Azraeil

Here's some footage from earlier this evening.

"Strategic Launch Detected"

No you have the gist of it. There were some circumstances that I would have expected that Flanker to stall as well, basically when he was at 150? knots with high AOA. Keep the fight at >10nm. You're AMRAAM just outranges his ET in 1.2.3. Close to 12 miles using maneuvers that maintain radar lock but whilst turfing the enemy's missile speed. Launch the kill shot at 12-10nm. Lull him into a false sense of security with your TWS and lack of return fire. With any luck he will continue to close head on for the ET shot. After the 12 mile launch you should immediately perform a break turn and run at full speed dumping flare and chaff. Don't push to wvr with RU CAP head on. Ever. But if for some random reason this has happened (due to terrain masking or some other circumstance) and assuming you have already dropped tanks (this will determine whether you live or not). You have a few options, If you have buckets of speed like mach 1.1-1.2, you may want to go vertical to bleed some of this speed off, remembering that the cornering speed is 400-450ish knots. Otherwise a horizontal one circle or two circle brake turn are your other options. As GG said earlier, which one of those you take is dependent on your velocity, the bandits velocity, terrain constraints etc... If in doubt though, just place your lift vector on the bandit and pull or continue to burn through, he won't catch you if you don't hesitate to run. In other circumstance, it all really depends on the merge parameters. Some mergers are about pulling the fastest turn for a snap missile shot. Others are about conserving your speed while scaring the bandit into turfing his. I suppose here is a youtube video showing some of my WVR kills this build. There are some lessons to be had from each dogfight, I make at least one mistake in every one. Dogfights three and four are the kind of safe merge scenarios you want to try to get into. EDIT. The rendering compression made me seem like I was far more blacked out then I really was.

Oh you misread my meaning. What I meant was that there wasn't much strategy in my approach to WVR fighting when there probably should be a lot more thought involved (by me). In public games, i.e not in dedicated guns practice missions, I find he who sees first wins, in the rare event the merge is equal for both sides, i.e. both have visual and good energy to spend, things get a little more interesting for me. In that event, although it's not usually a conscious decision, my initial instinct is to always go one circle in the F15 as things get chancy imo in two circle, especially against those scary R-73's. If he makes the mistake of keeping the fight at my turn speed I'll commit, otherwise if he brings it down to 300 knots and I don't have a decided advantage at this point I'll start looking for ways out. Myself and a few of the squadron mates have done a bit of practice in all permutations of SU-27/F15C/MIG29S guns fighting. We have seen seemingly messed up things that the Russian fighters can do at absurdly low speeds where the F15C is practically falling out of the sky. Another seemingly anomalous difference to me, and although somewhat true in both cases, occasional gun hits appear to do zero damage for either RED or BLUE aircraft. You see the hit land, the shell explode yet nothing happens. On a slightly related point, it also seems the F15C requires an absurdly high number of hits before the russian aircraft will go down. Anecdotally (although not all representative) I once counted 30 hits on an SU-27 before the aircraft was unflyable. On the otherhand the 30mm cannon of the SU-27 and MIG29 makes short work of any aircraft, a small burst is usually sufficient. Can you comment on any of this? Is the difference in caliber really that much of a difference in lethality. How about the flight characteristics at the low end, because man, I've seen some BS lol and wanted a comment on the realism of said BS.

Got any literature you could point me in the direction of? Or some tips of you're own. I've found in merge fights I just pull lead and lag, monitor my speed, and use the vertical when the differences in speed become to great. But there isn't much strategy to that is there.... As for the SA-10, why is that exactly. I am sure launch distance is a factor. But say if it is a semi-active system, the flux density of the incident radar should pick up when it goes from track mode to lock mode (and in usual cases your EWR gives a warning). Unless of course the missile uses radio-command guidance. Or the illumination from the tracking radar is sufficient for the missile to intercept without a hard lock....? EDIT: Quick look on wiki, I am thinking it is command radio guidance and enters a very brief SARH phase. Scary missile system.

IR missiles and (some long-range missile-radar systems like an SA-10) will not give a warning on the RWR. I would say you are being hit either by ground based strela's or the infrared missiles of russian cap fighters. Check the kill feed to see what missile hit you, this way you can identify what killed you and how you might have gone wrong. In bvr, or wvr combat, some missile shots cannot be evaded. The aim of missile fighting in some sense then is to enable a missile shot for yourself while denying your opponent said shot. This is often not possible and in reality, especially when the fight starts head to head. In this case you want to force a situation where your opponent has successively less time to re-acquire you as a target, relative to you re-acquiring him, after each missile exchange and defense maneuver. 1v1 BVR fighting is a fairly procedural affair (unlike WVR gun fights) where there is a set guideline you can follow to eliminate things that will guarantee you being killed. Things become more fluid as you add aircraft into this mix but, there is plenty of literature out there on the web which can take you through procedures in both cases such as this excellent post http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=32019

Anything different and better performing (EDGE?) would be nice, but as long as its implemented in a way that it doesn't segregate the online community.

Fixed ahead of time.

It would be nice to get a direct comment on what engine optimizations have been done since the migration to DCS world, and how long the current engine will last if we keep throwing more modules at it. As for the other problem, laggy effects. Quite frankly, I don't understand how these effects pass QA, in fact I also don't understand how the current state of BVR passed QA. Some of these effects issues have been around awhile too, like the lag associated with a cluster bomb. "Tusk 21 in with CBU shape. Be advised all look in the other direction for 20 seconds." Stupid right? Regardless of the facts, I as the consumer feel this way. I didn't want to have to wait 3 months for network stability and I don't want to wait another 3 months for aircraft crash lag, especially since they are a common occurrence with mario kart (FC3) fighters around, and various other laggy effects to be fixed.

I actually disagree with that last line of reasoning. At least in Australia, game prices have matched inflation or have come down in price (especially in PC games, mind you we generally still pay 50% on top of what the US pays). What you failed to mention is how much the publishing companies screw the middle man (like EB/gamestop) back as well, through things like Origin/Steam. At least when I worked for EB in high school, I was told quite clearly that their survival was purely dependent on pre-owned sales. The profit margin on new stuff was only ~10%. You take away the ability to resell games, combined with online purchases and you really do kill the middle man. I can't think of an industry which has had its middle man cut out to the benefit of the consumer.

I won't point out the irony in using an adjective derived from science to describe a spiritualistic guru's development. However I will point out that a quantum leap doesn't necessarily have to be all that huge.

Sins of a Solar Empire and Cities Xl are excellent examples of games, which despite the numerous increases in content, no longer hold my interest due to the extremely poor performance on modern systems. All because they failed to develop an engine which could handle the level of detail which their game sought to simulate. Despite the growing pains and the somewhat questionable implementation of DCS world, the move to 64bit in my eyes has ensured the future of the DCS franchise. If they continue to add engine and network optimisations, as priority, that will ensure that content increases are delivered in an environment which they are able to be fully enjoyed. Honestly, nothing would make me happier in this game right now then to see both my gpu's hit 100% load, while my cpu chugs along on all four cores with 30 other players in the server. I would consider sacrificing content for this, but unfortunately you can't sell optimisations on a free platform. tl;dr As much as I want DCS Fighter, Nothing will make me play it if I have to go through the tedium of CTD's.

No. Flying in tight formation and using Brevity code for the sake of it is hardcore. Being hardcore is all about following the procedure to the letter, only to snap a wing off pulling out of a gun run because you were to busy practicing procedure.

Nice!

We run something similar over at the AEF called face off (friday). We have two opposing airfields, with A10's and KA50's on blue, and KA50's and SU25T's on red. Each side has a contingent of ground forces, and the objective is to take the opposing airfield which is roughly about 50NM away. Two cap fighters are allowed per side and they are located at a base 150NM from the bullseye completely empty of fuel and weapons. The obvious benefit to the winning CAP fighter in the inital engagement is that they can use the forward base as a re-arm/re-fuel point and avoid the 15 minute flight in.