WinterH

Mirage 2000D does, N too probably, maybe even later interceptor/multirole versions, but not the C.

A rather strange thing to say, as 21-93 was basically a tech demonstrator, while Bison is its realized form as far as I know. LanceRs are pretty real too. I'd love either one of them myself. What I'd like most is a late J-7 to be honest. Not overly interested in earlier 21 variants, though an F-13 might be interesting still.

You will get a launch tone from the RWR in case of a radar guided missile tracking you. But that's not a MWS that detects a missile launch plume, it is RWR recognizing a STT radar track on you, either from an active radar missile's own radar, or from radar of an aircraft that is guiding a semi active radar guided missile on you. As far as I know currently only MWS equipped modules in DCS are A-10C (and A-10C II), JF-17, and Mirage 2000C. And in Mirage's case the system actually never went operational on C version IRL as far as I know, but is rather used on D. Not sure the situation with JF-17 if it's also a "let's include it anyway" kinda deal or not, because it seems the JF-17 we have in DCS is bit of a mixed plane between block 1 and block 2.

Not really. In DCS, only JF-17 and Mirage 2000C have it among the ones you have listed.

My personal order of preferrance is: 1 - Late J-7 2 - Su-30MKK if possible to make realistically 3 - Followed closely by Q-5, although this depends on what kind of Q-5 is possible, if China ever had a version with at least some guided missile/TGP capability to give red side a semi decent striker. If not, Q-5 would fall down a place in the list. 4 - J-8II comes last, somewhat distant last too. But would honestly be happy with any of 4 in DCS.

I had the same, pressing the key for switching between BARO/RADAR altimeter made CCIP line appear for me. Rightmost button just under the HUD glass.

I can see myself buying a RBT just fine. But having both would be great indeed. But supersonic CCRP from orbit with a whole bunch of FAB-500s with RBT has its own weird charm too :D. If this can indeed become a module, I would LOVE them to expand it, payware if need be, with PD and BM too, so we'd have one of each flavor of foxbat: recon bomber, interceptor, SEAD. Flight characteristics wise they shouldn't differ too crazily, they'd share a decent number of systems too, so the additional work would be most heavy on the art side, with coding of variant specific systems following. At least coding the radar in PD's case should be quite a job though.

DCS: Vietnam is.. uuhh... a little bit of a pipe dream. It would be cool but there are hurdles... Map needs to be HUGE beyond anything in DCS so far. Apart from size though, detail might also be a big problem, Vietnam was a war mostly fought in dense jungles and even sprawling cities. Also there is very, very little era appropriate content. The F-4 that was coming, was way beyond Vietnam, and it frankly fits better with what is in DCS right now. When we get an F-4, it will probably (and hopefully) be a mid-70s or even 80s bird. Besides, it is so long of a conflict, aircraft later in the war were almost a generational leap ahead of those fought the most of it earlier, so what version to make even for Vietnam scenario etc. Then, the aircraft immediately after were also a lot more advanced and capable in many ways, mainly in things like RWRs, look down capability, missiles that actually work etc. The only really Vietnam fit aircraft in development is F-8J from Leatherneck. UH-1H is close enough too. MiG-19P is the wrong version, but arguably close enough as well. A-7E may perhaps be Vietnam version but probably it will be post war too. From here on, nothing we have in sim, or have coming in future is appropriate for Vietnam War. F-5E, MiG-21Bis, A-6E will most likely be TRAM at least. Well, there is A-4E too of course, but being a community mod its public multiplayer and payware campaign relevance will probably be less than ideal. I'd prefer more 75-80s, or up to early 90s stuff as we have a decent bit in sim from that period, so they can be more coherent with/against each other. For older jets, from 60s to 75, I'd actually prefer jets that were relevant to wars in Middle East, as we have relatively feasible existing maps for those. In my opinion, if we get a Vietnam appropriate F-4 in DCS, it should be the second F-4 version in it, not the only one. A later F-4E can fill in a lot of spots both as blufor or redfor, and can work for 70s-80s-and at a stretch even early 90s scenarios. And even in purely fictional scenarios should mix in nicely with likes of Viggen (even if somewhat upgraded), F-5E, MiG-21Bis, MiG-23MLA, A-7E, A-6E etc, time period and relative performance wise. Still though... I am happy for DCS not going the "stick with a scenario" approach. I want odd, unsung aircraft done to DCS quality... stuff like Viggen, Draken, EE Lightning, Super Tucano etc would be impossible if DCS would do like sims of past and stick to a scenario or two. Don't get me wrong, I share the point of view that we should have a lot more modules that fit together, and I like how Razbam seem to be intending to handle Falklands map and fitting modules. I just wouldn't want it to be "exclusively things that fit to this, this, and this wars" kinda of deal, because I find fiddling with aircraft we never had in sims before to be a lot more interesting and enjoyable than roleplaying history.

F-5E is, what F-5E is. And this whole "DCS environment" thing is, whatever player puts into mission editor, or whatever server they join. This is a sandbox, it has no set environment in my opinion. It is a match for things like MiG-21Bis and MiG-19P I'd say, perhaps up to Viggen. One should not expect it to do wonders against 4th gen throughbred fighters anyway. Also, it can mix it up against things like L-39, C-101, Korean War era birds. Also the MB-339, and A-4E mods. Think of these as bush-war, conflict between less fortunate countries etc kind of deal. That said, I wouldn't say no to a refreshed addition to the module with more air to air wired pylons, and perhaps also mavericks. Just like the A-10C & A-10C II situation.

In late 2020, when announcing the module, Aerges said that they are hoping to release the first variant in about half a year, if all goes well. So even if all goes well we should be about a quarter off from initial release. And that is fine, this is one of the things I am looking forward to most in DCS right now, probably sharing first place with Mi-24, or just barely in the second place. But let developers take their time until they are comfotable with what they will give us. C-101 is in a really good place now, so I have faith in Aviodev/Aerges.

What I would personally prefer is: Heatblur doing A-6E and then Draken as fylable modules, and ED continuing the F-4E that Belsimtek started (though probably 3d work would mostly be throwaway at this point with how much DCS has changed since), and adding a J or S after E as a paid extention. If Heatblur does Phantom indeed, while I'd be sad to see potential Draken module becoming off the table then, at least I'd know the Phantoms are in hands of a good dev. When it comes F-4, my first choices of devs I'd like to see it from would be ED or Heatblur to be honest. Wouldn't say no to Leatherneck either but, so far they seem to prefer sticking to single variants, and are somewhat averse to idea of multiple variants of an aircraft, at least that was my feeling from listening to a few of their interviews over the years. While my personal wanted variant is F-4E Block 53 and above, any single versions would be far from doing the Phantom and Phans its due justice.

Essentially, this. Making B and C to please most people idea is way, way off the mark. With F-4, there is just no way of making most people happy without at least two very different variants, and at the very least a later E model is essential as it is the best represantative of F-4's service all over the world. And for the naval one, J and/or S are the ones that make the most sense.

That's right, a lot of F-4Es (also known as actual, real F-4s) are/were grey indeed. As opposed to whiteish naval/marine thingies

Zero is more iconic, and overall the better fighter by a considerable margin in my opinion. But I always had a thing for Ki-43. It is like you take Zero, and crank up all its advantages AND disadvantages. Insanely light and maneuverable, insanely fragile as well. Isn't particularly fast, but still climbs like crazy. Not much in the way of firepower. And it is just weirdly pretty. As a future potential DCS module, I'd prefer Zero, it just makes more sense, but would LOVE to play around with a Ki-43 in DCS too if it becomes a thing at any point. I'm amazed that Japanese pilots were able to shoot down Lightnings, and even P-47 with it, even though rather rarely as far as I know. Of course, with Japanese WW II fighters, there is the issue of availability of information and/or accessible airframes. Original documentation is said to be destroyed for most of them, and little or no airframes survive for most types. If we'd like a performance-wise comparable Japanese opponent to existing P-47, P-51, and upcoming F4U1-d, Ki84, Ki-61, Ki-100, or N1K2-J would be better fits than any A6M Zero or Ki-43 Hayabusa. Or arguably even a J2M Raiden. But as far as I know, there isn't much data left for most of them, and frankly, they aren't as iconic as the Zero.

I don't see anything strange with using A-4 as a dogfighter. It was after all used as an agile subsonic agressor for many years in pilot training. A lightly loaded scooter shot be interesting to put up against some other planes. Don't know if I'd go as far as Eagle. Not that I've even done it yet, I'm using it for ground pounding, but will eventually entertain it in some light air to air as well :).

Haven't tested this yet, and frankly since I tend to shoot Kentucky Windage Aiming Compensator system, I'd hardly notice it in most guns :). Some guns try to keep trajectory as similar as possibly with having AP and HE rounds at similar or even identical velocities, but don't know if it is so in either KA-50 or Mi-24P. I seem to recall trajectories of HE and AP rounds do differ in DCS: A-10C though, so probably it is done with most modules.

Yes, it does. I have been testing it a lot these days, here's the playlist if anyone's interested to check it out But as an example, Hornet has only HE loaded and no other option, and can't even scratch BMP-1s even, .50 cals don't deal a lot of damage, but can penetrate light APCs more reliably than some 20 and 23mm shells etc. Also, Heatblur and Leatherneck's rounds for same guns perform considerably better than ED's ones from what I can see.

I would expect that we'd get at least a mix of HE + APBC probably. As for the discarding sabot rounds, I'm not entirely sure if they are compatible with GSh-30 series. While 2A42 and GSh-30 both use 30x165, I've read in a few places that their shells are not really interchangible. And I have only seen sabot rounds mentioned for 2A42. I might be wrong, and would be happy to get access to high penetration rounds too in that case.

Hmmm ok then. But if you have overwritten 1.4 folder with EFM beta, yeah it probably could have caused odd stuff, as far as I know instuctions were to delete aircraft/A-4E-C folder and then put the new A-4E-C folder there.

Radios do work now as far as I know also the sound you mention, if it's kind of a thud, is leading edge slats deploying and retracting, newly added with EFM.

I want to say "both an 80s TRAM+WCSI and 90s SWIP please", but Heatblur is probably a little burnt out from the whole multi decade multi variant thing with Tomcat's development? Hopefully not, because getting both would be really cool, and systems/cockpit wise the difference doesn't seem to be huge.

I am not brand new in DCS, been using it for a little over 7 years (holy crap the time goes by...), but I have also worked in software long enough. There are ways to make that work in DCS, and we are coming rapidly to a point where multiple variants are very desirable. Devs can choose two variants that will share some components for example, and would need tweaking instead of building from scratch when it comes to other things like flight models. Then, offer additional variant to owners of original variant 50%+ discount, but sell it full price to who didn't own any other versions etc. This way additional revenue can be made for relatively little effort/time compared to another aircraft from scratch. The reason some people including myself are semi-insisting for more than one F-4 variants is that, you simply can't please with one when it comes to F-4. Your idea for example, Vietnam is where F-4 made its name, is true enough. But I personally don't care an iota about a Vietnam F-4 unless it is in addition to an 80s or at least late 70s one. Similarly, if we get an F-4, but it isn't F-4E Block 53 or 58, but it is a naval F-4, again, we may as well not get one as far as I am concerned. And others feel exactly the opposite way I'm sure... some want Vietnam birds, others want later birds to represent a strike fighter and its worldwide service. Some want an air force bird with internal gun, smart munitions, targeting pods, others want naval aviation phantoms and their look down capable radars. Phantom is a bird that offer many, many flavors in its different versions, but is also secretly rather divisive in that one period/variant will not do anything for fans of the other. We'll either get latest-greatest of production variants, which happens to be the variant I like anyway, but that will not please a lot of others, or we will get a naval variant that will be alien to great majority of F-4 operators and conflicts they took part in. And that one will not please a lot of others as well. Spanish studio Aerges is coming with Mirage F1 and they are planning to do 4 variants in a single module, without even additional payments. Granted, they are not as different among one another as F-4E vs F-4S or any early F-4 vs any late F-4. Well the final variant they wil do, F1M is still considerably different anyway. We also have had modules with two versions that feature different cockpits, systems, even engines: L-39C & ZA, C-101EB & CC, F-14B & A-135GR early & A-135GR late & A-95GR etc. We have also had cases of owners of one module getting a discount for other, or get discounted bundles of two etc. I do think, and hope, that the situation is ripe for multiple versions of F-4, at least 2 I'd hope.

Yes, been possible nice a while thanks to "invisible farp" feature: Long in short, you need to put an invisible farp to where you want the aircraft to rearm/refuel/repair. Caveat is that, unless you make a small lua change, only helicopters and Harrier can directly spawn there, other aircraft will be able to use it after landing there.

Yeah I was thinking of engaging aircraft rather than incoming missiles so used Sborka as an example of external data source. I have seen lonely Tunguskas fire without lock/launch warning, but search warning was tripped in those cases, but that was some years ago now.

Does it work like this in DCS though? I mean, if we put a Sborka in same group with Tunguska for example, will it engage without emitting once Sborka detects a target for it? Sounds plausible, but I've never tried it on mission editor.