McGherkin

Hi, in the graphics settings screen we can currently choose from Custom Preset 1,2 and 3. But it’s hard to remember what you saved those as. Any chance we can give them custom labels, please? For example ‘2D beauty’ ‘VR performance’ etc. Thanks for all you do!

On a purely selfish level, of course I'm going to buy it. It's going to be the closest thing you can get to flying a real F35, in the same way that flying an F16 in DCS is the closest you can get to that, or the F18, or the Spitfire, or the Apache etc etc etc. That's why we're all here - it's as close as you can get, even if it's not exact. DCS is very good at the systems depth that really makes the difference with the F35 and the DAS information on the HMD is going to be wild in VR, I know it will. But do I think DCS SHOULD make the F35? Probably not. It's another entry in the 'yeah, they definitely announced this to get the community on side' list, it will cause endless headaches with people arguing that 'Fat Amy is too good and all the noobs are killing everyone' and 'I was in an F35 and I should have absolutely smoked the guy, it's not good enough' and the inevitable Warthunder style leaks that it will bring. I feel like it's giving the community what they want because they want it, not because ED feels they can do it to their usual standard. It degrades the reputation and value of DCS as well by bringing the fidelity down. We're already seeing people going 'F35 in DCS, where APKWS in Apache/F16 etc' and to be honest they have a point. Yes it might not be in that year of F16 but if anyone cares they can just restrict that weapon in their server anyway so just let us have it, it was on the aircraft at one point.

I think you may have misunderstood - the F-35 and F-22 both have AESAs with LPI capability, but the F-22, as far as I’ve seen publicly, isn’t blessed with an IRST capability other than its MWS system, which is much more basic than DAS. The USAF is looking to integrate DAS onto the F-22 as a result of the F-35’s performance so it’s evidently a desirable capability.

Of course, the F-35’s radar is LPI, but like most things, it’s not an ‘on or off’ whether you’ll detect it, it’s how close you can get before it’s detected. I’d argue it’s a capability the F-35 has over the F-22, which needs to emit *something* to be able to hunt. F-35 can go completely passive. Yes, datalinked AMRAAM D models wouldn’t need the radar although to be fair even a C variant would still do pretty well against a target that doesn’t know you’re there yet, since the target won’t be manoeuvring making its position when the missile goes pitbull pretty easy to determine, and the missile has a good chance of being successful even if it doesn’t receive an updated position after it leaves the rail.

One of DAS's lesser known features is that it's capable of 360 degree IRST of hostile aircraft, with weapons cueing. See reference HERE That is one of the most recent mentions I can find about this capability of DAS. It's almost never talked about these days. I suspect because it's quite effective. From what I've been able to glean from the internet, DAS's target hunting functionality goes something like this. 1. DAS sensors around the aircraft track IR sources relatively roughly, closely enough to slew the EOTS onto them but not closely enough for tracking/cueing. 2. The EOTS systematically slews between all the IR sources the DAS sensors pick up. It uses its high zoom and laser rangefinder to both detect the range of the target, and also attempt to guess its aspect and type (and therefore hostility) using AI and the onboard target database. 3. EOTS categorises the threats based on the threat posed to the aircraft, and prioritizes the highest threat ones. 4. High priority threats are scanned by the EOTS more often than lower priority ones, providing more accurate tracks (and by knowing where you are, and the bearing, range of the target aircraft, and the change between multiple scans, you can calculate target speed, heading and position) 5. This information is passed to weapons in much the same way as TWS, and updated via datalink as the missile is in flight. Go here, fire up your seeker head, kill the thing. 6. This operates even if the radar is switched off, helping the F-35 maintain stealth, but the EOTS can classify radar tracks too. So, will the DCS F-35 be able to switch the radar off and go hunting MIGs? Because I think with this capability, it will be rather ridiculous.