WinterH

We really need a lot more infantry/weapon variation, also through factions and periods. But even then, with the current way ground AI work, they'd still be mostly window dressing to be mowed down by vehicles, while simultaneously sniping a speeding helicopter through that one little gap among trees with an RPG-7 round

It was green since it's been there as far as I remember.

Yes, it would be an excellent counterpart to Mi-24, and a unique experience compared to AH-64D, a Western Cold War attack helicopter. Z would be a huge shame imo.

Like Northstar said, it really depends. If overall module completeness is a factor for you, Hind is almost done, while Apache has some ways to go, which is to be expected, one released a lot earlier, and is a lot less complex than the other after all. Aside from that, Hind is like a shturmovik or Su-25, but with a rotor, and Apache is a flying server rack with a lot more in the way of offensive and defensive capabilities, and more ease in traditional way of helo attacks from hover, as well as well more agility. I personally enjoy Hind a lot more, but that's mostly because it's more down my alley: Cold War, simple systems, it's like the warbird of attack helos, and it's been an iconic "scary helo with lots of dakka" for me since I was a teen. But if you want advanced navigation, targeting, defensive capabilities, more guided missiles, FLIR, night capability, flexible gun, Apache would be more of a fit.

No, but a lot is happening with IRL stuff so I can only enhance it every now and then. I think last I've updated github was about a month ago. I've seen someone add two new issues/sugesstions now though, assuming that might have been you Also the latest thing I'm working on is a big feature so it is taking time. Edit: Ooops, assumed you've meant my script. I'll create a thread when I finish that feature and go "v1.0", hopefully in coming weeks, so I can stop highjacking MBot's thread.

AH-1W existed since 80s though. And I think, pretty firmly, that 80s or early 90s AH-1W and/or same vintage AH-1F is by far the best fit. Can fit a wide range of time periods, great mix of old-school and modern, fits what I and many others tihnk of as the best period for DCS, pretty much a direct counterpart/play-mate for Mi-24P we have. AH-1G would be a HUGE shame. It's literally almost UH-1 but slim. You can do pretty much the same posterior-clenching in that just fine Equally, a later 90s, or 2000s, or even beyond AH-1W or Z would be at least as much of a great shame, it can only fit modern shenanigans, and would be "Longbow Apache but with slightly different flavor". Army Cobras like F would probably be the easier module to make by ED themselves, considering it would have more directly shared stuff with our existing UH-1H. I think it would also be more representative of worldwide Cobra service, as some description of single engine Cobra was/is being used by a lot of countries, while the twin engine ones were only a few in addition to USMC. On the other hand, 80s-90s W would be more interesting from capabilities point of view, with being able to use either TOWs or Hellfires at mission maker's discreation, and I believe also some Marine Cobra specials like Sidewinders and Sidearms, and of course also the twin engine performance.

An AI AH-1W existed, I think as long as DCS itself did. There was also an unfinished AH-1G model viewable through model viewer, but not accessible in DCS itself, don't know if it's still there. We have also always had an AI UH-60, at least as far as I can remember. As for ED not using mods in trailers, that is usually the case, yes, but I'm fairly sure-ish they did use A-4 once in a video, and I am sure Heatblur did use A-4 at least once. But in case of UH-60, no need for using the mod either, because we've always had an AI one in DCS. According to an interview by Wags sometime last year, and if I recall correctly, ED does have a secret helicopter module in at least plans, it may or may not be the UH-60, but that AH-64 video is not the place to look for hints about that.

Not in any way, shape, or form.

Here's the deal: that's a complete strawman. Extra liveries not being forced down the throat of everyone does not equal those who want can't enjoy them either: make them optional downloads, and no one loses a thing, and people get choice.

Fully agree that HB livery runaway needs a check. Space isn't cheap for everyone, if anything, it is at a premium for some of us, and I don't fancy having to shuffle files with every big update to make enough space just so I can update DCS. If all the other liveries combined makes 33 gigs and Tomcat alone makes 12, that is literally INSANE. Don't get me wrong, they are really nice to look at. But I'd be pretty happy if we don't get any more added, well aside from A FEW for upcoming additional variants I guess. I'd also be happy if F-4E won't take up that much drive space for liveries, and I say this as a phantom phanatic for whom F-4E is the thing I anticipate in DCS the most, by far. Liveries should be "download as you like" kinda thing, which I sometimes do for my favorite modules.

Strela-10 (SA-13 "Gopher") is an IR SAM. It will not trigger your RWR, and won't show up on any HARM pages. Technically, Soviets did put a little radar dish on it, but that was only meant for rangefinding before firing the missiles, not for searching for, nor tracking targets, and AFAIK it ended up not being used much, probably even removed altogether in later modernizations? SAMs will not always, but usually stop before engaging aircraft, so that may have stopped it from showing on GMT radar. I personally feel like, FLIR targeting pod video is the best way to find things on ground in most cases, if their general whereabouts is known at least.

AFAIK, F-4S had the slats, but that happened fairly late into Navy F-4's career. F-4Js, not entirely sure if they got it or not.

Heatblur so far says we're getting a pre-DMAS and post-DMAS F-4E each, and then most likely naval variant(s), and they don't seem inclined to do any of these late upgrades. While I wouldn't mind these sorts of things for the sake of curiosity, I'd even say I'd enjoy the idea of doing new-fangled things in old-school stuff, I too think I'd much, much rather see more significant variants first, and these über-upgraded birds like Kurnass, Terminator, AUP, ICE, EJ-Kai etc are both harder to find proper documentation and SMEs for, and a lot more niche birds that may or may not have the customer interest to warrant all that effort. To be fair, we'll most likely get a slatless F-4J too eventually. I mean, that's essentially what DMAS F-4E is, which is the second variant we'll get. Though that modernization was late 70s-early 80s kinda deal, and even by then not necessarily state-of-the-art Not sure about the Litening-II TGP to be honest. Don't think Terminators ever used them, all the photos I've seen were with the ancient Pave Spike, and locally developed ASELPOD was supposed to be its replacement AFAIK. Don't know about HARM either, kinda doubt tbh. Maverick, LGBs and pretty much all the other air to ground ordnance listed were already part of F-4Es arsenal before the update, apart from Popeye, that was the start of the show when it comes to this upgrade. I think nowadays locally developed SOM cruise missile either replaced it for Terminators or is about to. I've read but never been able to confirm that AIM-7 compatibility was lost with the upgrade, but still not sure if that's true. German ICE and the related Greek AUP birds were more multirole with AMRAAM capability as well, while the Terminator was more strike oriented that didn't add as much for air to air.

Correct AFAIK, still no on the RWR, but a missile approach warning system was on cards at some point, it is unclear if it still is however.

Yep, a late J-7 like the G is my choice by far too!

In my experience, yes, they do. I am thinking of moving entirely into dynamically script spawned units instead for my future mission building escapedes to see if that improves upon that aspect of things. Now that I look at Dangerzone's post, seems like it did work for them!

MiG-21Bis we have is technically from 1972 originally, but R-60M is from sometime either very late 70s or probably even 80s though, so I'm not fully sure that 7F is entirely out of the realm of possibility just yet.

Yeah, for me this is the answer in DCS for just about anything. Although, in F-111s case I guess I'd be semi happy with a Nam era version at least, but I vastly prefer a later one as it's a better fleshed out, and imo plain more interesting era for DCS.

Since we are gettin a German bird, it'd be a MW-1 if we get anything of the sort, but MW-1 seems to fit the date.

MW-1 was later I take it? So I'm guessing iron bombs, Kormoran, maybe also a couple of HARMs right? Or was HARM an ECR only thing, I seem to recall German IDS' could carry a couple but I may be wrong. Anysi, sounds good to me :))

Yeah, seems we can't change votes, F-104 and F-102 both would join my list as the bottom two, but they'd be in it anyway. Edit: C-27J would be in it too, and I'd rate it higher myself

In descending order of interest for me personally, I'll cut them into 3 categories: "Holy crap YES!", "Would be cool", "Yeah, sure wouldn't mind one" So the Holy crap YES! category goes like: - F-105 (though there isn't supposed to be enough primary sources out there according to the internet lore?) - Stuka, especially a D-5 + G-2 pack And the "Would be cool!" category: - G55 - M-346FA (if a YaK-130 could be wedged into it somewhere too it'd be double awesome) Finally, "Yeah, sure wouldn't mind one" - A-129 Mangusta, just because it is a helicopter, and an attack helicopter at that - AMX - Macchi C.205 The rest I personally don't care for.

J-7G is my top wish by quite some degree, but would love Su-30 or J-10 too, even though I don't find them to be too likely sadly. They may surprise us and do something western as well, I even remember saying something to the effect of "we may do something western too perhaps" years ago. Anyway, regardless of what it is, I'm looking forward to hearing about Deka's next project.

Solutions I'd like to see (just throwing ideas): - F10 map markers with certain syntax that will turn into markings/waypoints on helicopter's map - Ability for the pilot to use something like a white board marker to mark/scribble on the map and be able to also erase it or at least just put a point/erase it If it was exposed to lua scripts, I could easily throw together something that will use F10 markers and add them to the helo map, but exposing that would also open a can of worms I guess. Custom images would be very welcome, but it isn't the end all. If you want to be able to mark dynamic destinations/targets in a mission post spawn, regardless it being multi or singleplayer for example, it wouldn't be helpful with that. To be fair, there still would be ways depending on how the mission is built/work. I don't really do public servers myself, well maybe once every 3-4 years or so so don't exactly know how they work these days. But I do build missions with intention to fly with buddies, and they do sometimes include targets at unknown places etc. There can be a human controller giving directions potentially for example, and that would be in line with capabilities of the platform. Or the mission builder can put ADF stations you can tune to be able to navigate to known target areas, or when a target pops up/or detected by recon units mission can display a message giving a bearing/distance from a known point, and you can use doppler system or dead recknoning from that point to get there etc. At least that's how I'd do it if I was making a mission (well that's a script idea to add to my list now). After all, we need to remember that Mi-24 doesn't have an INS/coordinate based navigation option on board. Nor anything to precisely mark a point from its targeting system realistically. So ideally solution should be in line with its capabilities, like using bearing/distance from a known landmark etc.

From what I gather, Razbam's development cycle goes like "do the 3D first, start with coding once that part is more or less ready". While in recent couple of years their number of programmers seem to have grown so that they do now actually have multiple teams, with highly complex Strike Eagle being in development (and seemingly being slotted for an earlier release than the MiG), as well as Mirage 2000C still seeing improvements, and Harrier seemingly having things to be done (don't follow that one closely TBH so not sure), one can see and understand that it will likely be a while before we see systems working on the MiG, let alone having even a tentative release window. At least it is being worked on, and I am happy to see that. But I don't expect it to be in our virtual hangars soon if I have to be realistic. With 3D model progressing, and Mirage as well as Harrier having relatively little left to do on them coding wise (well not sure on Harrier but I would hope anyway), we will like start seeing such progress on the 23 too in the coming months. But for an early access, I'd say at least about a year, give or take a month or two