Hyperion35

There is a rumor that this is a bug intentionally inserted by ED as an April Fools joke. I genuinely hope that this is not true. I can fully understand that bugs happen, that's just a normal part of software development, and nobody can write bug-free code. Bugs don't reflect on the quality or skill of the programming staff or the QA staff who go bughunting, because bughunting is also very difficult. But intentionally inserting a bug into an update isn't a joke. It discourages people from updating and it generates serious questions about whether we can trust ED's QA staff.

I haven't updated DCS yet, so haven't experienced it. And now I'm not going to bother installing the update. I'm also genuinely tempted to uninstall DCS, because I do not use software I don't trust, from developers I don't trust. Intentionally inserting a bug, that actually looks like a real genuine bug or worse like a hardware malfunction... Usually I'm the one defending ED's QA people. Not today. WTF were they thinking?

I just got the same when I tried to open the F-14 "Takeoff" Instant Action mission. However, while waiting and trying to write this post, it did finally open

And what, pray tell, would be the advantage for ED in this scenario? Setting up a new payment system has costs, which must be balanced against gains. But presumably anyone who has cryptocurrency is also going to have money in some real currency like USD, Euros, GBP, Rubles, etc. ED already uses payment systems like PayPal and others that allow anyone with a bank account or credit card to make a purchase, and presumably people who can afford a high-end gaming rig and a $70 module will have a bank account or credit card. I do not see how this is likely to bring in more customers, and it would create all sorts of headaches since cryptocurrency is highly volatile, making it difficult to set appropriate price points, as has already been mentioned. And in a corporate situation, a bitcoin wallet where anyone with the passcode can make transactions anonymously would be a nightmare. Paypal and other services presumably deposit money into one or more corporate accounts, and ED and their banks and such have agreements about who can do what with that money, and all transactions are tracked, so they can see exactly who transferred money and when and where, and there are clearly stated consequences and responsibilities should any money go missing or transferred inappropriately. Cryptocurrency is one of those ideas that sounds great until you actually try to figure out how to integrate it into a working financial system.

With regards to SAMs, I'm fairly certain that you can already do some of this, at least with IR SAMs, in Combined Arms. I haven't played around with it in a while, but I distinctly remember when CA was first released, I made a quick mission and played around with shooting down helicopters using one of the vehicles that had SAM capability (I think it was the M-6).

Leaving aside the question of console hardware like CPU and GPU and optimization and even the basic difficulties in porting the code over and getting it certified, I still don't think it would be a good idea for basic business issues. Console games are a very different market and business model. Console games are generally intended to sell a large number of copies relatively quickly, and for this they need to appeal to a large audience. It's fun to joke about Call of Duty and Ace Combat, but those are games that have broad appeal to large numbers of people who just want to have fun and blow stuff up with their friends for 30-90 minutes. A console game that doesn't hit a certain number of sales within the first few months is generally considered a failure and dropped completely. Flight simulators really are a niche market, and the devs and publishers rely on a "long tail" market model. They're targeting a small group of people, and it is not surprising that the majority of people who own DCS also own the other big name clmbat flight simulators as well, and why there are so few of them available. It's just a smaller market.

Many many years ago, back in college, two friends at a party who were in ROTC in different branches (I think one was Army and one was Air Force) got into one of those usual "which service is better" arguments, and unfortunately this was seriously delaying a drinking game for all of the rest of us. So to end the argument, I pointed out to both of them that my poli sci degree would probably mean that I'd eventually be one of the people who would be deciding which worthless patch of desert or jungle they'd be deployed to. Apparently the one thing that trumps interservice rivalries is a disdain for civilian analysts (except Jack Ryan, I guess?). (Probably to the benefit of world peace, I wound up choosing healthcare policy instead of defense policy or foreign policy, although if you think fighter jets are expensive...)

Another important point with regards to AESA radar is that in addition to a lot of importat info being classified, it would also probably require a lot of reworking of the existing radar code that already exists in the sim. Just look at the difficulty that Heatblur had with ground mapping radar and the ongoing work getting that implemented in the F/A-18C. Implementing AESA would be a massive project even if it were not classified. Best to stick with aircraft that carry the previous generation pulse-doppler radar technology, since that's at least something that has been implemented in DCS.

That shouldn't be the case with the real missiles. I was under the impression that the R-3S was basically a copy of the GAR-8, copied directly from a missile that hit a MiG, got lodged in the fuselage, and failed to detonate. I've seen sources quote some of the Soviets who examined it as saying that it provided them with a university education in missile design, implying that the Soviets were by their own admission far behind in missile development at the time. So it would seem unlikely that they were able to give the R-3S any sort of more advanced guidance system. Now, that doesn't tell us which one is behaving inaccurately, if they are behaving differently. But it seems strange that they would behave differently in their guidance. I suppose if they had different weights or different propulsion or different fin sizes or whatever, that could play a role, though.

It certainly doesn't have to be political. The only people who seem to see this as a "political" request are the ones mocking it. It is certainly one thing that limits the realism, yes. We have simulations of aircraft like the Ka-50 and the Su-33 where the total number of airframes built is in the 30s, while ignoring that there are currently 749 female pilots in the US Air Force. To put that number into context, there were 716 A-10 airframes ever built. It's also not an either-or thing. ED can update pilot models and voices AND improve EW simulation and missile guidance algorithms, etc. All of these things improve the DCS experience. And as for how many people care, I think that you might be surprised. There are a lot of people who will avoid this thread simply because of some of the responses so far (yes, I get it, you don't have a problem with them), so you won't hear their responses. You also won't hear from women who maybe gave DCS a try but found it annoying that they could only communicate using a male voice, even though they could have their pilot communicate in multiple different languages. It's fine for you to say "good riddance" or whatever, but I suspect that ED, who clearly do understand business and marketing, will see things differently.

Since you are one of the few who has responded in a serious manner, and since you have posted something constructive, perhaps I can help you with something similarly eye-opening: For many of us, there is not a discernable difference between "this will make DCS more diverse" and "this would make the game better". For many of us, adding woman to DCS is not "political", and ironically it is the people who complain about such requests who are the ones bringing up politics rather than responding to the suggestions offered. Diversity is not political. It is a simple matter of recognizing that the game is intentionally limiting itself by limiting how it portrays the world by omitting a significant portion of the population. A lack of women makes the game exceptionally unrealistic, and some people do not seem to grasp this because they view the lack of women as being a completely natural state of existence. By comparison, I'm about to head off to work as I am writing this. At my super-serious government agency, my chain of command is me (male) -> supervisor (female) -> department head (male) -> deputy director (female) -> agency director (female) -> cabinet secretary (male) -> governor (male). Given the money and lives at stake ($12 billion and 1.2 million people's healthcare), I can assure you that every one of those people were chosen for being the best available, regardless of gender. My point is simply that many of us find it absolutely jarring to see an all-male environment, when we work in a much more diverse environment every day. Rather than being some sort of "natural" state, it makes the game seem far more unrealistic.

+1 And just to add, there are 749 female pilots in the USAF, and 32 Ka-50s in the VVS, so the idea that female pilots are "too rare" becomes really absurd in comparison. Especially when you consider that one of the most well-known A-10 pilots (Kim Campbell) is a woman. I'd be genuinely curious how many of the insecure little boys in this thread can land an A-10 in manual reversion mode with half the horizontal stabilizer shot off like she did. Also, this thread has convinced me that I will never, ever, ever fly multiplayer in DCS. Too many children.

Please have a look here: https://forums.eagle.ru/rule.php#en Specifically 1.1, 1.5, and 1.7

Fixed it for you. Memes are not new, it's just propaganda dressed up for the 21st century. Propaganda is not inherently good or bad, I'm not using that term as an insult. However, like all good propaganda, memes take a shortcut past reason and thought to as to make something seem "obvious" without having to give it any serious consideration. If people are just going to post memes, it is clear that they are not interested in a discussion, because there is no point to arguing against propaganda. When you add the fact that many of these memes are intended as jokes, this makes things worse when people are trying to be serious. For example, when discussing how to solve substance abuse problems at work (part of my job), I wouldn't interrupt a meeting to tell Robin Williams' joke about how God must have been high when he designed the platypus, even if it is one of the funniest things I've ever heard, because it is simply not the right time and place, and adds nothing to the discussion. Perhaps when Ace Combat 7 comes out, the children will go play that instead, but I was under the impression that DCS had mostly an adult audience.

I've found the post where someone showed an attempt to edit the helicopter pilot's skin, but they list it as a WIP: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3496027&postcount=157 I do not know whether this mod was ever completed, though.

With regards to the pilot bodies, it probably doesn't make much of a difference for the jets. For example, here is a photo of an A-10 pilot from an excellent article in TWZ from a while back: However, the helicopter pilot models in DCS are a bit different. They have open-faced helmets without visors, and at least some of the models have facial hair. And for all of the choppers except the Ka-50, you have pilots sitting next to each other and thus visible in the cockpit. And you have to admit that it's a bit strange that we have a woman who flew a Blackhawk in combat sitting in the US Senate, but only male helicopter pilots in DCS. I think someone might have tried modding the heliopter pilot models to remove the facial hair a while back, I'd have to check.

My god, some of the posts here in this thread are depressing. There are plenty of good reasons for wanting different skin colors for the pilots, someone already mentioned the P-51, which pretty much has to have a dark-skinned pilot option since one of the most famous (and successful) P-51 squadrons was the Tuskegee Airmen. A red-tailed P-51 with a light-skinned pilot would look odd and most definitely ahistorical. DCS World has many different countries available, and many of these countries, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, not to mention the USA, recruit their pilots from populations with a wide range of skin tones. Additionally, there are many famous air battles, including most of the major combat deployments of the MiG-29 and Su-27 and virtually all of those aircrafts' air-to-air kills, that occurred in sub-Saharan Africa. Let me repeat that: virtually all of the kills by the two most widely used redfor jets in DCS occurred in countries with dark-skinned pilots. I understand that many people might wonder why this would matter since we don't see ourselves in the cockpit, and we don't usually see the other pilots even in WVR combat. This is true, but many people use DCS to make movies, and there have been some really mindblowingly good movies that have been made that show off this simulator. And those movies are often the first exposure that people have to DCS. The different pilot skins in the P-51, and the fact that changing nationality can change the patches on the pilot flight suit strongly suggests that this is something that can be implemented at the level of aircraft skinning. If this is the case, then it may be relatively easy to implement this feature simply by creating new aircraft skins and uploading them to the user files section (and maybe later incorporating them into the main game). I have never tried to make an aircraft skin, but perhaps people who have done so could chime in and confirm whether this is the case?

Ask a Game Dev has an excellent post about this issue: http://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/130141223936/how-do-you-tell-the-difference-between-critique It's worth reading the full post, I've only excerpted a few lines here, but she explains what sort of aspects are useful for critiques from people who are not members of the dev team, and what aspects of a critique really are not helpful.

While the USAF might not use CFTs, the F-16CJ Block 50 is still capable of mounting them, isn't it? I mean, I thought that the primary difference between the Block 50 and the exported Block 52 was just the engine. Yes, some countries like Israel, Japan, and the UAE fly radically different Falcon variants, but most of the countries that fly F-16C Block 52 aircraft almost always use conformal tanks (I had thought that Israel used them for their A/B/C/D variants as well, but the only pictures I can find of Israeli F-16s with CFT are all listed as being the F-16I, which is more of a mini-Strike Eagle than a Viper). Regardless, if the CFTs are available and usable on the F-16CJ Block 50 and can be used, then it seems like it would be reasonable to include that option, especially since so many other countries operate the F-16 with CFTs. I have heard conflicting reports from F-16 pilots about the extent to which CFTs affect flight characteristics, but even the pilots who have praised them have still said that they do have at least some effect, so it may mean adding more work to the flight model. Additionally, the one potential problem that I can see might be a lack of good data. If USAF F-16s rarely use CFTs, and if most of the avaible flight data on CFTs is coming from F-16 Block 52, which has a different engine with different thrust levels, I could see that being a potential stumbling block.

I know there are some Hungarian skins for the MiG-21 because I have them installed, and there should be for several other aircraft. A quick search turned up these skins: MiG-21: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/1876938/?sphrase_id=15417377 https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3012297/?sphrase_id=15417521 MiG-15: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/1304205/?sphrase_id=15417521 Mi-8: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3301725/?sphrase_id=15417377 https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3302595/?sphrase_id=15417377 https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/488339/?sphrase_id=15417521 L-39: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/2430467/?sphrase_id=15417377 Yak-52: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3301719/?sphrase_id=15417377 MiG-29: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3302437/?sphrase_id=15417521 https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3302477/?sphrase_id=15417521 An-26 (AI): https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/1228625/?sphrase_id=15417521 And several fictional skins, Su-27: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/1459214/?sphrase_id=15417377 Su-25T: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/208100/?sphrase_id=15417377 Sa-342: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/2712991/?sphrase_id=15417377 Mi-24 (AI): https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3302664/?sphrase_id=15417377 And there are a few more in the files section as well, including some fictional F/A-18 skins

One major issue is maps. None of the current maps really reflect any WWI battlefields, even Normandy is too far West, and the Persian Gulf is probably too far East for the Mesopotamian theatre. Granted, if the Caucasus map extended just a bit to the South we could do Gallipoli, but that didn't have much of an air component. Given that these aircraft were flown only a few hundred meters AGL, at speeds more comparable to a modern car, the ground map is pretty important. Also, the period of flight involved completely different concepts for airfields, or aerodromes as they called them: it was basically just a (hopefully) flat, dry (if you were lucky) cleared patch of land roughly in a circle, with the hangars and tents taking up about a quarter of the circumference. Even by the standards of the Harrier or Viggen it was a very small and very crude landing area. I'd love to see WWI warbirds in DCS, but I think that since it was such a unique period of combat aviation, it really requires a dedicated sim and maps. Even IL-2 is only able to do it because they're building it off of the previous Rise of Flight, which is probably the best existing WWI flight sim.

In addition to the legal restrictions that are mentioned, it's also worth pointing out that there were very few Ka-50s that were actually built, and many DCS missions actually feature far more Ka-50s than have ever been airborne simultaneously in real life. I'm not sure of the total number built, Wikipedia lists 32 built, but they also list the Egyptian Air Force as having 34 Ka-50 airframes, and the Russian VVS as having 12 Ka-50 airframes, but that citation links to this page: https://www.aviaport.ru/digest/2009/01/12/164434.html So the VVS may have 8 airframes, with up to 5 more that may or may not have been completed (possibly used as sources for spare parts instead?). Apparently the VVS chose to go with the upgraded two-seat Ka-52 instead, reportedly because they felt that attack helicopters worked better with 2 pilots (which may be true, most Western attack choppers like the Cobra and Apache and Eurocopter Tiger are two-seaters). So it is unlikely that the Ka-50 will be used in combat at any point in the future.

David Weber does a decent job of describing fictional hypothetical space combat in his Honor Harrington series*. Weber himself is great at writing thrilling "death ride" combat scenes, but he also makes it clear that real Newtonian combat maneuvering, even with his sci-fi "impeller drive" sublight acceleration (far beyond our current capabilities, we're talking roughly 2,000 years in the future) it still takes HOURS to maneuver into position, and a lot of calculations regarding turnover, since you have to accelerate up to a certain point, and then turn around and decelerate if you want to reach a specific target (like a planet or space station) at any reasonable velocity. Oh, and if you're trying to fly past a moving target like an enemy ship or fleet, you only get one shot, since it'll be several more hours before you can even get turned back in its direction. Now, if you're going to try to maneuver to draw up alongside enemy ships to match their direction and velocity for an extended engagement, you're gonna need a lot more math and geometry. Now, in a sci-fi novel, it's easy enough for a character to say "we've sighted the enemy fleet, we expect to draw within firing range in four hours" and then just jump ahead to when the alert to go to battlestations actually happens. It's not quite so easy to do that in a simulator, especially if you're expecting to be seated at the controls the whole time. There are plenty of missions in DCS that involve an hour of flying round trip for a few minutes of combat, but this would be far far worse. There are also good reasons why most sci-fi authors treat future space conflicts in naval terms, since it is more likely to be similar to modern submarine or possible battleship combat rather than like modern combat aviation, so I'm not even sure that this would be the best format. *It's worth reading if you like action, the writing is kinda meh, but it's basically the literary equivalent of one of those Michael Bay or Jerry Bruckheimer summer action flicks. Since it's based on an older naval book series (Horatio Hornblower), it's probably of greater interest to sailors than pilots

Somewhere around...damn, was it really 15 years ago, my public policy analysis professor taught me that any good proposal needs to lead with its conclusion. You can spell out the reasons why your conclusion is correct with as much length as you need, but if you do not lead with your conclusion, people will read through your proposal wondering what the hell you are suggesting. Just a thought...

Non-carrier aircraft can still be done with an in-air start, and maybe some in-air refueling. A different problem might be the current lack of anti-ship weapons. The Viggen has the RB-04 and RB-15, and the Hornet will be getting the Harpoon soon enough. I seem to remember that the Su-25T has some sort of anti-ship missile, and the MiG-21 has that beam-riding radar guided missile whose name I'm forgetting. But a lot of aircraft wouldn't really have anything that they could do against ships. Also, tbere's plenty of water in the Black Sea for all sorts of these naval battles, it extends pretty far to the West.