Eagle Driver

Okay, look. A lot of people here are saying it's a helo sim so we shouldn't concern ourselves with nukes. I have formulated a list of other things that should not be included under this logic, because they do not directly relate to a helo sim. - Mk.84 - Su-27 - MiG-29 - BetAB [anything] - Mk.20 - RBK-250 - RBK-500AO - AIM-120 - R-27XX - R-77 - AIM-7 - RIM-66 - RIM-7 - Mk.82 - MiG-31 - F-15C - F-15E - F-16C - F/A-18C - F-14A - MiG-23 - MiG-27 - All ships - All airbases - All cities - All trees - All clouds - More than 200nm of land in any direction from a central point You have to admit, without all this stuff, we could have a damn good Ka-50 experience, blasting tanks... again... and again.... and again. But if we don't include all aspects of modern warfare, then mission builders won't have complete scenarios to work with. The war around you won't be living, it will just be molded around you, inflating the importance of helicopter warfare and thus sacrificing realism! Isn't high-fidelity realism what we're aiming for here? If we want it to be real, we need to make it real, and a simulation of modern combat cannot be realistic if it is notablly incomplete, such as the lack of the major driving factor behind the largest potential conflict in the history of mankind!

Not even Hornets? What are you talking about? I gathered that Hornet has a reputation as an aircraft that can do everything... for about six months. Of COURSE Eagles last longer, they've got a great reputation as a reliable aircraft that's easy to maintain and is always ready for the job at hand. IIRC, the readiness rate for Eagles in the Gulf War went UP a few clicks while others were having the sand picked from their teeth. Anyway, there is no denying that the birds are getting old, Tomcats were going through great troubles with reliability and they're only two or so years older than the Eagle. Still, I don't worry that it will be decomissioned, USAF plans to keep ~100 upgraded F-15 air-superiority models well into the future.

There's another big problem with the water too, that being that it looks like crap. Sure, the effect is good, but you shouldn't be able to skim 2ft over a lake and see the waves 5000ft below! Depth perception is very real in 3D games, particularly with a helo where you fly low-level. If that is thrown out the window at every lake and big river, then we have a severe problem. Not to mention the aforementioned HUGE fps hit caused by modelling it underwater. I think it was a bad move, and it continues to be thus until fixed.

They did. I believe they had the same for original LOMAC. I think it's a great idea, SimHQ is, obviously, the headquarters of the sim community, what better place for publicity? Although... a few commercials on the Military Channel might grab some attention.

Mirage F.1 Low-level flying just isn't quite right in anything else after Patrick's Aviation got flooded with F.1 vids!

I voted A-6. I have simply read too many Stephen Coonts books (two) to refuse any offer to fly the mythical plane of Flight of the Intruder. Nice montage here:

A massive strike like that may well lead to an instant surrender I think. If I was Russia and Moscow disappeared, with Uncle Sam holding another thousand of those to my head, I sure as hell wouldn't point mine at him. I think the whole idea of reacting to a nuclear attack with another nuclear attack is stupid in light of the obvious consequences. Example, the Japanese in WWII were under a month away from deploying a dirty bomb in San Francisco harbor (recalling from a distant History Channel show, bear with me). Obviously, they didn't, they knew that if they continued resisting, they'd be torn apart by more atomic weapons. I don't think any logical person on this planet would volutarily destroy the world, including themselves, "for revenge". What does all of this have to do with DCS? Well, it means that the inclusion of nuclear weapons doesn't necessarily means the entire map has to look like a glowing green version of the moon.

I think it is a good idea for use in movie making. Let's admit it, with only the Ka-50 as flyable, that puts movie makers at the mercy of the AI. Improved as they may be, there's no way they can be molded to the whim of expert directors (cough cough glowing_amraam cough cough) as well as a botched flyable. This would not be something as an excuse to simulate actual operations of those aircraft. I don't think any fool really thought they were being accurate flying a Tomcat with a blue cockpit, or an F-5 that could reach 200,000ft. Creating such options to monkey around with wouldn't diminish the merits of the fine work being put into the Ka-50, but might provide one night's worth of "AceCombat" style entertainment before one gets onto serious business. Seriously, if we've already got an arcade mode, it's already a little late to call DCS a "purebred" hardcore-only sim. Maybe this would be something available for download, certainly it would be foolish to market it as a feature of the game.

The Red Flag thing looks like suicide. IIRC, I watched the track for half an hour and saw about ninty missiles fired, no one scored a kill. I think the term "wall of MiGs" can be brought from the old days of Falcon 4.0 and resurrected here.

Remember people, this is a warfare sim. Just because WE can't do something, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done at all. Let the AI Strike Aircraft do something. Runway-strikes are a major part of war strategy, just look at Israel's six-day war.

I think the lobby of people who think it's unrealistic are not thinking this through. After all, what DCS is simulating is a scenerio of Russia v. NATO most of the time, and that's something that hasn't happened yet IRL, but came really close to more than once. You have to realize, to the best of my knowledge, since LittleBoy and FatMan, niether the US or Russia has been in a full-on conflict against a worthy opponent. It's always been smaller geurilla conflicts in Vietnam or Afghanistan, or wiping Saddam off the map like a gnat. But if two military superpowers with nuclear arms clashed, nuclear war is not outside the realm of reality. Sure, none of us WANT that to happen IRL, but if we leave them out because of that, let's get rid of all the bombs, they kill people too! Maybe the AGM's, they kill people. Guns, rockets, civilian traffic, death is sadly a part of life on earth and paritcularly in a simulation of modern warfare. Heavy bombers are mostly built for nuclear conflict in the first place, Spirit, Stratofortress, Lancer, Bear, Blackjack, all of them were originally designed for nuclear all-out war of Russia v. NATO, and we can't deny that. Also, the argument against adding them because DCS is Hokum-centric is the same logic that would drive one to not model air-to-air missiles in the game. We won't use it, but it will still be used in modern warfare, and that's what DCS is really simulating.

Some notes here to the non-believers: First, these shots come from the very earliest of pre-Alpha builds, the very first. That means that it will get better with development. Second, that T-38 you see is, IIRC, two generations behind. Meaning that they replaced it with a better looking one, which was replaced in turn by an even better one. Finally, the "sucks CPU" people, I believe the FPS was approximately 120 taking those shots, that's at least what they say. All I can remember about the system doing it all is that it had an 8800 card on it, so we know it's a burley system. At this point, a lot of the parts of FO are still in development, such as the flight model, and has yet to be really added to the build. I have every confidence that FO will be as realistic or more so when compared to DCS, and considering that DCS is essentially raising the bar at the moment, that's big. One of the great things about the FO project is that it's waltzing around where no sim has ever been before, like the realistic training and campaign systems. A pilot will start by learning how to fly in every sense, this includes comms procedures. If you die in-game, you start over again, if you're doing so in the campaign anyway. It's all online, you train with real instructors. Multiplayer is no longer the side dish, it's the main course. It is important for everyone to realize that a product war is the last thing anyone wants here. The greatest thing about FO and DCS is that they both seek to accomplish the same thing, which is to provide ultimate realism to the sim community, which cannot help but expand with such great products being released. I doubt anyone here would want to buy either in favor of both, as they will both be the best sims the world has ever seen. I personally intend to purchase every single module of both FighterOps and DCS.

Wow, and the Typhoon only has 20k in each engine... what would an Eagle with -229's do? Or... a Raptor!

It also would make things harder to get into DCS: Operation Foxhound. :music_whistling:

Just make sure the ME only allows ten -34's like IRL and we'll have it. :smilewink: Anyway, good point about the Russian company thing, hadn't really thought of that. I guess that would probably make it harder for XSi to acquire Sukhoi info.

No, you're thinking Raptor. I've said it before, it is being done already.

If they make a Strike Eagle it will be more than a couple. 12 Rockeyes, not counting wing stations, OORAH!

MOAB? Anyone?!

Or a realistic repair, patched portions of runway, etc. It would be cool to overfly an airfield crawling with big yellow construction vehicles pouring concrete/asphalt and steamrolling it level, painting, so on.

I think it's a good idea. Many aircraft, particularly heavy bombers, are ideal or even specialize in runway destruction. Currently, I can't honestly see any difference (in FC) between penetration/cratering weapons and normal iron bombs.

ASW means Anit-Submarine-Warfare. In LO, there were no true submarines, just submarine-shaped easy targets. To be a real submarine, it actually has to go... I don't know... maybe... underwater? The primary weapon of a submarine is the torpedo, a staple of modern naval warfare, completely unmodelled. Also, stealth is a key advantage to the submarine. A good nuclear SSN can attack targets thousands of miles away with Tomahawks or RADUGA's from under the surface. Then there's ballistic missile subs, SSBN's, but we shouldn't get into them unless ED wants to model nuclear weapons *hint*. However, a modern Ohio Class converted SSGN Cruise Missile sub is a very real and very integral part of the US Navy's arsenal, and not one to be forgotten or neglected. Helo sim, jet sim, whatever, it's still a War sim at the core. Naval warfare is in a way just as big as land and air combat, and deserves significant, if not equal attention to basic capabilities.

Operation Jetwash. You are assigned to this F-15C you see out the window. Your mission is to patrol the area between Columbia and the US border for drug runners. When you find one, either destroy them with a sonic boom or make them depart controlled flight with afterburner jetwash. If that failes, use the gun, but try not to set fire to the jungle, god only knows what those plants do.

I thought the 406 WAS a jetranger, 405 being Huey? Wrong?

I dunno about BS, but I found Lockon's Naval-ness pretty interesting. Firstly, I don't know if it's realistic or not, but reading Patrick Robinson books leads me to believe that Cruise missiles like Harpoon and Exocet are hard to get at before it's pretty late, but the ships in FC seem to pluck them off really easily. This leads to the question: does LO use a spherical model for the planet? It's hard to be over the horizon if the horizon isn't round. Also, submarines as implemented are, AFAIK, useless in FC, they can't attack or anything! Submarines represent by far the greatest threat to a carrier, as they can loiter silently and destroy them with nuclear or conventional torpedoes if handled perfectly. As it is now, 30+ jets have to go on a suicide mission and launch 4 cruisers each to have a chance against a single ship in a CVBG. Probably not going to be fixed in BS, but could we maybe have an "underwater" with the new engine? I don't think any other sim has done this, and it would be a handy time to fix the current system for modelling lakes and big rivers. One shouldn't be able to see the coastline of a lake ABOVE the horizon when flying level. That one lake in the Caucusus (the one with the dam) is the PERFECT example of this.

Good point. Because DCS is a project that is forseen to extend long into the future, I expect them to take the MSFS route and make it look as good as possible, and let the hardware catch up later. Those who want the most insane graphics can spend the money and get it, but the others will have to wait for goodness, rather than it going Falcon 4.0 and being behind the times, graphics-wise.