SabreDancer

The map's natural terrain is fantastic, and I love the intricate scenery the map provides. You can see the how sand moves over the desert, and there are plenty of different kinds of desert terrain. Sand dunes are quite different from rocky mountainous regions, and you can really imagine how tough it would be to traverse it all on foot. The greenness of the Nile Delta is quite the shock when flying in from out of the region! The airbases are excellent, and a high point of the map. It's really cool seeing how different the airbases feel between Egypt and Israel, and how intricate their layouts have become to avoid another Operation Focus like back in '67. I've admittedly always been put off by how the cities, towns, terrain types and roads are laid out. They feel very artificial to me, and are a prominent negative point of the map. Incredibly dense suburbs with no roads leading out of them surrounded by green fields. An entire massive, bustling factory complex can sit in the middle of yet another empty field with no roads going in or out, and luxury condos can exist in perfect geometric shapes whose residential streets starkly end right at the desert. The map isn't bad, but it isn't a stand-out either, and I hope that this coming update announced by the devs will breathe new life into it.

It's not quite what you may have wanted to hear, but you can't. Rain and clouds block IR, hence merely seeing different shades of green when in the clouds. You can perhaps coordinate with a FAC to bomb targets of opportunity through the clouds, or bomb pre-planned coordinates as you have been doing. Our specific Harrier model is a fair weather attack aircraft, lacking a radar which would enable it to acquire and hit targets through cloud cover or rain. The AV-8B II+ model did carry the APG-65 radar taken from now-upgraded Hornets, in exchange for removing the DMT.

South Atlantic has a somewhat low amount of airfields both currently and eventually, and most are very small (4-8 parking spots) with short runways as well. It's very pretty, and I love the naval focus it has in addition to South America proper, but I've found it very difficult to make missions for because of this. It also has a very large install size (~60-80GB or such) if that's an important metric.

In the F-4E manual, on the 4.3.3.2 cluster bomb page, it notes: Currently in-game, the PRI option is always used regardless of nose/tail fuse setting.

Indeed, the -35 arrived just after the end of the war as far as I know, and definitely didn't fight there; a -15 or -30 would be lovely. It interestingly mirrors this thread, where our F-4E is an actual variant but not the one used in the war it is most associated with. Going back on topic, I like the Aerges approach to this situation with the F1EE. You can toggle between the older BF RWR and the newer, 90s ALR-300 upgrade depending on which era you want to model, and I could see that same approach working for the APR-36. It still admittedly wouldn't be a period-correct Vietnam plane, but it would be a nice step in that direction.

It's a bit off topic, but what is Frankensteined about the F-86? Until now I thought it to be a faithful F-86F-35, with the correct -35 cockpit, LABS, non-slatted 6-3 wing and additional late 50s update to carry sidewinders as historically occurred.

There are a few more steps too, although I haven't been able to reliably get them on target: For direct fire: set weapon delivery mode to DIRECT and weapon selector to ARM, point at the radar source until your ears bleed, then press bombs release button. For WRCS mode (ostensibly the most accurate), set delivery mode to AGM-45 and weapon selector to ARM. On the center pedestal, set the tgt/norm switch to DEF REJ to prioritize WRCS firing command. Enable ADI needles, then follow the steering commands (which, in my little bit of testing, is the same as aiming right at the launcher). Have the WSO set target altitude above sea level as well. Hold bomb release button, then wait for steering commands via the AOA indicator as described above. Missile will automatically fire when release conditions met. (Either there's a bug or I'm doing it wrong- the AOA cues don't appear unless I hold the bomb release button down, but if I hold down the bomb release button too soon, they also don't appear.) LOFT mode is described in the manual, but the relevant Jester commands and lookup tables are currently absent. Even following these to the letter, and having the correct seeker heads, the Shrikes rarely track radars, so I am in the same boat.

"Any" is doing a bit of heavy lifting- Punta Arenas and RAF Mount Pleasant have 8,500 foot/2600m runways which even the heaviest aircraft in the game can land at (assuming the C-17, IL-76 and B-52 with full bombload and 100% fuel are indicative), for example. I decided to have a go at it, though. If we are meaning "is there any airfield that X aircraft can't take off or land from", the B-52 cannot take off or land at Almirante Schroeder's 4500 foot runways, while the C-17 and IL-76 can just barely land and take off there. The H-6 can land there, but can't take off. The B-52 can juuuuuust barely land at Rio Turbio's 5100 foot runway. Oddly, it can't take off on the actual runway itself, and it rolls off the end, but in-game it remains perfectly intact and takes off as if nothing was wrong. I'm not sure whether that counts, but I found it worth noting for gameplay purposes. So I'd say 5100 feet and under is the cutoff point for "which runway is the smallest that an aircraft can neither take off or land from".

I'd love to have PAR available in DCS, as well.

I understand non-precision approaches can handle the job well enough in-game, but it's more fun to have one than not. Foreign customers in real life felt the need to have it, after all, as did the US on their T-38s.

While watching this video (at 4:10): I began to wonder whether it would be much work to add in an ILS receiver to the F-5. While the late 1980s USAF Aggressor F-5Es modeled in-game may not have been equipped with them, T-38s in the US and F-5Es flown by other nations possessed ILS receivers, and it would add a good deal of flexibility to the plane. US manuals for the F-5E-1 include sections on ILS functionality and equipment, such as at page 1-100 to 1-106 of this manual: https://www.docdroid.com/51orrvC/northrop-f-5ef-flight-manual-pdf#page=111 And changes from the -3 subvariant I have seen do not mention that has changed. As the F-5 needs one more VOR/ILS panel and an added ILS mode to the existing TACAN/DF switch, and VOR/ILS functionality exists within other aircraft made by ED, this may be feasible with low developer workload. The in-game Tiger is currently a fair weather fighter, unable to make a precision instrument approach, and would benefit greatly from all-weather landing capability.

I was intrigued by the addition of an optional imperial unit cockpit (in certain aspects) during this recent update. However, looking in-game, I cannot seem to find where to enable or change this. In the special tab for the Viggen, it only has the option to select imperial stickers, which adds a conversion table beneath the HUD unit but does not change the altimeter or distance indicator. Similarly, in the mission editor, there are only the RB04 logic, weapon safety height and cartridge restriction options. Would there be a way to enable this, or did it not make the cut to be put in-game at this time?

Would the first part not already be available in-game through Copy Settings > Radio Settings > All Allied Units Of This Type?

Separate from the matter of motorways, what might the circles or lines around the airfields represent?

As one more possible aid, do you add curves to your joystick? It's incredibly helpful for fine aircraft control in situations like air to air refueling.

It looks from the video to be pilot-induced oscillation. Getting out of position in comparison to the tanker, overcorrecting steering in an attempt to go back to center, then noticing and overcorrecting the other direction, etc. Unfortunately the track is broken from my perspective, and seems to show the aircraft flying below and past the tanker.

It doesn't fix the issue of the new trigger, but in that situation I would use "unit life less than ___%", and have it set to "less than 100%" for the vehicles in the convoy. Other options include "unit damaged" or "unit hits successful". It's still not perfect since all of these require a damaging hit, but it's reasonably close I think.

Reading this, I may need a little help understanding what you mean by having a Boom and Zoom option. Would this be a kind of altitude/energy preset for an instant action mission?

I took it to call for a forceable option as well. One of my gripes with the current NVG/JHMCS setup for the F-16 and F/A-18 (among others) is that they can't be made unavailable to players, so someone playing a scenario set in 1998 could just ask the ground crew to throw on a JHMCS.

Made this a while back but never thought to post it to the forums! Hope you enjoy.

Is it a bug? Or a way to make players do the proper startup checks

Just from random testing wondering if things have improved, I placed down a couple dozen BMPs, 60 infantry, 24 technicals, etc. and flew over and around them in an A-10 several times. It seems that something has changed! The a mount of laser-accurate fire is pretty low now, and almost every shot misses even when in level flight. The only AAA and ground units in general which I could get to reliably hit very often were the Shilka and Flakvierling (oddly, if expectedly). Better ground unit targeting perhaps.trk

I figure it's similar enough to ask here instead of making a new post- has anyone else had the issue of their radios/intercom always coming up red even when other players are on the same frequency or in the plane with you? Voice Chat/Turn servers are enabled.

I suppose I was mistaken, it seems to be exclusively a Heatblur thing. Suppose we'll see, and I'll pass on the praise to my friend!

Best wishes to all. I have heard that, on occasion, the folks at RAZBAM will adopt community liveries which are sufficiently realistic and high-quality at their discretion. After reading Be Afraid Of The Dark, I couldn't help but be enamored with the F-15E DRF prototype and its European 1 livery. My friend was as well, and they made the F-15DRF No. 71-0291 livery in the DCS User Files. I am sure this historical livery would be well-received by the community, and give it a little '80s flair. Would RAZBAM be interested in adding this to the game? Real life livery: Version available on user files: