artao

I mean ... Everyone knows the -21 has issues nowadays. PLEASE update it. It's one of the most popular DCS modules. It deserves higher priority than anything else you're working on. As much as y'all might love the planes in your pipeline, the community LONGS for a proper -21 update.

It seems unlikely we'll get a MiG-21bis update anytime soon; as in the next 5 to 10 yrs. I have heard "rumors" shall I say that the company is a bit ... unstable ... as well as having at least three other planes in-queue before the -21 is even considered. And the -21 isn't in any known pipeline i'm aware of. And I think we can all agree that the -21 needs an update. And yet it seems to be one of the most popular modules. .... Its foibles are more than simply frustrating at this point, once you learn of them from others. Some are quite obvious simply trying to use them, like the radar weather filter not working and hard-coded radio frequencies. Others not so much as the Grom not actually being beam-riding, but simply SARH; there's another A-A missile the -21 can use that's also beam-riding, but not sure if that's even attempted in-game with our bis. But if the dev company is dying/dead, we have little to no hope of improvements there. The entire module is so old that DCS has advanced far further than its own capabilities, and deprecated others. Also, many IRL pilots preferred the 'F' over the 'bis." More nimble. Held speed betterer in turns. More responsive. Beyond that, more modern variants such as the Bison and LanceR. It's really a travesty that aircraft devs don't do multiple variants -- aside from the Mirage F-1 devs. Not that interested in that plane, but I'll buy it JUST because they implement multiple variants. We, as users, should ...... "ask for" ... that more. SO!! The MiG-21F is older than the bis, and many pilots preferred it over the bis. There's tons of 'em in museums all over the world. Laser scanning and/or photogrammetry is easy enuf, for the model. Free software, free public access to samples. The flight model wouldn't be hard to ... well ... IDK the "DCS way" with regards to flight model modelling. Can it simply use straight-up aero sim data? Cuz from a laser-accurate model that can be derived pretty darn tootin' well. And from there what's left is avionics. I've never attempted modding DCS, nor any other game aside from making a few maps for old FPS. However, I've studied 3D graphics for over 30 yrs now. I'm quite capable in that regard -- tho dealing with game engines isn't in my ken really. But, coming from old-school modelling I'm decent at low-poly but look good. ... Depending what the render engine supports. And that is on DCS. It seems it can handle normal maps, cool. How about displacement maps, or vector displacement. SDS? What poly/vertex count is acceptable? Regarding aero, I have a fair bit of experience designing model rockets. That's aero, and aero is aero. I've designed and flown rocket-boosted gliders that exceed "normal" speed ranges of fighter aircraft as well, so I do grok aero. Avionics is the largest stumbling block probably. But with the 'F' being so old that info can't be hard to come by, mostly unclassified. Bison and LanceR less so, but hardly hard to find. Perhaps a new company is needed, eh? Since no one else is jumping on possibilities. Or, rather, a bunch of companies with very few devs each. Perhaps a better solution would be the merging of several current DCS module makers. Combine resources. Each of 'em has super-limited dev. resources, so DCS module dev is slow. Put them all in the same company and add more, that would speed up a LOT i reckon. Which is to say: Looking for others interested in forming a dev company to make such things. Other projects could include: Century Series aircraft pack in the spirit of FC3 Maps, such as Fulda Gap, Vietnam, Spratly Islands, Taiwan straight, and others.

User-addable and editable would be even more awesome.

Oh gods yes please? I don't like using the F10 map while flying and the kneeboard maps can be a bit fiddly and don't show much information. And ... The frequencies are hard-coded in the MiG-21? <sigh> And here I've been trying to figure out what I've been doing wrong. I keep learning of things in the MiG-21 that no long (or never did) work. Such as the radar weather filter not really working. ARK system being all messed up. Apparently some IFF issues. Hard-coded frequencies. Others. The MiG-21 needs an update; and deserves it. It's got to be one of the most popular DCS modules. One thing's for sure: The Soviets-Russians sure don't like letting their pilots manually adjust radio frequencies.

Thank you. Much clearer. All we were asking. The vagueness was offputting. How about where will the game will move and how if I switch to standalone? And the Tacview question. From what I read originally, trying to get Tacview to work, is that for Steam DCS you have to use Steam Tacview, and for standalone DCS we have to use standalone Tacview. Is this the case or have I misunderstood something?

What does "people were breaking the EULA" mean? Must be something super serious to do this over the weekend so suddenly without telling anyone. It sure would be nice to know what that means rather than just that vague incredibly broad statement. Sure, we don't "have a right" to know, but it sure would be be appreciated by the rest of us who AREN'T breaking any EULA or anything. I don't really know what it ultimately means to choose either Steam or Standalone. Pros and cons? I already know VR runs more smoothly if I use the "force vr" and "force openxr" run arguments, so SteamVR doesn't have to run. But what about Tacview? Will I have to reinstall that as standalone or will it still work right via Steam? It'd suck to have to have two versions of Tacview installed, cuz I use it for IL-2 as well. Also, if I switch to standalone, what will that do to my install? I imagine it will move it out of my Steam library. Ideally the user has full control over where it ends up, as I'm quite particular about that. A bit more clarity would be much appreciated and lend some good will to the community. Also, "We have no plans to drop Steam" isn't exactly all that comforting, considering that before this weekend you also had no plans to make this change. It's a legit concern.