ACS_Dev

The models look less detailed because they are less detailed. They are not the same models ED has been showing us for the past year, you can compare the in-game models to the marketing materials and see for yourself. I posted some screenshots from the DCS discord in the linked thread. I don't think this can be explained by a desire for optimization. LODs exist for that already and can scale as needed.

It is absolutely new. Until yesterday objects classified as bombs were not engaged by SAMs.

I do not condone the attitude of the first poster, however I think this is an interesting development in the discussion that warrants sharing here. This was from the DCS discord in general chat.

Yeah as always let's keep the spice factor low. If they give us the 3D model and some tools like sending stuff to clients via Datalink I am sure the community could do some marvelous things with it. I doubt we will see anything on it before they overhaul all of the existing AI-Player communications interfaces and frankly I don't want to wait that long. Even a non-interactive AI asset to fly next to would be great.

Yeah I read about them retiring. End of an era really. I am a younger guy and grew up reading Clancy and Bond, nowadays fewer and fewer of the then top-of-the-line systems are flying. Legacy hornets, P-3, E-3, E-8, Ticos, Oliver Hazard Perrys, M60s. To clarify I am not asking for a flyable module. For big jets I could see the KC-135 but beyond that it gets rapidly less interesting. From my (minimal) knowledge of how JSTARS actually work(ed) I'd envision it to be something like the E-3 but for ground targets. Slap one in your mission and its radar will work like a very powerful F-18 GMT/SEA mode and either datalink or lowdown that information to players. Maybe in missions with Fog Of War it will reveal moving non-terrain-masked units in a range of, say, 150 miles. Perhaps for more realism it might only relay convoys and not single vehicles if the mission has AI traffic. I am not going to pretend I know which modules in DCS can actually accept and work with datalinked ground targets. The means to use datalink for ground units. Getting deeper, maybe it could also detect helicopters and rotating radar dishes? Probably the simplest way to think about it is that the E-8C would do the ground version of what the E-3 does in the sky. Then of course there is signals side of things with the RC-135, telling us who's talking/emitting and where. We only have a 3rd of the SA.

+1, especially now with the datalink updates coming in.

Agreed, we need this as wells as failures both big and small for aircraft that don't have them.

3rd. The current liveries depict a preblock aircraft with a Pratt engine. This is inaccurate for a F-16C Block 50, M4.2+, operated by the ANG circa 2007.

https://www.l3harris.com/sites/default/files/2023-05/L3Harris_Vampire_SellSheet_2023.pdf No, not even requiring a guidance solution at launch. UAV targeting for indirect fire is listed on the spec sheet from L3harris. We should be able to lau-mod it to Hinds, loft them at the target and have an offboard platform sending a laser that the rocket will capture after launch. This is my whole point. The missile does not care at all if it has a guidance solution prior to launch. If you hit the fire button on a helicopter carrying APKWS in its hydra pods it will fire. In DCS it won't.

I may not have been clear enough regarding what I was trying to get at with my post. Yes, the APKWS rocket is technically a missile because it is guided. In DCS this prevents it from being fired from platforms that don't have simplistic onboard laser designators. This is where my problem with how DCS handles it lies. The missile does not have this limitation IRL. It's fired by the contact at the back of the launcher, just like any other rocket, one of the biggest selling points it has. DCS does not care about this fact. It demands a guidance solution prior to firing and that guidance solution must be from onboard the launching aircraft. Again, if this were a real limitation, the whole ground-launched APKWS system wouldn't be a thing. We should be able to launch it from anything configured to run Hydras regardless of whether it has a solution or not, and then guide it onto the target with an offboard designator. This is a systematic limitation, albeit a very narrow one given how unique APKWS is. Ideally DCS would be able to handle it like a rocket that can also guide on things, allowing us to launch it from most aircraft without a guidance solution. This would be particularly nice for Ukrainian Hinds, Huey, Hip, even Apache. Given how entrenched the class system is it would likely be an unrealistic ask.

Do you have any information on how in-depth their interactions with the aircraft will be? Will they move around? Use hand signals? stuff like that.

Thanks ED!

It is not currently possible with a drag-and-drop (or more accurately, copy/paste) approach. APKWS are built on rocket bodies but due to how ED's code handles missiles vs/bombs they won't fire. This is because unlike the regular hydras, ED made it an A/G missile and thus it cannot interface correctly with the Huey. This is the case with every A/G missile I have tried on an un-supported platform. They won't show up on MFDs and won't fire. This is an unrealistic limitation. In the war in Ukraine the APKWS has been seen mounted on trucks and used as rocket artillery, so it must be able to lock on to a laser after launch. The question is why ED would spend any time, no matter how simple the solution (make firing a weapon possible on certain platforms even with no guidance or interface) may or may not be, to make this a reality. You would need an offboard solution for lasing and making that compatible with the in-game JTAC (who is not coded to expect hueys with APKWS) is a big ask. The most likely result would be the capability to launch APKWS from basically any rocket-carrying platform but requiring the usage of manual mission scripting or a human CA operator. It would certainly be very cool but ED is unlikely to see it as worth it when a small fraction of the already small MP playerbase would be using it. If I had my way we would be able to dumb-fire APKWS from the MI-8, MI-24, UH-1 (especially because they don't have to worry about the wrong weapon name on an MFD and there isn't much of a FLCS to compensate for different weight) and maybe the apache (the aforementioned problems come into play and you have now opened an entire can of worms) and have them be lased off-board. An even cooler feature would be for the door gunners on these birds to given the CA JTAC UI for client operators, allowing them to work as FACs for APKWS helos as well as completely unrelated aircraft. Like the previous idea though this is a pipe dream because ED would never do something that benefits so few people and makes no money. We can only hope.

Hello, With the new F-16 pilot model coming out is there a chance we will have the option to have EFBs instead of paper kneeboards on the pilot's legs? The USAF long ago started using tablets instead of paper bundles for fighter kneeboards and they seem to be universally preferred. I suspect this may be an anachronistic addition but I still think it would be worthy of thinking about. In terms of modeling difficulty it is a simpler feature than conventional kneeboards, being a perfectly flat (easy to model), uniformly colored (easy to texture) and completely inflexible (easy to rig). From a modeling standpoint it is just a tablet computer strapped to the user's leg. You could probably get away with just placing it over the conventional kneeboard model if the player chooses to use it. I could see it being either timeframe based (it appears if the mission is set past a certain date) or as a special option. I also would like to ask for upgrades to the kneeboard system. Currently we can use pictures only. A fantastic upgrade would be to allow for the use of PDFs with integrated smart table of contents/hyperlinks or even (if you pursue the EFB option) a built in on-screen UI that can display and link to items on the PDF table of contents. Thanks for reading.

Also I should add that if you want to go all out with this, you can make different voice affects for the major modules. Then not only would people know the difference between voip and TS/Discord but they would also be able to tell, with enough experience, what kind of aircraft is talking. This could be done by passing along the cockpit audio in the transmission in low quality. Based on what I have heard I think this would be realistic, especially for certain helicopters and teen series fighters.

I know that the pace is slow but I will cut them some slack for now on this, even though IIRC they still have a 'team' of 1 or 2 people working full time on it they are now at the end of the roadmap and up against the more complex items, mainly the DTC, a system which I don't think has any precedent in the game. At the same time I would find it hard to accept the Viper moving out of EA without a working PFLD, the associated failures and the ability to trigger those things on clients in MP. The fact that failures aren't even on the roadmap despite being a standard item is very concerning. The same can also be said for the ALE-50, a key component of the viper (especially our block 50). Moving it out of EA without the towed decoy would be like moving the F-14 out of EA without phoenixes. I am very worried that its absence from the EA feature list is evidence that they have no intention of giving it to us for many, many years.

I agree as a Quest 2 user. I used to play ECW andit wasn't at all uncommon for me to see hostiles as little dots out to 20 miles and much further, I'd say as far as 40 nautical miles. I have seen Mirages, T-38s and A-10s countless times IRL and on days where there was cloud cover it seems basically impossible to tally them past 10-15 miles, even through 10x binoculars. Of course it's way different when there is sun glint but DCS doesn't have that. The same applies for ground units.

https://discord.com/channels/542985647502393346/543014378643914752/835116769752383509 It is alleged that the PFLD and failures will be released in the future. Despite this it is not on the roadmap.

We should get the C-7 at least. The capabilities of these weapons are classified, their procurement process is generally not. The DOD was buying C-7s in 2002 for the USAF and by 2006 they were receiving and/or buying AIM-120Ds. Some might question the idea of F-16s being allocated stocks of the C-7 but as arguably the best variant of the F-16 available at the time and also a key SEAD asset, I think a block 50 being deployed to a near-peer conflict would definitely be getting them. Remember this was many years before the F-35 actually became a thing operationally for the USAF. https://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/Portals/84/documents/FY02/AFD-070223-114.pdf?ver=2016-08-19-124943-483 Refer to page 85. The main benefit of the upgrade is listed as improved electronic protection. What that means for us may be up for debate. I don't believe the same can be said for whether the AIM-120C-7 actually existed at the time. If ED is in fact modeling a 2007 USAF block 50, ANG or not, they should be adding the AIM-120C-7. We don't exactly know how much better it would be than the C-5 but at the same time I doubt ED knew everything about the C-5 either. What we do know is that the DOD thought the upgrade was worth the money. We also know that ED's ECM model is extremely basic and full of guesswork already so a C-5 that is harder to jam and maybe has slightly better guidance logic would be acceptable in my book. I think the majority of the community would agree. The fact that it has no contemporary true redfor opponents to shoot at is not relevant to the conversation.

Bump.

We should also have CATM-120B, a number of units are still using a mix of those with the newer systems.

Bump. The bank angle restriction needs to be adjustable, at its current state it is suboptimal, especially when locked in turns for refueling.

Yes, especially with modern aircraft like the F-16, wheel chocks should always be used. I don't know why they still don't have this feature, given the overwhelming evidence of its accuracy. it's not like it's any sort of secret either. Simply go on youtube and watch any one of countless startup videos and the chocks are omnipresent.

This is just speculation on my part but I think the next red helicopter won't be new at all. It will be a Mi-8 2.0 DLC upgrade. Think about it. Yeah, the Mi-8 already is fairly complete but I wouldn't put it beyond E.D to put a price on functioning multicrew, much less an updated 3D model. What did we ultimately get with the KA-50 III beyond a 3D model and the associated new pylons? INS a MWS and some MANPADs. Now, to be fair to ED it only costs $10 full price and as a Hip owner myself I wouldn't be up in arms about it so long as the legacy hips got multicrew for free. Would you buy a $10 upgrade for the MI-8 that gave you, for example: -New 3D model -ATGMs with associated panels -Maybe some AGS 30 door guns -Maybe troops and cargo in the cargo bay? +multicrew for it and the legacy hip I certainly might.

Hello, Since I started really diving into the F-16 in DCS I have found some inaccuracies in the 3D model that I think might be able to get fixed. These issues include missing panels, a lot of missing landing gear detail and missing pins/covers for when the jet is on the ground. Missing Panels: ADG/CSD panel and oil service panel, MLG gear and gear bay details: This picture is of the underside, right side of an F-16C block 50 in real life. I am absolutely positive this is an F-16 block 50 as I know when and where this picture was taken. This picture is of the underside, right side of an F-16 in DCS. The 3D model of the F-16 in DCS is missing these panels. Interestingly, the much lower quality AI F-16C block 50 is not. These panels are typical of a jet operating with a GE engine which makes me suspect the reason for the discrepancy may be from a choice to externally model a block 42 or 52. Also evident from the comparison is the lack of detail in the MLG/MLG bay compared to the real life or even other ED modules. The F-18 released more than a year prior to the F-16, yet the F-16 still has much lower detail in comparison. The difference becomes more stark when compared to more recent ED modules and especially those made by 3rd parties. These pictures are of the ED KA-50 and MI-24 respectively. And this is the F-15E from Razbam, showing incredible detail. The F-16 is also missing the assorted pins and covers found on the F-18. Given this information, is there a possibility of a 3D model update for the Viper? These issues are relatively small but given the accuracy that the Sim tries to achieve, a block 50 with pratt characteristics (see also previously reported issues with SEC check performance, also indicative of a pratt aircraft) falls short in my opinion, especially compared to the level of quality found in other ED modules.