Tank50us

During some landing practice yesterday in prep for a new campaign my group is running, I boltered twice (I'm a bit out of practice, don't judge). First time: "bo bo bo BOLTER!" Second Time: "Boeing. Boeing. BOLTER!" Third time: "Good news we're down, bad news it was a two wire." Me: "Alright Jester, you get your a$$ up here and fly then!"

As much as I agree, I have to say that while it would be nice to have multiple high fidelity red jets in DCS, the key problem is that Eagle Dynamics is a Russian Company, and therefor, has to abide by Russian Law. And given that these laws are usually enforced by Makorovs, that's not something you can just 'ignore'. If ED were an American company, they'd have no issues there. But then the problem comes from us. You see, we demand a 100% accurate sim (I know not everyone does, including myself, but the very vocal do), and to that end, if it's not a dead on representation, people will whine and moan about it, and yes, I have seen such comments, in this very forum of people complaining about things too small to really matter... but they do complain. Our best bet right now is the Su30 guys. Sure, it's a mod, but those guys are working to make a full flight model and bring it to as close to a proper module as they can without the SDK, if they were to get the SDK, and make it a paid aircraft, I think we'd all benefit from it. Bonus points if they can get Multicrew and 'Jester' in it

If it was set in the 50s, then sure. But anything set in the modern day, there'd be more objects just in the LA area than any of the maps we currently have combined.

As good as unreal is, one first has to remember that the engine DCS currently runs on is one that was made by Eagle Dynamics, so switching to Unreal would effectively be a slap in the face to literally dozens of years worth of work. There's other issues as well, one of which was brought out by Ace Combat 7: Unreal is really good for shooters, and 'small environment' games, but not much else beyond that. I think the best thing for ED to do when it comes to engine work is overhaul the current engine, and rebuild it for multi-core support. This will allow for the fine rendering we're used to, without some people running into the situation where their computers get hot enough to fry eggs on them. On top of that, if ED can get even more support from the community in the realm of quality of life improvements (much in the same way ArmA has benefited from its mod community), I think DCS will become a much better title as time goes on.

And even then it's dicey at best

And even if it was part of the game proper, if it's something that can be turned off by people who don't need it, there shouldn't be complaints... but as you can see any time these topics come up, there's always some super-elitist "Stop having fun!" guy that comes out of the wood-works that busts out the "Git Gud Scrub" comment. Either forgetting what it was like to be struggling with the subject, or can't understand what it's like for someone who's barely able to play the game as it is to perform these complex tasks. And let's face it, while it should be considered a major achievement to be able to pull off a flawless 3-wire carrier landing or a perfect AAR, most people are going to naturally be more interested in the Micheal Bay aspects of DCS... which let's face it.... is what many of us are here for.

tell that to my job and my clients. Which I'm fairly sure applies to most of us as jobs and clients are very much a thing we have to work around. Can we stay on topic? If ya want to offer proper critique I'm all ears, but if all you're going to do is spam any of these topics with "well, I can do it just fine with my $5,000 setup, why can't you?" comments, then please stop responding. If you're gonna comment, be constructive, or don't comment.

Actually given that such things are coming to real world aircraft anyway (for example the HMD for the F-35), it's not that much of a stretch to think that these assists would exist in real world aircraft. Sure, if you're talking about a P-51 vs a BF-109 those assists don't exist, because the tech of them didn't. But at the same time, you're much closer to your opponent in those instances, so the assists wouldn't be needed since you can't shoot at the other guy until after you've merged anyway. For more modern jets, those assists can be justified as many of them are still in service today receiving upgrades, with some getting HMDs that can do some of what those assists do anyway. On top of that, those people who merely treat those assists as training wheels to be kicked off eventually are ultimately better for it in the end, especially given that most of us play on flat monitors, and not wrap-around projections or VR. Gamifications are not a bad thing my dude, have you ever lined up on a catapult and been ever so slightly off? In the real world, you're off the cat, back arund, and try again. In DCS, the game goes "Eh, close enough", and lets you hook up. In DCS, there's no real penalty for having a poor approach to a carrier other than a bad score (if it scores you at all). In the real world, too many of such approaches, and you're back to CVQC, To many trips back there, and the Navy punts you like a football to the Army (ironically, that's sometimes where those guys end up!). That's why I say that these visual aids should be treated like training wheels, just something to get a person by until they are confident enough to move on to the next stage, which should be something that they determine, and no one else. No one told you when you had to run for the first time, you just did when you felt like it.

Eh, let the SHFGs come for me, I'm ready for'em

Is there any map of the Marianas map as we'll be getting released yet? It would be a very nice thing to have for those of us planning campaigns on it to have something to start putting thumb tacks onto.

So, as it's been batted around the forums since DCS was LOMAC, I've decided that the best course of action is to "Screw it", and design the UI element that I've been harping on about every time the topic comes up. This is just a concept image of the visual aid in action, and others can be made as well if people can supply me with some decent screenshots for drogue equipped planes, but I do have some ideas with some of my own screenshots. Anyway, to explain the concept, it goes like this: (Not Pictured, yet), when you first call to the Tanker your intent to refuel, a small, dot will appear on the tankers port side, indicating where you need to be to form up with the tanker. At the same time, the throttle bar (pictured) will appear, and give you an idea of the proper throttle settings your plane will need to be at to catch up to, and form up with the tanker. When it becomes your turn to get in position for pre-contact, the 'dot' moves to the pre-contact point, and all you need to do is get there, and call pre-contact. Post Pre-contact: Once you're ready, and the drogue is out, or boom is down, a diamond will appear. Where it appears depends on the type of plane you're in, if you're in a boom-refueling jet (like the F-16 pictured) it will appear at the form-up lights, if you're a probe and drogue refueling jet, it'll appear on the 'reel' of the Drogue system. A second diamond with cross hairs will be present inside the larger one. This smaller diamond represents your plane, and a perfect alignment and positioning should result in the diamonds becoming a single diamond. In the picture here, the plane is slightly offcenter and slightly back, but still connected (as indicated by the lit up CTCT under the throttle bar). The Throttle Bar: throughout the entire refueling process, from form up to peel off, a throttle bar will be on screen guiding you on the proper throttle settings for your aircraft to stay with the tanker. The yellow field will move up or down depending on the tankers speed in relation to your plane, and the red bar represents your throttle. The 'CTCT' at the bottom will inform you that you're connected to the tanker and taking fuel. The 'BRK' above the throttle bar is there to tell you if you need to use your air brake. In this image, it's greyed out, as the brakes aren't needed. However, they will change color depending on how much braking is needed. If it starts flashing, it is a warning to brake away from the tanker. This last bit made flash when you're fully fueled up as well, so don't worry. Some things to note though. First: This is just a concept made using a screen cap, and a few minutes of Paint Tool Sai. It is not programmed in any way, as that is not my cup of tea. Second, the idea behind this item is that it is a localized training aid. Meaning, that even if you're connected to a server and flying a multi-crew aircraft, if someone is using the system, and you aren't, you will not see it. Third: it is designed to be 100% optional. elements of it can be turned on or off as needed. Fourth: This is a feature designed to increase accessibility to DCS. Right now, DCS has a bit of a learning cliff in some areas, something that Nick himself has expressed as a potential issue. This is designed to mitigate some of the issues people have with this very difficult task. Finally: Hating on people who may have to rely on such a system should be strongly discouraged at every turn. Those people who come down on those for needing a little help, or who are just too busy with their real lives to learn the systems should not be given flak. We should be looking for solutions to support them, and make the transition from arcady sim to real sim as easy as possible. If they're scared off, they simply will not come back, and if they don't come back, they don't spend money on the game, and improve its development. Now, let's keep things civil. Tank out.

A-10 Pilots: "What is this maximum range you speak of?" Still though, if that system were implemented, and made optional, would you have an issue with it?

3 (F16 [pictured], F15C, and A10), with more on the way. If this were a Hornet, and you were trying to hook up to an MPRS, the 'line-up' indicator would be on the reel, as that is where you're supposed to be looking anyway. As for the throttle graphic, I don't know about you, but when I'm looking at my screen when flying, my eyes tend to be all over the cockpit anyway (as I primary the Tomcat), so seeing that on screen if I was hooked up would just be another thing to check every couple seconds while I'm taking fuel... along with all the other things I'd be checking while taking fuel.

Since I've had to explain it several times by now, and people still think it would be bad to have, I created this handy concept of how I think it should look, and designed it to be as unintrusive as possible, as well as something relatively easy to understand. This screen cap was taken while one of my unit members was doing some AAR practice, I opened up Paint Tool Sai, and added the bits I've been talking about. In this shot, you can see he's slightly behind and off center, but still has contact (the red CTCT in the bottom left), his throttle (the red bar) is in 'the zone' to maintain position, and as he has no use for the air brake, it's grey (if it were a different color, he'd have to use it, if it flashed, he'd have to break off). Fairly simple concept, no more intrusive than the IFLOLs bit on the Super Carrier, and if this was present in the game, and he was online, and he had it turned on, there wouldn't be an issue as it would be local to him, and him alone. And given that these are simple graphics, it would mean that people playing the game on potato powered PCs could still use it when the lights on the tanker aren't working as advertised. Now, if someone can come up with a valid reason why this system wouldn't work, and has an actual critique and or better design, then I'll happily redesign it. But until then, I think I'll submit this to some of the ED guys I have talked to, and see what they have to say about it.

Except, they said that about the AH64, mere months before they announced that they were working on it. So the idea of them changing their mind depending on which day of the week it is, isn't that far fetched. This would be especially true if the visual aids are in the places your eyes are supposed to be looking anyway. Because that 'extra investment is typically very expensive, and for a period of several months, prohibitively expensive due to a lack of supply.

This line got me thinking of the TItan AE scene "Where does the probe go?" And every single video tutorial says "Don't look at the probe, look at the lights" since looking at the basket/probe the basket/probe results in pilot oscillation, which irl, usually results in very expensive screw-ups (That Jag taking the basket, and that Super Stallion chopping its probe off comes to mind). This is ultimately why the tankers have people talking to the pilot, giving them the critical data necessary to link up, which we currently do not have in DCS.

Again, to back up what has been said several times by now, this is what works for you. It doesn't necessarily apply to everyone else, and that's the thing we're trying to get across. Right now, the DCS learning curve is a freaking cliff, with many MP groups basically going "No, if you can't do X, you cannot join". The idea here is to smooth it out, and try and figure out ways to ease new players into these incredibly difficult and complex tasks as quickly, efficiently, and painlessly as possible so that more people are willing to stick with the game, and it expands. Ultimately, those people who speaking as you do, all you're going to do is push those people away from the game before they can even start to have fun, and they simply will not come back. Listen to what the devs have said countless times. They want the game to be accessible, they want more people to enjoy it. Going "here's the Mirage 2000s complete flight manual, study it and gitgud, and btw, learn French" isn't going to accomplish that. Having some optional 'training wheels' for some of the hard things, like flying formation, AAR, Carrier Ops, and more, will ease those new people into the game, and eventually, if they want to start flying without the aids, they can start turning them off... when they're ready.

"Yeah, sorry, I can't taxi down this part of the airfield as there's a crater big enough to fit a small destroyer blocking my path."

Yeah, so many people forget that COVID had to force the ED staff to effectively work from home, and having now had to experience the whole 'cloud sharing' thing when it comes to a project (a recruitment video for my own group), I can certainly understand how frustrating it's gotta be now to upload stuff to a cloud, and wait for someone else to download it, probably over shitty internet, compared to uploading it to an in-building cloud inside a studio with lightning fast intranet.

in this case, yes, because for most people, while the battlespace is in 3D, it's still a 2D representation because it's on a screen rather than through real space and our eyes. Game designers have struggled with this for a long time, and as it currently stands, outside of VR, there isn't much substitution for the human eyeball when it comes to depth perception. Look at indoor practice ranges as an example. The system is able to perfectly model the flight path of a bullet, but when a soldier with the rifle is aiming at the target on the screen, they have a hard time judging how far away their target is, and more often then not have to be told. Compare that to an actual rifle range, where the exact same soldier can go "That looks to be about 250yrds", and could probably expect to hit the target at that distance, or get close enough to adjust with one or two rounds. There's also other things that just can't be simulated in DCS, no matter how hard ED tries. The feeling of acceleration, the slight pull of G, the vibrations in the aircraft, and all the things the pilot can feel that tell him/her what their plane is doing without the need to look at the instruments. Also remember that unlike the real world, you don't need perfect (or near perfect through correction) vision to fly a plane in DCS, but you do in order to fly a real F/A18 or F-16. Basically, accessibility is going to be key to the future DCS expansion. If someone wants to play the game, they shouldn't get told 'no', because of things outside their control. The only thing that should stop them from playing DCS, is if their computer simply can't run it, which they can most certainly overcome given enough time. But being told "Nah, you can't play with me because you don't have a $5,000 sim pit with VR", or being told to just "Git Gud", will turn people away, and ultimately hurt ED, and you because no one else will invest in DCS to add content if they won't see any money from the work.

OK, you do realize that not everyone plays DCS with $1500 machines and $300+ HOTASs right? Heck, for the better part of about 8 months last year actually getting a HOTAS for anything less than $500 was like finding a dinosaur fossil in your back yard, and right now if you can get a decent GPU for anything less than $700 you're doin' pretty good. DCS is a free to try game, we all know this. But it had very serious competition from games like War Thunder, Ace Combat, World of Warplanes (for the WW2 stuff), and of course, MSFS. Many of these games can be played with just a keyboard and mouse with little to no difficulty, and as such, have a much easier learning curve compared to DCS's learning cliff. Those two factors alone mean that if ED wants to continue selling modules, they have to be more open to the more 'gamey' players, instead of the super-hardcore sim players like the people who make similar statements to the one you just made. Not everyone has the money to buy those high end setups, and not everyone has the time to build those custom pits even if they can afford them. Not everyone can afford VR, and not everyone can afford an X56 or better. Some people just have to make do with an old Sidewinder stick or 360 controller on a machine that can barely run DCS as it is. Are you seriously suggesting that DCS should only be played by those willing to dump upwards of thousands of dollars into hardware before they even download the game in the first place? Or would you rather the game be open to anyone, regardless of what kit they have available? If you want the latter, you'll have to accept some gamification. And that means training aids to help people get up to speed. Hell, as someone who runs a group that is dedicated to be an open group to new and experienced players alike, with absolutely no requirements to join, I would rather build a mission knowing that the people flying it can do everything asked of them, even if they have to rely on training aids to get the job done. The whole "Git Gud Scrub" attitude is only going to drive new people away, and when they go, they don't come back. And worse yet, because they don't come back, the 3rd Party Devs and ED aren't selling modules, and if they aren't selling modules, how can they fund the development of new modules? More players means more chances for selling modules, more modules sold means more development and interest, and more interest means more 3rd party devs who come in to make more content.

Outside of the normal ones, like "Will we have Super Carrier functionality?" (which, the answer is yes, eventually), there are a few things I'm curious about. Will we have an animated deck crew? I've seen the WIP shots of the crews, and I'm wondering if they'll be animated, or static. How many parking spaces will there be by default for the Forestall? As in, how many humans can spawn in total on the deck Will we have a paint-kit available for the ship? I ask this, because I know some units out there would like to have their own 'custom' ship skin for their carriers, and I'm wondering if this will be a thing for the Forestall Finally, what aircraft, either coming or already released, will be able to interact with the Forestall? (As in, land, rearm/refuel, repair, and launch again)

The issue I have is throttle management, especially since I like big, heavy, and fast jets (like the F-14, which is my main go-to aircraft in DCS), and trying to link up with an aircraft that is significantly slower than me isn't exactly an easy thing to do for me. To that end, that's why I make the suggestions that I do, because while I can fly in formation with some marginal success in some aircraft (namely the Harrier), it's not that easy to maintain the formation for me. That said, when it comes to the actual process for hooking up, assuming it's your turn, I see it going like this: when you back off to get in position for 'pre-contact', a small, barely noticeable dot will appear in the spot where you need to be in order to call Pre-contact, as well as a 'throttle ghost' showing you the correct throttle setting you need to catch up to the tanker, this will move back and forth depending on your speed, and the distance to the tanker. When you get in position for pre-contact, and call it, a diamond will appear over the point where your eyes should be when linking up. For example, if you're hooking up to a KC10 (I know there isn't one in DCS officially, but hear me out), this diamond will appear at the form-up lights under the plane (this should train your eyes to look at them). This diamond will have two lines in it, as well as a smaller diamond that grows and moves, the one that moves represents your aircraft, and its size represents how close you are to the hook up point. Assuming you follow the prompts, it should guide you into the near exact position to link up, and start taking fuel. While linked up, if the tanker is about to make any turns, a warning will appear on screen telling you that the tanker is about to make a turn, and what you'll need to do to stay hooked up. Once you've taken all the fuel you need, or are topped up, the next thing that happens is another dot will appear on the starboard side of the tanker, indicating your position to wait for your wingmen to gas up before continuing the mission. Now, the key thing to remember here is that at the end of the day, all of these visual indicators should be designed to be as non-intrusive as possible, while at the same time, being easy enough to understand that a person can use them, and eventually, remove them when they feel they can kick off the training wheels, which should always be up to the player in question. Also, each of these should be local to your machine only, no one else can see it, and no one will know you are using it unless you specifically state it to the other players that you're using it.

Yup. This. Very much this. All of it. If I pull a hard turn in my Tomcat, and the wings snap off, and I eject, oh well, I just respawn. I won't get a bill from Congress for the $35,000,000 pile of scrap that landed on someone's $150,000 house, and I won't be facing charges for the countless lives my reckless actions put at risk. If I shoot down an enemy plane on the wrong side of a DMZ, there's no war kicking off, no need to get ambassadors to a negotiating table to try and avert a major conflict. If I land my plane on an airfield I'm not supposed to, I'm not facing charges for it, I'm not getting questioned my multiple DAs, with my JAG constantly telling me "Don't answer that". It's a game at the end of the day, there's no real world consequences for making a mistake other than just having to respawn and try it all again. Heck, I don't even have an Instructor chewing me out while I'm in Front-Lean-and-Rest for making a bone-headed mistake in a simulator. As @cfrag stated, we should welcome every training aid suggested here, and talk about the merits of any specific idea, and maybe come up with something that will help those new players before they get frustrated and give up. We want this game to expand, and more people trying the game means more people buying modules which funds the development of new modules so that we finally get the planes we really want. The people who are here love aviation, and are currently starved for a realistic portrayal of modern aircraft, which DCS offers, and few other games even attempt. War Thunder? They're stuck at mid cold war right now, and even if they do add more modern jets, it will take years for most players to get access to those planes, unless they are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to get access to them... far more than what it costs to get a single module in DCS.

Not everyone learns that way though. You can show me a million videos how to disassemble and reassemble an AK47, and odds are, I'll still mess up. Give me the instructions and let me do it myself, and I nail it in two tries. I've tried watching videos on AAR, and I simply cannot do it as shown in the video, and I have maybe a couple hours where I'm not either working or sleeping, and most of that is dedicated in some way to one or the other. When I talk about people who don't have hundreds of hours to dedicate to learning how to AAR, I'm not talking out my tail-pipe, I'm talking from experience. The hours and hours of practice that people dedicate to learning it and perfecting it? Dead serious, not everyone has that. So maybe some visual aids for those who don't have the hours and hours and hours to dedicate, as well as those who don't have the $5,000 sim pits with VR, can at least get a little bit of help from ED learning this skill. You don't need it? Fine, don't use it. Turn the aids off. But for those that do need the help, they should have it available should they want to use it.