Dragon1-1

It was actually done a few years ago, as part of a big survey where someone (a web magazine, perhaps?) gathered a lot of different stats for a lot of different sims. I doubt stats have changed much since then, though maybe Top Gun 2 (which came out after the survey) inspired some more girls. Overall, though, I remember that the result was that most of combat flightsimmers were male, but female ones did exist. It would be nice to have such little detail for cases when the flight suit is not all-concealing, for instance in helicopters. This would be useful not only to video creators, but also to campaign makers who might want to give a specific appearance to the crew. I also wouldn't mind some randomization among the Supercarrier crew models, just to make it a little more varied. I suspect actually finishing the functionality comes first, though.

They are brevity calls, however for the purposes of a specific exercise, a flight of F-5s serving as the only bandits in the airspace might get callsign BANDIT, which is presumably where the author of this list got it from. BOGEY likewise, it's just a flight of bogeys for a given set of problems. In simpler exercises, it does happen. RIVER, I think, is usually some sort of EW/ELINT aircraft we don't have in DCS. VILLAN would likely work for exercises, though. CYLON might get ED in hot water (likewise the Star Wars inspired callsigns, which are quite common IRL), but IVAN and STALIN would be nice additions. And yeah, sometimes if the ops is not feeling particularly imaginative, you get stuff like MIG, FLOGGER, VIPER and HORNET. We have a few callsigns of this type, mostly for A-10s.

Still good enough to run a bomber's day (assuming the bomber wasn't flying too high). It wasn't exactly powerful enough to engage 109s, anyway, though it sure could outturn one if the 109 pilot was dumb enough to try turning with it. It could still trash larger German aircraft.

Not anymore. Viper and Hornet already made several steps in the right direction, for example radar priority/jammer priority/barrage jamming distinction. This is not "as basic as it gets", which now mostly applies to FC3 aircraft. Making the band selection meaningful by making the jammer affect only specific emitters depending on the settings is another straightforward upgrade, which we might yet see. That alone would make the switch in the cockpit quite meaningful. Here's a good (if a bit clunky) summary of how Gardeniya works (ignore the part about Sorbtsiya, this is for Gardeniya). Only 7 and 8 are settings which we have in DCS right now, lock-breaking and barrage jamming. If the specific bands were implemented, 1 would likely be air to air, and 2 to 5 would be presets for various SAMs. Blinking and ground bounce are interesting modes, and their principles are well known. I hope that once ED is done with the radar modes, they'll look into this.

The Gardeniya jammer is actually documented in public docs. Or rather, the general functions of its operating mode knob are. It's a fairly straightforward device to operate, though I don't know whether that's enough to model it.

The pilots at the time said of the Spit that "she was a lady in the air, but a bitch on the ground". On the grass it's better than on pavement, but landing, rollout and braking in a WWII taildragger is an art. Bouncing is caused by coming in too fast, which is caused by not putting your nose up high enough on final (if you can see the runway, you're going too fast). It's not a problem with the gear. It's a problem with you trying to fly it like a tricycle. Yes, it's harder than flying a modern aircraft, that's just how fighters were back then. It's hardly an exceptionally difficult aircraft to either take off or land in, but also not the easiest one around. The 109 has bigger problems with torque, the same narrow gear issues, and the only saving graces are the toe brakes and lockable tailwheel. There's a very good guide on the forum on taildragger landing technique. Real WWII pilots benefited from the "seat of pants feeling" that allowed them to handle the aircraft somewhat better, particularly in yaw, but it's a matter of practice, and ultimately very similar to the kind of precision you need to stick a carrier landing. I've had a ton of problems with it, until I learned how to do it. There's a great post somewhere on the forum from a real taildragger instructor that explains the idea.

Other videos you've seen might be from older sims. DCS F-16 looks amazing, but it's quite unfinished, with several features missing. It's getting better, but it's not as comprehensive as the A-10C, which really does simulate everything, right down to the smallest switch (except the Pave Penny pod, but IRL they were often left disconnected, too). More accurate weapon performance would likely be a significant change, but it's something that you'd likely only notice if you flew the real thing. Physics are the same, and tactics will be mostly the same, too. The devil is in details, using DCS numbers with IRL weapons would likely get you killed against a competent opponent, but the overall physics of BVR and dogfighting don't change. There may be some parts of the envelope that are classified, but it's often possible to make an educated (with CFD) guess. Also, small correction, we usually call them "missiles". There's not much classified about actual rockets, which are unguided and rather straightforward to both model and use.

It does. An AMD card that has the same performance as the Nvidia equivalent in 2D will often suck in VR. One reason to stick is otherwise overpriced Nvidia cards is better VR support. For VR, I could recommend a 3090. While it's not a 4090, you can get it surprisingly cheap, if you have some patience and look out for a good offer. It's a massive power hog and it's so huge it won't fit in every case, but it comes with 24GB of VRAM, which is important for DCS, particularly in VR. I don't know if it outperforms a 4070 Super otherwise, but I'm very happy with mine.

Given the pace of DCS aircraft development, ED may or may not finish the A model before those are available. This could allow us to get the S sometime in the future. It did have an interesting international career.

Oh, so now that you lost on CPU costs, you bring in the cost of the whole system. Yeah, you do need an up to date mobo and RAM, which cost a bit more, but this also means that any upgrade attempt doesn't mean tossing the whole rig. Unless you're reusing parts from an earlier build, you pay less in short term, but set yourself up to pay more in long term. Unless it's explicitly a time critical situation, saving up a little more for an up to date rig is usually going to be a better option. I said a short statement, then, when you started quibbling over caveats, I elaborated on it. I stand by what I said. That you need the obvious part explained out loud doesn't change a thing. It's you doing mental gymnastics to not just justify selling people a suboptimal setup, but also recommending others to build them that way. It's probably great for having people come back when they need another full refresh, but that's all.

I forgot you run a business. I'm sure you get a lot of repeat customers by doing it that way, so to speak. Myself, I base my advice on people getting gear that is not about to be three generations behind the state of art. You did say they drop, but you conveniently forgot to include the little caveat that by the time they do, you can often get a lower tier CPU of the latest generation that will perform just as well, if not better. Now, last gen Intels are a bit of an exception here (they do run nicely, just not for very long), but this is easily resolved by buying an AMD CPU. Case in a point: https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B0CQ27H8VY?context=search https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B09FXNVDBJ?context=search https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4609vs5835/Intel-i7-12700K-vs-Intel-i5-14500 Similar price for similar performance, but one of them runs much cooler and is less of a power hog. Of course, given the problems with Intels (and not just the latest ones), I'd instead look for a Ryzen in the same range. I sure hope your customers are aware you're selling them obsolete hardware and are OK with that. So I'll restate and clarify my point. Between the end of "lunatic fringe cliff" and obsolescence, CPU prices don't really drop off with age, and that's just the way it works. And stay away from anything that's off either side of that range unless you have a very good reason. I thought the latter part was obvious enough, but apparently it doesn't stop some people from quibbling about it.

I'm not saying they don't vary, I'm saying there's no drop like you see with GPUs. You can definitely get a deal, but while a second to last generation GPU. You do get a large benefit from waiting a few months after release, so you're not buying at the "lunatic fringe" price (and also are warned in case the new generation is a major lemon), but that's true of just about everything. In fact, your links helpfully prove my point. Look at average prices for 5800X3D and 7800X3D. The difference is less than $50, and after the "lunatic fringe" cliff, they both oscillate around their average. How the price fluctuates beyond that is immaterial, you can of course save quite a bit if you get it on a sale, but that's true for both. With a bit of shopping around I'm sure you can get the 7800X3D for cheaper than the average price of a 5800X3D. They do eventually drop off in long term, but by that point, they're basically obsolete. So if you want to quibble, yes, they do drop off. At a point when they're not worth actually buying even at that reduced price. Yes, you can get a 12700K for $200, it's even in stock on Amazon. Would you recommend anyone to base their build on that one in 2024?

Unlike GPUs, CPUs generally don't lower their prices. This is odd, but that's how it works. It's typically best to get the latest generation CPU available, because it's going to cost the same as the equivalent lower generation model.

AWG-9 is an older radar set, no wonder modern jamming pods can make problems for it. It's powerful and has a long range, but it can't filter out jamming as effectively as radars with full digital electronics.

Some of those were paper studies, so data could not exist at all. DCS is a "top down" simulation, which requires the devs to take real aerodynamic data and then tune the FM to match it. This pretty much excludes any weird design for which there was not even wind tunnel testing, nevermind an actual, flying test article. For that, you would require a high fidelity "bottom up" simulation, which basically means running CFD in real time. It will be less accurate than what DCS can do due to limitations of discrete modeling, so it will not be to DCS standards. Which is also why using CFD to replace actual flight test data is not going to be an acceptable method for a DCS module.

Except the pressure doesn't drop all across the system, it drops, first of all, at the point of puncture, which is why you see a trail of steam coming out. It can steam for quite a while, too. Until the reservoir is empty, the coolant will continue to cool the engine, and what's more, the evaporating coolant will take quite a bit of heat out of the system, and the fact that evaporation causes steam to expand will constrain the flow rate somewhat. So the system does not actually lose effectiveness until voids begin to appear inside the engine. A single rifle caliber hole won't prevent you from making it back across the channel, assuming you're smart about how hard you run your engine. In fact, I recall an account of a P-51 going quite a ways (though not back to England IIRC, this was post-Normandy) when steaming from a bad encounter with a pair of 190s, though I can't find it now.

The autothrottle in the F-14 is for carrier landing, not for cruising.

This is a bit of an exaggeration. A small bullet hole in a radiator will cause a coolant leak, but until it all leaks out, you'll be fine. There's a lot of water in the system, so unless we're talking a gaping hole in the radiator or a completely severed coolant line, it can run for long enough to get the ship back to the airfield. Also, while it's true that an air cooled engine will be generally tougher to break, both have an oil cooler, and both can be completely destroyed by shooting a hole in the oil system. The only thing is, oil cooler is typically a smaller target. Oil system also typically has a smaller volume, so any leak will kill the engine much more quickly.

Not having the silly radio comms probably does help. It's unreliable, largely unrealistic, and annoying to deal with when not using voice control.

More or less this. On reentry, most of the speed is lost in upper atmosphere, far above 50kft. The Phoenix doesn't go particularly fast by spacecraft standards, and there's very little drag this high up at those speeds. On this phase, the heatshield doesn't glow anymore, and the spacecraft will be in a ballistic descent (unless it's the Space Shuttle, which is gliding at that point). Also, friction isn't the lead cause of reentry heating. Compression is, air can't get out of capsule's way fast enough, so it gets squeezed, and that causes it to heat up. A lot. Civilian reentry vehicles (that is, ones that are not ICBM warheads) have a blunt shape to keep this "bow shock" away from the heatshield's surface, preventing the glowing white plasma from heating it directly. If the heatshield glowed white, it'd be rapidly disintegrating.

If I was to pick one, it'd be the A-10C, because it's very comprehensive, and being the first fixed wing aircraft in DCS, some of its quirks don't hurt it as much. The latest offering from Heatblur will typically be visually impressive, but as far as realism goes, both Phantom and F-14 still lack some features. Phantom is very WIP, the Tomcat is almost done, but is still missing some stuff even from the basic startup checklist, such as EMER GEN and OBC tests. There's probably more things missing in the backseat, but I don't fly as RIO, so I don't know. Meanwhile, in the A-10C you can not only perform all the checklist, you can go into deep menus that you don't need 99% of the time, and change some obscure parameter if it's the 1% of missions where doing that can help you. I wish more time was spent on bringing newer aircraft to that standard. Generally, the older the aircraft, the simpler the systems, but OTOH, modeling an analog radar system is very much a complex task.

It's been already stated that ED is going to add ammo detonations eventually. This was indeed a serious problem, but it required hitting the wing in the specific place, in case of the 109 it was the right wing root, FW-190 had ammo boxes for wing guns, making this easier. Of course, Allied pilots would know to aim for those bits, so I guess it wasn't that rare, but remember that many engagements ended with the bandit bugging out and not being recorded as kill at all, at least until they captured the airfield and found the plane in question augured into a field not far from where the fight took place (or even crashed trying to land because pilot didn't realize he was missing a tire). Did you verify those "hundreds of .50cal holes" in the post-mission log? Because that's very much not my experience. Sure, it happened that I was shooting at the bandit all day and couldn't kill him, but it usually meant I wasn't hitting him a whole lot. The guns are harmonized to converge at a specific distance, and if you're off that distance, you won't be hitting much. Especially when shooting from directly behind, it's very easy to get too close and have the bullets just whizz by. When firing at convergence distance, raking a 190 with a short burst from Spitfire's Hispanos reliably sends it down in flames, and the P-51 doesn't need a whole lot of shooting, either. In DCS they're harmonized to a point, not a box like they were IRL, so it's harder to hit with them, but they hit hard.

On the P-51, they do plenty of damage. Yes, there are four more of them, but either way it doesn't take a whole lot of those bullets to make the target completely unfit to fight. It's also important to recognize when it happens and stop pumping bullets into it. It does not immediately cause the plane to turn into a fireball, but that's not how most WWII kills went down, and neither did ones from Hispano cannon. Most of the time, you've got the bandit leaking all sorts of fluids, and he'd crash some time after, on landing or otherwise. That's the "terrifying" level of damage the 20mm does, a big hole torn out in the wing or in the fuselage. Unless you hit a control surface linkage, you won't see any drastic effect, because by itself, it doesn't cause a huge explosion. There were fuel fires and you could set off ammo explosions, but the vast majority went down without fireworks.

With .303s? Most of them will deflect off the pilot seat armor or even the skin itself, if they hit at a low angle, and if you hit a strut, forget about doing anything to it. These guns were not especially useful, especially by the end of the war. Many models of the Spitfire (just not the one we have in DCS) replaced the two .303s with a single .50 in each wing, which could do some actual damage. The main use I found for the .303s is checking my aim before firing a 20mm burst (they have tracers and ample ammo supply, the 20mm has neither). The other is for strafing infantry.

Not unnecessarily complex, it simply started out in the 80s, they couldn't have made it any smaller and still have it hold all the necessary data. In many ways, it's like an oldtimey console cartridge, only more rugged. The modern version holds over 128GB of data and has a lot of features such as integrated tests and fault detection. This complexity is very much necessary for what it does.