Sunbather

The F/A-18C must be the 15th module or so I am dabbling with and the 5th I am actually trying to learn thoroughly. Learning the F-16C, the A-10CII, the M-2000C or even the very Early Access, training-wise utterly incomplete F-4E was a demanding but straight-forward task. Now, after almost 200 hours of DCS I come to the F/A-18C and the training missions are a slap in the face. Tutorial for waypoints? A 5-minute show in which you learn to push two buttons to activate a waypoint in the HSI and then you fly through hoops. That's it. Next training mission. The Cold Start Procedure? Leaves out all of Bit tests except for one and also leaves out half of the necessary procedures. There are zero training missions for the Supercarrier. There are only two, very rudimentary training missions regarding take-off from a carrier and Case 1 recovery. Again, most of the important stuff, including ATC procedures is completely left out. Now, I am learning this module still with relative ease. I know my Youtubers by now, I know how stuff works in DCS, and by now - thanks to DCS by the way - I also have quite a understanding of fighter jet procedures. But I must wonder: the F/A-18C is your best selling - and probalby most expensive (regarding the need for the Supercarrier addon - module, and yet it has the worst tutorials of all the modules I've encountered so far. Worse than the Mig-21, worse than the F-4E in its current state. Don't you realize that if that is the first experience for most players after they've spent 70 bucks or even +100 bucks for the module plus near-mandatory additions, that the training missions should at least be on the same level as the F-16C? Or put differently: have you ever thought about how many people just quit DCS prematurely and talk <profanity> about it just because they were nudged into buying the F/A-18C as the alleged top module and then they just found it inaccesible, poorly explained and overall way too complex? (Which is funny because I find the F/A-18 the least complex module I've experienced so far.) Inb4: And no, it doesn't matter if there are myriad of 3rd-party training sources out there or even 1st-party videos by Wags from 7 years ago. People are not out of their mind for wanting a proper in-game tutorial for their premium-priced module and even one or two voiced tutorials for its premium-priced addon that in the end of the day just adds people on a carrier... I am not hating. Please consider it passionate feedback from someone who is rather perplexed by the utter lack of QoL-additions to the beginner's F/A-18C experience.

Agree, needed for the A-10CII as well. It boggles my mind that an A/C module made by DCS for a map made by DCS doesn't have this from day 1.

I just bit the bullet earlier today and bought the Supercarrier module (which made me realize that I wasted money on the Su-33 some months ago but that's another matter of contention for this overpriced package). I did buy the Supercarrier mostly because I want to access all those beautiful F/A-18C campaigns. But before I tackle a campaign, I should learn the jet and the carrier module properly, right? To my surprise, however, the tutorials for vanilla carrier ops are a bare minimum while the tutorials for the Supercarrier module are non-existent. I figured out by myself how to taxi on the Supercarrier, also managed to do a Case 1 recovery (the tutorial wasn't much help) but what about Case 2 and 3? What about radio procedures? It kinda boggles my mind that the most famous and most bought module has such an incomplete and, frankly, lazy tutorial set. So I already hunted down some user-made content (e.g. Gunthrek's 4-part training set, a Red Flag campaign by beppe_goodoldrebel, and Bankler's Case 1 trainer) but none of that is what I need right now. Take for example how I learned the A-10 in the past few weeks: I did the excellent tutorial missions, I fumbled around with some stand-alone missions, then started Baltic Dragon's excellent Iron Flag and then began the Persian Freedom campaign --- a nice, steady learning curve, all the while actually playing already, and not having to look up every little thing on Youtube or in a PDF file. So what would you recommend me to do, as frustrated as I am already with the overpriced Supercarrier module? Are there any campaigns that ease you into it? And teach you radio comms and Case 2 and 3 recovery procedures by implementing it into the story? I've heard the Rising Squall campaign has tutorials but it's a no go: I can't stand the voice acting and it's almost 20€! But what about some of the others? What could be considered a beginner campaign?

Well, I was already on the website but didn't think of searching for the Freedom's Legacy campaign which would have given me the estimated release date. Bought Operation Persian Freedom yesterday! I am only at mission 3 but it's already much better than the reviews on Steam make it out to be!

Oh no, that is a lot of time. I even downloaded a demo from the website today but failed to connect the dots and look up the upcoming Afghanistan campaign. Thanks for the intel!

Any estimate when this will be ready? Just bought the Afghanistan map and I am finally properly learning the A-10CII module. And so I am eagerly awaiting this very campaign!

Idiot me. I did find that thread but was only looking on the last page, not on the first. Bought the Viggen by the way.

What does the updated manual entail? Also, I've been persuing the manual. It would be nice of you to offer us a printer-friendly one, i.e. without the Viggen sketch in the background. And there's something else I wanted to share with you guys: I think it's a missed opportunity that you don't make use of the 'modular' bundle system over on Steam. E.g. I've purchased the F-4 at full price, am very interested in the Viggen, but only mildly interested in the F-14. However, if this was a modular bundle I would probably buy both missing jets anyways thanks to the additional discount. Likewise, I might purchase the Viggen today. It would make it a whole lot easier for me in the future, if my interest in the F-14 arises, to purchase it if it was part of a 'modular' bundle. It seems also like a middle finger towards your customers who might already have purchased two of your modules but now can't buy the bundle. See for a 'modular' bundle, this description text: https://steamdb.info/bundle/16050/ And your 'restricted' bundle: https://steamdb.info/bundle/52534/

Indeed. Especially since the thing we have now is a bit of a mess: when I tried to play a modern day scenario on the channel map it spawned Flak 88 as air defenses; era-appropriate (i.e. historical) scenario creation rarely ever works. So it is indeed good to hear that a new iteration is worked upon and filtering A/C by eras is a focus. In that regard, it would also be nice to have several incremental steps during the Cold War going into the 90s. E.g. the F-16C not carrying any HARMS missiles before ~1985. In short, filtering not only the A/C according to the era but also their loadout, if possible.

There was a mistake during the last sale, this time there is no mistake. In the official store there is shown a base discount of 20% because the map is still in early access. On Steam, this discount is already applied and only the new price is shown. Now you have additional 10% off during the sale on the official store, while there is even a 12% off on Steam which - in fact - makes the Steam version cheaper (depending on your regional price). For me in Germany, the Kola map is 45€ on Steam and 49$ here (which roughly translates to 50€ due to poor conversion rates). What confuses me more is that some modules are not on sale at all on Steam while being on sale here, e.g. the F/A-18C Arctic Thunder campaign.

You might laugh but I wanted to start a career as a graphic designer. Then I chose to become an astronaut.

Although it has been demanded now and BigNewy has already acknowledged our feedback, I felt the need to use my insane skills in Microsoft Paint to visualize the problem. For the Sinai map there are six entries before Rudel-Chw's Mig-21bis Training Missions although they have been updated yesterday! And even that is only because the initial release of his Training Missions is relatively close to begin with. What will it look like in 2027? Rudel-Chw might still update his missions but they will only show up 5 pages into the Sinai section... It would be tremendous help to see right away what has been worked on recently and what is to be considered "use at own risk, the last 20 updates might have broken this user content". It would also give the users who keep their work current and functioning a much more prominent stage. Can't there simply be a new category that takes account of the last upload by the creator? Like so: Similiarily, I am probably going to buy the M-2000C because only yesterday I have found out that even the user campaigns made in 2022 have been updated. I didn't see that before because there are 18 campaigns and I simply didn't click on every single one of them, especially because I had no hopes for a campaign from 2022 to have been updated anyway. And that is only regarding the user files stuff where the changelog is in the description. I suspect there are quite a few files out there that have been updated but there is no way to know and they won't show up as 'recent' either. What I am saying is: if I see at first sight that a lot of user stuff for module X has been updated recently, I am much more likely to purchase said module.

Curiously, for me it worked with the original mission file. Pressing "Rec" showed me an error of about 0.2 NM which rang true. I pressed "Val" and it re-aligned the INS, or at least pressing "Rec" again then showed 0.000 error in NM.

This seems to be a very important one that I've seen suggested many times already, even as a newcomer to DCS. It would also help to populate the comment section a bit more which is important to be able to judge if a campaign, mission, mod or whatever still works. (from my consumer perspective)

I have found conflicting info on this topic. Are the two campaigns and the 10 training missions by Baltic Dragon included with the jet still functional? I think I even heard that you can't even click on the campaign anymore so basically not working at all. I even trialed the module during Christmas but forgot to check this. What are your findings?

I am sure of that! Have a great weekend, too!

That's why I said "new work". Clearly, a lot of work has gone into this and it is a great enabler for modders. As to the constructive part: I did make 2 constructive suggestions of which you ignored one. Already someone else posted here that it feels outdated because it lacks basic features. And it was stated in other threads over and over again. Sorry, I am just a bit grumpy about the shortness of the newsletter. One is no news and the other one was already announced by Octopus G one or two weeks ago... Yet, zero news about the Afghanistan map update, no updates on continued work on any of the other modules released recently (Kola, Sinai, Phantom, ), no deep dive into the 2025 and Beyond video... But I do object to the claim that my post wasn't constructive!

I'd say the User Files section is hardly overlooked. And if you are praising how great community content is (which it is), you might wanna implement some basic features to the User Files section. E.g. adding the Iraq map to the filters (the map is out for 2.5 months now...) and let us see when the last file upload was, e.g. if a campaign from 2022 got an update since then. Sure, most creators write their changelog into the text section but why not make things simple to see at one glance while you are browsing? In a more unfriendly manner one could also say: it would be nice to put at least a little bit of new work into a feature before praising it in a newsletter ; )

Don't take my words out of their context, please. I am more than willing to pay for another asset pack but the previous one should be completed first, or at least implemented correctly.

I can say that this is certainly true for me. I did a trial on the WW2 stuff, especially the asset pack, and it's just not complete. In instant action missions (official ones, mind you) for the Channel map or when I use the mission generator (the official one, mind you), the Allies constantly got Flak 36s as their air defense. Wtf? Then there is the overall lack of singleplayer content, aside from the paid campaigns. It feels just way too incomplete. And now I am expected to buy another asset pack for WW2? Even that would be fine but I see very little progress regarding the Western Front so I obviously expect the PTO asset pack to stay incomplete and non-developed as well.

Hold on a minute: how do I make the ATC speak German? And can I make my pilot and flight also speak German? One of the my biggest petpeeves is WW2 games in which the Germans speak thick American. As to your last paragraph: That's exactly what is needed: more planes/variants of the ones we already have, even if unplayable, and fitting to the timeframe of Summer 1944. Where are the transport aircraft (C-47, Ju-52)? Where are the other heavy bombers (B-24, B-25, Lancaster, Bf 110)? Where are the light bombers (P-38, Ju 87)?

According to @Skewgear, yes. I was answering to them.

Indeed, great news. And just yesterday I read that WW2 was dead in DCS because no new modules are coming out. Now we just need a Caucasus map in which the modern buildings are replaced with older ones and some cities are reduced in size and some WW2-style airfields.

Great exposition of the problems involved but at the same time, I think you're overthinking it. Having an easy way to mark one building or truck as the objective that needs to be destroyed is already in the game. Now there needs to be the opposite trigger: when another building or truck than the intended target is destroyed, you lose points or even fail the mission right away. Maybe something like this can already be done but it seems very complicated or else more people would implement it in their missions / mission generators. Only having that would already go a long way to increase immersion.

That does sound bleak indeed. But aren't there several WWII planes in the works by 3rd party devs? Yeah, not delivered yet but still in the works, no? That being said, I would assume work on WW2 stopped because of the sales not justifying further development. I can only speak for myself but I would immediately buy into the WW2 experience (meaning: Channel map, Normandy map, WWII assets pack, at least 2 planes right away with more, possibly all to follow, and maybe even other maps if they get tuned to WW2). But right now? What I am trying to say: don't just take low sales at face value. Also factor in how much more sales you would get if the experience was actually not half-baked. My wallet is ready but DCS WWII in its current state doesn't justify the investment.