Vähäkylä

All the above is highly needed and would improve game maps significantly. Right now drawing in ME is difficult, slow, and even when results are achieved, aesthetically displeasing.

Easy to just drive-by poop-post and ask for one's favorite toy, but I feel like it's more fair to include a paragraph of justification and how it ties into DCS. I fully understand CH has his hands full and there's already a lot of models in the pipeline, but I'll still start, especially as a thing that seems somehwhat absent. Cold War SAMs and other units RedEye, Blowpipe, Strelas on dudes, West German towed AA guns, et cetera. These are sorely missing, and with DCS focusing on Cold War and the new map, they're more needed than ever. I hope they are soon included by someone, and would serve the game well in that timeframe. RedEye and Strela littered central europe during the seventies and eighties, and made sure that no pilot who would fly straight and level, unaware at the possibility of using his flight stick, at low altitude would be safe. I do ask that other posts also include some justification. ANyway, great asset pack so far!

There is no world where it is better to have some asset as a mod rather than in the game. Running endless mods, especially with a software like DCS that makes it a hecking headache is not really an option for large MP communities, PvE or PvP. "Oh just get the mod" ignores such a glaring majority of the reality of multiplayer, the nature of DCS, and online communities. It's good that CH assets are in the game. I don't want mods if I can help it.

These are much needed. I'd say the singularly most amazing news for modern scenarios is the Pantsir, of course. Scimitar and Scorpion are amazing for Cold War Germany. There were some 3000 of them in the border from Belgium and UK alone! I am very excited for them for that reason. The T-64 is also a Cold War assets. I'd hope next up are the poopoo-MANPADS like early Strelas and Redeyes and Blowpipes for Cold War scenarios so we can watch semi-angry sparklers near miss aircraft.

This is mainly a yell into a big nothing, but I've always wished DCS would support a Mission Editor enabled option for an external model swap. This would allow a Tornado ADV model for F-14 for example, or using JF-17 and selecting Gripen externals. While not a perfect solution, it would definitely help to create some scenarios with for example Tornado ADV being similar to the F-14 with Sparrows. Obviously would require tuning, but would be a big help in Cold War missions, too. For example the Jeff. With Jeff internals and use, it pretty much functions like an early Gripen. Already by default, it is pretty close. Yeah you could say that this isn't a perfect solution, and I can wholeheartedly agree. But it'd be heck of a better solution than nothing in my mind. It could be up to the Mission Editor and the mission creator to use the appropriate external model when wanted. The example of F-14 using Tornado ADV as external works pretty great for 1989, and there's other mashups I can think of, too. Interested on if anyone has any refined thoughts on a system like this. Air Goons will run a 1986 Cold War gone Hot scenario as a big multiplayer event, and currently the F-14 in RAF skin is going to be the Tornado ADV, and the F-15E with all A2A weapons disabled will be the F-111. Not perfect, but even without visual model change, their role matches with appropriate skins. Having external model match would be a perfection. And yeah, in our last campaign the JF-17 was the Gripen.

Yep, it isn't a perfect solution, but much better than what we have now!

Especially pertinent now with East Germany becoming more of a focal point with Cold War map, the GDR lacks immense amounts of units already present in the game itself. Among missing East German aircraft, present in DCS but not available to the Country GDR in ME are: MiG-23 Mi-8 Mi-24. L-39 Will we get these fixed at some point?

So does the above prevent a multiplayer person hitting spectate and seeing everything? What about them going to F10 map?

Obviously getting the actual variants would be cooler, but there's already so much potential in being able to limit features that would help with that.

Definitely agree. Even just one Danish airbase will do wonders.

Our planes can do much more cold war if we just take functions away from them. Helmet sights, Link16, various datalink options, et cetera. Those are just some of the features that would allow us to make these planes fit in better for earlier time periods. Right now we have so little control over any of it, it is immensely frustrating. I would otherwise have a decent F-16C Block 25 in late 80s Germany fighting against East Germans with AIM-9L missiles and mostly dumb bombs, but I can't take its Link 16 or helmet sight away, which just completely break the whole idea.

njoy my awesome drawing, but above the arctic circle, that my yellow line roughly shows, the snowfall is late october-ish. By november halfway, it's pretty solidly snow. I definitely think that mid-november or 01 november is a much more reasonable date for beginning of proper snowcover in this area. It might not really be for like Mosjeen-Luleå-Kemi-Ranua axis quite yet in early November, but arguably most action is done in the north in this map. Just as an example: https://weatherspark.com/m/86559/10/Average-Weather-in-October-in-Kiruna-Sweden#:~:text=The average sliding 31-day snowfall during October in Kiruna,or falls below 2.0 inches. "The average sliding 31-day snowfall during October in Kiruna is rapidly increasing, starting the month at 3.0 inches, when it rarely exceeds 7.9 inches or falls below 0.2 inches, and ending the month at 7.8 inches, when it rarely exceeds 15.9 inches or falls below 2.0 inches." In Rovaniemi, just at the arctic circle line, "https://weatherspark.com/y/92829/Average-Weather-in-Rovaniemi-Finland-Year-Round" Snow alone is the most common for 4.4 months, from November 17 to April 1. The month with the most days of snow alone in Rovaniemi is January, with an average of 5.2 days.

I hope those are not the dates as in real life Lapland usually becomes covered in snow in late october or mid-november latest.

It is listed nowhere in the FAQ, map description, or sales pitches, on how to switch the map to winter textures. What temperature, weather setting, and date do I need? I set 01 November 2009, minus 8 celcius. I loaded and saved and loaded the map again, no winter textures visible. I tried various dates, no luck. What am I doing wrong? It's frustrating that only thing I find is "winter textures based on date" but date is never mentioned.

It is absolutely ridiculous to complain about the F-14 being made better. Plenty of people have long wished for the HUD and PTID. Yeah, are there other cool things it could have? Absolutely. But to act like it is somehow a bad thing to get more features is just extremely silly. This is _YOUR_ desire: to get this specific A-model. And that's fine! But it is not fair to act like it is somehow a mistake from the company whose only customer you are not.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, looks like we are much closer now, with Heatblur posting about the PTID and the Sparrowhawk. It's good times, and I appreciate the OPs gathering of info.

Has this changed? Does it now have it?

Is it still the case that I can have hundreds and hundreds of statics and it won't much affect MP performance or lag? I presume static's are not sent as network traffic besides initial load?

Which one is more realistic: Scenario A: A fighter pilot sits in a cockpit and reads the labels fine (since they're in English) Scenario B: A fighter pilot sits in the cockpit and mutters "I can't read any of this <profanity>" (Because they're Cyrillic for _realism_) People like to tout "realism", but it isn't the case that it always means making everything as obtuse as possible. After all, in real life many services used this super weapon to un-cyrillic their cockpit:

Being able to restrict datalink and helmet mounted sights is absolutely needed to get earlier fights. And provides options for all kinds of scenario. Helmet mounted sight should absolutely be an option in ME, much like enabling NVG is for many planes. Because it is an option for M2000 and F-4, it clearly isn't beyond the game's scope.

Is it still not possible to group statics into a unit I can copy-paste and or move around? It makes moving static areas an absolute nightmare in a mission where areas move. Is it possible to create a trigger area, build a static unit composition into it, and then simply spawn a new script area that copies from a designated one?

I know, and it is nice, but as long as using mods is a difficult task in DCS for a large group of people, I will have to skip.

Is there any movement on this, or is it still being worked on?

It is absolutely ridiculous that we don't have some generic 737 or 747 asset in the game for scenarios.