Tank50us

I have to ask the big question though... why haven't you upgraded to Windows 10? It was available as a free upgrade a few years ago, and just about everyone I know went forward with that upgrade. Having said that, since that free-upgrade period has long since ended, you could still get it fairly cheap. Look up 'Windows 10 key reseller', and you can get legal keys for significantly less than a retail key. How this works is that a lot of these gaming rig companies have thousands of keys they can't use (by contract), so they just sell'em off to people who turn around and sell them for 10-15 bucks. It's all legal, and dirt cheap if you want to upgrade.

ah ok. Yeah, I've seen a few bits on that, and it certainly looks pretty neat, especially with TacView built into it. Too bad it can't link into DCS and give us viable terrain and city data to make maps with.

what is C-MANO? you've mentioned it before.

I think that he's just referring to the invisible FARP that we just got. Not exactly something I have an issue with obviously as you've seen me talk about before in another topic related to this subject.

It would. Pilots in the real world are briefed on the locations of things like no-fly zones and will mark it on their maps.

As an addition to this, I'd like to see an option to have weapons grouped by 'class', IE, grouping weapons of similar type into one 'super' type that when you rearm with one, it subtracts from the total within the class. For example, the R73 'Archer' and the AIM-9X Sidewinder are both off-boresight Fox-2s, and should be classed together so that if you have 20 (under the current system it would be a 10/10 split) of them in the stocks, and an Hornet takes two, then there's 18 in the stocks. At which point an allied Flanker or Fulcrum can come by and now has 18 of the type available rather than just 10. This way we can have a system wherein we can have 0 logistics (unlimited everything), 'easy' Logistics (the system I mentioned), and 'hard' logistics (where every different type is counted separately)

I wonder who else wants that announcer to kick things off? "Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to the main event! LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEETTTTS GET READY TO BUUUUUUUURBLELLLLLLLLLLLLE!!!!!!!!"

It's almost as if they've had to drill for that very scenario

Explain?

Given that Wake is a couple thousand miles away, not likely

Or even have an AI task where a helicopter or ASW aircraft patrols a designated area, looking for submarines and dropping depth charges or torpedoes on them if they find them. The method of search would be using sonobouys, and dipping sonar. This provides a good mission for us fixed wing pilots to protect these assets while they work from air or surface threats.

Yeah, if my math is right, a submarine going that deep would be going to about 36,000ft, which only a handful of unmanned submersibles can dive to, and only a couple manned submersibles have manged to come close. Most modern military submarines have test depths of about 1,000-2,000ft, but rarely operate that deep except in extreme cases, and even then, they can't stay that deep for long (maybe a few hours) for safety reasons. Large submarines just can't take the pressure at anything deeper than that. And sadly, this is a matter of physics in play, and physics does not know what mercy is. All that said however, as I've said before, people think that submarine simulators would be cool, until they play them and find out that they really aren't. Cold Waters is a pretty good simulation as it does make things easy to understand and does some of the hard stuff for you (like IDing sonar contacts), but at the same time, it's not exactly a game known for its heart racing action. After all, if things get interesting, you screwed up somewhere. For example, a perfect attack on a convoy should result in the ships you fire on never knowing you were even there to begin with until things start blowing up.

Many people think it would be.... until they get it and find out that the only time things get exciting, is when things go *horribly* wrong

I think we'll see them again at some point. ED just has to convince Valve that this is a worthy thing to allow.

And not just them, remember that a certain search engine receives a lot of money from that part of the world as well, which will make it harder to find DCS content, or even harder for new players to learn about the game as its subsidiary starts nuking DCS related content or hiding it.

I was expecting this argument. Sure, they CAN make their own, and likely will. But why make it easy for them? Why do that work for them? The $50 it costs to buy the map is chump change compared to the millions of dollars they'd have to spend to make it all themselves.

Yeah, F12 is the default Steam Screenshot Key, and it saves the screenshot to a Steam folder.

There's also the fact that if you're doing MP, you can also set the radio frequencies you'll need before you taxi out (in SRS). All you have to do is remember which 'channel' is the airfield you want, and you're good to go.

I'd like to see this as well, it'd be really good for scenarios taking place in the 80s and early 90s (specifically the Reagan and Bush Sr era). Each shell delivering the equivalent of a Mk84 onto the target would be a sight to behold in DCS, especially if we go by some of the reports of those shells actually flipping some light tanks over when they impacted next to them.

In theory, there isn't really anything preventing the trial periods (minus the first-time-buy) from coming to Steam, the issue is that Valve might not see it as a valuable thing to do, especially if they feel like it would cut into sales. That said, if this works, and ED comes to Valve with the sales figures to prove that it can work for Steam users, they'll find a way to get it implemented, especially if the sales and player retention numbers exceed expectations. You have to remember, trial periods aren't a common thing for Steam, since a trial period would normally result in someone playing a single-player game, beating the story, and letting the trial run out without actually buying the game. So while I'm not holding my breath (I am a Steam user after all), I do see both sides of the argument, and do hope that in due time, ED can convince Valve to allow Steam users to make use of the trial period system.

You don't seem to understand... The Chinese Government, who've vowed to take Tiawan back by force, would love to have a map such as this specifically so they can learn how to defeat Tiawans air forces with minimal casualties. As I've said before on other subjects: Cities change, terrain doesn't. You would effectively be giving one of the most evil empires on the planet the key to defeating their adversary. Trust me, it's an extremely bad idea. Unless you want a real war were the missiles that are flying aren't pixels on a screen, they're really fixed with HighEx, and they will be killing real people.

@Admiral189 your pics not showing up for some reason. Any idea what's going on?

The PRC Called, they'd like to talk turkey to see about having this map developed. While it would be a nice map to have, it's a very bad, BAD, idea to make this map.

As someone else pointed out, that depends on when the map is actually set. If we're talking about the late 70s to early 80s then the actual density wouldn't be as much of an issue, but the cities would still appear to be fairly modern.

Actually we have two. One is out now (Persian Gulf, although it needs work), and the second is the upcoming South Atlantic map. If you can, I suggest listening to the interview that Air Combat Sim did with Razbam on that, you'd get a unique insight to how the maps in DCS are actually made (link: https://redcircle.com/shows/air-combat-sim ) So, in short, it is possible for a map to be made, it would just require a lot of work on the part of the people making it to get a decent map up and running for the region.... and maybe ED to recreate all the smog coming from China, but that's another topic