WinterH

I love these early fighter bomber jets. F-86, MiG-15, MiG-19, A-4, now G.91 coming, and there is even a possibility for MiG-17. Great stuff!

Short teaser video for India Foxtrot Echo - DCS: G.91R

"Where's my G91 at?" Well, here, apparently :

I can, yes, and I want an option so that Petrovich won't look for targets and shoot them with Shturms/Atakas unless I go to gunner seat and do so myself. I'm fine with callouts like Jester does though. I want Petrovich to be able to a pilot, but not a gunner. Obviously our definitions for unrealistic and unauthentic are polar opposites, which is fine.

Very much depends on the Cold War aircraft. I'd be all over a G.91, F-100, Mirage III, Mirage V, MiG-17F, MiG-27K, MiG-25PDS, MiG-25BM, MiG-25RBT, Su-15, Su-17M3 or M4, Buccaneer, Super Etendard or SEM, About 5 or so versions of the F-4, OV-10, Jaguar, Draken... oh lord the Draken... I can keep counting. But I'd rather get more MiG-21 or Mirage F1 versions over a F-104. Besides, your argument was that average DCS customer wouldn't be interested in more versions of an aircraft. Well, I'm fairly sure said majority of the customer base would be a lot more interested in capable Mirage F1 versions than at least half of the aircraft I've listed above that I am personally looking forward to. Then you have things like F-4, where you can't get people NOT to march with pitchfoks and torches unless you have at least two very different variants of. I do think it is high time for additional variants for additional payment in DCS because we do need more variants to represent different time periods, capabilities, characteristics etc, and it could be feasible for devs and customers alike: new product with relatively lesser effort for devs, new shinty toys and more fleshed out stable for relatively less price for customers. I'd say A-10C II and Blackshark 3 already is prototypes of that model, and it is seemingly worknig well so far.

And I'd MUCH rather see more Mirage F1s than F-"we forgot putting actual airplane wings on this thing"-104, thank you very much. Besides, going by the less interest on the older aircraft argument, average customers would be much happier paying for Mirage F1 with anti radar missiles, laser guided bombs and missiles, and a targeting pod, than one of the most viceful fighters of history ever. From their point of view, a Mirage F1 would be something they could happily use on most cold war servers, and an F-104 is something they can get killed over and over for not much in return on the same servers I don't like how you seem to equate being realistic to following the flow of the masses, at the expense of your own tastes, especially when the example doesn't hold much water to reinforce the point :).

Yep. While I really applaud Aerges for including CE, EE, BE, and M all in one module, I'll happily pay some extra if they can later on expand the library with things like later Iraqi EQ, French CT, or more ground attack focused but still old school AZ or AD. These variants would be extra interesting to eventually get! Also since Iraqi EQ's made a run for it to Iran, and later incorporated into Iran's forces, they'd be a potential fit for more current scenarios on multiple maps we have.

There's just something about the looks of MiG-29UB that feels soooo right.

Su-34 has entered service over 4 years later than MiG-29K, and is arguably the higher end, more sensitive equipment of the two. Like I have said, AI units in DCS are not nearly as detailed and realistic in neither flight, nor systems performance characteristics, and don't require nearly as much in the way of potentially sensitive data, nor do they reveal much of any meaningful things about potentially classified things. They also don't fly in tactical sense that represent how the real type fights. They have a few set attack patterns and they just rinse/repeat those. I may be wrong, but from what I see, what you need for an AI aircraft in DCS is a good 3D model, and more or less wikipedia level of information on the aircraft itself. Now, I too personally prefer 80s assets, but that is because I want the maing thing DCS to be the 70s-80s. That's where you can likely make much less guesstimated player aircraft, hopefully from both sides of the cold war fence. Also I personally find modern aircraft outright boring, for me personally anyway. However, despite my personal preferences, I must admit at this point getting some modern AI aircraft in DCS makes as much sense as 70s-80s ones, because we have F/A-18C, F-16C, JF-17 all either late 2000s or early 2010s, as well as upcoming AH-64D Block II, Eurofighter Typhoon, and F-15E, which will all apparently be at least late 2000s. These things don't have a lot of contemporary things to play with neither player controlled, nor AI wise. AI SAM sites probably require more sensitive information to model than AI aircraft.

Su-17M3 or M4, or their Su-22 equivalents is currently the top unannounced thing I want in DCS along with F-4E, but I suppose this really isn't the thread to speculate about it I'd rather wish Aerges to come through with their ambitious 4 variant set, and then if information is available, hopefully develop additional addons like F1EQ6 and/or F1CT, or hell even a F1AZ/AD because why not! Now that the Mi-24 is just around the corner, Mirage F1 is the thing I'm anticipating the most among upcoming stuff.

Is it? Do we have a clear list of what is and isn't available somewhere? I'm not aware of one. Though, right now I'm more in the mindset of "we'll find out soon enough" it's weeks to perhaps a month away at this point I'd think. If the current estimate holds, it's literally two weeks This is what I have been looking forward to most in DCS for quite a long time. Always wanted a good Hind sim since mid 90s when I was a teenager. I'll enjoy the hell out of it either way

I would assume notproplayer3 meant disabling Petrovich gunner features, it is what I want as an option myself.

Eh, already said my piece, and believe it to be fairly comprehensible, so will leave it at that. Besides, all along I've said "imo", it's not like I'm screaming "ED should remove every feature I don't like" :). In my view letting a magical bot do the identifiying and killing is opposite of the way it was meant to be flown, even if said magical being is somewhat reined in. Also terms "nerf" and "buff" shouldn't even belong on these forums. They tend to imply artificially decreasing/increasing capability of something to balance its gameplay performance against other fictional game assets, as opposed to modeling something as close as possible to reality. Anyway, it is already announced by ED that we will have an AI that can do these things, so it will come, either at release, or later at some point. Unless ED drops out on that (which I honestly doubt will happen), you will get to enjoy it the way you like. I would also enjoy if that is possible to disable, even on singleplayer experience, so would hope for that as well. EVeryone's happy I hope?

And I am one of them. And yet...

I'm in the polar opposite camp: I believe AI shouldn't be able to guide a missile, or find targets, but can very basically fly the helo so I can do those tasks. Letting AI find targets and guide missiles feels fairly cheaty to me in aircraft like Gazelle and Hind. That's me anyway. Sighting systems in these aircraft are completely manual, arguably apart from Viviane's thermal mode, but even then, they both feature no target lock ability, and no automatic tracking either. Just stabilization. And in case of Hind's Raduga, no rangefinding either. An AI that can spot targets and engage them with a guided missile by itself, takes away characteristic features of these systems, and the challenge/fun in using them IMO. As far as I know, there is an actual hover autopilot mode on the real helo, and as far as we know so far, Petrovich will be able to do these as well. So, I think I'll probably be happy myself :). And AI hovers or flies a straight line is exactly what I wanted all along, even better if I can tell them to slightly ascend/descend, or turn x degrees left/right. I can understand Jester to some degree because of Tomcat's and AWG-9's uber-complexity. But an essentially bot merrily finding and plinking away random targets while I'm flying in a Hind just sounds wrong to me.

Seeing as we already have a Su-34 AI, I don't see any reason that would bar us from having an AI MiG-29K as well. And since we are getting more and more late 2000s or 2010s modules, I think some modern AI aircraft would be nice to have. It's not like AI aircraft in DCS ever been particularly accurate regarding flight and system performance anyway. Although, to be perfectly honest, I'd rather see greater focus on 80s assets, both flyable and AI. But that's my preference. While I don't particularly care for them, modern AI assets does make sense at this point, because DCS is getting lots of modern modules lately.

I don't know how GSh-23L and GSh-30-2 exactly work, or if they really differ. However, principle can be the same, but the mechanism may differ, at least theoretically. Gast principle is, as far as I know, using energy from one barrel's firing to cycle the other, but the cycling itself may perhaps be achieved in different ways: gas piston, long recoil, short recoil etc. They are both Gast guns, yes, this is already well established.

Honestly, this is not really much of an argument in my opinion. At best case scenario, dude wearing body armor vs the ones that are not should be separate entities on mission editor. And chest plates often don't have full coverage I think, most of the body would still be exposed, and armor piercing .30 cal rounds still can be a threat. The test I did was against insurgent with AKM, I'd wager to say those dudes aren't usually in much of body armor... and for the great majority of the periods represented in DCS, pretty much no one wore body protection. Tested the 7.62x51 NATO rounds too BTW, it was even more ridiculous at 6-9 hits per soldier... ouch. At first Bignewy said he will forward it to devs, but his follow up was pretty sad and discouraging, basically said this is apparently intented behaviour otherwise there wouldn't be firefights between infantry. Yeah... infantry that miss each other from point blank, IF they actually fire :), let alone at meaningful ranges :). This is a sore thumb in DCS' damage modeling, one of many. But I've admitted "it is what it is", probably will be fixed at some point down the line. Edit: btw, body armor is still not much of a thing in most armies of the world, especially conscription based ones, not to mention insurgent/terrorist/guerilla etc sort of militant units.

Some Sovremenny or Udaloys could be nice to have as well when it comes to the naval side of things. Right now the smallest anti-ship missile capable surface unit for Russia that isn't a fast attack craft is Slava class cruisers Moskva. But I'll admit they aren't necessarily essential to have.

At least the way they are implemented in Mi-8, you need to choose either the 12.7 or 7.62s before you fire, you can't shoot all of them at the same time. which makes sense after all, trajectories would be fairly different, and recoil would be ludicrous I guess. But yeah, the pod comes with 1 4 barreled 12.7mm YakB mounted centrally, and to its either side two GShG 4 barrel 7.62x54mm gatlings a well. A lot of dakka, yes, but they are "just" bullets in the end, and work against soft targets, with 12.7 being able to do a little against light armor too. Problem is, you need to get direct hits even against infantry. And from what I've tested a few months ago, infantry in DCS will merrily take between 4-6 7.62x54R before calling it the day. So in a helicopter that is equipped with GSh-30-2K, gunpods won't open up anything new tactically, and would be only for fun and novelty (not that there's anything wrong with that!)

I'll be the odd one out and say SCUD is more than a good enough placeholder instead of sinking resources into Iskander. Not saying this because I don't want to see it, would be cool, but rather because evidently doing AI assets to ED's own set level of visual quality takes a good amount of time, effort, and thus money. Resources that can be used on other ground assets instead, like more early to mid cold war assets from both sides of the fence, or alternatively more modern air defense assets or AI aircraft to go with all the late 2000s and even 2010s stuff we are getting (even though I personaly don't care for them). Or indeed, simpler but arguably more impactful things like technicals armed with various weapons and/or ATGM/machine gun emplacements. As far as I can remember, not really the Iskander, but there was a Tochka AI unit under work many years ago, like more than half a decade ago, but looks like it is shelved, sadly. However, I do very much agree on ground based anti ship missile launchers. I think we only have relatively ancient Silkworm batteries right now, and that one is courtesy of Deka's Chinese Assets. This is a clearly lacking type of asset in DCS right now, even though majority of the maps feature large swathes of shore areas and sea, and the upcoming Marianas even more so. I'd say one relatively modern ground to ship missile system for blue and red each would be welcome, and silkworm can sort of keep representing older anti ship defenses.

As far as I know, GSh-30-2K is not a revolver cannon. It has two barrels with one chamber each, recoil from one charges the other, but breeches themselves are pretty well sealed I think. From a cursory look online, comparing muzzle velocities and lengths of GSh-30-2K seems to support this because they have almost the same length and muzzle velocity, and 2A42 isn't a revolver cannon either. As far as I know no current Russian autocannon use revolver cannon design.

You are not supposed to go frigate hunting in any attack helicopter, let alone a relatively vintage one like Mi-24P. In a fast fixed wing plane, you either use dedicated anti ship weapons with long standoff ranges, or you have some slight chance of dancing through the gauntlet of incoming ordnance, and put some of your ordnance on them, maybe. A helicopter is not particularly likely go in undetected, nor is it likely to dodge incoming spam of air defense coming from the ship. With that out of the way, for the particularly suicidally driven helicopter pilots who may want to have a go regardless, I'd say probably spam S-24s or S-13s, and turn away immediately, which will probably make any Warhammer 40000 Ork warboss proud to see (well apart from turning away part, but that'll probably end up with getting hit in the back anyway). I'd forget about guided missiles, yes, they have some more range, but the frigate will have a whole lot longer reach than those regardless, and they will need a long time to reach that range, throughout which you'll have to keep guiding it, remaining a juicy target. But the bottom line is: you don't go looking out for a fight with big fighty ships in your attack helicopter, and if you somehow end up in one, you are not too likely to make much happen.

It's nothing but a placeholder because you need to enter a date there. It may or may not happen, but personally I expect there's a little bit more to wait yet.

Not disagreeing, but then L-39 is in, so... We don't know if everything will be fully arcade, they may be going for something with arcade game modes, but realistic flight characteristics and simplified systems etc. I personally would loved if this was also a singleplayer friendly mid-level sim, as I'm less and less able to put in the time to DCS to properly git gud and enjoy full fidelity aircraft I love. But online shooty-shooty fest isn't something I am personally looking for. We'll see what it is when it comes.