blkspade

I know I've brought it up before in the past, but going solely on top speed the SU-25 is closer while exceeding that of the 262.

Dog fighting an A-10 or SU-25 is probably the closest you'd get to simulating the match-up of the P-51 vs Me-262.

That would probably be the definition of masochism. I got into a dogfight once against P-51 in my F-15 for S&Gs. And cause he previously shot down strikers while in a SU-27 with no opposing fighters on the server. It was quite amusing to watch him try to shake me. Played with him until I got bored and put some 20mm into him.

I won't contest the obvious fact that more pixels result in a sharper image, but the pixels are still smaller and you're essentially straining your eyes. Its a large enough difference to see targets, without having to lean in or zoom limiting your overall field of view.

I'd like to see them change the HUD render depth so that all methods of stereoscopic 3D would be usable.

Do you mean a profile for the the Saitek software, or in game config? I used to have the X-52, early in my FC2 time, but I highly recommend doing an in game config. There isn't enough going on with the avionics modeling to really warrant a need for using the different modes on the X-52, which is the only real advantage of bothering with saitek profiler. That said, I've used basically the same kind of layout for the F-15 between FC2 and FC3, with 3 different joysticks. Manually of course. Where ever possible I just focus on mirroring the combat functions as per the actual F-15 layout.

Two things that have prevented me from buying P-51, is the lack of both multiplayer and dissimilar combat. The AI FW190 is the first step in the right direction. Dog fighting AI gets old fast. Now I am interested in the mustang to an extent and will probably buy it either next time it goes on sale, or when DCS: FW190 is released, which ever comes first. For the time being I get the occasional practice in the IL2 variant.

Should probably also ask what resolution you'd be playing at, and what if any other games do you play. I got the 7970 mostly to drive the 2560x1440 monitor I have for DCS/FC3 a few other games and GPGPU stuff I'm into. It does handle DCS:W well enough at that resolution, but you still have to make some compromises in the graphic settings.

Actually a larger screen at a given resolution has lower PPI, which in turn makes pixels more discern-able at a given distance. This is generally considered undesirable for various types of content, but has the benefit of actually helping you to spot targets. When I was flying on my 47" 1080P tv, those discern-able target pixels were huge. The only reason I went back to a monitor was because the layout of my room didn't allow for comfortable flying for extended periods of time. I use 27" 2560x1440 IPS monitor now, but the experience on the TV was really better overall.

Barring the occasional broken AI behavior, one would have to make sure to have the Naval (Drogue and Probe) variant available as opposed to the Air Force boom model. Assuming the tanker even being there may be intended for human use pretty much means air force. So one would have to include 2 tankers, or switch the escort craft to F-15s or F16s.

With the exception of paratroopers, you can do these things in the mission editor in a sense. With triggers tied to specific AI behavior, you could simulate troop deployment, or equipment delivery. While there is no capacity these thing actually apart of the plane in sense you may be looking for, you can still end up with the same result.

Are you specifically telling your wingmen to turn on their radar? If you don't they seem to just launch AIM-120s visually. Beyond that I only use the cover me command when I'm in a defensive position, mostly if I've been fired on by a bandit that I haven't engage or seen on radar.

I was more or less thinking in terms of length than diameter. The difference there is in feet.

Unfortunately none of that really matters much in the realm of DCS. The closer you are to the dirt the worse the performance is gonna be. This is not really resolved no matter how much hardware you throw at it. While a 460 is likely a bottlneck, don't get a 7970 or anything in its immediate price range from AMD or Nvidia if your motivation is solely running DCS. Unless you have money to burn.

Oh and I found myself particularly annoyed with the 'Airquake' stuff. If anyone can really think of any of it as airquake, then thats really what the majority of any of multiplayer component boils down to. Its all gameplay. If it takes you 10min or 2 hours to find, engage, kill or be killed by the enemy, and you respawn, you're 'quaking'. Having maps large enough to warrant an actual need for AAR would be awesome, for single player. Perhaps in the few organized events that happen it could work. Missions of that scale just wouldn't function properly for your day to day public server.

I'd like see to see engine optimization well before something like new terrain could begin to matter. Beyond that more water area would probably be more beneficial if we've to ever have reasonable carrier ops. Anyone spending copious amounts of time staring at the scenery in DCS is probably playing the wrong flight sim anyway. If you're in a fighter the only landmarks of merit are airports and maybe certain mountains. If you're ground pounding the quality on the terrain probably help more than what ever pseudo familiar shapes it may form. You end up attacking vehicles in either airfields, empty fields, or sparse cities. The limitation is certainly not current hardware, its the lack of optimization for current hardware, along with the persistent use of the DX9 API. I don't how many of you here follow technology to the extent that I do, but the current trend in CPU advancement is is not about ramping up clock rates and thus single thread performance, but power efficiency. The engine will see benefits from dropping 32bit support, but that alone only gives us more 'space' to stuff all the pretty things into, but with no means to go about actually processing it all any faster. Through the power efficiency performance is increased with the addition of cores and SMP. Once the Devs start programming with this in mind I could be more enthusiastic about the potential of other areas of combat.

What I hate is when I buy something, that has bugs which I would assume would be patched at some point, but in reality is just fixed in a later paid release. Given the things broken about the SFM, and the promised "Improved take-off and landing dynamics" in FC3 aircraft, including AFM to the FC3 buyers as standard kills many birds with one stone.

Your argument is only slightly broken here. The simplified manner of the FC jets doesn't require you to know many or any keyboard commands if you have a hotas of any type. I fly mostly only the F-15, and have every meaningful flight/combat function mapped to my stick or throttle. Many times people on the server will ask what key does this or that, I usually don't know because something on hotas is filling that function. Then there is the incredible amount of overlap in commands between jets, that 98% of the keys do the same things. The only things that aren't mapped to my hotas at this point are refuel door (rarely AAR/I suck), canopy open/close (would occasional hit it accidentally mid-flight), and eject (obviously). Its not realistic to think you could be completely independent of the keyboard if you either A) fly online and would like to communicate with those who aren't on TS or B) fly offline with an AI wingman whom can only be commanded with keyboard commands. Not to mention ATC, AWACS, Tankers, JTAC, "Other" random AI strike packages.

That's just it, you'd be assuming. I could assume that the true meaning of maximum effective range is just how far it will fly until it decelerates to the point where the control surfaces fail to be effective, or unable to pull a certain minimum G.

The thing is cruise and anti-ship missiles are generally huge, providing a lot of surface area to both target and hit. The question I would have is, does a maverick have a large enough RCS to actually be engaged?

What I find most annoying is when trying to acquire such info, the spec is usually listed as "Maximum effective range at altitude", but never given what this altitude requirement is. That without any mention of launching craft airspeed. Is it the combat ceiling?

The AIM-7 is just as vulnerable to chaff as the R-27s are. They are pretty much always apart of my loadout, so I use them a lot. Many times I've watched them fail to guide right off the rail, at ranges under 10nm. At the same time I've watched the smoke trail of ERs fired at me continue to guide when I'm trying to notch. Really though all the radar missiles can be chaff decoyed fairly easily in the right scenario, even when it doesn't seem logical. The is some particular 'magic' angle where actives will miss at close range (~7nm), head-on aspect while looking up. No jamming either. Speaking of jamming as mentioned earlier in this thread, that it should complicate guidance even inside what we've deemed as burn-through. However in case where I even bother to use it, I'm still in the practice of turning it off since FC2 due to the behavior of missiles (SARH) continuing to track the jammer even after the host craft has broken lock.

What do you currently use as a main monitor? If at any point you have plans to upgrade or replace it, you could just consider buying a large touchscreen monitor and kill two birds with one stone. I briefly toyed with the idea of getting one myself, but ultimately decided on 27" IPS display. http://www.newegg.com/Touchscreen-Monitors/SubCategory/ID-514

Well the manual is filled with inaccuracies and typos, and unless they've changed it since its gone gold, its mostly the FC2 manual with some of the FC3 things pasted in. I do commend you for being a new player that will actually RTFM. There is no center internal fuel storage, just left and right wing internal fuel. The display will show this plus whats in external tanks if present. What annoys me most as I've pointed out before, is that while they are 5 separate tanks (full load) they operate as just 2 separate tanks. I suppose this is the best they can do, without providing a way for the user to control where fuel is being fed from (clickable cockpit). Ideally they should at least change the fuel flow and jettison logic, that either drains the wing drop tanks first or the center and make that one jettison first.

At least you guys that that have an appreciation for Russian craft have a flyable carrier based aircraft... I love doing carrier traps, hate doing them in the SU-33.