2 daily downloads instead of 5

[akula1983 0]

hello everyone. I returned to this site after many years and was surprised to see it not only still active, but also much more complete than I remembered. my compliments. anyways.. I have already read about the daily download limit but yesterday, after having downloaded only 2 mods, the limit exceeded warning appeared, inviting me to return at 5pm the next day. I thought it was a bug so I waited patiently for 5pm and downloaded again, but as soon as I got to the second mod downloaded the 5 mod limit warning showed up again. I wanted to ask if this is a real limit of 2 mods per day or is it a bug? (consider me a re-noob again) I apologize for my bad English and thank you in advance for your reply

[+Muesli 2,211]

Hi, welcome back!

Consider donating or contributing to keep CA alive! This way you need not worry about a limit of 2 or 5.
It needs a lot of effort and moolah and the limitations also prevent people from leeching the site content.

Hope you like the current choice in mods! Cheers!

[akula1983 0]

ok. Thanks for the reply and for the work you are doing for the community

[Jasking 0]

I can't download files. Whenever I click download, it says your daily limit is 1kb. Please help.

[Wrench 10,062]

Downloads are now by subscription only.

 

[Jasking 0]

Oh ok thanks

 

[Mage2IsTriggered 0]

I was wondering why i couldn't download anything. This sucks, what was the reason? Increasing server costs? It sucks cause it's not doable for me to pay any kind of subscriptions, i'm from Brazil, 9 dollars for a month is a significant amount here, and we still get ads for every page we move to. I understand the need to keep things alive and money being important in that, but the previous 5 download daily limit worked as an incentive, no?

[+Jimbib 777]

2 hours ago, Mage2IsTriggered said:

I was wondering why i couldn't download anything. This sucks, what was the reason? Increasing server costs? It sucks cause it's not doable for me to pay any kind of subscriptions, i'm from Brazil, 9 dollars for a month is a significant amount here, and we still get ads for every page we move to. I understand the need to keep things alive and money being important in that, but the previous 5 download daily limit worked as an incentive, no?

The previous 5 download daily limit unfortunately worked as an incentive for many people to multi-account and bypass the aforementioned reasonable daily limit, which was costing Erik a shed load of money from his own back pocket.

[Mage2IsTriggered 0]

8 hours ago, Jimbib said:

The previous 5 download daily limit unfortunately worked as an incentive for many people to multi-account and bypass the aforementioned reasonable daily limit, which was costing Erik a shed load of money from his own back pocket.

Understandable to be fair. Disheartening to me as someone who can't pay, but it is what it is i guess

[Charles13 0]

On 26/2/2025 at 4:22 PM, Jimbib said:

The previous 5 download daily limit unfortunately worked as an incentive for many people to multi-account and bypass the aforementioned reasonable daily limit, which was costing Erik a shed load of money from his own back pocket.

It's totally understandable but to tell you the truth it sucks a lot especially because this was the only place where you could get mods for this game and although the daily limit was annoying it was much better than now having to pay money that you often can't afford for one reason or another for a subscription just to download 1 or 2 mods from time to time especially the mods that seem promising like Eurofighter I guess it's no longer worth it to be here if this has become a "pay to play" but well as I say it is what it is

[OlWilly 142]

Ahh, now I understand. A shame though, I was hoping to continue low-key modding

[+Jimbib 777]

Fair enough, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Personally, despite the age of the game engine, I don't believe there is a better library out there of add-ons for a combat sim. Considering the price of entry of any TW gen 2 sim has always been at least $40 (it's never been a 'cheap' sim), the cost of a one month subscription every now and again is a bargain to take the game to the next level, especially with quality of the mods. For me, it is more than worth it and brings a lot of joy knowing it adds to helping keep the lights on at CombatACE.

[OlWilly 142]

7 hours ago, Jimbib said:

Personally, despite the age of the game engine, I don't believe there is a better library out there of add-ons for a combat sim. Considering the price of entry of any TW gen 2 sim has always been at least $40 (it's never been a 'cheap' sim), the cost of a one month subscription every now and again is a bargain to take the game to the next level, especially with quality of the mods. For me, it is more than worth it and brings a lot of joy knowing it adds to helping keep the lights on at CombatACE.

Wouldn't it make the server situation worse?

Before, most people would login and download a plane or terrain or two, and then play with them.

Now, people would pay for a month and make it worth, downloading as much as they can. This is basic psychology, I saw people with like 500 games on steam which were bought "because it was on sale!", with 95% of these games showing 0h playtime.

I can imagine server usage spikes.

Speaking of which, if someone uploads a mod at CA but attaches a mediafire link for people who can't get subscription - this would be alright, sure?

[Charles13 0]

Certainly the price may seem like a bargain as you say but for someone who plays regularly the subscriptions can rent the game but for someone like me who plays casually from time to time it is not profitable to buy a subscription let's say 1 month to simply download 1 or 2 mods a month or even if that month you can't play for x reasons it is spending for nothing.

It is true that it helps this site to work and that is a good thing but at the same time it makes people decide to leave here for not wanting to pay or even people do not want to register to have to pay for 1 mod....

It is a shame that the people who really respected that limit now have to pay for impatient people Besides there are other ways that people with few resources can enjoy this forum at the same time that it can be maintained.

[+Nyghtfall 2,235]

4 minutes ago, Charles13 said:

Certainly the price may seem like a bargain as you say but for someone who plays regularly the subscriptions can rent the game but for someone like me who plays casually from time to time it is not profitable to buy a subscription let's say 1 month to simply download 1 or 2 mods a month or even if that month you can't play for x reasons it is spending for nothing.

It is true that it helps this site to work and that is a good thing but at the same time it makes people decide to leave here for not wanting to pay or even people do not want to register to have to pay for 1 mod....

It is a shame that the people who really respected that limit now have to pay for impatient people Besides there are other ways that people with few resources can enjoy this forum at the same time that it can be maintained.

Maybe people that respect the downloadlimit suffer together with those, that made multiple accounts, too. But answer me 1 question: Do those people pay the bill for the server to keep running (yes, it actually cost money....)? I'll help you out here: No, they don't. And that's the whole point of the restrictions - 1 guy did all the paying in the past....also for YOU to leech your way through the site.

Someone has to pay for server and it is not you people out there, that constantly argue "but....but...but....". See it that way: You did nothing else, but download stuff for FREE until now. You and many other leechers that are complaining now, didn't say thanks a single time on stuff, they downloaded. So my advice: Support CA or live with the situation as it is.

Until now, you did exactly NOTHING for this site, you just complained...think about it. Bye.

[Wrench 10,062]

The following is MY opinion ONLY, and does NOT represent the owners of Combat Ace

too many whiney cunts around all of a sudden -- freeloaders all. "Oh no, I can't download for free anymore! I can't create multiple  false logins to break the limit of the downloads." Not one of you all have done ANYTHING for this site, but take take take. (exception, OldWilley DID assist with some translations for Russian cockpits).  How many of you monkeys have actually have even posted on the Forums? How many have even bothered to say 'thank you' or 'good work' or even "there's an error here, what can be done to fix it?"

You piss and moan like little bitches that had their favorite sweets taken away. There are those of us that have contributed to this sire, both monetary and add-ons for various games (not the the SF series, that is the center of the contrevorsy) since the early 2000s. 

You pay for fuel for you vehicles, insurance, rent, food, clothes, and maybe even "luxury" items -- smokes, resturant dining. So, fine. You can't (or won't) send a few coins to support the site. Ok, then, no problem. You've all always been free to stay or leave -- it's a (semi) free world. Choose to go? Bye! Have a nice life. Choose to stay? Start thinking about what you can to do help support CA.

As to this statement:

Quote

Speaking of which, if someone uploads a mod at CA but attaches a mediafire link for people who can't get subscription - this would be alright, sure?

I don't the idea, but again, just my opinion. We can't stop it, of course. It's the uploader's choice. I'd suggest putting the link elsewhere, rather than in the announcement thread.

[OlWilly 142]

8 hours ago, Nyghtfall said:

Maybe people that respect the downloadlimit suffer together with those, that made multiple accounts, too. But answer me 1 question: Do those people pay the bill for the server to keep running (yes, it actually cost money....)? I'll help you out here: No, they don't. And that's the whole point of the restrictions - 1 guy did all the paying in the past....also for YOU to leech your way through the site.

That's the crux of the matter, we all understand that keeping the site online costs money. But maybe it is the core issue that should have been addressed?

Put a big banner on the front page with announcement: "You like Combatace? Well, keeping it online costs money, and I am not Jeff Bezos to pay for it all myself. Chip in or the lights go down".

But alas, I won't teach you how to run your site. It's just for me, because of banking sanctions, the access is closed, essentially, forever, and if I lose my current install, I may just forget about the game existing.

[+Nyghtfall 2,235]

3 hours ago, OlWilly said:

That's the crux of the matter, we all understand that keeping the site online costs money. But maybe it is the core issue that should have been addressed?

Put a big banner on the front page with announcement: "You like Combatace? Well, keeping it online costs money, and I am not Jeff Bezos to pay for it all myself. Chip in or the lights go down".

But alas, I won't teach you how to run your site. It's just for me, because of banking sanctions, the access is closed, essentially, forever, and if I lose my current install, I may just forget about the game existing.

First: It's not my site. I just contributed to this site, like many other people here. Those people do not appear out of nowhere with their first message being a complaint how bad CA is and they cannot support because of...

Secondly: Yeah, maybe some sort of banner would help. On the other side, have a look at the forums. There are a lot of very similar postings - my downloads don't work, my downloadspeed is at 1kb, why no more free downloads, whatever... It's rather obvious, that many of those people simply do not read...or think, they are special and if they start a new posting, the importance of their complaint rises to unexpected heights. At the same time most of them never did something here on CA.

There are millions of excuses, why people can not contribute, but in the end one problem still exists (and has to be addressed - NOW):

The server (CombatAce), while it is running...COSTS MONEY, that ERIK has to pay.

Like it or not! I understand, that there are problems in the world, that make financial support difficult and/or impossible. You will have to live with that in the end. It is as simple as that.

In all honesty: Do you really expect, that one guy, that took most of the costs for YEARS now for YOU guys to download stuff for FREE that the CA-people made FOR FREE, do it until the end of time, because you cannot pay, you will not pay, your taxes are to high, you have no money, the weather isn't right and whatnot...?

And one last thing: Your last sentence is the same whining I read many times now. Yes, it's your favourite game, yes, mods are not available anymore and yes, you cannot play the game or are deinstalling the game because of it. May I ask, what do you expect us to do now?

I played many online games in the past and I invested much time in it and also some money here and there. If the companies that run those gameservers decide to shut the servers down, it is how it is. You can to NOTHING. Your stuff is GONE. At CombatAce you still have the choice to help out and contribute in one form or the other....by subsciption, by knowledge, by mods. Most of the complainers do nothing of it.

[+aetios 33]

I recently signed up, and I have to say, I was skeptical at first, but having seen the average download filesize I completely understand that CA is a subscription site. I run my own servers and having people hammering them for multi-GB downloads day after day would put a big load on them.

[OlWilly 142]

7 hours ago, Nyghtfall said:

And one last thing: Your last sentence is the same whining I read many times now. Yes, it's your favourite game, yes, mods are not available anymore and yes, you cannot play the game or are deinstalling the game because of it. May I ask, what do you expect us to do now?

I played many online games in the past and I invested much time in it and also some money here and there. If the companies that run those gameservers decide to shut the servers down, it is how it is. You can to NOTHING. Your stuff is GONE. At CombatAce you still have the choice to help out and contribute in one form or the other....by subsciption, by knowledge, by mods. Most of the complainers do nothing of it.

I also post at SAS, which is Il-2 modding site, and their server costs are peanuts because they don't host any files, people just upload links to mediafire or somesuch. 

While this makes server maintenance cheaper, the preservation is worse, and many links are dead. So I understand what you mean.

What I would suggest, if anyone ever asks me, is not block the downloads completely for free accounts, just limit them more severely. Let's say, 1 download per day; for heavy files (over 1GB) one download per month, also introduce probation period to deal with the alts (no downloads until account is 6 or 12 months old). And one should not forget about old good IP identification, having two or more accounts from the same IP should raise some concerns. 

You can also link download privileges to reputation, for example one download/day for every 100+ (thus I get 1 and you get 22). Many combinations actually. 

Edited Friday at 03:05 PM by OlWilly

[heretic88 2]

2 hours ago, OlWilly said:

What I would suggest, if anyone ever asks me, is not block the downloads completely for free accounts, just limit them more severely. Let's say, 1 download per day; for heavy files (over 1GB) one download per month, also introduce probation period to deal with the alts (no downloads until account is 6 or 12 months old). And one should not forget about old good IP identification, having two or more accounts from the same IP should raise some concerns. 

I completely agree with this. I'd be fine even with 1 download per week, it would be far more fair than the current pay to play system. Sure, servers have a cost, but other mod sites for other games can deal with it, and STILL provide free mods. And what is even worse, since Combatace is the only remaining site for SF2 mods, it is extremely unfair to capitalize on that by exploiting players, who do not have anywhere else to go. 

[Wrench 10,062]

I love this shit ... people that have been signed in here for years (poster above this as an example -since 2015), just now making their first post to whine. AND simply not getting it. 

Doing as some of you wish "by merit", goes right back to the multiple fake users we've been fighting for the last 20 years. 

Believe me, I get it. I'm on a fixed income, with almost nothing left at the end of each month. So spending coin I don't have can be an issue. (and yet, I still find something to give here to CA).  

So, this is what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you.