Tomsk

For me personally there's no doubt that the DCS flight models are the best. They should be with the amount of time and effort that goes into them. That's not to say all the other WWII sims have bad flight models, but the DCS ones are something special. DCS also excels by a country mile in systems modelling, nothing else comes close. That's not just clickable cockpits, it's the level of detail that all the internal systems are modelled with: it's just remarkable. Where DCS currently falls down as a WWII combat sim (IMO) is: - damage modelling: planes flying with 1 wing, wings falling off all the time, engines that smoke but never die, very weak MG damage, etc. - stability: DCS crashes quite frequently for me, and it has lots of bugs and glitches that have gone unfixed for a long time. - netcode: multiplayer is very laggy in a way other simulators are not. - performance: even a monster rig struggles with flying over the cities in caucuses. - scenery and environment: is not (yet) appropriate for a WWII scenario - price: DCS is very expensive - AI: are very bad, don't fly anything resembling the real flight model, and even worse damage model. - visuals: other sims (IMO) currently look better (although the Nevada terrain is simply stunning). - plane selection: not well balanced, or even particularly representative of the time period. No bombers, and currently no plans for player flyable bombers. - size of community: the WWII community in DCS is currently pretty small. For me DCS is currently a great flight simulator that happens to have some WWII planes, but not particularly a WWII aerial combat simulation. Different story with modern aircraft, but with WWII planes that's where it currently sits for me: more like X-Plane, or Prepar3d. So as for whether the OP should buy the Fw190 - buy it if you think you'd enjoy flying it, and learning the systems because that's where DCS excels.

Lol, you misunderstand the source of my criticism. I mostly fly the P-51 and Dora, and my criticism comes from watching Spitfires constantly die to wing breakages. Especially as a Dora pilot where a full 50% of my "kills" are Spitfires that have just overdone it and snapped the wings off. No doubt you can, but it gets hard to sell the value of DCS to pilots I fly with in other WWII flight sims. They argue that multiplayer WWII combat in DCS more closely resembles a circus exhibit than a WWII combat situation ... with planes flying round with one wing, wings falling off left right and centre, propeller governors the size of the whole aircraft and various other things. It's hard to do much but agree ... which is a shame because DCS has some really awesome things about it.

No simulation can ever be perfect, computers are not real planes. So ultimately this all comes down to how you want your simulation to be flawed ... because it's flawed whatever you do. Some people favour simply ignoring anything that cannot be simulated directly, to them this is "most realistic". Others favour realistic outcomes, and believe in having mechanisms to help compensate for the things that cannot be simulated directly. I clearly fall into the later camp. What I care about is getting as realistic a portrayal of WWII air-combat as possible. The current situation we have online with Spitfire pilots constantly snapping the wings off is not at all a realistic portrayal of WWII air-combat ... so I'd like to add mechanisms to make it more realistic. However, other people don't like this idea *shrugs*.

Are there plans to add control stiffness modelling to the other WWII warbirds? Are there plans to add some g-load cues, such as audio feedback, that the structural limits of the plane are being exceeded? These could help make up for the missing real life cues such as the extreme heaviness of the stick, and the physical experience of g-load.

Personally I agree that the impostors were not well implemented. However, I am a fan of "spotting aids" such as the smart scaling in Falcon 4 (which is model enlargement at longer ranges), because ... It's just necessary IMO. The fact that the two most popular DCS WWII servers (Burning Skies and ACG) both have spotting aids tells you a lot about what makes for a compelling experience. But back to the topic at hand ... +1 It's a really fun aircraft, especially if you like BnZ.

Except of course that the strength of the pilot is (partially) modelled in terms of control stiffening. This is what virtually every WWII combat flight sim does, as a combat flight sim without control stiffening has lots of really unrealistic behaviours. The issue (IMO) is just that this modelling is a little over simplified, and a bit of effort improving what's already there would alleviate this issue considerably.

Well logically it'd be 12%, since that's 20% of 60%. As far as I can determine the controls window only shows the position of the controls, and how the curves affect it, not the effect on the elevator. Control stiffening is modelled, this acts as a limit to how far the player can deflect the stick at high airspeeds. However, the issue as I see it is that there is no restriction on how quickly you can reach that limit. It seems you can go from stick neutral to the full limit of the control stiffening (i.e. the full limit of human strength) in an instant. It's like the control stiffening keeps the controls within a certain "box", however you can move the controls within that box as fast as you like. Because of that you can instantly apply enough strength to shear the wings off. This is highly unrealistic, a real human pilot does not function that way. I would argue the modelling of control stiffening is incomplete: it only models one aspect of the pilot's strength (the maximum amount they can deflect the stick) but not the other aspect (how quickly they can reach that maximum). Because of this incomplete modelling the result is the "silly" (i.e. unrealistic) sort of situation you see in game where players are snapping their wings much too frequently. The fact that you can learn to avoid it (and I have by the way), doesn't mean that it's not unrealistic.

It's my OPINION, as I clearly state in the post: To me this discussion is all kind of silly ... and IMO really damages DCS's claims to realism. From talking to people on public servers about this issue, it seems most people have this opinion and people complain about it all of the time. I completely agree with OnlyForDCS: every solution is wrong. The current solution is wrong, and my suggestion is also wrong. DCS can't actually impose realistic stick forces on the player, therefore whatever approach is chosen is, at best, an approximation. Such is the way of simulation. Not that this situation is all that unusual. For example a very closely related example is "control stiffening", at high speeds the controls can become unresponsive. In some planes this is more pronounced than others, giving the planes that remain controllable at high-speed a (realistic) advantage. DCS can't simulate control stiffening directly ... so it simulates it indirectly. The player moves their stick a certain amount ... but at higher speeds the control column in the plane might moves less, simulating the difficulty that the pilot has with the heavy stick. You can call it a "modern fly-by-wire system" if you like, but this is how it works in DCS today. The essence of my suggestion is just that control stiffening should also effect how quickly the pilot can move the stick, as well as limiting the extent to which they can move it. After all, if it's heavy it should be hard to move it quickly. If we're going to simulate one aspect of control stiffening, why not simulate both?

To me this discussion is all kind of silly. You do not read accounts of Spitfire pilots constantly having to baby the plane to avoid breaking the wings. In contrast in DCS it is trivially easy to snap the wings off and you have to be constantly mindful of it. Therefore as far as I'm concerned DCS is wrong, flat and simple. You cannot fly the plane in DCS the same as it was flown in real life ... In order to give realistic behaviour the sim needs to give the player more warning that they are exceeding the limits of the plane. That definitely means feedback like creaking noises and shaking or something. It may also mean not letting the player suddenly apply huge deflections to the stick at high speed (it's not very realistic anyway, the stick gets really heavy). For example, at high speed the game could always apply any requested stick deflection gradually, simulating the physical limits of the pilot. I would much rather see unrecoverable dives (a real phenomena) rather than accidentally shearing the wings off (which as far as I know almost never happened). It could also mean not breaking the wings until the player has had fair warning ... But clearly the situation that philsyle shows in his videos where you are doing 400 odd mph and then pull up a bit hard and the wings come off, is plain ridiculous and IMO really damages DCS's claims to realism.

Top speed is mostly based on the balance between engine power versus drag. The P-51 does have a very aerodynamically efficient design which helped to make it fast (and fuel efficient). However, there was a big difference in engine power. The P-51D had about 1600 bhp of power available, but the Bf 109 K-4 could produce 2000 bhp with MW50. From memory I believe the big difference here is the MW50, it increases the power available by a lot .. making the 109 K-4 faster on WEP. However IIRC, the P-51 was faster on military where the power difference was not as substantial.

Personally I love the Dora, I don't know how people can say it's a bore! But ... then I really like BnZ style, and the Dora is definitely the best plane for that in DCS. Boom and zoom definitely requires patience, and it's a thinking person's game .. it doesn't have the adrenaline fuelled yank-and-bank thrills of the Spitfire, but it can be very satisfying.

Dogfighting co-E versus the AI is pretty hard in the Dora against the Spit. However, in actual online gameplay I generally consider the Spitfire the least significant threat when flying the Dora. Why? Well the Spitfire is just too slow, as long as you're not low and slow on the deck (a position you should never put yourself in when flying the Dora), then you can always just dive away and run from a Spitfire. They'll never catch you. I love the P-47, and I think that in many ways it was the plane that broke the Luftwaffe, and not the P-51. By the time the P-51 arrived on the scene in significant numbers the Luftwaffe was essentially already defeated. That said the P-47 had most of its success fighting earlier model 109s and 190s ... not the late war monsters that we have in DCS. For example the Dora is also an excellent diver (and roller), and is a lot faster than the P-47 on the deck. The 109 K4 is a monster all the way up to high-altitude, where the P-47 would normally shine. Of course, by this late stage of the war it didn't much matter: the allies had total domination in numbers and resources. However that isn't modelled in DCS ...

The Dora is the fastest plane on the deck at WEP. It's slower than the P-51 up high, but down on the ground it's even faster than the 109. It also helps that because of the MW50 the Dora can keep that speed up for ages ... far longer than the P-51 can run on WEP. IMO the Dora is easily the best strict B&Z plane. High top speed, amazing high-speed handling, great roll and hard hitting weapons with plenty of ammo: this combination is perfect for B&Z. The Dora is also terrible at much else, it is easily out-turned by every other plane and the only thing it can out-climb is the P-51. The P-51 would also be a good B&Z plane ... if the weapons hit a bit harder. I more-or-less specialize in B&Z, and do pretty well at it, and whilst I can do that in the P-51 I've not found it at all easy due to the (currently) weak weaponry.

Hello, I've noticed that it's very easy to jam the guns of the Dora under G. This may be realistic ... or it may not (personally I suspect it's over-modelled .. the 190 was well known for its ability to pull lead at high speed). However, what is definitely not realistic is that the Dora appears to be the *only* plane in which it is possible to jam the guns. None of the others suffer from this problem at all. This is surely countable as a bug: either all planes should have the effects of G jamming the guns ... or none of them should. Tomsk

Personally I like the FW-190 weapons a bit better than the Bf109 ones for anti-fighter work. Yes the 30mm hits real hard .. but the rate of fire isn't great and the muzzle velocity is kinda low, so actually getting hits isn't that easy. Being nose mounted is good, but the 190's weapons are so close together that in practice there are no convergence issues there either. You also don't get a lot of ammo with the Mk108, and it's a bit "overkill" for a fighter. It's perfect for killing bombers though. I love the P-51 and I think it was an important part of the allied victory ... but mostly due to it's range, and numbers. Quantity has it's own quality. There's no doubt in my mind the most advanced plane of WWII was the Me-262, because it was simply a plane from a different era. And that makes sense, Germany was strapped for resources and pilots, it made sense for Germany to focus on quality ... the Allies weren't so they took the very sensible (and ultimately successful) approach of going for quantity.

So I really like this website. It's a bit "finger in the air" but they do compare results with official testing. In short the test data that does exist seems to suggest that a single 20mm round is worth about 3 50 cal rounds. So the P-47 (with 8x .50 cals) should have about the same firepower as the FW 190 Dora (with 2x MG 151/20 and 2x MG 131). The P-51 having 6x .50 calls should obviously have about 3/4 the firepower. So if it takes a 1 second burst from the Dora to kill something, it should be about 1.3 seconds from the P-51. The Dora has less convergence issues than the P-51, so let's call it 1.5 seconds. As someone who regularly flies both the Dora and the P-51, I'd say that IMO it's currently not anything remotely like that in game. Based purely on my experience I'd say it's more like 3 to 1 at the moment. In short, I think the .50 cals are about half as effective as they should be.

Agree completely, more than anything else the damage model is what currently makes the P-51 so uncompetitive.

In my opinion this is much too simplistic. I like to compare fighters based on a number of criteria, firstly the ones I think are most important: Top speed on the deck: FW 190 + Bf 109 > P-51 > Spitfire Low speed turn rate: Spitfire > Bf 109 > P-51 > FW 190 Sustained climb rate: Bf 109 > Spitfire > FW 190 > P-51 Roll rate: FW 190 > P-51 > Bf 109 > Spitfire Armament effectiveness: FW 190 > Spitfire + Bf 109 > P-51 There are also a number of other factors that are useful, but IMO less critical than the ones above. High speed handling: FW 190 > P-51 > Bf 109 > Spitfire Cockpit visibility: P-51 > FW 190 > Spitfire > Bf 109 High altitude performance: Bf 109 > P-51 > Spitfire > FW 190 It's also not just about the individual attributes, but how they come together as a whole. For example the FW 190 excels in top speed, high speed handling, roll rate and weapons. That's exactly what you want to fly in a "boom-and-zoom" style. The Bf 109 excels in top speed (it's only very slightly slower than the 190), climb rate and high-altitude performance. That's a great "climb fighting" package. In reference to the original topic I consider the FW 190 and the Bf 109 to be about equal. They have quite different "styles", but they both excel at what they do. The Spitfire excels in low-speed turning. It also isn't bad at climbing, and the weapons are also okay. This means it's good at "turn fighting". Although when I fly the 190 I don't generally consider the Spitfire a big threat unless I mess up, they are just too slow. The P-51 excels at ... well basically nothing. It would most naturally be a boom-and-zoom style plane, but it's let down in that role by the poor top-speed and (most of all) the poor armament. It does IMO have the nicest cockpit, but it's a dubious advantage at best and the 190 cockpit is also very good. Going to 72" would help the P-51's top speed, but probably only to about on par with the German planes, and without the ability to sustain it that MW50 gives: running away from German planes would still be very tough. It would also help climb rate a bit, maybe putting it on par with the 190 but it'll never climb away from a 109. It wouldn't improve any other category, and the P-51 would still not excel at anything.

Well at the moment Air Quake is all we got, it'd sure be nice to have other experiences :-) Not at all, easiest way to do that is to always fly German :-) At the end of the day there's a lot I really like about DCS, but IMHO at the moment the balance is off and it does detract from the experience a bit. I don't believe I'm unique in this point of view, most of the people that I've talked to online tend to agree. Ultimately, I engage in competitive multiplayer because firstly I like flying, but also I like testing my skills against other players, and improving my piloting. Competitive multiplayer is never entirely historically accurate, the "goggles and scarf" stuff is for singleplayer or coop. But it can also be a lot more than just Air Quake. Personally I'm inspired by books like In Pursuit, and would love DCS to be a platform where competitive multiplayer can thrive. Really strongly agree! I actually enjoy coop play as well, doing more historical style simulations. But I also really like competitive multiplayer, and dogfighting and tactics and strategy and practising team work. Now if that makes me an "Air Quaker" then I'm an "Air Quaker" and proud :-)

I actually hold the opposite point of view. I enjoy playing competitive multiplayer as both German and Allied. However, at the moment it's honestly not that great because the balance is really off. I would have rather had a set of planes that made for interesting and engaging combat, even if the data was a little bit weaker and slightly more guesswork was required. Perhaps ED does not have aspirations for DCS to be a competitive multiplayer simulator for WWII combat, and instead wishes to make their focus be simulating various aircraft in high fidelity. That's a perfectly acceptable choice, as long as you know you are making it.

Maybe you'd like the 190. I'm also a big fan of the P-51 and the P-47, and the 190 is similar in quite a lot of ways. As I say, they are all planes that love speed and dive and roll well. The visibility out the cockpit is really good in the 190 as well (I also really like that in planes), and the landing gear are wide and easy to handle like the P-51 and P-47.

Well the figure I've read is that the US testing generally estimated that 2-3 .50 cal rounds were about equivalent to a single 20mm cannon shell. And those really were estimates ... it could be more, it could be less. So should it be closer to 2 ... or closer to 3? Because that's actually quite a big difference.

Do you know I had never even thought about it. I guess I'm very aware that it's not real, and that I'm ultimately in a virtual plane, engaging in virtual combat against virtual pilots from all over the world :) I'm also really glad that there are other people who share my hobby of simulating air combat, whether I'm flying with them or against them (and that changes frequently).

I like fast planes that handle well at high-speed, with a good dive and a fast roll. That's not a Spitfire :-) That said I do fly it sometimes, but it's not my favourite.

Well I'll probably hop on the first Normandy server I see and if there's more allies I'll fly the Dora, or more axis I'll fly the P-51 (since they are my two favourites) :)