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In order not to drag this out too much, as this post is quite lengthy as it is, I'll get straight to the point. The DCS F-16C is not ready for full release. This thread is in response to a post by BIGNEWY saying that the Sniper XR is the last major item before the DCS F-16C is ready for full release. Below I've listed some of the reasons why the DCS F-16C is not ready to leave early access, even with the Sniper XR added, by describing the current state of this product. This post was written with the help and contributions of several community members, who I want to send my deepest thanks to; you know who you are. Lastly, this is not an all-inclusive list, but rather a summary of the major aspects which are currently missing or unfinished in the DCS F-16C (there are A LOT of smaller items remaining in addition to this, including quite a few bugs). It's quite lengthy though, so go get a bag of crisps, crack a beer, and lets get on with it: - Damage model: Practically nonexistent, with no real damage being simulated except fuel leaks and your wings getting blown off. I put this at the top of the list because I cannot see how you can have a digital combat simulator without combat damage being simulated. - Maintainance / Pilot Fault List: Practically nonexistent, still only shows a single message which is the "FLCS BIT FAIL" if the FLCS bit fails. This is the entire error reporting system of the F-16C and is therefore an essential system in order to keep tabs on the status of your aircraft, even when you haven't taken any combat damage. For example, if your L16 time isn't set, you should get a "LK16 TIME REQD" message to tell this to the pilot. At the moment, you will eventually notice that something is wrong with datalink, and then you have to figure out what the issue is on your own through troubleshooting, rather than just checking the PFLD and immediately knowing what's wrong. This is just one example of many where proper MFL and PFL messages would be incredibly helpful, and the reason why those systems exist in real life. - Steerpoints: Exists in a very limited state. Only supports regular steerpoints, markpoints, and a partial implementation of D/L steerpoints. Many types of steerpoints are completely missing, like pre-planned threats, geographical lines, SEAD steerpoints, a plethora of LINK 16 steerpoint types, etc. We're also still missing different CRUS TOS functionality, like having DES TOS reference HACK time instead of SYSTEM time, and also the ability to blank DES TOS times and have the CRUS TOS required velocity be calculated for a steerpoint without a DES TOS, based on the DES TOS of a later steerpoint; an incredibly useful feature for improved timekeeping. - Digital Terrain System: Completely missing including its subsystems like PGCAS, TRN, OW/C, DBTC & PR. An essential system from the earliest tapes of the F-16CM-50 where you load the terrain data of a 480x480 nautical mile area wherein the DTS has features both to avoid CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) which was the biggest cause of death in the USAF at the time, to providing various subsystems to facilitate safer low altitude operations including a kind of digital "terrain following radar" mode, to decreasing INS drift by comparing your radar altitude to the know terrain elevation in different parts of the map, and also to allow more accurate targeting without using active sensors. This is for example what makes high angle JHMCS markpoints accurate, as it can reference the known ground elevation of the location you're looking at. Without the Digital Terrain System implementation, the DCS F-16C has much higher risk of CFIT, much higher risk of flying into terrain/obstacles during low altitude operations, much lower targeting accuracy (especially at longer ranges and in uneven terrain), and higher INS drift over non-flat terrain than a real F-16C of our block and tape would. - ECM: Barely implemented. Currently only barrage jamming is kinda working, and even that is extremely ineffective most of the time. MODE 1 and MODE 2 self-protection jamming is wholly inefficient under all circumstances, as the ALQ-184 currently is seemingly incapable of breaking SAM radar locks. There's also no ability to choose which bands to jam, making it impossible to jam certain surface threats without jamming your own radar for A-A sanitizing. Neither MODE 1, 2 or 3 should inhibit your radar, but rather MODE 2 & 3 should reduce the effectiveness of your radar while actively jamming in the same band as your radar, and not impact the radar at all while jamming in other bands. The AN/ALQ-184 in DCS also has 360 degree coverage, whereas it would have roughly 120 degree cones fore and aft of the pod in real life, with diminshing effect closer to the outer limits of those cones. MODE 1 should only use the aft emitter to jam threats, while MODE 2 & 3 use both fore and aft emitters. It should also have high/low settings to angle the jamming emitters downwards for surface threats and upwards for higher altitude A-A threats, as well as cooperative jamming where multiple F-16C's in close formation boost jamming effectiveness. As an aside to this, chaff is completely useless against certain threats. You can drop 120 chaff in 1 second and you still will never be able to spoof an SA-5. This in combination with an inability to break locks during jamming, means that your only real defense once an SA-5 is locked on to you is to dive towards the ground and break line-of-sight. Other emitters have similar issues. - SEAD: This point encompasses a lot of different systems which are necessary for efficient SEAD, which after all is the primary role of the F-16CM-50 in the USAF. As mentioned, the AN/ALQ-184 is completely useless in self-protect mode (MODE 1 and MODE 2) as it cannot break locks, decreasing survivability, as using barrage mode will constantly transmit your location, and also disable all your active sensors as well as the HTS pod. Most importantly, the AN/ALQ-184 is unable to break locks, meaning it can only be used pre-emptively (not very good when employing wild weasel tactics). The AGM-88 has modes like TI/GS/DL which have not been implemented, limiting the AGM-88's effectiveness in the SEAD role. Also, many different AGM-88 HOTAS commands are completely missing. HAD priority targets are missing. The LINK 16 Special Channel net has a very rudimentary implementation. The ability to target/blank pre-planned threats is completely missing. The ability to store detected emitters as SEAD STPTs is completely absent, greatly decreasing your ability to engage SEAD threats as they will just disappear after going inactive for a while, and the only way currently to target these emitters once they go inactive is if you have a human wingman, because then you can send that emitter to him via L16, and then he can send it back to you. If you've got no human wingman, you're out of luck. The AN/ALR-56M Radar Warning Receiver is still incorrectly implemented, making it useless for any kind of high threat environment (the kinds of environments where SEAD is required) as it conveys no relative lethality of detected emitters but rather displays all threats as equally lethal, being especially useless for pop-up threats and active missile avoidance as you can never tell how much of a threat a detected emitter poses to you. In real life, the late cold war saw multiple datalink capable SAMs which don't give RWR warnings at all, increasing the need for the kind of relative lethality displaying of threats that the AN/ALR-56M does in real life, especially for SEAD operations. Currently, we don't have any datalink capable SAMs in DCS, but if it's ever added, the F-16CM-50 will be completely unable to operate in that kind of environment, unlike its real world counterpart. The AN/ALR-56M should also use data provided by the INS to update detected threat locations during maneuvering when emitters may end up in RWR blind spots, and even flip the symbology when rolling the aircraft upside down, so emitters are displayed in the correct direction under all circumstances. Having a functioning RWR is maybe the most important aspect of being combat effective in the SEAD role, and currently we don't have that. - AN/ALR-56M: Even though I mentioned the issues with the RWR just above, I'm still making this a separate point just to emphasize the importance of this system. If I could only pick a single thing that'd be fixed in the DCS F-16C, it'd be the AN/ALR-56M. Right now, the DCS F-16C is completely handicapped, not merely in SEAD, but in all combat situations, because the current RWR implementation is not merely incorrect, but it makes the RWR close to useless. The AN/ALR-56M was chosen as the new standard RWR for the USAF because of it's incredible capabilities and the added situational awareness it provided to its pilots, and this is also why it was rolled out so early on the F-16CJ/CM-50, the USAF's primary SEAD platform. However, in DCS, the AN/ALR-56M is the single least capable RWR in the whole modern US fighters lineup, and in many ways it's even inferior to the old 1980's SPO-15 mounted on the MiG-29A. If you get an AMRAAM fired at you, the SPO-15 (and the real life AN/ALR-56M) will indicate how quickly the missile is approaching and how close it is to impacting you, allowing you to plan your missile defence and perform last ditch maneuvers. With the DCS AN/ALR-56M, you have no indication of how far away a missile is except when it impacts your aircraft. This really, really, really, really needs to be fixed, especially for a SEAD platform like the F-16CM-50. - Air-to-air: This is also a collection of different things. AIM-120 is still missing many features, including target size options and not least the HPRF mode, greatly reducing the maximum effective range of the AIM-120 and making the bread and butter SKATE tactic non-viable against most threats, as you need to guide it all the way to MPRF mode, a.k.a "pitbull". The Uplook Search (ULS) radar mode is still completely missing. STT mode is extremely ineffective at long range, and even against a high aspect non-maneuvering target which is detectable in RWS/VSR, it will not be able to produce a stable lock. A-A, MRM and NAV master mode are also unable to have different CRM modes selected and retained. COAST mode is still missing, meaning that notching will immediately break your radar lock and the aircraft will not even attempt to reacquire the target. On the topic of notching, the current radar implementation is EXTREMELY suceptible to notching. You can be 5 nautical miles away from an enormous KC-135 in look-up conditions against a clear blue sky, and it will still notch you as it reaches 90 degrees aspect, even if it's only for a split second, which should be physically impossible with a modern radar like the AN/APG-68V(5). Even notching against ground clutter should be extremely ineffective unless the target is very close to the ground or has a big chaff cloud next to it. Auto range scaling in SAM/DTT modes still automatically decreases the range scale, which it shouldn't, making those modes useless for situational awareness as you should still be able to freely sanitize the airspace beyond your bugged tracks in those modes. Also the HAFUs are completely unreliable, making TWS especially useless as the art of upgrading tracks is a complete black box. Blanking LINK 16 symbology will often blank all the correlated bricks as well, meaning you cannot even see the things which you've detected with your own radar. You can lock them up though and launch missiles at them, you just cannot see them on the display. Contacts which start jamming will often get snapped to exactly 99.0 nm distance on your FCR, often forcibly rescaling your FCR and requiring you to reset the FCR range settings in the middle of combat, to be able and reaqcuire that same threat. HAFU identity is also very unreliable, with enemy threats often being displayed as green friendlies for no apparent reason. And when you're in ACM mode, the bore cross in the HUD and bore ellipse in the HMCS still do not show true radar line-of-sight like they do in real life, but are instead completely static paintings giving no information at all regarding where your radar is actually pointing. - Air-to-ground: Ground radar is still extremely janky and cumbersome. Ground maps will regularly instantly blank itself during maneuvering. When entering many different radar modes, rather than the radar moving quickly to it's starting angle and then sweeping to generate a map, it often moves really slowly to it's starting angle and just does nothing for a couple of seconds, and only then does it actually start mapping. GMT mode doesn't actually lock onto the target, but rather just the point on the ground your cursor happens to be over. Gain/Contrast/Level settings for the ground radar are not granular at all, and it is often very difficult/impossible to achieve a good balance between them. Changing these settings should also only apply for what is mapped after changing those settings, so if you raise gain in the middle of a sweep, the first half of the map will be low gain and the second half will be high gain. On some maps, like Persian Gulf, you seemingly cannot ground map terrain, only objects. JDAMs still cannot be programmed properly. JSOWs cannot be programmed properly. GBU-24 is there in spirit, but still hasn't had its guidance modes properly implemented, making it quite useless and unable to even reach the target when dropped at max range and high altitude. IFF interrogations are not possible in A-G mode, which they should be. There are also missing munitions, like the CBU-89/104's, various training munitions, possibly even the JASSM. - Lighting: Some things are completely missing, like the external IR emitters which our tape and block of DCS F-16C should have, being selectable through the COVERT modes to allow external lighting at night which isn't visible to the naked eye, and also to only illuminate the lights on top of your aircraft, to stop ground threats from spotting you. If you look at the the external lights through NVGs, you'll see that the green lights seem to be NVIS compatible, but the red lights will completely fry your retina. Cockpit flood lights have very low intensity even at the max setting, and also little to no light scattering, meaning they don't actually flood the cockpit. They're more like focused spotlights, leaving many parts of the cockpit completely in the dark, even at full intensity, including the new pilot body kneeboard which is completely unreadable at night even with every single internal light source set to maximum. On the topic of spotlights, the actual Cockpit Spotlights under the glareshield are completely inop. The Cockpit Spotlights are also the only light source in the entire aircraft which are usable purely with battery power, and are commonly used in real life to monitor engine instruments during startup at night. They are also used to illuminate the pilot body kneeboard when the pilot don't want to illuminate the entire cockpit with flood lights, in order to be more NVG friendly. In addition to these points, there are also issues with light intensities. Some lights like the left indexer or external formation lights, etc., usually go from slightly dim to quite bright between 0% and 5%, and then every setting above is just almost indistinguishable amounts of extreme brightness. With other lights, most notably the cockpit flood lights, you can barely see them at all between 0% and 50% intensity, and then they go up to kinda bright at 100%. This becomes even more troublesome because of the way light brightness works in the F-16C, because when the flood lights are set to high brightness, every other malfunction and indicator light in the cockpit will go to max brightness too. This means that we can't have a bit of flood lighting without getting completely blinded by every other light source. Some lights also don't seem to be NVIS compatible at all, especially the RWR panel which is extremely bright and will wash out your NVGs. The right indexer lights seem fully NVIS compatible and won't blind you even on max brightness, while the left indexer will wash out your entire NVGs at max brightness, and still be very bright at only a few percents intensity. - Textures: The default DCS F-16C textures (including those available in the texture template) are of incredibly low quality, with not merely bolts and screws missing, but entire panels. Also the textures themselves are just poor in quality compared to what you'll find in the DCS User Files section. ED should honestly just pay Roughmaster to make a new texture template for the DCS F-16C, and remake all the low-quality liveries which are currently available for the DCS F-16C, as Roughmasters liveries are of such incredibly high quality that it's almost incomprehensible. Cockpit textures are also missing textures for multiple things. - Tankers: When refueling at a KC-135, the boom still has no resistance and exerts no force on the aircraft. In real life, the boom will push back against the aircraft when connected, allowing the aircraft to "rest" and stabilize itself against the boom. This currently doesn't happen in DCS, making aerial refueling more difficult as you need to have more accurate thrust management than real pilots do in order to stay in position. Tankers in DCS also will never extend the boom farther than the halfway point when connecting even if the player is close to center and fully stabilized, so the player always has to move closer than the halfway point to connect, rather than like they do it in real life where the boom operator will extend the boom to meet the connecting aircraft. When it comes to tanker external lights, they will not turn on their position lights until the receiving aircraft is less than 1 nautical mile away, making night rejoins extremely difficult unless you want to fry the boom operator with an STT lock. Also, there are no external flood lights on the tankers, making them practically invisible while refueling at night, except for the fore/aft and up/down lights. Also, the background lighting on the fore/aft lights is very bright at night, making your fore/aft position incredibly hard to see. During daytime, the lights are very dim and the glass on the fore/aft and up/down lights is very reflective, with reflections often obscuring what the lights are indicating, especially when the sun is low in the sky. Lastly, tankers still do not transmit TACAN in A/A mode, but you have to use T/R mode instead as if they were a ground based station, meaning you also cannot see the tanker A/A TACAN distance on your DED/HUD. It would also be nice to have some basic boom operator functionality, like giving break-away calls and raising the boom if the player is to close/unstable (including an actual boom collision model), giving heads ups before entering turns, reading off the amount of transferred fuel at regular intervals, maybe even having the player be able to request a certain fuel amount via the radio menu. - DCS F-16C manual: This manual is still not up to date, and new features which are added to the DCS Stable branch still aren't updated in the manual, leading to a lot of unecessary threads on the forum as a lot of information about how systems work are lost to the sands of time in the Viper Mini-Updates thread, and usually have to be conveyed through word-of-mouth. For the things which are correct in the manual, the systems are in many cases bugged and not working according to the manual, leading to further confusion in the community when being referred to the manual. Honestly, everytime a feature is added or changed in the DCS F-16C, this should also be reflected in the manual, including a changelog of added/changed features in the manual itself. If systems are not functioning correctly, this should also be noted in the manual with a small notice in that section. After all, DCS is now a unified stable branch and then it'd make sense for every change to be in the documentation, since this isn't a beta build anymore. - The jealousy: Things which have been implemented in other ED modules, but not the DCS F-16C, even though they should be present for our block and tape. Things like the HSD Expanded Data, whose equivalents are present in the A-10C and F/A-18C, but which for some reason isn't planned to be implemented for the DCS F-16C even though it was present in the simulated block and tape IRL, greatly reducing situational awareness via datalink. Or the decision of ED to not implement the AN/ARC-210 radio which was already in active service for our block, tape and year of F-16 (confirmed by multiple ED active duty SMEs + non-ED active duty SME's + US DoD fiscal reports showing amount of quarterly AN/ARC-210 unit installations for USAF and ANG + the actual real world documentation for our tape of F-16CM-50 describing AN/ARC-210 functionality) because "it was more common later", leaving the DCS F-16C as the only modern US aircraft in DCS without the AN/ARC-210 (A-10C, AV-8B, F-15E, F/A-18C), and therefore it is the only modern US aircraft in DCS without the ability to tune multiple UHF frequencies and use a single radio for the entire UHF/VHF/FM range with HAVE QUICK capability, even though it could do this in real life during our tape and time. The AN/ARC-210 would be a very simple item to implement too as it requires no 3D modelling changes, but merely new DED pages, and seeing as this radio is already implemented in other ED modules like the A-10C and F/A-18C, it should be quite simple to port to the F-16C, making ED's resistance to implementing this radio even more of a question mark, seeing what an enormous improvement it'd be to the F-16's communications suite. There are also other things, like the HAVE QUICK page being available in the A-10C, allowing HQ functionality through SRS (SimpleRadio), however the HAVE QUICK page has not been implemented in the F-16C, making the F-16C unable to use HQ via SRS. The ability to choose Fighter/Mission Channels on LINK 16 is present in the F/A-18C, but not the F-16C forcing them to send D/L points to every F-16C on the server. Or the IFF page which has been implemented in the F/A-18C and allows setting Mode 1, 2, 3 and 4 codes, has not been implemented in the DCS F-16C, meaning we cannot set our squawk codes as you would IRL through the DED/ICP. We can only set Mode 3 via the analogue backup IFF panel. Also, the A-10C even has Mode 1 and Mode 4 timetable support, giving alerts at specific time intervals when the Mode 1 and Mode 4 codes change. The F-16C should have similar functionality where the aircraft will, instead of alerting, automatically disable/enable transponders, as well as change their transponder codes, based on certain time and position requirements. More importantly, none of these features require DTC as they can all be set from the cockpit. And even if DCS does not support HAVE QUICK and IFF functionality at this point in time, these things are supported through other softwares like SRS and LotAtc, and is as mentioned already present in other ED modules, so I don't see why we wouldn't get the same treatment in the F-16C? There are also some amazing features from non-ED modules like the Datalink Mission Assignment API in the M-2000C, which allows external sources (either AI GCI or a human via LotAtc) to send taskings via datalink to the aircraft and have them be viewed on the situational displays in the aircraft. The F-16CM-50 of our tape and year had that same kind of functionality via L16, where C2 assets can send a plethora of mission taskings which get received as a data messages, with the ability to view and accept/reject taskings via the HSD, and also send tasking completed/aborted messages to the C2 station. This would be a huge deal for human GCI/AWACS in DCS, especially with players speaking completely different languages, and it'd also open up a tonne of opportunities for mission creators to access this functionality via scripting. I'm not going to delve into why the DTC and its related functionalities are absolutely essential, as they're already in active development. Other systems like the IDM functionality and towed decoys are at least on the roadmap. For all the other points mentioned above, there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. If these kinds of major systems are completely missing at a so-called "full release", that would set a new benchmark for what level of quality we can expect of DCS modules. In addition to all the essential features which are still missing, the amount of bugs which still remain is impossible to overlook, to the point where you cannot even cold start the DCS F-16C according to real life checklists, as there are several inaccuracies which would force you to abort the mission and put the jet into maintainance in real life. In regards to BIGNEWY's recent comment that the DCS F-16C "is complete in regards to what we intend for the module. Our modules are never intended to be a 100% replication of the real aircraft.", I would like to point out that we're not even remotely close to a 100% replication, and people aren't even asking for 100% replication at this point. Making a 100% replication would mean adding things like the need to cycle the flight controls before initiating the FLCS BIT to warm up the hydraulics and get rid of any air bubbles in the lines, as the FLCS BIT will otherwise most likely fail. It would mean adding things like accurately modelled startup sequencies for individual systems like the FCR, MIDS terminal and other systems, where they run their own internal bits and take time to power up before being available for use. Or maybe some realistically modelled magnetic drift of the HMCS, sometimes requiring re-alignment in the air. These types of things are available in other F-16C simulators available on the civilian market, and I think we all would've hoped that the DCS F-16C would reach at least a similar level of depth and, as ED themselves have said, the DCS F-16C would be "the most realistic simulation possible" and offer a "detailed simulation of the Viper’s engines, fuel, electrical, hydraulic, comms, lighting and emergency systems and many more". I don't know how you can claim that the DCS F-16C delivers on any of those promises in its current state. I realize that ED probably wants the DCS F-16C out of early access since it's been there for over four and a half years now, but it would be a huge mistake to do so at this point in time. For ED's own sake, for their own reputation, and the communities faith in their current and future products, they should never allow a module which is in the dire state of the DCS F-16C to be considered "full release". Full release means finished, irregardless of what your post-release plans are. You might add a feature or fix a bug later at your whim, but in the end, the full release is supposed to contain everything we customers paid for, a complete and stable product, and anything which is added to the product free of charge after full release is merely charitable work on the developers behalf. It is not the fulfillment of some obligation to their customers, but rather a completely voluntary act which goes beyond what the customer paid for, in order to increase customer satisfaction. And to say "here it is" and give us what have currently + the Sniper XR would be an incredible betrayal of trust, and I for one would never buy a DCS early access module again, if this is what I can expect from it. I'm happy to support ED and third-parties early in the development process even by purchasing pre-orders as long as they deliver a decent product upon full release, which is what has happened previously in my experience. But if the F-16C is pushed out like this, that'd be a turning point for DCS as a platform. And this is something I say as a long-time DCS customer, who has been flying DCS on a regular basis ever since the A-10C was released over a decade ago, and has spent so much time and money on DCS that I don't even want to attempt to add it all up due to fears of what I'll be faced with. Without mentioning any specifics, I think we can all agree that the current drama in the DCS community is testing the community's faith in ED and DCS as a product. Pushing the DCS F-16C out of early access in its current state would do nothing to improve that situation, but would rather risk pouring fuel on the fire, which I don't think neither ED nor the community wants at this point. DCS isn't a perfect product, but it has the most potential of any combat flight sim on the market, and has been making strides to become the best combat simulator on the market. Please cherish this and do not make any reckless decisions in order to meet internal deadlines, while alienating your own customers. All I ask for is that when the F-16C reaches full release, the level of quality will at least be the same as other ED modules. The DCS A-10C which was released a very, very long time ago when ED was a much smaller company, was an incredible product. It had practically all the systems modelled that it would've had in real life to an incredible depth, only excluding certain systems which couldn't be modelled due to classification and such. It also had very few bugs, making it an absolute joy to fly, which it still is to this day. That level of quality is what I expect of an ED product, based on the benchmark that ED themselves set. Not only would a DCS F-16C release in anything close to its current state be well below this benchmark, but it'd also not even live up to what ED themselves have claimed their goals are for this product on the DCS F-16C product page and in promotional videos and press materials. So my final words in this very long post is simply a plea to ED: Please do not push the DCS F-16C out of early access before it lives up to the level of quality and fidelity which the community has come to expect of ED products.

Бананом был CH-21, а не CH-47

Less than 24 hours notice (twice?). No forum announcement. No revised date (not that anyone would believe it now anyway). Like others I found out through a third party. I've pre ordered almost everything for the past 14 years, but this is really testing my patience. Abysmal customer relations.

I don't know what is the matter with some people. Its only a game and its not the end of the world. Get a grip.

He mentioned that we are missing an entire radar mode that is specific to the F-16, ULS. That most certainly belongs on the list as it is a viper feature. DTS is definitely not a waste of time, there are many things the DTS provides. The first thing is PGCAS which I don't recall if we have currently. The second is Database Terrain Cueing which is similar-ish to TFR but instead of it using radar it uses the terrain database to cue you to stay X feet above the terrain model, its not as accurate as TFR because your relying on the quality of terrain model loaded so you should only use it in VMC but it still a great feature. In addition, DTS provides obstacle warnings if the system determines your not going to overly an obstacle by at least 500ft by default. And I highly disagree with the notion that introducing error-correcting systems is useless, if you want to simulate the viper's navigation system as realistic as possible you have to model the ENTIRE THING, including the parts that degrade and upgrade the navigation quality, not just the degradations or else you have an incomplete simulation. Also, to your comment about the JDAM threads, the problem that was being discussed in the JDAM thread is that BOC isn't working properly so what should be the most accurate mode is actually the LEAST accurate in dcs. In the case of Expanded DL, this isn't a DCS ecosystem limitation. We should be able to HSD or FCR cursor over L-16 tracks and see more info about them which the hornet can already do so its NOT a dcs limitation Here are some very useful hotas commands that we are missing; Cursor Enable should switch between POS/HAS/DL delivery mode, Cage/Uncage button should cycle target isolate modes but those arent implemented for the HARM, in POS submode the pinkey switch should rotate between PB, EOM, RUK submodes, TMS Right while In POS or DL should steps the threats in the threat table.

NB-52B as launch platform for experimental devices.

99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs in the code. Take one down, patch it around 117 little bugs in the code.

Of course, you must play a lot on PvP servers! On the Growling sidewinder server, you have to equip the PL-12 missile on the J-11A because if you only had the R-77 missile, it would be even more painful. Or we can talk about the concept of the 80s, where the planes of the 2000s against the planes of the late 80s are fun because there is no AMRAAM. The F-16 and FA-18 won't have 80s avionics because you don't put AMRAAM on them! Some believe the marketing, some don't. It's easier to get newbies to do something you tell them! "Here comes the marketing text about DCS World not being balanced" I don't want to argue, I just confirmed what someone else wrote above! Usually those who shoot outdated AI bots in Single player or pretend to be fighter pilots don't understand what I'm talking about. PvP is completely different! All in all, if someone other than me draws attention to this topic, it is not unfounded. My favorite Youtube content producer at the moment, who played Flanker, was inactive for 1 year and now plays something completely different, F4 Phantom, and I would ask him where Flanker is, then he might not be happy with the question! By the way, I haven't played for 2 months either, that's why I'm calm! I really miss Flanker, but I don't want to torture myself on a PvP server!

Discord is no use to me why would nineline post there and not here.

New Kola Map develop pics

Indeed. Some grown men in these forums are rediculous

I understand the frustration of the community, I would have been happy about a patch today too. The fact that the anticipation or disappointment is so great at least shows that DCS is still a very popular simulation. On the other hand, we have to ask ourselves - as with every delay - whether it was the right decision. What would be the point of releasing the game today (or last week) if it ended up containing bugs that would spoil the fun for everyone? The forum would be full of justified criticism that ED delivers unfinished updates. Yes, if you announce a date, you should deliver on time. But it doesn't always work out that way. The only option left for ED is to announce nothing at all and surprise us with patches. At least then nobody will be disappointed. Anyone who complains here should think about that before hitting send.

Dang it, now I have to fly my existing aircraft on an existing map today rather than crashing flying new aircraft on a new map. Oh, the suffering! Of course we suffer! But in silence! Always in silence do we suffer! We never complain about our suffering! Off to blow stuff up. Hope you guys have a great day!

Look at it from the positive side: if you enjoyed the pre-purchase, you can enjoy that feeling a bit longer! Yay! (If you did not enjoy the pre-purchase, why the heck did you do it?) You are joking, right? We live in a world where any release of anything can be delayed for any reason (well, maybe beside taxes). The release (birth) of my godson, for example, was delayed by two weeks (yeah, I know, "two weeks"). In Software Development, hitting the correct year is usually a cause to celebrate. That's not something to be proud of, agreed, just a comment of the sorry state that most software dev teams live in. Now, admittedly, the kind folk at ED have a somewhat spotty release track record, mixed with an IMHO quite awkward communication style and some questionable decisions. For example, pushing out a regularly re-occurring update/release by a single day is often considered to be the mark of a beginner: there is nothing significant that can be accomplished in 24h hours; Pros go live with a couple of 'known issue' tags in the relNotes and start working on the next release cycle, or they push the release by a more meaningful timeframe (a week at least). Delays happen. I estimate when I'll pick up my significant other, and when something comes up, there will be a delay. Until something actually happens, nobody can say with 100% certainty when it will happen. In this instance I believe that we merely have an unfortunate situation, somewhat exacerbated by an unfortunate decision plus unusual communication style. We know that the Hook will come, and it is in ED's best interest to release as soon as possible. There is no reasonable argument to be made that ED intentionally delay the release just to spite customers. That would be silly. Pushing a regularly scheduled update by a single day (not for the first time) shows some room for improvement when it comes to their project management skills. We'll survive both. And I'll still buy the Hook.

Hi all. The new German Assets Pack will be released any day now. I want to ask the DCS World Community to help support CH with a donation. I have provided a link to donate and help CH in buying the 3D Models he uses to create his assets. We can all agree that CH has done so much for the DCS World Community, so please throw a few bucks his way! Every penny donated goes towards buying the Models he uses, they are NOT cheap! https://buy.stripe.com/9AQ3dV4CSbo20Te9AB Thanks in advance, Timex 3

AMRAAM is not difficult for me, it's just boring because I've been doing it for 15 years! He didn't understand what I said, on the red side, nothing has happened between the 4th generation aircraft for 10 years, this problem, the clickable MiG-29A Export downgraded is not new because it has been there for 12 years at the FC3 level. This way you can understand why so many people become inactive! Not everyone's life goal is to buy everything from the E shop! You are offending REDfor fans with this statement! Because you put a 3rd generation aircraft against a 4th generation and it highlights what I'm talking about! Generation 4.5. These include the latest F-15s and F-16s for overseas customers, and the MiG-35, Su-30, and Eurofighter Typhoon. This is currently completely empty, and there is no sign that they will at least make a 4.5 generation AI aircraft. It would be a simple task to modernize the Su-30 AI bot a bit, simple numbers would have to be rewritten, the weapons it would carry are already in DCS World. When you weakened the range of the R-33 missile with the MiG-31 AI, you also took it in the wrong direction! The update should have looked like you keep the R-33 missile and rename it to R-33S because the old R-33 had a range of 160 km. The new R-33, which is now used by the MiG-31 AI, will be renamed R-33. It could have had two types of R-33 missiles, which favors fans of NATO aircraft. This way you just make the game easier so that you can earn more! The only AI that can attack 4 targets at once is the MiG-31 AI. The Su-30 AI had a Bars radar a long time ago, you removed that as well. I won't add anything to this. Everyone can see that it is not progress! Instead of flying planes, we would simulate AI and not clay pigeon shooting in the 4th generation!

Or a beer

I gave it a go with the F-15E with the fix mod a few days ago on the heaviest scenario I have and noticed no performance impact. It was performing just like before afaik. I didn't know it 'could' have any performance impact before reading through this thread. Thank you for Budgie creator for giving the bird back its....life, basically.

Hi, Since the F4E came out I have been reading up on the Yom Kippur War during which one of the tasks for the F4 was to target and destroy the Egyptian pontoon bridges across the canal. I looked for a mod but did not find one so decided to try myself and this is the result, nothing fancy but it has a damage model to show which parts are destroyed. Also you can place some vehicles on top ( I think only the amphibious ones). Link to the user files section for download and instructions. https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3339285/ Thanks to T-PAP for his Crimea Bridge Mod as I studied this as an example. Enjoy!

Pre-order has a nice discount, which is always welcome. We know these delays are annoying but in this case I think it is worth it. It also means we have more time for tutorial videos. thank you We do not give previews to content creators, this isnt a new policy for the CH-47F, everyone will get access at the same time. thank you

I don't mind the delay of the module, the better shape it's in upon it's EA release the better. But I wish they told us the news on this forum before or at least close to the same time, it's just the proper thing to do according to me. It's not new though, happened before and it will happen again. I feel for people who are really looking forward to this module, was hyped up a week ago just to be told "next week!". Next week comes, they're all hyped up again, patch day, no information about it being delayed on the forums. Patch dropped, no Chinook... Ouch! Short story shorter, communication is good and an official forum is a great place to do it. From my viewpoint, any statement that is not directly from an official source is to be taken lightly. "But Nasder, this is a screenshot from an official X at Y, so it is official!" I don't know that, I saw a cropped image of someone not related to ED claiming to screenshot a statement from someone somewhere. There is no way I can verify how legit it really is. But if someone on this forum that was related to ED made a post about it being delayed, I'd call that reliable, but that's just be being critical about my sources.

Yep, every DCS update is kind of bittersweet. I want the changes, but not the issues.

If this could find its way to management. It would be nice and maybe even expected from a large software company to have a more professional and organized way to outline scheduled release. Use the link below as an example. https://www.ea.com/games/coming-soon If there are delays the webpage can be updated as such to show the delay and a new date. But finding out about delays through third party or social media is not what a serious company would do. With so many product release from ED and third parties a webpage like the one in the link could really bring a lot of clarity because not everyone goes through all these forums, or has the time to sift thousands of threads to find news of a expected release or delay. And at the end of the day when you prepay for something you expect a little respect. Not so much a complaint as just constructive criticism.

The old veteran REDfor fans have already left DCS World here. All my favorite YouTube content producers have stopped producing content. If there is a new Youtuber, in 2 or 3 years he will get tired of the whole concept of fighting against NATO equipment that is 20 years more modern. There is also a Twitch stream option that you can watch, 98% are NATO streams, the rest are rookies who have fun with FC3, and since he is a rookie, what he does is not interesting because he has no talent. A conclusion can be drawn. Even though I write or a user writes to the forum to make the FC2024 product interesting, it falls on deaf ears, I gave the most ideas to the developers here on the forum. Just because the MiG-29A Fulcrum will have a clickable cockpit, it won't have a more powerful radar or a longer range air to air missile. This is the case with almost every game, give money, if you are not interested, play another game!

Since the first announcement made on here, my project has gone through a lot. We now have a new and improved 3d model, fully animated and almost completely textured. We have an SFM for early stages and are currently looking for somebody with prior DCS EFM experience. But otherwise it is flying well and animations are smooth. Attached are videos and screenshots of where our mod is at now for those interested. For those interested in joining the server for more updates be sure to join the discord server. https://discord.gg/59mHVmgjKr Enjoy, Tory Lead Developer of Project Vark

You’re welcome and I’m happy to hear it works well for you. It certainly could have an impact as the radar code calls the function multiple times per second, even in STBY, avoiding that was priority 1.

И что? Людям нельзя из-за этого на Су-30МКИ против хорнетов и иглов полетать?

You should consider that the other two helicopter have almost 3 times the weight of the huey and in addition to that they have stability assistance systems and the huey not.

correct, the CH-47F needs a little more time

Basically we would need to stop preordering to provide an incentive to release something. But we won't

This. I mean this is their official (!) forum section for the aircraft after all. Their most direct and official point of contact with their customers. I really don’t get how 9Line or BigNewy don’t post about the delay here the moment they get the information.Especially since they cancelled the EA release again on extremely short notice. Not only that but still zero from them as of now. Very disappointing PR on all fronts.

Once upon a time there was only one plane in Flanker, everyone was playing and having fun. Now, if you think that AMRAAM is too difficult for you, remove it from the game. If F-16 is too dangerous for you, put F-4. Game creation is in your hands!

I can't believe they delayed it, and didn't announce it anywhere but their discord. The people expecting to get this tomorrow are going to be p*ssed, and you can't blame them.

Lower ID lights installed

Them not releasing means its broken enough to cause an uproar and some very disgruntled EA customers, there is no point in that as ED rep is quite low at the moment in the wider community. 2 weeks could fix a lot but id rather wait longer to get more EA features.

Patience gentlemen dcs is working hard to ensure we get this patch as quickly as possible, and personally I'd rather wait 24 hours more than have a disappointment. And tomorrow we will all be satisfied when we download with a beating heart. Good flight

Нифига себе, хотя бы через гугл- переводчик пытались по русски писать.Как никак русскоязычная часть форума...

Daily MiG-29 Slovakian MiG-29AS

I have to say that during the last weeks, ED has had a lot of 'missteps'. We're not even going to talk about the situation with Razbam, which is already undermining the general atmosphere and adding doubts to many DCS users. The latest update, scheduled for the end of June, has been postponed until the beginning of July (not the first time and ok It could be happen times to times) At the end it has been postponed by a further 24 hours. The CH-47 was also announced end of June and de facto also postponed to the 3rd of July, before being completely removed from the update without any further information on a possible release date. It has to be said that the zero videos and zero tutorials before the release already gave an idea of what was to come. And the idea we have now is that this module has been announced with (too) many shortcomings, even for early access. I wish @BIGNEWY all the luck and courage, as for some time now he has had to deal with all these problems and communicate directly in the various forums to the DCS community. Strength and honour to you! On top of that, you might want to tell your bosses that it might be time to take some holidays and restore a bit of order to the current situation. Fortunately, there's some happier news as well, such as the arrival of Polychop's Kiowa, ORBX's Kola map and the Afghanistan map, which is in "final approach". Things are not all bad...to be continued...

Sorry if answered before - are there any plans to have a version of the map that focuses on the Soviet operations in the 80s? I guess the only thing that would really have to change are the airbases. Thanks!

Вам так кажется, и даже если она вдруг есть, что бывает крайне редко, то что? В любой инженерной дисциплине никто не может заранее предсказать проблемы, которые возникнут в ходе разработки и тем более предсказать время необходимое на их устранение. Это невозможно на текущем этапе эволюции. Есть такая поговорка - "ты не знаешь то, чего не знаешь". Унесу ее в подпись пожалуй.

так спор разве за ГОДА производства/постановки идёт, или, всё таки, за ВОЗМОЖНОСТИ плюс-минус равные? одна страна развалилась, приемница 20+ лет не могла сделать рывок в сторону попыток догнать в разных сферах. dcs предлагает модули к покупке, а как в эти модули игроки пытаются в онлайне использовать, ed не волнует или волнует мало. дали вам игрушки, дальше сами, сами) части игроков хочется иметь примерно равные возможности с противной стороной, представитель ed признаёт превосходство синей стороны, обличая красную сторону в "тупости" их инженеров, "отсталости" производства, несовершенстве систем и носителей. и не видит причин недовольства красной стороны))

The lights were the wrong color at first, that's why they're green in the manual. They are caution lights and should thus be yellow. And no, they shouldn't be on when the systems are engaged. The NWS ENGA light is on when the NWS is on as it's a caution for the pilot to know that it is just that, on. The caution lights for the auto throttle and ACLS/AP are the other way around as those are systems that can disengage without pilot action, which the pilot needs to know if that happens. The slight trim change in the stabilators with air brake is modelled iirc, it's just very minor and hard to see.

Ждал эту карту 2 года, а в итоге за 2 месяца наигрался и удалил. Пока что. Надеюсь сделают приличный лес, а не поросль непонятно чего со светлой текстурой земли под деревьями. На свободное место поставил Неваду, хорошая спокойная карта, где ничего не бесит

As usual, companies being towed by the community... Thanks @jamie_c for bring us the F15E to our approns again!

Ok, I managed to get radio menu comms to work with AI (wingman, ATC). I learned/noted a couple of things though: 1. Left Pic: PRESET CHAN requires GD XMIT mode selected. In ME, the OH-6As were set to 264 AM and Chan 1 = 264 while Chan 2 = 265. Both channels worked. I guess they were close enough. But in MAN mode, frequency had to be exact (26400). In another test with 257 AM (Chan 7) set in ME, only Chan 8 (258 AM) worked in GD XMIT mode. Seems the PRESET CHAN is a bit buggy and does not quite follow ME settings. 2. Right Pic: In either pilot or CPG seat, as long as INT 2 knob selector was at 2 (UHF) or 3 (VHF), it worked. It didn't matter what I did with INT 1. (I thought INT 1 was for pilot and INT 2 for CPG.) 3. With the sound of the rotor blades turning, ATC is barely audible even with radio volumes at max. (Hear like in helmet checked.)

Very disappointed because of the second delay of the CH-47. Just when I told myself I wouldn’t be doing any more pre orders and went ahead and preordered it anyway to find that it has been delayed twice. Is there a new date? My only consolation is that it will be released eventually one day. But I feel disappointed nonetheless. Will a part of Afghanistan be released today or is that delayed too?

I'll be one of those. I've been a long DCS / ED supporter, but the RAZBAM case and this delay not even announced on the forum. Well, i guess this was my last module. This feel like the AH64D, delayed over and over again. Is this going to be a nice aircraft ? Of course, will ED get tons of angry people again due to lack of [insert whatever technical reason make a software company realise they arent where they tought they where when they announce a release date]... obviously. I dont understand why they would put themselve into that situation, again. I must admit i dont know <profanity> about software-ting, but it dosent seems that complicated to announce a date when you already have a complete and tried module no ? On the good side, it'll still have a better release schedule than "Supercarrier" (it will be what 4 years later ?). Anyway, it is, what it is.

The reason for this "panic" will be clarified once you have the time to read the post. I'm also saddened to see my post be merged and buried into another thread which is already solved in what seems like a backhanded moderation move, presumably to make it harder for the community to find my post. I put a lot of effort into this post and think it deserves its own thread, so I would appreciate if it was unmerged back into its original thread. And if you or any other ED employee wants to discuss any of these points, I'd happy to converse with you.