mondo

I do think the E model looks the best, it's just more aggressive. If you asked me as a child to draw a fighter jet I would have drawn you the E without even thinking or knowing what a Phantom was, just like I would have drawn a chieftain tank if someone said draw me a tank.

I found the nearest thing for me is the Hind. Analogue computers, old school navigation systems, tables and charts for weapons, working with basic flight control systems to get the most out of it and also preventing myself getting into trouble and entirely analogue instrument flying. Flying at night is possible but absolutely terrifying without NVG and even with it's unfriendly.

It's a module for DCS, not a car you've paid thousands, tens of thousands up front for. Well, unless it's on credit. I'm happy paying a subscription. I know Nick said they won't do it but he also said that they can't make it viable without early access. I'd happily pay $15 a month for DCS and I don't have large sums of disposable income either.

With a 9 month lead time. I've only found a few business owners who are patient enough to understand the benefits of forward planning years in advance. I've literally seen millions thrown away trying to get teams to work with 20+ year old systems because investing in a new platform is deemed an expense or would take too long despite it would pay for itself after just a couple of years. It's insane but apparently the share price next week is worth more than the business being more profitable in a years time.

A decade long wait followed by a few months of YouTubers getting it while we all waited for the unannounced actual delivery? I mean this has been two years since it was announced and they've delayed by at most 2 months after they gave a vague release window.

I genuinely feel for you guys. Ran software development teams for near 20 years so did my fair share of expectation management. It sucks when outside influences disrupt projects and no amount of contingency can deal with issues like war and contagious viruses. I wish gaming communities understood a little better how these teams work, the distribution of skills, how pipelines work and how you just can't throw money at problems like this, that products like DCS have legacy code to navigate and peculiar undocumented quirks. When people used to ask me "just hire another developer" when we had issues with delivery I'd respond with "can 9 mothers make a baby in one month?".

They've literally said it's ready bar performance optimisation, which is the current focus. I'm really not bothered if they don't give it to people to fly early to make videos. I found the whole F15E launch incredibly tedious seeing all these videos appear on my YouTube feed.

From experience - I was at one point a QA manger and have worked on a few AAA titles - I would expect ED has had access and made builds with these modules for quite some time, even if they weren't testable in the way people assume. The earlier you can get code into your builds, the easier it is to pick up regressed issues elsewhere in the product. The easier it is to get your CI/CD process and associated automated tests in place so as they deliver more and more of the module it's easier to test and certify. We've already seen the F4E in many different videos anyway, so it's a bit of a giveaway.

The Syria map has British/NATO airfields on Cyprus and Turkish/NATO airfields. There's also Jordanian airfields.

The various GBUs dropped by F15E seem to not all work consistently at all. The only one I seem to get to work every single time, without error, is the paveway III with it set to Nose fusing.

I'm not sure I really see much comparison aside from they use the same targeting pod. The F14 feels like a classic point defence interceptor that can also dog fight and maintain air superiority. It has this added bonus tacked on of being able to drop a limited set of bombs (but lots of them) however it feels like a 3.5 generation aircraft in respect to avionics. The Mudhen on the other hand feels like a fourth generation aircraft in every way. A strike aircraft that can self escort and could serve as an interceptor or air superiority fighter but it simply can't dog fight like a tomcat. Modern displays, modern and intuitive navigation, wide selection of weapons, fantastic HUD, truly day/night/all weather capable and a crew setup that means they can truly divide the workload. The F14 in retrospect just seems like a much more capable Phantom followup. But then the SE Suite 4 is 20 years newer.

Oleg has so much to answer for.

It's not really how software development or game development works. ED will have been given builds from very early on and placed within the games code to deal with regressed issues affecting the wider game as a whole. They'll be testing each build as it's delivered. I would assume that Razbam is working to set milestones which match up with EDs development and integration of the Strike Eagle, signing off features as they are delivered. It's entirely possible there's Strike Eagle related code version of the Open Beta going back some time as it makes it easier to diagnose and test. Depends on how they do things - only ED will be able to tell you. ED is holding off release for a number of reasons only known to them but it's probably just fixing issues or it could be they have a release schedule they want to stick too and the next big feature is the next item that's actually ready which could be Sinai or the F4E. Only ED will know. As for demos - ED can just skip over features that don't work or are not properly functional. It could have been the Strike Eagle model using the flight mode of the C. Marketing events for games is smoke and mirrors.

But these aren't physical products. They aren't made by the same production team. There's no restriction on sales. ED will potentially lose sales in the short term by not releasing either when they are ready, despite a potential clash because there's going to be people who won't buy one but will buy the other. ED, Razbam and Heatblur will all have people investing and wanting that return on it.

This isn't directly aimed at you but I don't understand the logic some people are using here. So they shouldn't release the SE and Phantom at the same time because you may need to make a financial decision about which one to get? I appreciate that not everyone will afford to buy both but i'm not sure why it should prevent ED from releasing both at the same time if required for people that will buy both or want one, not the other. It's not like it's a movie with limited cinema release, or a product that you can only buy in a limited fashion and once it's gone, it's gone. It's a digital product. It will still be there in a years time. If you feel you'd be missing out on it, buy that and sacrifice something else in life you feel is a lesser priority.

Exactly this. I don't think anyone who'll buy the Phantom won't if released at the same time as the mudhen. There will be a huge number of people who want that Phantom and will likely not buy the Mudhen and vice versa. You've people like myself who'll likely get both regardless. To delay one for the other would just be really annoying.

This is really awesome. Do you plan on adding the various radios and Petrovich and door gunner functionality?

Sorry if this is the wrong place but I've got the Silver backers package from the original kickstarter. It says I get the Normandy Map. Does that include the assets pack as well or is that separate?

heh I could be wrong. It would make sense anyway for allot of reasons. Fighter pilot anecdotes are notorious for being inaccurate. Stress of combat, misleading instrumentation, only experienced on a few types etc.

Not Eric Brown anyway.

More planes is cool but spending time on a such a little used aircraft, at a time when basically there was no Luftwaffe would be such a waste of time. Especially when you consider that time could be spent on say an earlier D model with the old canopy. I really hope someone does a 43 scenario instead of this focus on late war wonder weapons when there was basically almost no aerial combat.

MTO and/or Africa. Normandy in the grand scheme of things was such a short time frame. Unless the map will encompass as far as Holland and the Southern UK it will get dull pretty quickly. If it gets expanded to the lower part of the UK then any Western European time frame is possible. A good African map could encompass missions and aircraft from 1940 to 1943 which is far more appealing due to variety.

Il2 1946 had a ton a late war content from all theaters including all the aircraft in DCS 1944. DCS 1944 is basically just a modern version of what il2 offered in it's hey day including the Normandy map. It's the North Africa / MTO which has always been ignored. I was a little disappointed with the idea of DCS1944 for that very reason that it's already been done and without the corresponding ground and air units it would be a little hollow, given it was such a one sided fight when it comes to fighter on fighter combat. A 1942 or 43 ETO theme would have been more varied or better a 42/43 MTO. But gotta support these guys anyway!

What happens to that K/D ratio if you remove the top 20 Luftwaffe aces with their enormous kill tallies, many of which were extremely large before the 190 ever entered service? I would suspect things even out a little. You have to look a little deeper as to why various ranking members of the Luftwaffe preferred the 190 over the 109 and wanted 109 production cut.

If we had an A6 or especially the A8, it would have obscene hitting power. Only a Tempest V and 262 have similar weight of firepower.