King_Hrothgar

It's probably true that WW2 has the greatest fanbase, the problem is there is nothing new or unique about WW2 or MP multicrew with WW2 bombers. I can go do that right this instant in two other current (or reasonably current) generation high fidelity combat flight sims if I so desire. To get more developers here, DCS needs to show itself to be a more profitable platform than the others. There are things ED could possibly do to make DCS more appealing to additional developers. Addressing some of the concerns by developers like VRS would help. However, I think the biggest thing is simply getting the user base numbers up. The trick there is offering things the overall flight sim community will go nuts for which, due to technical limitations, can't be properly modeled on other platforms. There are a few aircraft that fit that description well. One noteworthy example is the F-14 currently in development. Throw a few youtube ads up alongside the top gun 2 trailer (when they make one) and you might very well break DCS's servers. And I'm not an F-14 fanboy, it isn't on my wishlist at all but I do recognize how incredibly popular it is.

According to the manual (real plane) it has an "AN/ASG-29 Optical Sight." I was unable to find any additional info on it or a picture with the device turned on. However, I think it is purely a weapon sight.

You don't need EOS on the plane itself to target IR missiles like the R-27T. I don't think a single 4th gen US fighter has EOS (some 4.5 upgrades do), but every last one of them can fire a sidewinder.

A bugs subsection would be sensible. Every other module has one, it's strange this one doesn't.

I think a 1970's to 1980's F-104 would fit in very well. I'd happily add that to my collection as it fits right in with the rest of DCS (unlike WW2 and Korea stuff). Like the MiG-21, it should be fairly interesting to fly too. Nothing like a manned missile for a joyride.

I'd be surprised if it's more than 15%.

No FSX developer is going to publicly admit they can't make a decent flight model just as no developer here at DCS is going to admit SFM planes have a garbage flight model. They know it, we know it, but you will never see one of them admit it. In DCS's case, they are being swept away by PFM/EFM. In FSX, it will linger forever since FSX became a dead platform 10 years ago. Back on topic, the reasons are simple: 1) MSFS has been around as an open platform since the 1990's or earlier, DCS opened to third parties only a few years ago. 2) DCS is harder to develop for, in addition to being new. 3) MSFS has a larger market share of overall flight simmers. 4) Microsoft doesn't take a massive sales commission like ED does (ED does support DCS though, so that's a fair trade imho). 5) Any idiot can release payware MSFS content, DCS stuff is vetted to a degree (not enough imho).

There is certainly a place for both. One thing about map design is it has to match what you're trying to do. NTTR is stunningly beautiful in a MiG-21 flying at 5km up over the mountains. The details shown are impressive from that perspective and it doesn't hurt performance a bit compared to the far less pretty Caucasus map. But fly over those same mountains in a UH-1 at 5m AGL and those mountains don't look any better than they do on the old map. The reason is all that amazing detail is actually just textures, the 3d objects are typically just as flat as they are on the old map. I would love to see a dedicated chopper map that may only have 100km by 100km total area with a 75km by 75km detailed area. But in that area it would use actual 3d objects instead of textures to fake 3d objects. This map could look absolutely awful from an F-15 at 5km+ too, so long as it looks amazing at 0-1000m where tanks and choppers normally play. But that's all a bit OT, I don't expect LNS to take that plunge given their lack of interest in choppers. Back on topic, I expect LNS's map will be mostly water and will not have any Russian territory at all. The AJS-37 is primarily an anti-ship plane after all. It will be most at home over the Baltic Sea.:smilewink:

1) SA-342 Gazelle 2) F-5E 3) Bo-105 Both the Mi-24 and AH-1 beat all three on what I look forwards to most, but they are not officially announced.

The Ka-50's cockpit is a beautiful shade of black.:D In regards to choppers, you will need a rudder axis. I flew for many years with just a twist stick X-52 Pro, it worked just fine so pedals themselves are not required. But given the TMWH doesn't have twist, you will definitely need pedals. This isn't just a matter of flying properly, you will not get off the ground without crashing unless you have proper rudder control. The same is true of the WW2 fighters.

Been brought up a million times and even the mods who like to delete/merge these threads jump in from time to time. It's a known limitation and ED has mentioned they'd like to improve it at some point. As far as I know, there is no ETA on this nor has there been any mention of current work on it. So this is something that's probably a long ways off.

Good to see another developer hop onto DCS, especially one interested in making choppers. Best of luck to you. :)

Well if you're going with US aircraft only, that does limit your options a bit at this time. The P-51D is decently modeled for just flying around, but DCS simply doesn't support WW2 combat at this time due to a lack of units, serious limitations in the damage modeling and the AI flight models. My recommendation on that is thus based on what you want to do with it. If you want to do virtual airshows and sightseeing, it's great, if you want WW2 combat, you're playing the wrong flight sim. The F-86 is well made and though it suffers from the same damage modeling limitations the WW2 stuff does, it's less pronounced. Unfortunately, it is lacking 1950's content, so there isn't much to do with that either except battle MiG-15's and do a bit of ground attack against infantry. I've gotten more enjoyment out of it than the P-51D, but I find the MiG-15 the more enjoyable plane from that period so typically fly that instead if I'm in that kind of mood. It does have some interesting flight characteristics though. The handling can best be described as "different" once you get it above about mach .8. It will break mach 1 in a dive, but it's only semi-controllable when doing so. The hydraulic system is also a bit weird, you can apply elevator or aileron, but not both at the same time when at high speed. This makes high speed dogfighting a little trickier than it already is. These are not your only two non-Russian options of course, there is also the UH-1, Mirage 2000, Fw-190, Bf-109K (190 and 109 have same problems the P-51 has) and the L-39 (Czech, not Russian). The UH-1 is a lot of fun. From a systems standpoint, I think it's the simplest aircraft in the game. But learning to fly it takes some time, especially if it's your first chopper. It also gets 4 mini guns and rocket pods which are a ton of fun against soft targets that don't shoot back too much. The Mirage 2000 is a very typical western design, you should feel right at home coming from the A-10C. However, it's also far from complete. The radar isn't terribly functional at this time (no IFF or slewing) and the navigation system has yet to be programmed, but in a few months I think it might be your best bet. The L-39 probably isn't what you're looking for, but it is worth a mention. It uses Russian radios and differential braking, and yet also uses very western looking controls for things like flaps, landing gear and many other bits. The L-39C doesn't offer much beyond virtual aerobatics (which is fun imho) but the soon to be released L-39ZA should be a proper COIN aircraft with a 23mm cannon and up to 64x S-5 rockets or 1000kg of bombs.

That is a very important factor that has often been overlooked in flight sims. IL2:BoS/BoM is a prime example of this. RoF, their previous product, has all those great things from the 1990's sims that were lost over the years. It has newspaper clippings, famous aces in game that can be fought and killed as well as your own virtual squadron with individual pilots (with their own stats, medals, status) and planes. It's amazing from a gameplay standpoint, never mind simulation. And then there is BoS which threw all that away in favor of a randomized quick mission builder. I don't think there is a single person who actually likes BoS's campaign, and yet its campaign along with DCS's static campaigns are characteristic of modern flight sims. It's an unfortunate turn and certainly hurts flight sims in general.

^The F-5E has seen extensive combat over the years, most notably fighting MiG-21Bis's where the two are very evenly matched. The plane is also well known for superb handling characteristics and simply being a blast to fly. That's it's appeal. It happens to be #1 on my western fighter wishlist, easily beating the F-4, F-14, F-15 and F-16. The F-18C is a close second though. The AJS-37's appeal is being one of those funky Swedish planes no one but Swedes buy (in real life). To me, that doesn't mean much since I'm not Swedish. I'm mostly interested in a supersonic striker with guided missiles which the AJS-37 provides. I think it will be fun to use on 104th's server, but I doubt I'll mess with it much outside of that. As for quality, I expect they will be comparable. Both BST and LNS have released good quality products so far. The F-5E probably won't have a campaign while the AJS-37 likely will, but I don't care for static campaigns in flight sims anyways. So that just isn't a concern for me.

This would be a good change, +1.

A lot depends on how you define a flight sim. If you consider P3D/FSX, X-Plane, RoF, IL2:BoX and DCS as the only flight sims currently in existence, then we're probably at around a million players world wide. If you consider War Thunder and similar arcade flying games as flight sims too, then it's a whole lot more. I do remember flight sims being a mainstream game type back in the 1990's. I even saw a Falcon 4.0 TV commercial when I was a kid (how I heard about it). But in the early 2000's, the flight sim market collapsed. I think it can be traced to a simple matter of difficulty. In the 1990's, even the hardest of the hardcore flight sims were less realistic and easier to learn than War Thunder is today. The strive for greater realism is what killed the genre as a mainstream genre. I do not regret the change as I was always a hardcore aviation fan, but that change did make it a niche market. Incidentally, the more arcadish ones like WT do have fairly broad appeal. Last time I logged in, they were pushing 50k+ concurrent users pretty much all the time.

Yes. It's also worth noting that every multiseat aircraft in the game right now allows this too. The UH-1, Mi-8 and L-39 all allow the player to use all flying functions from any seat, even when using the door gunners on the Huey. Regardless, it sounds like the AP should be good enough that an AI helper won't be needed for flying.

The comments section is just as good as the article: :lol:

A 1970's F-4E would be my pick too as it fits well with many other DCS units (both playable and AI only). It's also the best fit for the IRIAF, which is rather important given the SoH map. In terms of specific blocks, I think a ground attack focused one would be best. The reasoning is fairly simple, we are already getting two thoroughbred fighters from that period (F-5E + F-14A), so a proper fighter-bomber would add more than another pure fighter I think. Regardless, I still think the Russian side needs a little love first. A MiG-23ML/MLA/MLD or MiG-25PD should come first.

As said, it's mixed. I fly with my eyes outside the cockpit typically, so during the day the sensor differences are marginal anyways. Hence I think I'd favor the greater firepower of the Ka-50 unless I needed fire and forget missiles for some specific reason. The only thing that comes to mind where I would need them is if I knew I was going after an osa or tor. Those are a pain to deal with in the Ka-50, but everything else is fairly easy.

IAS is a measure of pressure, not actual speed. So as long as you have enough pressure, you won't stall. Compressability alters this somewhat, but you have to keep in mind that these are supersonic aircraft, not subsonic ones. If you look at something like the F-86 and MiG-15, which can both have too little IAS and too much mach at the same time, they can run into those problems in theory. In practice I've never found it a problem as they simply don't fly high enough. But they can have some very narrow operating speed brackets at higher altitudes.

Doubtful, but mostly because the trainer fad is largely over. I would like some decent modern COIN aircraft like the Yak-130 and A-29 at some point, and those are considered trainers too, but they are pretty far down my wishlist tbh. I don't know off hand what kind of ground attack abilities the L-159 has. As for development difficulties, I don't think there are any sort of secrecy issues with any of these aircraft. Pretty sure you can call up Yak, EMB or Aero and order one of these aircraft right now if you have $15-20 million USD to blow.

No, the Texan II is an unrelated aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_T-6_Texan_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_312_Tucano

I understand the time and resources thing. Ultimately it comes down to a very simple question of do you want DCS: Tucano as a little side project after the Harrier before moving onto something else or do you want DCS: Super Tucano as the next big project? For my part, I'd buy the Super Tucano but probably pass on the regular Tucano. I'm certainly not alone in that, the Super Tucano clearly has far wider appeal. But whether or not that justifies making it the next big project instead of something like the F-15E is another matter. Not an easy decision to make, good luck!:bye: Edit: Yeah, the AT-802U was funny but I'd actually like to see a modern COIN plane or two. The AT-802U and Super Tucano are prime candidates, I have no preference between them at this time. Another one I'd go for is the Yak-130.