AndrewDCS2005

Just tried this out. Target: T-72 under railway bridge Platform: F/A-18 Weapon: GBU-12 Fuze: FMU-152 set to function delay 0.18s Config: EFUZ=DLY1 on stores page While the GBU-12 goes through the bridge and doesn't detonate immediately on impact, in the 0.18s of delay before detonation it continues to move beyond initial point of impact and detonates around ~30ft from the target. So the question is how this scenario is expected to be carried out for targets below bridges (or hangars/shelters?) - shorter delay leads to premature detonation, longer delay detonates off target since the weapon seems to move under the surface quite a bit. Track attached. F18-GBU12-tank-under-bridge.trk

@razo+r thanks for the hint! The compass is only available on in-flight map view via F10. It is not available in Mission Editor or Mission Planner which is bizzare and led to my request. Ruler with distance + TH + MH also only available on in-flight F10 map view. ME only has distance + TH. Will update topic to reflect the ask more precisely.

Why do I need a compass and ruler? Because these are fundamental tools required to work with the map. Like pencil with paper. In practical terms, planning the ingress/egress bearings, PUP and TOT with landscape and altitudes taken into account (say ingress on 180 goes over a hill at 20nm range, while ingress on 90 goes over flat fields for >50nm). Also there's no ruler in DCS, only distance measurement between two points. Ruler is this thingie below, which I can move and rotate over the map. @Pizzicato where is a current compass implementation on DCS maps please?

Need a compass and range tool (combined) overlay to be able to use on any map. Movable and resizable, ideally multiple instances on one map. Showing true/magnetic bearings taking into account current datetime set on map/mission, relative bearing between any two points. Range built-in, showing distance in currently selected units (metric/imperial).

Congratulations Currenthill and great job ED listening and acting in interest of your customers!

Great, thank you for clarification @NytHawk

Umm, maybe a stupid question but this definitely wasn't the case earlier (at least few releases back). Leading edge flaps on F-16 seem to be misaligned, in a slightly elevated position. Is this just a visual glitch or has impact on the FM too? Same misaligned position in-flight around zero AoA

Just tested CCRP with MK82 LD, HD, RET - for each with two bombs released, all direct hits, no issues.

@jojyrocks the track for MK82 lasts one second, there's nothing to see.

CBU99 seems to indeed fall short. Conditions: Caucasus, no wind, 20 degrees C, 750mm Hg, targets at near-zero ASL. Weapon/fuzing: CBU99, Mk339 mod 1 fuze, 2s PRI delay. Platform/config: F/A-18C, CCIP, QTY=2, INT=100ft Results: 0 targets hit/0 kills on first run, 1 hit/1 kill on the second run. There are actually two problems with CBU99 1 - it falls short 2- its spread pattern is much smaller than MK20 despite being exactly the same weapon, in the same SUU-75/A/B dispensers, with the same load of 247 MK 118 MOD 0 HEAT bomblets. And it does not really work as a cluster bomb weapon, and only direct hits on individual target will work. To kill a group of spread units CBU99 is much less effective. MK20 in the same dispenser with the same Mk339 fuze and the same config, released in the same conditions, covers more area. I am not reporting this as a separate issue as there's zero chance of it being fixed (its been like this since forever and no one ever raised this). FA18-CBU99-CCIP.trk

MK20 Rockeye works for me, similar as it worked before. Conditions: Caucasus, no wind, 20 degrees C, 750mm Hg, targets at near-zero ASL. Weapon/fuzing: Rockeye MK20, Mk339 mod 1 fuze, 2s PRI delay. Platform/config: F/A-18C, CCIP, QTY=2, INT=100ft (releasing two MK20s at once, separated by 100ft to cover more area with more dense hits) Results: 5 targets hit/5 kills on first run, 3 hit/1 kill on the second run. In general its not very easy to achieve accuracy with MK20 with MK339 clock fuzing - release altitude, speed, dive angle (ie velocity vector and its length) all matter a lot, which makes sense from physics/geometry perspective. I found most useful the combo of 3-4kft release alt, 300+kt speed, 30-40 degrees dive. Subjectively the first hits in the spread are always a bit short of CCIP pipper on release, but not way off as it was broken last year (where it fell short by > 1 mile). FA18-CBU-MK20-CCIP.trk

Tested now with zero wind, temperature 10 degrees Celsius, pressure 750mm Hg, target at 10m ASL (truck in the middle, orange cross on the pic). Always pressed weapon release when CCIP pipper was exactly over the target, in a series of 6 runs in a mix of shallow and deeper dives. Results below - looks like the hits are 15-20m short. F16-Mk82-CCIP-hits.trk

Still this is a bug with F-16 FCR implementation (when TNDL donors provide tracks and these get correlated). FCR and HSD have wrong symbology - displaying search targets (not enough radar data, properly shown as small solid squares) as track targets (with enough radar data for bugging and subsequent shooting, properly shown as larger solid squares). Hope this gets fixed in some upcoming patch.

Okay. Got the answers to most important questions I had - in the 2025/beyond and the discussion following in F-35 thread. ED just made a bet with its brand existence, its entire frigging history since 90s, everything it has ever done so far, its identity and its soul. This is all on the table now, for one and the only real reason - revenue and money making. Fancy attention-grabbing 5th gen from USA and later Russia and China which will follow through the same door of "full fidelity as in best available in the sim market" - yep this will expand the userbase and create new sources of revenue. The number of years this feat will take is inversely proportional to current ARR - 2030+ might be good news, anything coming out in CY27 or earlier will mean a totally different ED than we knew all these years, desperately fighting for life. I feel really sorry for ED folks who need to hold this banner now, coming with their bare hands and words against a tough hard reality.

@Raptor9 sure, no need to explain there's no MSI in F-16 and FCR tracks are needed to bug the targets. Now with the word symbology being stressed, we're getting closer to the issue Please let me ask a simple question: how does FCR (while in TWS and with presence of TNDL donored tracks) show track targets which have sufficient radar data? ED's own F-16 guide, TWS section, pages 344-345 says it is larger solid square for track targets, and larger empty square for system targets. In the track (no pun intended) attached above, in the state where there's no sufficient radar data to build the tracks (and hence bugging and shooting is N/A), it shows first image below - with larger solid squares. In the track (attached), in the state where there IS sufficient radar data and tracks are there, with subsequent bugging and shooting available, it shows second image below - with larger solid squares. How is the pilot supposed to know in the first case there's no track yet while FCR page says the opposite, with larger solid squares? F16-TWS-TNDL-OK.trk

@Raptor9 thank you for looking into this and keeping the discussion going - really appreciate it, and I'd like to get to the root of it. However, your response is a bit puzzling. There are no questions or concerns on the time and range to have radar tracks. Of course, reducing scan volume and bars speeds it up, of course higher RCS leads to higher detection range, etc. This is all good and no issues here. The discussion is only about what happens after that, in TWS mode where radar tracks correlate with TNDL-provided tracks. In the repro track above, I waited for FCR to build solid track targets (using official F-16 doc terminology), and then I waited a bit more (ignore the time, will wait as long as needed). You've mentioned these tracks due to TNDL correlation automatically upgrade to system targets, fine. FCR and HSD pages both show me as the pilot the tracks and targets are already there. Targets stayed within scan volume, and didn't go outside of it at all. At this point, with FCR in TWS submode, cycling through these targets via TMS right and shooting simultaneously must work. There are only 2 targets, with radar tracks established - meets the criteria in your bolded quote above. And yet it doesn't work as shown in track above. This is a bug in the baseline scenario. And what makes it weird is exactly the same setup and conditions and TWS works well without TNDL donors. Donor tracks do not alter physical ownship FCR capabilities and does not suddenly prevent FCR from detecting and building target tracks.

@Raptor9 thank you for your elaborate explanation! All clear and all makes sense. Just a small step back to reestablish the context of this thread and discussion, which is pretty simple - use TWS to shoot at multiple targets simultaneously, where targets first came from TNDL donor, before being detected by FCR as radar tracks. This maps to some real-world CAP scenario where AWACS detects hostile targets at greater distance than F-16 APG-68 FCR. Let's look at a repro reduced down to very simple case - two targets, 12h, hot, picked up by E-2D as donor, then FCR. Targets stay within 30-degree FCR scan bars and volume while in TWS, no maneuvering. You've mentioned the following: Okay, let's say this was the case and for a moment put aside colors and shapes. I waited a bit for the targets to stay in this state, then pressed TMS right once. Nothing happened. Waited a sec or two, pressed TMS right again. Nothing happened. Waited few more seconds, pressed TMS right again. Now the right target became bugged. Okay, lets say I need to shoot at the left one first. Pressed TMS right to switch the target - nothing happened. Pressed TMS right three more times - no result. Stopped and saved the track, attached below. Now, there are two options here: - TWS worked fine, and these two radar tracks were upgraded to system tracks automatically after TNDL correlation. But TMS right did nothing. So there is a bug in TMS. - FCR/HSD showed the same visual shape/color indication for both targets as TWS system tracks, but this was incorrect due to known issue mentioned in shapes/colors. In either case, shooting at two targets in TWS is not happening and the pilot has no indication why. F16-TWS-TNDL-broken.trk

-camera -151.671563 9.923674 -1030.832497 -cameradir 0.301538 -0.926752 -0.224066

-camera -133.193226 1.859866 -1047.311145 -cameradir -0.722285 -0.552042 0.416598

-camera -124.430027 4.841960 -1048.344868 -cameradir -0.222352 -0.880134 -0.419433

Dear fellows, if ED would be given money for next 5 years and work exclusively on Dynamic Campaign and nothing, absolutely nothing else, it still might not land. As was shared in earlier comments and videos by ED staff, they have highly fragmented skillsets and single-digit number of employees per topic, and tough challenges to hire professionals in the niche field of flight simulation. 1-2 folks specialized in missiles. 1-2 persons specialized in PFMs. Few people visual modeling. Few people in AI. DCE would need 10 times ED to work out, with all the deep and complex dependencies in AI units behavior, precise state persistence down to milliseconds of entire mission and every single unit and their actions. And heck, lets imagine Santa is real and DCE lands. How much money it will bring to ED? In today's pricing model, near zero - very unlikely net new users will show up and start buying paid modules just because of DCE. This is the very ugly elephant in the room. In current model, DCE is net negative - taking time and money from the business already stretched thin. Created separate thread to discuss and vote on alternative pricing proposal, and keep this thread to DCE dreaming and venting

I highly respect Eagle Dynamics and think it is a great company of professionals, doing tremendous job in a very specialized and complex field, for 33 years and counting. I love DCS and think it is absolutely amazing flight simulator, a world class product with users ranging from students to professional militaries across the globe. It lets me get closer to the dream of flying high-energy aircraft with high fidelity, the one I'd not be able to do IRL. Dreams are priceless and I've spent 15 years with it, promoting it whenever I can and bringing my friends and their teenage kids into DCS too I want both to succeed, be great for next 15 years or more, and maybe one day see a totally unbelievable next-generation flight sim we can't imagine possible today. And to achieve this, ED needs to scale its revenue and funding to next level, 10x. Current model with fixed-price modules paid once by each user has reached its limits and won't support long-term success. Here's some data to back up this statement: ED is mostly focused on cranking out new modules as fast as they possibly can (because money need to come every month), leading to half-baked releases. We've already seen this happening. Flagship modules remain in "Early Availability" for 5+ years and are not getting finished. Because everyone interested has already bought them 5y ago, and they no longer generate substantial new revenue. We've already seen this happening. Quality takes a hit, with high-impact bugs in important areas gets introduced every few updates or stay non-fixed for years. Because earlier released modules were already bought by users and do not generate new revenue but only take precious capacity from very small team overburdened by a lot of very complex work in so many areas. We've already seen this happening. Highly wanted major new capabilities (Dynamic Campaign, GFM, etc) have been talked about for 5, sometimes 10 years, with nothing actually shipped. Because none of these would generate revenue, or maybe only very indirectly, in very limited amounts (not being sold as separate modules or products), since they are not real game-changers and have some alternatives. We've already seen this happening. Some very passionate, devoted contributors to DCS success, who have put many years and ton of money to make it better, resign and stop contributing. Because they get tired by fighting all the issues, missing capabilities, and creating make-believe setups with ton of very fragile scripting down to the seconds, which breaks every now and then. We've already seen this happening. Some long-term and passionate users, who has bought anything they can, now say "not buying EA stuff anymore". Because they start losing trust in ED to deliver on its promises, and this is very, very dangerous to ED as a business, since this does not expand the userbase (and revenue) but shrinks it. To address the monthly revenue problem, to pay for existing and new work, to scale the team, and to invest into the future-looking R&D, the proposal is for ED to change the pricing model. Instead of charging 80$ once per module, charge 5$ monthly for DCSW itself (which needs to pay for all the weather, sea land and air simulations and shared features such as DCE), and charge somewhere in few USD range monthly per module (assuming average lifespan of user engagement at 5 years, or maybe more?). Say 15$ monthly per user with 10 modules. This might be unpopular, but the numbers above are just back-of-the-napkin estimates and can be adjusted for local market/regional purchasing power, based on more precise business math by ED. And what are the alternative funding sources? Doubling ED MAU every year? I do my best but in a very niche product and high time investments needed, this is unlikely. Finding some rich person/charity donate 10M+ USD every year to ED? That would be nice but more of a dream than practical reality. Please vote and comment.