Art-J

A decade ago DCS MiG-21, the very 1st 3rd party FF module, was published. Compared to the latest DCS offerings, it is a bit of a YOLO frankenplane itself, with some fictional loadouts, simplified/fictional systems operation and FM issues existing to this day. It was, however, (and still is) considered "good enough" for ED to include in DCS ecosystem, and is still being sold nowadays for full price. To me that shows two things: 1) Cobra, who was a lead dev at that time, moved to create Heatblur but didn't rest on his laurels from module fidelity point of view and pushed each of their later releases towards higher and higher accuracy - even though clearly he didn't have to and might as well have settled for "MiG-21-grade" modules later on. ED wouldn't stop him. It means that no, 3rd parties never were, and will not be "incentivized" by ED to lower the bar by ED supposedly lowering its own bar. Individual 3rd parties know what they want to do, they know what segment of DCS customers they aim at and they don't need ED's opinion about anything (well, apart from at last basic FM, systems and visual fidelity). Some will push for higher accuracy (with some coding solutions sometimes even surpassing the ED ones), some will settle for lower, but they would be doing it anyway as the bar was never set THAT high in the first place. 2) The "expected" fidelity level of FF modules was never "fixed" and has been somewhat flexible for everyone since the very MiG-21 beginning. For ED and some 3rd party devs "80%-real" will be legally, financially and technically sufficient, for others 50% will do, with the rest being roughly approximated. Both cases fall exactly into the same "best FF representation possible" category, which, by definition, is rather vague and can mean whatever. In the end, I think the greates outcome of all of this F-35 "drama" is - more customers will just have to learn to start using brains for a change, be patient and do RESEARCH before buying a new module, rather than storming the ED-shop on release day as if it was walmart on Black Friday (sorry, "African American Friday"). Exactly like in Afghanistan vs Iraq case, some modules will offer higher and better documented accuracy, while some will offer less documented one. Mind you, I'm not talking about folks who are already very excited about the -35 and will buy it no matter what, because if their favourite kite. I understand it, because I myself will do the same with M3's F4U Corsair when/if it ever comes. For the rest of DCS players, though, It will (and should) be up to each individual customer to judge if the F-35 "simulation value" after release is sufficient for him/her to pay full price for it, or wait for further systems improvements of it, or wait for sale, or not buy it at all. As both community managers hinted, wait and see how it turns out and what it brings to DCS as a whole, even if it means loosing that usual 20-30% preorder discount.

Don't check axis assigments only, but all button & hat switch related ones as well.

Rgr that, thanks for the info. I only have a basic "tourist-level" knowledge of Berlin, so I'll gladly read more of your input on this subject. I guess it shapes up to be one more "Ugra map" then, like Normandy 2, i.e. - with a rather very loose approach to layout- and historic accuracy. Still a welcomed addition though!

Airliners on Tempelhof don't mean much, but that huge Marx-Engels-Lenin billboard seen on one of the buildings doesn't suggest timeframe beyond 1989. These two tenement houses on Alexanderplatz opposite of Rotes Rathaus aren't there today either (albeit I've no idea when they were demolished). So 1980's it might be indeed.

YoYo's skin with similar livery, albeit old, still works and looks quite well in current DCS version. I recommend using it while you're waiting for lee1hy's one. https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/719767/

Keep in mind in some default missions provided with warbird modules, takeoff assist is always forced "ON" no matter what you've got set in special options. In other cases, however - do as PawlaczGMD noted above.

@Smith132 I haven't flown the -21 in ages, but just checked in the latest game version and the pipper moves down with second sight mode switch set to "B" as expected. Both with realistic and gamey option. Maybe there was something wrong with v. 2.9.10.3948? Try again in the current one.

Airframes are not that much of a problem in the current age of "dataplate restorations", where most of flying examples nowadays are ground-up rebuilds from a bucket of crash relics, with only a handful of components (plus sacred dataplate) being historic and original. That's why we're seeing illogical trend of rare airworthy warbirds number increasing since the '90s rather than decreasing as one might expect. Not that I'm complaining - keep the real originals in museums while flying rebuilds as much as possible so that everyone can enjoy them. Engine overhauls are more problematic, 'cause scratch-rebuilding their parts, albeit possible nowadays, is much more difficult and costly. As for the younger generations of pilots, I don't think it's a question of older guys gatekeeping, but rather diminishing interest of younger ones, combined with awareness of how huge moneypit every involvement in warbird activity is.

Yes, they renamed that option a while ago.

Defender removed that dll file you showed in your screenshot, so module cannot work without it. Run DCS repair to restore it. BTW turning defender and firewall off completely is a rather drastic and dangerous approach. You don't have to do that. Just adding DCS-related folders to exclusion list is sufficient.

Flickering was there in 2D as well, so fix should affect both modes I reckon? I haven't tested the latest version yet.

Yes, it's a reported bug, together with reduced transparency of windscreen, which was also introduced together with the former issue in September patch. Allegedly NL mentioned on Discord that some sort of a fix was in the making, but not being a Discord user I haven't read that myself, and it's anyone's guess when the fix is going to be implemented (plus what the scope of the fix is).

Duplicated layer + flickering issue or transparency issue? These are separate things (albeit I wouldn't be surprised if latter was related to former).

Not a Steam DCS user myself, but I think you can't connect accounts they way you probably intend to do. What you can do is transfer license keys purchased on Steam to ED store version, NOT the other way around however! More details can be found in FAQ in Steam section of the forum:

I understand it I can clearly see where cfrag is coming from. 3/4 of Tango's post is indeed a meaningless word salad without any relevance to the map and real value for players. For anyone who hasn't bought the map yet (I haven't) and comes here to read something about quality of it in its current state, there's not much to learn from that post. If his post was made only to clickbait people to his YT channel, that's fine and dandy, but he should simply be honest about it. As of now, it seems to be just that - a sleazy businessman lot's-of-words-no-substance talk and a clickbait. That's why I appreciate other postsers who do offer actual useful info, related to texture details and transitions, draw distance, RAM consumption, overall performance, screenshots etc. You know, things that matter for consumer, especially after somewhat rough relase of Afghanistan.

DCS manual pretty much copied real wartime manual procedure word by word so there's nothing to add or adjust really. Restored warbirds are often started (and operated in general) little different, 'cause durability, reliability and overhaul costs are prevailing considerations nowadays (not talking about unlimited class Reno racers, which are a peculiar exception). Not to mention modern modifications (e.g. pre-oiling systems) which were not there on these engines during wartime. Following alternative startup procedures is a bit pointless anyway, as DCS engine modelling is not THAT deep and some aspects (like engine "catching" on startup or backfires on shutdown) are scripted and always happen the same way. I remember Yo-Yo explaining that coding in extra intricate details (which would make engine startups more random and finnicky) is useless in combat sim, where most players would want to skip it anyway after short honeymoon period of novelty fasctination. I understand where he's coming from. That kind of detail (coupled with persisting systems state simulation) will always be more apprieciated by civilian flight sims crowd. Nothing wrong about doing it for immersion, though, so if you want to crank six blades etc., go for it.

Is it still recommended to temporarily disable all modules before components "swap" to avoid authorization issues later, or am I misremembering things?

A couple of ideas popped up here already:

I'm in similar situation, not even owning these aircraft. Shame about the mod, I used it in 1.5.xx-2.5 era, but haven't tried using it in a loooong time, probably because of aforementioned encryption limitation .

There used to be a couple of GSh-23 sound mods for MiG back in the old days. They never got very popular, though, because apparently external sound is hardcoded to be shared with one of FC-3 planes and Gazelle I think (?). Thus, if you mod the sound sample in MiG by simple file replacement method, you will mess up the cannon sound in these other aircraft.

MeanJim, can't you "charge" your Paypal account with certain fixed amount of money via bank transfer, and use that to pay for modules afterwards? I've been doing it for 10+ years to avoid giving Paypal my card number. All my DCS purchases were done this way and I've never had any issues. It might be slower and complicated method, but that is one extra advantage in itself - it forces you use your brain + commont sense and transfer only the amount needed for chosen aircraft/map module rather than impulse buy with credit card (followed inevitably by financial "post-nut-clarity").

Speaking strictly about this aspect, I'd say there's option 3 -company should set the price of product according to its actual value. If 2nd "incarnation" of A-10C and 3rd of Ka-50 didn't exist, I guess the whole drama about F-5E remaster cost would not exist either (maybe with exception of these couple of, shall we say, "special" people, who indeed expect eternal software upgrades for free). These two remasters were released however, and we can see that for that 10$ each, they simply brought many times more features than F-5 one. Compared to them, this remaster, with the same 3D mesh of cockpit and only external model redone ("7000" hours? Yeah.... rrrrright), just offers poor value for the same upgrade price. There's no denying that. I know inflation is a thing, but it hasn't increased THAT much in recent years. On the other hand though, one cannot ignore that when A-10CII and Ka-50 v3 came out, they got their base prices jacked up quite a bit compared to their legacy versions. Remastered F-5E still stays a 60$. So some of existing owners of all these modules might feel taken advantage of, but for new DCS customers, it all kind of balances out.

Official one? They published it last year, didn't they? It's probably not as good as custom Doughguy's one, but it's there.

As mentioned by BN in the other thread, they have to wait for the Steam sale to end later today before remaster becomes available.

Only map module texture updates require huge volume of files to download. This patch doesn't have any, so it's much smaller. Nothing unusual here.