as having low-res placeholder textures. The reason for this is that the F-14s are being built to take advantage of the new decals system in MSFS for rivets, panel lines and text details, and that these had not been implemented yet in the images. But, haters gonna hate, as they say…
The first step to making a good F-14 for me is customisation - folks want their names on the aircraft and ideally in the cockpit too. The F-14s already have fully customisable pilot helmets, faces, flight suit patches and name tags, adjustable visors and detatchable oxygen masks, while the external model will allow the user to alter the pilot names and call sign graphics. The RIO also has his own set of decals for the same purpose.
For those whining about the price of the Eagles, for the millionth time, I did not set the price, the vendor did. I wanted it lower. They disagreed. The Tomcats will be on-point regarding price, which to me means below $30 for the F-14A and B models in this package. And those who didn’t like the F-15 cockpit textures? I wonder what you were looking at when you bought it, seeing as there were only like 50 images on the JF page and who knows how many YT videos displaying the aircraft for weeks before launch… Same folks who now trash-talk the first image in the thread without bothering to find out first what they’re actually looking at.
A couple of images of the F-14s with some of their decals in place, all WIP - that means Work In Progress for those who need it spelled out on their forehead with a mallet in morse code…
P.S. Maverick and Goose won’t be included in the package - it’s just to show what’s possible here.
Dean, do your thing. This is too early in development for anyone to assess what the final product will look/feel like. NO ONE besides you and your team can reasonably judge that at this point - IT HASN’T BEEN RELEASED. Kudos for sharing the WIP pics and I am looking forward to flying it WHEN IT’S DONE. At this point in development process, all this other stuff is noise - don’t let it get you demoralized.
Agreed with all. It’s one thing to spew baseless, unsubstantiated whining and another thing to constructively criticize a product. Probably best you know all the facts before attempting either.
On a positive note, I’m looking forward to these birds. You mentioned a few customizable features which sounds awesome. Also, will the sound-pack be done by the same people who did the F-15s? They sound great
One last thing - have you considered persistent state implementation? IE, the aircraft will be in the state you last left it, and perhaps building on a framework for aircraft “wear and tear” depending on how hard you fly them? Have always loved the immersion that sort of system brings.
