Northstar98

Yes - would absolutely love to see all of the above. More infantry (there's plenty of countries that don't have anything and even the countries that do have infantry aren't anything like comprehensive). It would be great if we could change the loadout of infantry, even just the primary weapon. We only have one man-portable anti-tank system on quite an outdated asset. There are no western MANPATS at all, nor are there any tripod mounted anti-tank systems (only vehicle mounted). We only have 2 MANPADS (considering the Igla and Igla-S currently fire the same missile), there are plenty of Cold War MANPADs missing (namely the 9K32M Strela-2M [SA-7B Grail]) For civilians, personally it would be better if they were their own separate coalition/side, though we can make do with the current neutral one (just so long as there are no other neutral units). We are lacking a side that's hostile to both red and blue though. But yes, I'd definitely appreciate civilian units and not just land units, but aircraft and ships (though they should be a distinct second to military assets). As for entrenchments, I would love to see it, but I have a hunch it'll probably require imporvements to the terrain engine to facilitate it, a certain tank game recently implemented them and even better they were made procedural.

HB have spoken about implementing it, but it's up to ED to do the missile. This shouldn't be too difficult, provided specifications on the rocket motor (Aerojet Mk 78) are available. It's also the same rocket motor that the AGM-123 Skipper II has (which will be relevant to the A-6E). It's identical to the A, but with a superior rocket motor and a modified warhead. The real -1 for USAF series F-4Es (both 1979 and 1984 revised 1990) manuals list both versions in the stores limitation diagram. From ben_der: source source source

Again, I'm afraid making these kind of mods for DCS is outside my sphere and my knowledge of 3D modelling/animations is marginal. I do know that the model files in question are already set up with animations, they just need controlling. I would recommend asking for assistance here, as I really am the wrong person to ask. Ideally though, these would be added by ED - it should be relatively trivial for them.

As razo+r said - currently, the AI is not capable of accommodating multiple refueling types per unit - it's either one or the other. So this means that the regular KC-135RT only supports the boom and the MPRS only supports probe-and-drogue. It's not the only aerial refueling limitation either - buddy stores also aren't supported, meaning that any aircraft with them will need to have a dedicated tanker "unit" to use them.

To me this looks like a minimum range problem - it's being employed outside of its envelope for the profile it has. The missile first performs a lofted trajectory, then assumes level cruise flight and then descends for the terminal phase upon acquiring the target. Because the target is close you're not allowing the missile to transition between the phases - it's being forced to perform an aggressive dive before it can even finish the initial lofted trajectory. Simply increasing the target distance to 5 nmi has the missile hitting the target 4/4 times, though ideally, it should be even further away to allow the missile to assume its level cruise flight and terminal phase (and the HY-2 has a maximum range on the order of 50 nautical miles). Now, it might be that the Seersucker (which, FWIW, is what the HY-2 missile's NATO reporting name actually is) has a mode that results in a shallow trajectory, meaning it doesn't have to perform such an aggressive dive to hit a close target, but right now only one profile is available. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of real launch footage, but so far, the initial loft seems correct as-is (though obviously I can't determine altitude accurately from just video). HY-2_10nmi.trk HY-2_5nmi.trk

Fair enough, I do agree. I'd probably agree with you most of the time. Most don't seem to care about the incosnistencies or incoherency much at all. The problem here though is that the lack of an appropriate acquisition radar significantly neuters the S-200M's range and means it's incapable of covering the same area that the real system should, essentially serving as a somewhat of a "nerf" (and we already have a way of setting maximum engagement ranges so if players wanted to "nerf" the S-200, they still could). I'm going to go off-topic here but this is more of the same coherency problem that DCS has had since its inception. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much (if any) thought towards it, so we'll likely continue to see similar things. With the SM-6, while its true that the latest carrier capable aircraft we have is from the early (though it used to be mid before ED changed it) 2000s, the configuration of CVNs 71-75 of the supercarrier ranges between 2008 - 2017 at the absolute earliest, except there's incoherency there because it's firing a Sea Sparrow variant from the early-ish 1980s) The Arleigh Burke includes a liveries for ships that comprise of 3 different variants and 2 of those variants are new enough for SM-6 to be accurate (being from 2017 at the earliest). Ideally they'd split these variants up because if depicted in their earliest configuration they have different capabilities. The Ticonderogas we have range from 2006 to 2012/2013 for the configuration they're in, so RIM-162A ESSM Block I and RIM-156A SM-2ER Block IV is also accurate (along with the RIM-66M-5 SM-2MR Block IIIB, which would also apply to the Arleigh Burke). See the spoiler below for the earliest entry date for the configuration depicted in DCS. Here though, the S-300V or V1 would be coherent with other eastern air defences (we do have ground based air defences introduced around the same timeframe) and assets.

I don't doubt it. But have you considered that one of the reasons for this is because the ATC is so useless? I'm certainly disuaded from making missions with busy airbases due to the state of the system, be it single player or multiplayer (though at least with the latter players can coordinate with each other). So I'd caution against this as a reason, because useless ATC could very well be one of the reasons why you don't see this done. It can also set up a bit of a loop where you have awful ATC, so nobody wants to make missions where it's relevant/important, so you don't see any missions where it's relevant/important, which leads people to see ATC as unimportant, which results in the awful ATC remaining awful, so nobody wants to make missions where it's relevant... So on and so on. Just following ATC instructions in and of itself is a minor point - at least for me. I follow ATC instructions because there's an actual tangible benefit to doing so and there are consequences for not doing so. The main thing is more the management of aircraft both on the ground and in the air, so as to facilitate busy airbases, as would maybe be expected in a more real-life operation. In missions with lots of AI aircraft (which is practically the default in single player campaigns in the other sim), I'd argue it's downright essential and short of deploying workarounds to bypass it entirely (like starting in the air and despawning aircraft before they land), its absence can be mission-breaking. Especially if persistency is involved. I also like my airbases to feel more alive - I get that when the AI are interacting with the ATC and actually obeying their instructions, I don't get that with the current system when there's no interaction between them at all and especially when I have to work around the AI's idiocy and the ATC's uselessness. See? Wouldn't it be better if you didn't have to do that? And the ATC system instead properly interacted and coordinated aircraft on the ground so that they wouldn't foul up taxiways?

I mean, right now that's the only thing it's really useful for. That and for getting one vector if you somehow manage to get lost. What would be the point of it then? This is something you can already do with fairly simple triggers. Have you ever played that other F-16 (and now also F-15C)-orientated sim? That one has an ATC system that is leaps and bounds ahead of DCS. It's incredibly important when you have busy airbases, with lots of aircraft. At the moment the current ATC makes no attempt to manage anything, be it in the air or on the ground, which can lead to what I'd describe as utter carnage with lots of AI flights. It drastically takes away from the experience and causes more problems than it solves. But the other, non-money rich, non-WW2 combat flight simulator has one that's probably as close to perfect as you can get in any consumer flight simulator (at least). You seem to be only thinking about this from the perspective of your aircraft in a vacuum. If it's just you, alone, operating around an empty airfield, then yes, I can see how it's less useful - you're largely just clicking through a series of triggered menus. However, when you have busy airbases with lots of AI flights, then it becomes very important - a lack of a proper ATC system (which is not simply just triggered radio callouts like the one we have for the supercarrier) can absolute destroy missions with lots of AI aircraft. For instance, with the current system, as I've described above makes absolutely no attempt to manage the airspace around an airbase - it simply sticks all of the arriving aircraft into the same orbit at the same altitude, which leads to the kind of carnage I've described here. This would absolutely break any kind of persistent mission (i.e. one that tracks things like aircraft inventory and losses) as soon as the scope is sufficiently high (which might just mean - realistically replicates the number of assets in a real operation). It also doesn't properly manage aircraft on the ground either - it won't manage the traffic on the taxiways, it makes no attempt to try and get aircraft off at the appropriate time (you can't even set it - and what I've described here would be useful for the mission editor in general (because the time calculations it gives you doesn't account for takeoff time)). I've had missions where I'm the only arriving aircraft at an airbase but there's a conga line of AI aircraft taxiing to depart. Even though the ATC system had cleared me to land, the AI aircraft didn't care and made incursion after incursion onto the runway to takeoff, forcing me to do go-around after go-around while down on fuel. Eventually I just thre my hand up and said "sod it" and managed to land, narrowly avoiding an aircraft taking off. If I was in the other sim however, with an ATC system that's superior to an almost indescribable degree, it would be telling AI aircraft on the runway to expedite and hurry up out of the way and would be telling taxiing aircraft to hold short - in both cases the AI would respond and obey their instructions - this not only makes the airbase feel more alive, but gives me a much more worthwhile and less frustrating experience - I don't have to try find ways to work around the AI's stupidity like I do in DCS. That above, makes me want to avoid using AI aircraft almost entirely around airbases and instead make use of air starts and group deactivate. I'm not sure it's possible to see this as anything other than a bad thing. It makes for an unimmersive experience that feels much more dead than it could be. Having experienced something where this isn't the case makes the problems all the more present in DCS. There's also other things as well: The different services (ground, approach, tower etc) aren't separated by frequency when they should be (where applicable). With busy airports, this leads to comms getting clogged up and here it's a good thing that the AI don't interact with ATC, even if it makes SP airfields feel dead. There's no ATIS, which would be important if we ever get weather that changes with time. ATC doesn't support parallel runways. ATC doesn't provide taxi instructions. ATC only supports straight-in approaches, it doesn't support PAR approaches, it doesn't support overhead breaks (and will tell you "go around, runway occupied" even when the airfield is empty - this doesn't exactly help the immersion). The english language ATC only has one voice actor, which doesn't help the immersion either. Many aerodromes don't have their name voiced, again, this doesn't help the immersion. ATC and the AI don't support section takeoffs (not unless they're starting from the runway), which increases the interval between departing aircraft, making takeoff operations take longer than they need to). The ATC doesn't support contigencies or emergencies - there's no way for the ATC to prioritise landing aircraft. As for the immersion, having AI aircraft that don't interact with the ATC system at all is definitely not immersive, again, it makes aerodromes feel dead. And as cfrag pointed out below this also aids situational awareness. I could probably go on and on and on about this, but the TL;DR of it all, is give that other sim's ATC system a try and then try and replicate one of its missions in DCS - you'll probably quickly see why it's important. Because, unless you're doing missions where it's just you or have a very small number of aircraft you can quickly run into problems which are at best unrealistic/unimmersive and at worst frustrating and mission-breaking.

I mean, ideally this would be a complete overhaul for all communications with AI entities in-game. There's certainly plenty of good arguments for one or the other. Personally, I'd lean towards ATC as that's something more relevant to my personal use case. Right now, I consider the in-built ATC to be lacking to the point of not being worth using - that's with a single player aircraft, it gets far worse if you have AI flights landing at around the same time - not only will ATC and AI aircraft not interact with each other at all, the ATC system makes no attempt to manage the airspace around aerdromes - with a suitably large enough number of aircraft & aircraft types, this leads to complete chaos as all the aircraft trace out the same exact circle, over the same location, at the same altitudes, but fly at different speeds (depending on type) with no concept of spacing - with predictable results.

Okay, I've definitely had success with the Mk 37 and the P-19. The Low Blow though might be having from issues highlighted in this thread, where it seems Shrikes will only guide against fire-control radars (so far highlighted with the AN/MPQ-46 and SNR-75V, though the SNR-125M likely has the same issue). If you post a track, we should be able to determine what's going wrong.

Yeah I'd say that's fair and yes - the disparity between having an improved system (i.e. the supercarrier - though even that still has omissions) and other agencies (be they friendly AI flights, ATC etc) is pretty jarring and so they should ideally be improved as part of a complete communications overhaul. And yeah, being a game where the main thing is combat aviation, maybe there should be higher priority given to functions directly related to combat (though ATC is still completely necessary to have, as you said).

It's still incorrect behaviour though. I mean, every guidance section tracking the SNR-75V is "how it is in DCS" - it's still incorrect behaviour. That's what's present under beamWidth at least. See line 17 for the AN/MPQ-46 and SNR-75V. It might be just for RWRs (I assume to approximate sidelobes, as 90° is far larger than the mainlobe beamwidth of fire-control radars). But it doesn't make sense that only the Shrike should only track on the mainlobe, especially at the distances it's fired at. Of course, this depends on the radiation pattern (and transmitted power), as well as the sensitivity of the Shrike's seeker and the signal-to-noise ratio.

But this is ignoring the fact that radars don't just radiate energy in one narrow area - they have sidelobes. I'm not sure what the mainlobe beamwidth should be for the AN/MPQ-46 IHIPIR (though I assume it's quite narrow). Both the AN/MPQ-46 and the SNR-75V in DCS are defined with a beamwidth of 1.5707963267949 radians (i.e. 90°). For the SNR-75, the beamwidth is dependent on what mode the radar is in: In wide, the area the radar illuminates is 2 overlapping rectangles in a + shape (one landscape to scan azimuth and one portrait to scan elevation, each rectangle covers 20×7°) In narrow, again, + shaped, but this time the scans cover 7.5×1.7° horizontally and vertically. In LORO (lobe on receive only) the illuminated area drops to a 1.7°-wide pencil beam. In should be stated that DCS doesn't account for the different modes and that IRL, only the wide mode and LORO mode are applicable to guiding missiles (while guidance can be performed in narrow, the returns from the target and missile are received by different antenna pairs - the boresights of the 2 antenna pairs aren't necessarily perfectly aligned with each other, which may result in a miss. In wide and LORO, the target and missile are both received by the wide-beam antennas).

The Arleigh Burke, Moskva, Oliver Hazard Perry and Ticonderoga all have animations to lower/raise the netting around their flight decks (they even have animated hangar doors too). It's been a long time since I checked, but have you tried contacting inbound on ATC on approach to these ships?

Completely overlooked that one One thing I've noticed from the tables above is that a few of the radars that are seemingly targetable by every guidance section are those without a frequency range defined. For instance, the SA-13, Kuznetsov, Slava and Moskva only have a definition for searchRadarFrequency, but no FrequencyRange (which appears to be for track radars). Mind you, that wouldn't explain the SON-9 or SNR-75 or 5N62 for instance, all 3 do have definitions and all 3 can seemingly be targeted by all guidance sections.

Most likely you have historical mode on. It's the little stopwatch looking icon in the bottom tab of the mission editor (if you see a year in the top right, it's on). I did report it as a bug over 2 years ago, but unfortunately it appears unacknowledged:

Long standing issue with the frankly lacklustre AI communications. Unfortunately your current options are: Make the mission such that they call nothing out. Set the AI to only callout certain categories of targets (though depending on where they are this might not help). Put up with the constant calling out of targets I swear there used to be a setting that would exclude AI communications not intended for the player, but I can't seem to find it - though even then that might not solve the problem.

Probably, but at least it's in there now. So far, from extremely limited testing, I have had success using the WRCS mode, but it's extremely sensitive to whatever dive angle you set. Set the dive angle too shallow and the WRCS will calculate a distance that's too far, too steep and the WRCS will calculate a distance that's too short. I ended up using the gunsight and a bit of foreknowledge of where the radar was for best accuracy, though sometimes that's not always possible. What radar are you targeting and which seeker heads are you using? Are you getting a tone from the radar? Just note that some guidance sections are able to track radars despite the operating frequency of the radar not being within that of the guidance section. Some radars can't be targeted by some guidance sections, even though the frequency ranges overlap etc. AGM-45A_P-19_Mk37_player_WRCS_loft.trk

Just for reference, I've created a table that lists all the ground-based radars in DCS and matched them with guidance sections that are within the same range (the table was originally posted here, where I've colour coded the guidance sections that work when used with the AI - though note that the overwhelming majority of this was conducted in an older DCS version - I'm in the process of re-running them all). Here I've used the names of specific radars (and their NATO reporting names where appropriate) and the systems they're associated with. While there's more to it than just frequency, this should provide a preliminary matching of radars to guidance sections: For ships, how were you able to determine whether you're firing at a search radar or a track radar? I ask this because some of them don't have a FrequencyRange defined (found under LN - which defines weapon systems and launchers e.g. track/fire-control/illumination radars), but they do have searchRadarFrequencies defined (which I presume is for search radars). Speaking of ships, I might do a table like the above for ships, but given that there are a significant number of radars (including those directly relevant to AAW) that are either not present, not-implemented/undefined or are otherwise non-functional; that many of searchRadarFrequencies and FrequencyRange entries in the respective .luas make no sense and either don't correspond to the proper radar (for instance, a weapon system's track radar having frequencies corresponding to a search radar like in the case of NSSMS) or in some cases, don't correspond to any radar the ship actually has! ARMs themselves (Shrike included) are also problematic, in that they don't actually guide on emission sources (i.e. antennas), instead the centroid or origin of the unit with the targeted radar (or at least, that's what they seem to do), meaning that even if ships had damage models granular enough to allow for radars to be independently hit/damaged/destroyed (and many don't and those that do sometimes only don't include all relevant radars), they wouldn't hit them in the first place.

It's a toss-up, Frankenstein's monster of a Swiss F-5E, realistically it should probably be renamed to F-5N or something. Because apart from the RWR and the countermeasure dispensers, everything else is consistent with a USAF series E-3. It doesn't for instance have the different radios (which includes VHF (hence the antenna) as opposed to just UHF like we have) or the different accelerometer. The F-5E model has it missing, but the E-3 model has it present (if this is what you meant ignore me - most people use F-5E to describe the F-5E-3):

Added: Cape Dolphin Fitzroy* Green Patch* Horseshoe Bay* Johnson's Harbour* Port Louis* Rincon Grande* Sedge Island* Swan Island* Walker Creek Westpoint Island Bleaker Island (north) marked as present Note: Aerodromes marked with an asterisk are marked on a circa 1988 tactical pilotage chart, but exact location is unknown and nothing could be seen in satellite imagery. I'll include them for the sake of completion, but will be separately coloured to indicate that there's potentially nothing for developers to do.

+1 I definitely agree with completing the roster of SAM systems. I agree with everything said and definitely agree with your justifications. I do have a couple of points of contention though, albeit only one is relevant to the S-300V (or its variants) specifically. Firstly, while it's been a while since the S-200M released, in all that time we don't even have the bare minimum of battery components implemented - only a launcher and a fire-control radar. No other battery components have been implemented - be they command and control elements (for which an OdAZ-828 trailer would suffice), generators, or critically - appropriate acquisition radars (with it being stuck with radars wholly inappropriate for it (the P-19 is associated with the S-125 and as an EWR for numerous Army air defence systems, the Tin Shield is primarily a general-purpose early-warning radar, otherwise it's assocated with the S-300). The same is also true of the S-75M3 - again, only a fire-control radar and launcher, nothing else, though at least the P-19 doesn't neuter the system's range, unlike the S-200M. The missile also has incorrect artwork and is treated as though it's SARH, instead of command-guided (w/ half-lead, three-point and the elevated half-lead (K) guidance modes) like it should be. Secondly, while you're absolutely right that the S-300V is perfectly capable against aircraft, we are lacking a BLUFOR threat (such as the MGM-52 Lance (or rather a conventional version) or the MGM-140 ATACAMS), would it not be wise to include an applicable threat, for a system more optimised against, said threats?

Definitely +1 for machine gun emplacements. Though as for dedicated AAA units - what about the ZPU series? Namely the ZPU-2 and ZPU-4. Incredibly prolific systems, which would fit on many of maps and many historical conflicts.

Hi everyone, Minor issue, similar to a problem with the RGM-84D Harpoon, the R-24R and T's control surfaces have animations that don't correspond to how the missile is actually manoeuvring. For instance, the fins will appear to deflect in a way that would cause the missile to yaw right, when the missile is actually pitching up. R-24R_controlsurfaces.trk R-24T_controlsurfaces.trk

This isn't the case - DSplayer is correct - the HB AIM-7Es are treated separately and have their own independent definitions. I've made the relevant changes myself to the model and file lines for the CoreMods\aircraft\F-4E\Entry\Weapons.lua for both the AIM-7E (which also turns into an AIM-7M when launched) and the AIM-7E-2 - I've got them both appearing as they should, both when attached to the aircraft or after launch, the animations for the control surfaces also work.