Temetre

Yeh thats my stance too. Hesitant to buy anything till the RB situations is cleared up. Im not happy with EDs radio silence on this major issue.

Aye, that makes sense. Theres probably also gradients to how the M2K handles it, im not 100% sure. Neat tho

Interesting. Is it done like in RBs M2K, which afaik assumes a static percentage of RCS with tail/side/top/bottom for all aircraft? (like as a made up example, frontally it might always assume planes to reflect 80% RCS) I wouldnt worry about that tbh. Mind, the F-4E is from the same time as the Mig-21. Meaning you rely on EWRS warning planes, and youre not really reliant on finding targets with the radar, and youre not reliant on BVR combat anyway. Even in the worst case, you will be able to skip most radar complexity with dogfight-radar modes that go up to 5 miles out, which is well above the engagement range of a Mig-21 or often even Mirage F1 carrying Matra 550s. Also, just looking at the manual, the jester functionality seems to be heavily expanded and much more easy to control. It honestly sounds quite impressive as to how HB improved Jester, and I imagine hell be easier to manage than in the F-14 anyway, considering long range BVR/TWS shennanigans arent of concern in the Phantom.

Some seem completely useless for non-nuclear, others seem very niche, like Dive Laydown for horizontal clusterbomb delivery. But even Dive Toss apparently was reliant on good maintenance and well trained pilot/WSO, and thats the 'easiest' to use mode.

Aye, Im aware Afghanistan has a lot more going on than just more recent COIN stuff. Wags was however highlighting that its the modern map and will likely be mostly about COIN missions; if people will follow that logic or not is ofc another question, but it threw up the question. The problem with mission design is that DCS only really supports heavily scripted and predictable missions; Im not sure how much this lends itself to the chaotic/unpredictable nature of COIN missions. AI enemies cant react dynamically to players' presence and actions, which imo would be a core feature of counter insurgency. Besides the lacking of autonomy, im also concerned about the general AI. For example, ground units struggle to move in a straight line often enough without getting stuck, their situational awareness is not simulated. Neither is the allimportant factor of suppression, let alone realistic fragmentation damage from bombs. COIN often relies on the inferiority of anti-air of insurgents, but there is very little limitation to AA-fire in DCS; a single AK trooper might fire with the awareness and precision of a highly trained Gepard SPAAG crew. They also are not limtied by night-time, as another issue. All in all I dont see the technical basis for COIN operations in current DCS. So I wonder if (or rather hope) were gonna get some big AI upgrades with that map coming?

Its a bit hard to see how Afghanistans' focus on COIN gameplay is gonna be realized, with the current limitations of DCS' AI, ground units and air defense, as well as the very static/scripted mission structure. (Wags said Afghanistan is intended to be a counter insurgency focussed maps, see the recent interview below:)

Why do you even want an Afghanistan map then?

Aye. Suppose ill wait for more detailed info when people start trying the EA. Your GPU/PC got a bunch more memory than anyone elses^^

Imo it would be nice to get some information on that before pre-ordering. Like, estimated, how much memory is full Afghanistan gonna be, how will does it perform at release (and later with more optimization) compared with Syria, for example? I would expect high quality from the map, the trailer speaks for itself, but performance is always a big issue in DCS. Multithreading is nice, but object density, RAM/VRAM usage and disk usage is pushing a lot of systems to the maximum already.

Tbh as muhc as I love destructible terrain in games, its usually very difficult to make work technically and performance wise. Especially in massive open world games as DCS. Stuff like runway destruction shouldnt be as difficult tbf.

Tbh theres more talk around explaining the weird sales models than there is selling the map to us. Like, why is this map 70 bucks worth, when eg Syria was 50? Why should we buy another map with very similar terrain to the other ones? Tell us why the map is worth buying, besides the very basic marketing blips. The map certainly looks cool, come on ED, sell us the idea of the map and why your approach is special. Splitting the maps up like this also seems nedlessly complicated, as indicated by the amount of questions it creates; even the long FAQ doesnt exaplain everything. Theres now gonna be 7 different combinations of the 3 map versions; and compatability of missions/campaigns/servers will be kind of a struggle, since terrain quality will affect visibility even in BFM, let alone anything ground based. When I dogfight using the low quality version, will just be able to dive into where cities would be, and the high quality players seems me warping through buildings?

Oh thats finnally been fixed? Cool!

Ive also seen Zabu on the Discord mention some pretty big bugs: For example it was like, whenever the target altitude would be above current planet altitude, the pod would just go stupid and revert to fallback mode. They did make a version with fixed software and stuff later. I think the HB F-4 will have both versions.

Aye, so also might be a maintenance issue in Vietnam? Or pilot mistake, wouldnt be the first time that causes issues with new tech (see Sparrow^^).

Thx

Wait so the F1M has no IFF interrogator either? I thought it was upgrade with one

You already got good answers, but ive heard some anecdotes about Dive Toss. Apparently some pilots disliked it, but a few also got really well trained in it and had really good results. So its definitely been used to effect, even if it wasnt always popular. I imagine thats also gonna be the most commonly used mode, its amazing in the A4 SKyhawk.

Yes, I also had the autopilot stop working after a dogfight in the F-1EE. Wonder if its an issue with INS or magnetic compass being confused? Or mb I needed to use the throttles autopilot lever/button in combination with the AP-button to reenable it Could be degraded systems or user error.

Well put. I always like to point out how much of the combat is about the environment. Sure the F-18 gives you a ton of situational awareness, but you will absolutely need that awareness when you deal with modern SAMs and missiles. When you sit in a 70s scenario in a Phantom or Mirage F1, you wont face as many scary things. And heck, those two for example are well ahead of most of the competition (like Mig-21s). The "easy of flying" really isnt that big of a deal. Ive learned flying in IL2 Sturmovik, flying WW2 fighter aircraft. Only difficult thing is visibility while landing imo. F-4 is probably gonna be luxury compared to that.

So theres ways to start the F-4 with rapid alignment, which limits the alignment process to 2.25 minutes, rather than 10 (or sometimes even 20) minutes for highest accuracy. (ignoring stored heading) What systems would suffer from such a rapid alignment? Obviously the nav computer error becomes bigger, but the WRCS, Radar and sight are also all fed information from the INS; but its not clear to what extend those are hurt, if at all. From Zabu we also know that Pave Spike stabilization is worse. Couldnt really find information about the effects of poor alignment from a short skim of the manual.

Yeh, and apparently tried in test aircraft, but those were probably wired specifically for that role then.

I find this requirement for 2FA for tirlas really disappointing, the Google Authenthicator comes with a ton of issues. From privacy issues, security concerns, to potentially getting locked out of an account (eg if the smartphone breaks). Using GA will actually reduce my general level of security, not enhance it. In the meanwhile, I never ever had a problem with an account (connected to paid content) getting stolen, in my entire life. This also follow a path of ED that just seems disrespectful for its customers and supporters. The lockout of steam/standalone being used at the same time, and now the forced 2FA is creating an ever less pleasant user experience with more restrictions and garbage forced onto me. @BIGNEWY I hope ED is getting some feedback about how their treatment of costumers has been getting more obnoxious. Im willing to deal with the aggressive DRM and high pricing, because they make amazing stuff. But limiting access to this is getting more problematic.

Tbh I think a lot of people here got a quite america- or at least vietnam-centric view. That is DCS though. The plane variants are so exact, you almost never get a perfect matchup for anything. Thats just not possible. The F-4E well get is imo a good choice because its quite versatile, especially if you limit equipment.

According to the manuals ive seen only outboard and center station take brrt pods

Tbf im meming too. But yeh, armchair internet discussions are fun. After all were pretend flying military aircraft in a video game