Tank50us

OK, I recognize the J-10, but what are the other two?

oh yee of little faith.

I mean, if you don't mind a low-fidelity, or medium fidelity model, then by all means, it could be done. Unfortunately, ED is in a position where they can't really do that, since doing so will tick off a sizable chunk of the player base.

In game terms, awesome. In real world terms.... yeah... not a good idea....

This I'm not sure of, but it's something I doubt. After all, all you need is a very short-range radio set in the boom operators seat so that he/she can talk to the guy coming up to the tanker and give them instructions. Besides, in cloudy or low-light conditions, while you can see the station from the other aircraft, you may not be able to see the dude in the seat of that aircraft, let alone what their hands are doing. So while I'm sure there's probably a list of hand signals that pilots and operators train on, odds are, they're seldom, if ever used at all

Let's also not forget that to this certain country, if the other country is ever officially accepted *as* an independent country by anyone in the UN, they've said they'll invade it then and there. Sure, it might just be bluster.... but does anyone really want to take the chance of watching the country who controls 35% of the worlds semiconductor production invade the country with 45% of the worlds semiconductor production? And you thought your hardware was expensive before....

It would only be useful in WW1 and WW2 scenarios, but since the more modern aircraft are all equipped with radios that work, I don't really see a need for it there, unless it's interacting with ground crew.

As am I! (and my group admittedly... servers cost monies ya know!)

Almost as if there's a reason for that.... I wonder....

Which is why I wrote this the way I did. The ones that don't pay just get the shiny thing to look at, and those with combined arms can tell it what to do, but if you drop the script for the pack, boom, you get all the cool stuff that comes with it, similar to the aircraft modules. But I also agree with the idea that it should still be an optional download for the sake of saving room on hard-drives (if ya don't want it, don't download it at all). And I'm not really complaining about it. I'm just trying to figure out a viable solution to something that is admittedly a complex issue.

So, I was browsing a thread, and I got to thinking: "How can ED, or any third party release an Assset pack that doesn't tick people off?" Right now, you have situations where people can make a pack that is sold, or is free, and there's no grey area. If it's something that people have to buy, then those that don't buy it get locked out completely. In some cases, like with the WW2 Assets Pack, if you so much as have one dude with a Garand down on the map, you lock anyone without the pack out of the mission. The Super Carrier Module (SCM) runs into a similar issue: if you lack the pack, you can't land on the carrier or take off from it. Now, I fully understand why this is the case. A lot of work goes into the making of these modules, and the people who make them don't work on hopes and dreams, since you can't give hopes and dreams to the cashier or landlord. Now, is there a happy medium? I'd like to think so, and one such area where we can see that, is in the very planes we fly. You see, if I put an F-14 down in a mission, and someone doesn't own a Tomcat, they aren't excluded from the mission, they just can't fly the Tomcat. Now, sure, one could say the same thing about the SCM, but I'd argue that the SCM should still allow the most basic interaction with the ship (landing and taking off), but all of the other features (the PLAT Camera, direct control of the ship, the upcoming ready room, etc) they should be what's locked behind the pay-wall. So, my proposal is thus: Those that pay for an asset pack, we'll say for example, a JSDF Pack, they get certain perks that only come with the pack, such as taking direct control over certain units, as well as being able to fly any aircraft that are unique to the pack (For instance, say the Mitsubishi F1 was part of the pack). Those that don't pay for it, can still see the units, can still order them around (if they have Combined Arms), can still land or take-off from any ships in the pack, and don't have to worry about getting excluded from a mission if the mission designer put down a dude with a Type-64 Rifle down somewhere in the map, but just won't get access to the pilot/driver seat of any unique craft available. So what do you guys think? Do ya think this would work? Or do you think I'm some crackpot? Discuss!

TO be fair, I think this is more a bit of handwave for gameplay reasons then anything else, as trying to model the exact methods by which every radar available in game now works would be an immense undertaking for one, and it would likely cook the potato PCs. That said, there is still room for improvement. If memory serves, radars that rotate like those on the Perry should only ping the RWR when it actually points at you (admittedly this would very very annoying, very fast, which I think was something that was handled irl). And the same applies to other 'rotational' radars that 'sweep' the sky instead of the AESA style radars like those of Aegis ships. Ideally the radar situation should be handled by putting the radar into one of three classes, and then having sub variants from there: Directional Search Airborne Shipborne Directional Track Airborne Shipborne Omnidirectional Airborne Shipborne Once you have those, you can determine power, range, and clarity (basically, how well does the radar light the target up, how far can it see, and how well does it see the target at different altitudes), and that in theory should make for a decent radar set in DCS that's based on a simple numbers lookup system and doesn't risk frying peoples computers. But getting back on topic..... Yeah, the naval aspect of DCS is sorely lacking in general, and while it's nice that some mod makers are trying to solve that issue, I still think it would be nice if ED, or any of the 3rd Party devs could put a bit more work into some ships, especially since many of them have helicopter decks and we're getting helicopters out the wazoo.

So, since the ship is supposedly going to drop this week, I am now wondering: What would be the correct make-up of the battlegroup for around the time the Forestall was slated for retirement? While this obviously doesn't affect my own campaigns (as they take place in the near future and my group is a PMC with modern ships available), I do wonder if someone were to make a historical campaign or mission, and wanted to really sell the scene, what escorts would the ship have, where would they be placed in relation to the Forestall herself, and more importantly, what would their counter be from the reds? Just some interesting topics to discuss there really, not trying to ask 'who would win' questions, but I am curious as to what assets, modded or otherwise, would be appropriate.

Ya know, with all this functionality that Jester will have, it's a shame that Razbam opted not to use him in the Mudhen. This ability right here is ultimately what that rear seat is for.

I honestly forgot about that when attempting to land a wounded bird, and ended up doing a belly landing instead of a normal, gear-down landing. Oh well, I managed to avoid sending pieces of Tomcat in every direction, and was able to repair the plane, so there is that.

I don't think so. Odds are, the models and animations will still get used, it just won't be to the same level that the SCM carriers have. You may see the plane director guide you onto the cat, and he may still give the signal to launch, but you may not get all the other animations that go with it (such as the guy attaching the hold-back bar). Remember, these are the guys that made that animation of the pilot saluting the cat crew for launch, so I don't see heatblur allowing that to go to waist on any of the carriers they make.

On that subject, a good thing to do with said 10yr old, is build a two-seat Sim-Pit with'em. It'd be a great bonding experience, and a great learning experience as well. It may be costly, but if the end result is that the kid goes on to be a pilot, electrician, or any other technical field, I think that'll be a win. And the best way to ignite that spark, is to let them build something they otherwise would never get to do. It's just a suggestion though, but I think it would be a worthy long-term thing if done right.

Please don't take this the wrong way dude, but this is a topic that's been brought up multiple times. Yes, I would like to see civil aircraft be added to DCS (especially since some of them are used as VIP transport). Yes it would be quite cool to have them for certain scenarios. However it's highly unlikely ED will ever make them, because of the implications involved. Just look at all of the times ArmAIII was used by some news agency to accuse one country of attacking another, and then remember that DCS looks a lot better, and it would be hard for the average emotional person to tell that the news agency is using video game footage and not actual footage of an incident. ED doesn't want to be a part of that.

It's already in the works, and it's been requested a few times already.

Yes, people have been calling for this for a while now.

Maybe the solution is for a team to be put together with the expressed purpose of building a proper naval module for DCS. However, if it were me running it I'd make it where the ships 'hull' is universal, and things are added or removed to simulate the ship during different parts of its life. Using the Iowas as an example, their WW2 and Korean War era fits aren't that far off from one another, but otherwise look the same. However by the time the Gulf War came around, the Iowas were completely different beasts to what they were when they first entered the Pacific. The way I see that looking is that you'd have (as an example), a 'station' for each of the turrets, a station for the forward super structure, a station for the aft super structure, and a station for the fantail (which is either a helicopter landing deck, Seaplane Catapult, or the 'battle carrier' conversion idea, which auto-removes Turret 3). The turret stations could switch out to model the changes to the fire control (the guns stayed the same, but the Fire Control saw improvements). Done correctly, this would, again, allow the mission designer to represent the ship in whichever configuration is appropriate for the time period, or, if they're running a campaign, better represent damage to the ship if it wasn't sunk in previous missions (such as removing a turret to represent that turret being destroyed), or any number of possible scenarios. Granted, it probably wouldn't work for all ships, since some only ever had a single configuration throughout their service life, but for those that saw major changes throughout a very length service life, I think it would be a unique way to represent the ship class as a whole. It's certainly worth looking into as a possibility, right?

There were a couple Mig29s that took on some Eagles, and performed some Counter-Eagle tactics to try and get in close where they had the edge. The problem is that while Iraqis were experienced from the Iran/Iraq war, they had no real experience flying against F-15s crewed by pilots who not only knew how to use their birds to maximum capability, but were also trained by combat vets of Vietnam, who in turn were trained by pilots of WW2 and Korea. So there was a lot of combat experience, either direct or absorbed sitting in those Eagle pits. This ultimately lead to one being killed in BVR, and the second smashing into the desert when it tried to do a Split-S too close to the ground (trying to force the Eagle into the deck).

Well, given that you can, and will rip the hook off if you have too much weight and speed, I can imagine that this would be something necessary to have. That said, one thing to remember from the real F-14 is that you cannot trap with a full rack of Phoenix missiles, so if you intend to do a "Tomcat Buzzsaw" operation, then you better make sure that you ditch the AIM54s if you don't launch them.

They only make it difficult when it's required to have the pack in order to even play the mission. That said, I wish these packs operated in the same vein as the Super Carrier: In that if you don't have it, you can still place it in the Mission Editor, you can still shoot at it (and it can shoot at you), but lacking it means that certain interactions with it are not allowed (such as landing on the USS George Washington if you lack the SCM). But lacking the WW2 Assets Pack means that I, as a player, cannot even load into the mission unless I have the pack if so much as one dude with a Garand is placed down. So, those wanting to make APs are in a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' area: They're screwed if they charge, and the pack is required from then on if an asset from it is placed in the mission, and they're screwed if it's free because then they don't get paid for their hard work.