Dudikoff

Be careful what you wish for as with the amount of features and modules in a complex product as this, the new stuff would get released at glacial pace then.

And now you should ask yourself why it isn't a more competitive market and maybe just maybe adjust your expectations somewhat. You don't really pay A+++. It is a complex product so if it was developed and maintained by the standards you expect, it would have cost much more and presumably people are not willing to pay for that as otherwise you'd have seen some competition to ED surely by now.

How many users would pay just to be able to play the game even if nothing gets fixed, added, implemented? That sounds like charity or something and is wishful thinking, IMHO. And maybe we're not frequenting the same forum. I see a bunch of anger here when ED messes up some open beta patch and constant claims about unfinished modules and people refusing to buy further modules. If people were paying a monthly fee, their level of expectations and complaints on perceived value would get only higher, IMHO. So, you're saying the outcome is not representative because it doesn't support your view? The result might not be reflecting all the customers, but if people found the idea of a subscription appealing, there would have been more support in the poll, surely. But, ultimately, if ED finds the idea has some merit, they will consider it, I'm sure. If you make it optional, but limit beta access to paid subscribers, whatever extra money is there (and I doubt it would be enough as I don't see that many people willing to throw their money around with such little expectations as you describe) would first have to be spent on a bunch of paid testers basically to replace all the feedback they get on the discovered bugs they missed in their pre-release tests.

But, there are no guarantees that a subscription model would make this any better, in fact it could make it worse or eventually even put ED out of business. Even if ED wouldn't get too lenient with this questionably steady stream of income, they would still be under pressure to provide a constant stream of updates even more so than now as the customers are paying each month and if they perceive that ED doesn't provide them their money's worth, the customers might just stop paying for it and the whole thing would start to crumble. For example, how would you ensure which modules the customer base wants developed? You ask five people, you'll get ten opinions. It's impossible to satisfy everyone there or even prioritize features that makes everyone happy and with them expected to pay each month, the customers would only get even more entitled and likely to complain than they are now. Even the polls seem to be highly against the fact that a lot of people are willing to support this model anyway. Exactly. It is not a profitable niche and I'm sure ED are constantly reassessing the best way to keep them afloat. Currently, they seem to believe that this model is the most viable one and they should know best having the insight into the sale numbers and the customer structure. And this also means that some lower priority issues will take much longer to develop (like some sort of a dynamic campaign system). Overcharging for modules? I would disagree given the amount of work which goes into developing and maintaining these things. For the level of polish and stability people seem to expect, the updates would have to be stretched much further apart to provide enough time for constant re-testing of everything and the modules would have to cost MUCH more to pay for all the extra testers, top designers, architects, managers, programmers and what not. And I'd expect not nearly enough people would be willing to pay for that, which is probably why there's no competition and the last full featured consumer modern military sim went bust more than 20 years ago delivering a broken and unfinished product.

Let's presume that there is some model where these two different payment models can coexist in parallel. I can see the merit of the idea ED not needing to push out new models too often and could perhaps have more resources to focus on some of the neglected core sim features (like e.g. dynamic campaign). But, I'm curious how would you control what all this extra money from subscription gets invested into and how would you ensure that you actually get a better product compared to the current model? Just because you sink more money into something, doesn't mean you'll get more results. It would still be this super complex product with a bunch of modules and where customers expect consistent stream of weekly base system updates and new modules. If it was so easy and worth bothering with, I'm sure there would be some competition in this field.

Are you really sure there's no problems? E.g. I can see on the forums that stuff gets broken on the F-14 regularly as well and some stuff takes a long time to get fixed. But, in general, ED has to work on all the base features and their modules in parallel and their modules are usually the first ones using all these new features so they get most of the flak. 3rd party modules are consequently more stable as they are focused only on testing and maintaining their own few modules though I'd expect they quite often get a lot of headache when some ED base feature changes and breaks their code. And again, the main problem is that you expect stable functionality from the open beta branch. It might be annoying to hear that brought up over and over, but this is a fact. Switch to stable and wait for much longer between releases if the open beta model doesn't suit you. If most of the MP servers are using Open Beta, then perhaps it should be taken up with them, not ED?

There are so many complex base features here being developed in parallel and then so many complex modules that what you wish for might be possible if you'd accept to have a much bigger delay between open beta releases and with less features included. And even then, if development of some feature gets delayed, it would probably delay the whole release again as you'd need time to retest all the modules with the base code locked. So, all the other features planned might have been completed, but they would have to wait till the delayed one is complete. And then it might turn out that this base feature broke something in many modules, so then you get more delays until all the 3rd parties patch everything up just so you can validate and retest again. I don't think the majority of people would like that (e.g. imagine having the delays which happened with the DCS Supercarrier, but applied to an open beta release). Personally, I prefer the current model of more frequent open beta releases even though it results in a messy release now and then.

Really? Where did you get that information? AFAIK, every Su-22 variant was an export variant of a specific Soviet variant (e.g. the Su-22M4 was a variant of the Su-17M4) and there's no reason for them to have been used by the Soviet Air Force/Navy as they had their own Su-17M variants (which used AL-21 engine compared to R-29 for all but the latest two of the export variants).

I'd presume it's because it has a launch rail, so it can't really be dropped (i.e. catapulted off).

Since you didn't mention the 80s context (which to be fair might be implied given the thread), I was commenting from today's perspective where the new air-launched ASM's are faster and longer ranged while at the same time USN fighters have gotten slower, shorter legged, shorter armed and with less time on station than was the case back then (F-14s with AIM-54s), compounded with the lack of a proper tanker aircraft.

Loss rate of 50%? I'm curious how you came up with that figure with slow Super Hornets/F-35Cs against newer fighter air-launched ASM missiles with supposed ranges of 300+ km? And that's not even taking other threats like subs, ballistic anti-ship missiles, etc. into consideration. You don't really have to sink the carrier, it's enough to have a large enough threat to force it to stay away in some open waters to make it ineffective, even more so with the abysmal attack radius of its current fighters.

Well..

Yeah, I felt the same way thinking about it. The UFC is such a prominent part of the pilot's cockpit so it's not something you can easily ignore and the MFD-styled one is not what I wanted from my F-15E experience. I'm definitely not going to be pre-ordering it or paying the full price for the later UFC one if that's the only option.

Perhaps the OP should have provided some context beyond the simple analog/digital keywords. If I understood correctly, the old UFC was only getting replaced starting from 2010 so realistically that would put Razbam's F-15E into the scenarios placed within the last ten years (thus, not even matching the in-game F16 and F/A-18 which are from mid 2000s). On the other hand, it probably took years before all the UFCs were upgraded so an analog UFC would be valid for most of the 2010s as well. So, going with the digital one makes no sense, IMHO. If anything, it should be provided as an option over the analog one and not as the sole variant.

One advantage Alienware has is the external GPU case which runs over a proprietary PCI-E connection, rather than the TB3 (where the controller gets overwhelmed). So, given that you have a pretty good CPU, you can definitely get some extra mileage off that thing later on.

I really don't know what you've said somewhere or not, but again I'm simply sharing yesterday's news article about upcoming Ryzen variants (which are a reaction to a better than expected performing Comet Lake CPUs presumably) to help the OP with his purchasing decision. These new CPUs will supposedly have their boost values increased by 200 and 300 MHz respectfully so these particular CPUs which are getting a refresh do not have boost clocks up to 4.8 yet obviously. As this seems to bother you, I suggest you take it up with AMD as it's their decision.

I'm not sure what you're arguing there and with whom. All I said is that if the OP is considering the Ryzen route as well, AMD will release slightly up-clocked variants soon. They will obviously offer performance somewhat closer to Intel's, whether enough, it depends on the individual buyer's preference and needs.

If you're willing to consider that route, there are actually a few higher-clocked XT Ryzens to be released soon to counter Intel's Comet Lake K CPUs. 3900XT will have their boost clocks pushed to 4.8 GHz, while 3700XT and 3600XT will have their boost clocks at 4.7. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Rumored-clockspeeds-leak-for-4-8-GHz-AMD-Ryzen-9-3900XT-4-7-GHz-Ryzen-7-3700XT-and-Ryzen-5-3600XT-Upclocked-Matisse-refresh-takes-on-Comet-Lake-S-i7-10700K-and-i9-10900K.466481.0.html

There's an ODS in DCS? Having said that, I think it would be great if ED would add some older specced F-16 variant, like e.g. the LANTIRN capable Block 40.

IIRC, as you've said, the radar transmitter alternates between two channels at this stage (when the missile has been launched), the main channel for target tracking and the other for mid-course corrections and/or target illumination. As mid-course correction will only be used if the range to target is 1.5x the range of the seeker (the value of which is also influenced by the target size switch I'd presume) or more, if the range is lower, target illumination signal will get emitted in the second channel from the moment of launch I guess. If the range is 1.5x or more, then mid-course updates (or radio-correction signal) will be sent in the second channel until some pre-calculated moment when the target should be in the range of the missile seeker at which point the radar will switch to sending target illumination signals in the second channel.

Yeah, I'd like to see that as well as IIRC it uses monopulse radar illumination like on other Soviet aircraft of the time, with a twist that being PESA allows it to illuminate multiple targets in parallel. I do recall the missile used an older-tech conical-scan seeker for some reason, though.

Maybe they still weren't sure at that point ;) Glad it's finally here.

My thought exactly as usually, support of a new module is listed in the general DCS World section. On the other hand, if SC wouldn't make it today, I'm sure they would have had mentioned it already somewhere.

It would seem silly not to given that they already have the cockpit and the flight model done, plus they could reuse the basic Hornet/Falcon radar model, not to mention the engine and various other systems. If they did, I'm sure they would want to refine the exterior model and the cockpit further, but still, it seems like they'd have more than half of the work already cut out for them.

Hmm, that's true. But, there's no immediate launch warning for the R-27R/ER missiles either unless the target is within seeker range on launch (as this is when the target starts getting illuminated by the radar roughly). Otherwise, there is only mid-course updates signal (apart from the STT lock), but of course, those could technically be detectable by RWR and classified as such. So, there's no big gain there if T/ET missiles would be used in such a way, with a huge issue of not really knowing which target it would get locked to once its seeker goes active.