MTM

IMHO, a player controlled F-35 in DCS enhances realism. I know many will spit out their coffee at such a controversial statement, but it’s nonetheless true. Why? Because, classified or not, the F-35 is in fact out there, in vast numbers, and it has carried out combat missions. If ED was adding Clint Eastwood’s Firefox, we would all agree that is absurd. But the F-35 is not fiction. It’s out there and adding it to DCS brings DCS closer to the real world. And it opens up an aspect of aerial warfare that we haven’t gotten to explore in DCS before. These are positive developments and if done correctly they only add to realism.

Greetings and happy Friday! The second I saw the F-35A appear at the end of the 2025 and Beyond video, I leaped out of my seat and yelled “F$&@ Yeah!” And I instantly knew (as I’m sure everyone did) that ED’s decision to go this route would be controversial. No surprise given how controversial the real-life F-35 has been. I, for one, think this is amazing news! After the Kinney Interactive flop a decade ago, I thought we’d never get a fifth gen in DCS. I’m thrilled that this is finally happening! I totally understand all the concerns about what an F-35 does to multiplayer, what it does to the already lopsided red vs blue balance, and what level of realism we’re going to get. Realism is obviously the main challenge. For my two cents, just because something is classified doesn’t mean it’s a dead end. Whether it’s the F-35 or anything else, take your best guess and let it grow and mature over time as info trickles into the public space. That’s infinitely better for realism than ignoring everything thats classified. As for Red’s lack of love, I hope you’re working on this ED. You guys got me thoroughly hooked on DCS a long time ago and I have no doubt you’ll keep me hooked for years to come, but we’re desperately in need of some Super Flankers, J-10, J-20…. Something more than the vanilla flankers and fulcrums we currently have. At least start with AI models of those jets. A well modeled AI controlled Su-35 would be a huge help right now. I’m hugely excited to see the developments coming in 2025! Can’t wait to get my hands on the F-35! Thank you for doing this ED! My credit card is ready!

Day 1 Pre-order for me! 100%! Take my money!!!

Greetings! I have to admit, I’m a little confused about what you’re trying to do. I have a feeling you’re hopping in the Viper with no steerpoints and you’re just flying around bombing stuff for fun. If so, I enjoy that too sometimes and it can be a lot of fun. But keep in mind that the jet is designed to find and attack targets in a much more purposeful way. If I’m looking for a target on the ground and I’m not near a steerpoint, I’m going to use Snowplow mode on the TGP and then TMS Up to ground stabilize it. Then I’ll slew it over to the area I want to search. When I find my target, I hit “7” on the ICP to bring up the Markpoint Menu on the DED. Then TMS Up again to create the markpoint. Then “0” to make it the active steerpoint. It’s a lot of buttons to press but eventually it becomes automatic and you can do it in a couple seconds. I never use Boresight on the TGP. Even when I have a weapon selected that puts the TGP in boresight mode, I’m always looking at the target through the HUD, not the TGP. Learn how the sensors on the Viper work with the weapons. Your weapon selections will change the way the sensors work, so start with the weapons you want and how you want to use them and then your sensors will work the way they need to. Good hunting!

Probably need a little more information here. Are you in A-G Master mode? What weapon do you have selected? What delivery mode (CCIP, CCRP, etc)? I ran into a lot of issues like this when I was first learning the Viper. I noticed the sensors in the Viper didn't always do what I wanted them to do and I couldn't figure out why. In the Viper, your weapons settings will determine how your sensors behave. If you're using the TGP to find targets, you probably want to be in CCRP mode (PRE mode for Mavericks and JDAMS).

I thought I’d share some thoughts, observations, and progress I’ve made over the past week. With the suggestions from Bignewy, darkman222, and other advice posted through this discussion, I’m having a lot more success killing those pesky Fulcrums! My first mistake was thinking “winning” meant getting on the fulcrum’s 6 for a low aspect gun kill. After trying it this way countless times, it’s just NOT a good approach against the Fulcrum. It takes WAY too long if you can get there at all. Go for the higher aspect snap-shot kill instead. Another important lesson… there’s sustained turns and there’s “almost” sustained turns. Over and over, I’ll do a max sustained turn at about 440 knots and I’m just not out turning the fulcrum. BUT, if I start the turn at 465 and slightly nose-down, and then I pull VERY SLIGHTLY into a decelerating turn, I’m usually nose-on the fulcrum by the time my speed gets to 430. Another problem against the Fulcrum… he goes high and I can’t climb with him. I’ll get so very close to the gun reticle reaching him but now I’m so slow I can’t maneuver that last little bit, and he gets away. No worries… the solution is to wait just a moment when the Fulcrum starts his climb. Just give it 2-3 seconds of acceleration before you go after him. I usually like to start my climb at 500 knots or higher. When he’s high and slow, you’ll be faster and still have speed to maneuver to get the gun kill. And if he drops his nose to accelerate before you get there, no problem. Rinse and repeat until you’ve got him. Last thought… instinctively I want to take full internal tanks into the dogfight. I figure winning the dogfight is pointless if you flame out on the way home. But really, technique is everything in the viper (unlike the hornet which is very forgiving). With the right BFM techniques, you can take 4,500 lbs into the merge and be on your way home with plenty of gas to spare. Or you can take 7,000 lbs and flameout because the dogfight stayed neutral for 5 minutes.

@darkman222 Watched your YouTube vid (and gave it a ). I’ll download the track when I get home this evening. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks BN. I appreciate you taking the time to look at it. I know I didn't hold corner speed until the end of my track. I wanted to hurry up and get the fight down low without the track being too long. All things being equal, it sounds like the lesson here is don't take 7,000 lbs of gas into a gunfight with a Fulcrum. And I suppose that's not a realistic scenario in real life anyway. External tanks will likely be dry well before the viper gets to the fight. Nice flying by the way!

Many thanks, Nineline. Track file attached. Notice, for the last 20 seconds, I'm right at corner speed, but the fulcrum is consistently outrating me by at least 1 dgr per sec. Any chance you can upload a track of your own to show me the right way to do it? F-16C vs MiG-29A.trk

Just sparred with an AI viper and it took a full four minutes but I won the 2 circle and gunned it down. I'm satisfied. The AI Fulcrum cheats. Hopefully when the full fidelity Fulcrum is released, that won't be a problem anymore.

After you create the mark point, are you hitting 0/M-Sel on the ICP to make it the active steerpoint?

I love the viper, but like the OP I'm not having much success dogfighting with it. For practice, I set up a head-to-head guns only fight with an AI MiG-29A. Both aircraft clean (except pylons) with full internal fuel. Merge at about 15k feet. Keep the fight 2 circle. The fight always ends up on the deck. I try to stay 420-440 knots which ends up being about 7G sustained. And the fulcrum ALWAYS out-rate's me. A sustained turn fight on the deck is where the viper shines, isn't it?! I've tried it at higher speeds. Lower speeds. Offset the circle. Doesn't matter. The fulcrum always wins the 2 circle fight unless it flames out first. Those of you who have mastered dogfighting in the viper, what's going on here? Analyzing the replay in Tacview, I noticed I'll get to 20-21 dgr per sec turn rate, but only for a few seconds. My sustained turns are usually more like 17-18. Am I not fully maximizing the viper's turn performance? Any thought's you guys have would be appreciated. I've read all the previous posts in this thread and there's definitely some great advice being shared. All very helpful! But I'm still getting smoked by the Fulcrum. I love the viper and I'm not giving up on her... yet.

Thanks Zyll, that worked! It didn't like != for some reason so I tried ~= and it worked with that. Thanks for your help!

Greetings all. I've just started trying to learn how to use scripting and not having much success. I want to create a script tied to an F10 radio item that will show me my wingman's fuel percentage. I got that to work using the following script... local a1 = Unit.getByName('Hornet 1-1') local b1 = Unit.getFuel(a1) local c1 = math.floor(b1*10000)/100 trigger.action.outText("Hornet 1-1 Fuel Remaining: "..c1.."%",10) Only problem is I get an error message if my wingman is already dead. So, I'm guessing I need an if-then condition to tell the script to only run if my wingman is still alive. I know it can be done using the DCS built-in trigger system, but I'd really like to learn how to do it in LUA. Anyone want to share their wisdom on this? I have no prior experience with coding, so this is uncharted territory for me. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

The Hornet was my first DCS aircraft and for me, personally, I found air-to-ground to be easy and intuitive in the Hornet. Then I started learning the Viper and I had the same experience you just described. Air-to-ground was cumbersome and much less intuitive than the Hornet. Be patient my friend. Give it time. You’ve really got to know the jet 100% and then go a little past that so that the procedures are automatic for you and the sensors do what you want them to. One bit of advice that helped me… start with the GBU-12 (and GBU-10 if you want a bigger boom!). As you get proficient with that one weapon, you’ll be learning to use the sensors in the way that gives you the least workload. When it starts to feel easy, add more weapons.