Dragon1-1

Is that even for DCS? Then again, they shown a lot of modeling work, but not a whole lot more for any of their side projects, even before they got into the current mess.

Just about the only thing it can't do is JDAM, but the Walleye easily substitutes for that capability. In fact, those weapons could be said to be quite a bit smarter than the JDAM.

It's a short, stubby interwar plane with a huge prop and a massive radial engine. Yes, it was difficult to handle on the ground IRL. The other WWII sim sells it short, and even in that sim, there are easier planes to land.

Maybe another BD collaboration? Though A-10A is FC3, and he wasn't too interested in that. If we ever do get an FF A-10A, it could be a nice idea, though.

Yeah, modern warfare is resource-heavy, and focusing on the next shiny, stealthy thing is indeed a trap. The emergence of drones, many of which are not so different from toys that can be bought in bulk from the Chinese (and some of which are Chinese toys with a camera or an RPG hanging below), is where modern warfare is heading. There's also the case to be made that, instead of scrapping or selling everything outdated, it should be stockpiled, and then upgraded using off the shelf electronics. A T-55 may be old, but it's still a tank, and if you can put in a tablet that will show a GPS map and datalink information, maybe replace the MG with an RCWS (of the sort that can be mounted on a truck) and give it an anti-drone cage, you'll end up with a pretty lethal vehicle. It won't be dueling Abramses, but it could bully infantry and APCs. Ultimately, the side that wins in a protracted war is the one with bigger factories. As it happens, capitalism isn't really compatible with military preparedness. Consolidating suppliers offers economic benefits via economics of scale and reducing overproduction, but in case of a war, overproduction is exactly what you want. You want to be able to tell the companies: here's the money, hire another shift or two, we'll buy everything. In modern era, at least in the US, the MIC seems to be mostly concerned with stuffing its own pockets, not actually making the nation safer. While the extensive civilian gun industry ensures the US probably won't run out of 5.56mm ammo, at least, most rednecks don't have a 155mm howitzer in the backyard.

Also, VR is expensive, period. Unless you buy used, or an older generation headset, you're in for a big spend.

It is a good idea to keep running scans on a folder like Steam cache. Unlike DCS folder specifically, it's on all computers with Steam installed, it changes frequently, and things get downloaded into it.

You have to hold the button down, like on just about every US fighter before the F-14.

It downloaded in a snap on Steam, but it updated 28GB of files, so it's probably small changes to big files. I suspect the standalone updater is just dumber than Steam and just redownloads all changed files all the time, while Steam is able to do it piecemeal.

They'd probably would've had to pay for putting AI voices in their product, especially ones that would sound decent. OTOH, community SMEs are usually quite glad to do that kind of work for free...

Just tried the first mission, and it quit, with a message that it failed to load the .miz file for the actual task. I'll run a repair and refly later, is anyone else getting this?

Hornet should land at circa 700fps VVI, same as on a carrier trap. You're landing hard even by Navy standards...

Not at all. They claim that they actually have the required info on the F-35. I suspect half the systems won't be present (those that weren't caught on some video), but ED insists that they have enough to make the jet. That said, given the recent US track record with classified information, we could soon have all the data we'll ever need... Also, ED mentioned they want to make an early Super Hornet, but they want to get the Legacy out of EA first.

They will know if the parking spot itself is blocked, not if the path leading to it is. Any static outside the parking spots will be ignored. I suspect some statics may not block the parking spot correctly, too.

His "higher priority tasks" comment is a few months old. Chances are, the tasks he was referring to are done. We got a bunch of features like taxi directors recently. As for "it's complicated" comment, this might indicate the new ATC will be for singleplayer only. Remember that this one referred specifically to multiplayer ATC. Though with how taxi directors implemented automatic turnaround apparently with no regard to SP usability or immersion (no way to turn it off, either for players or AI), I'd be surprised if they didn't prioritize MP.

Well, looks like it's finally coming. Really looking forward to seeing how they did it. An actual military-style ATC in DCS should be really fun to work with.

That might have been the Winwing's intention, but the way they implemented it is bizarre, and quite frankly, it doesn't actually work right. You get displacement, a gap, and only then force sensing kicks in. The "fully realistic mode" (displacement only) is actually how the Viper does it, but on that, the "centering spring" is a solid metal bar that you can bend a little. I don't know how Winwing did centering in that mode, but much it's too light to be of any use.

Actually, if you have a proper (ground) TACAN station and the TACAN location of the target, you can try level bombing without a visual contact. Now, I don't know what the distance would have to be for the GBU to hit (ideally, we'd have a level bombing table for this), but it's perfectly possible to fly a TACAN radial that crosses the target and look at DME in order to put you on the release point. This would be actually be pretty similar to some of the bombing systems used in WWII, and would have a similar accuracy. Should be good enough for LGBs, if you get your speed, altitude and alignment exactly right.

Winwing's "force sensing" works nothing like it does in the real jet. It seems to be a weird contraption which deflects first, then allows you to ramp up the force after hitting the stops.

Anything featuring the old Carl Vinson carrier is now broken, because it has been removed. Changes to lighting mean that disabling NVGs makes the night missions nearly impossible (IRL, the helo would not be flying low in such conditions without NVGs, searchlight or not), and the way it's done is nonsensical and very frustrating for the player. Those are the biggest issues. As it stands, the campaign should be removed from sale, because several missions are impossible to finish, in particular the one where you have to deliver cargo to the Vinson (the carrier is gone).

It looks like this info is from some other game, right? Seeing as it outright states it takes some liberties with the modeling, I wouldn't trust its accuracy.

Agreed. Currently it can be "hacked" by blocking out the spots that would taxi to the blocked cat, but this is not exactly optimal.

The latter part is not unrealistic, just more work. It would be perfectly possible to create additional paths from every parking spot to every catapult. It's just a matter of adding switches to disable each cat (which the mission creator would have to select according to where the statics are) and switching the patching to the next option if the preferred one is blocked. Of course, actually doing that would require making a lot of paths, four for each parking position. It'd probably be a lot of work to make and test them, but given how patching works on deck, many would overlap. Patching around obstacles is a difficult problem, but on a realistic carrier deck, you won't have obstacles where the planes are moving about.

Yeah, low flying helos are right out, the Phantom is a very poor choice for fighting them. Sidewinders or gun, but both of those have drawbacks, and a well flown helo will bite you back if you try that. No 3rd gen fighter can be expected to do well here (sure enough, you don't hear many Vietnam stories of MiGs pestering the Hueys), the helo will get lost in ground clutter. Effectively fighting helos in a fast jet, even modern 4th gens, is far from an easy matter.

What you are proposing is a map beyond the limits of DCS engine. What I am proposing is to set your mission far enough away from any land that biomes of whatever else is there but water are not going to be possible to get to. Because that's what you'll be flying in the GIUK gap. Naval aviation vs. enemy ships. You won't even get to glimpse any land during a typical scenario. You can easily set such a mission on the South Atlantic map, plenty of water in all directions. Ground combat is another matter, but honestly, in most Cold War scenarios, everything would hinge on ships, anyway. Even if you could contrive a ground scenario not dominated by naval fire support, this is not a compelling enough argument to make that instead of several other more interesting locations. Tom Clancy naval scenarios that everyone seems to want from that map are doable on the South Atlantic. Should have said you want a Scotland map. I could even get behind that, been sailing across the Irish Sea last year. That's not exactly a "GIUK gap" map, though, seeing as it won't even include Iceland, because it's over 1000km away. Or, you could have Iceland, though there's barely enough land for an air conflict within its bounds. Maybe, with enough time, someone would make both. You seem to want the whole 1600km long gap in DCS, as a single map. This is not happening. Measure the distance yourself on Google maps, and notice the shape of the line. That rather pronounced curve is called an orthodrome, and this is how you know you would never be able to realistically navigate on a map that size without an actual, spherical map. It's not just about some islands being at the wrong angle, it's about the fundamental difference between navigating on a sphere and on a flat plane. Not to mention, the existence of horizon is kind of important at those distances. Those issues are already bad enough on the SA map.