LieutenantFalcon

There is a section on DTS in the updated manual now, but I have no idea if it is actually implemented. Might be worth testing?

Has anyone tested effectiveness vs SAM radars and launchers? Irl I imagine they would be affected quite heavily due to the unarmored nature of radar and EW equipment and the rather explosive nature of rocket fuel and missile warheads

Heatblur are the ones working on the Handoff tone library yes. I don't know if the F-4 and F-16 share the same library, but as of now I don't think the F-4 has handoff properly implemented yet so it might be a little bit before we see it on the F-16.

Yep that's how it works, no need to manually cycle to STPT 26, it will overwrite it automatically

Just checked this and it seems to work fine for me. Keep making markpoints past 30 and it resets at 26 What do you mean by 'reset'? There's no way to 'delete' them once they've been made, you can only make more and overwrite the old ones F-16 MARK check.trk

This is correct yes. I think there might be an issue with the manual image you're referring to, but the ASL is always going to refer to the TD box thus the STPT. The range indication interestingly does refer to whatever sightpoint you have it set to in VIPCRP, so it's worth following the 'intended' workflow in VIP as described in the manual. One thing to be aware of is what your sightpoint is set to. In VIP, your sightpoint is initially set to the IP so you can fly there (bottom-right of the FCR page indicates this). From there with HUD SOI, you'd overfly the point you'd have your IP on and TMS Up Short to confirm that location to cancel out any INS drift. Once you do that, your sightpoint gets set to the TGT point. At any time you can change your sightpoint in VIPCRP-submode (and VRPCRP too I assume) by pressing TMS Right Short with FCR or HUD as SOI. This post contains the most recent behavior for the F-16. The manual doesn't quite reflect on it sadly but put the 2 together and it should hopefully complete the picture. I haven't tested it, but I think that the TGP can be slaved to both the IP as well as the TGT that way, just a simple TMS Right with HUD as SOI. I wouldn't be surprised if this didn't work like this anyways, both in DCS as well as the real jet. I feel like VIP and VRP very much are exceptions to how you'd think SPI would normally work. FWIW, I wouldn't get hung up on forcing yourself to use VIP if you can get VRP to work fine, especially if you don't plan to do pre-GPS missions. Even if you do, setting a simple steerpoint a bit further out and using that to fixtake should be fine too. TMS Up Short over IP in VIPCRP doesn't actually fix the INS it just applies a delta which you can later CZ, but in effect it does the same thing.

ig interpretation is up to the pilot, but that's how I see the use case. VIP for popup attacks where your IP is a known landmark you can do a fix on, and your TGT is actually your target you get symbology on. I'd imagine this is more for SAM sites or targets that might have otherwise moved slightly. VRP for where you're referencing off of your target to get a visual point on something. I know you can use VRP for popups too if you know the TGT location like an airbase, but to me it seems kinda weird as you're often talking about an IP 6-8 miles out (which you now have to convert to ft) and you're now fixing the INS bases off of a target you might not be able to approach (so use OFLY fix on). To me it makes more sense to use VIP for pre-planned popup attacks in a situation where you have to do an INS fix, which is what these features were designed for around this time in the F-16's life.

Hey, are you planning to update this mod for the new maps? The new Kola map especially has a loooot of bridges that could use some Mk-84s, and this tool is great for planning that!

TGT-VRP/PUP altitude is set relative to the steerpoint altitude ASL. If you want the VRP or the PUP (for some reason) to be below the steerpoint, use the (0-) MSEL key to set a minus before the altitude. Afaik, this should also apply to the Offset Aimpoints (accessible through the DEST page, and good references for your pulldown and egress). Example: TGT altitude is 400ft ASL, you want to set the PUP for 1500ft ASL. 1500-400 = 1100ft, which is what you enter. TGT altitude is 1200ft ASL (say a radio tower on a hill), VRP is a town at 400ft ASL. 400-1200 = -800ft FWIW, planning all this is makes much more sense for VIP and not VRP. VIP is used for pop-up attacks where you use a landmark as your Visual Ingress Point as your navigation fix (pre-GPS) and set a fixed TGT based off of that landmark. Linked below is a great tool for that, although it doesn't support the newer maps sadly. VRP is moreso for referencing something that comes up along the way in the mission and using the target (which you can see visually) as a reference point. Can't say I've found much of a use for it but hey. I hope that helps

Yes this is very needed. The default spawn point allocation logic doesn't seem to be very good, which is both due to how DCS works but also how different developers make different maps

I'm glad to see some are placed around but yeah it does look like some are wrong, like the SA-5 revetment 16nm east of Olenya looks like a bunch of SA-2 revetments and they're pointed the wrong way. Just some misinterpretations but hopefully nothing they can't fix in time. Also they appear to have placed revetments in places where there should be airbases, notably Lovozero AB. For a modern conflict with S-300 variants it looks pretty workable though! Glad to see they're at the very least aware of the revetment demands and have done something

This is roughly how things used to be, but even then updates were plagues by delays and ED themselves switched off of this system because it introduced way more bugs than they could test. They should probably stick to the longer time in between patches, but actually optimize the time they have properly so we don't need as many constant hotfixes.

Nobody's ever going to be upset about playing a less buggy patch, but that's not what this is about. This is about ED setting dates a month in advance, and not being able to hit even the simple date which was going to be for a patch. On top of that, when the delay is only 1 day (which they must say for a reason) and for them to go "oh sorry another big bug came up" last-minute signals to the entire community they don't have it in order. That is what people are upset about, constant promises ED cannot deliver upon. ED desperately need to overhaul how they compile and test patches, and how they subsequently set deadlines. They cannot keep leaving the testing to the last days because time and time again bugs pop up (as happens during testing) and the release dates for even regularly schedules patches gets blown past. They need to get their stuff in order if they want to save any bit of face at this point, the excuses have worn out.

This is a newsletter from January... Yes, they talk about it occasionally but apart from laying out the plans and telling us that they're working on it, we haven't seen anything substantial since then to my knowledge. Alongside that, that goes for most things laid out in this newsletter. We're already halfway into the year and we've not seen anything on quite a few of these items, items which also have been discussed as 'in development' many times prior. All this combined doesn't signal to the community that these items are being worked on much at all, even if ED says they are. If they're actively being worked on, show us! Surely some part of the DTC system already has an interface, or some early renders of new weather effects can be shown.

Would it be possible to compile a list of all the team is investigating/aware of and their progress on it at the current time? I know that's not going to be an easy task, but I feel it could be a very good thing to show the community whatever there is to show by laying it all out on the table. Sure, not everything has visual progress, but the developers are no strangers to writeups in the forms of whitepapers so something should be possible. With all due respect, we frequently get answers in this vein but they are hardly followed up with news unless the community strongly pressures for it. For items like the DTC/Planner, Sniper XR, flight model improvements, critical bugs, the radar overhaul (and many more that fall outside the scope of the F-16C) we often hear that the team is working on it, but how far along are they and when can we expect something? Maybe oversharing on certain things has gone wrong in the past with stuff like expected release dates or features that couldn't be delivered upon due to lack of documentation, but it might be a good time to try again. If the community mismanages expectations, then that would be on us. Something in the style of the ground AI explanation in the last newsletter is a very good example. With how many items the developers are working on both for core DCS as well as across multiple modules, why can substantial news like this not be given more often?

For those not yet aware, the Kola NPP up near Polyarnye Zori is fully modelled and looks fantastic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Nuclear_Power_Plant Following the waterways both north and south you come across plenty of dams and bridges too, this area is really quite detailed!

It's planned to come with the DTC, but news on that is unfortunately pretty few and far between short of some footnotes in a newsletter every now and then

The TFR/FLIR pod is not planned since it's not part of the block 50's capability and mission set. The HUD couldn't even support the FLIR even if you would mount the pod. The LANTIRN TGP however is planned to replace the LITENING in the future somewhere, though probably after the SNIPER XR gets released for the F-16

Has there been any updates internally so far?

We don't know the exact reason why, but Eagle Dynamics had to remove references to Link-16 in modules and renamed it to TNDL, but it is still functionally the same as it always was besides how the updates effected it (just the assignments). Afaik it still is supposed to represent L16, but they just can't name it as such. It's changed only in name.

The Viper is notorious for having pretty underwhelming brakes so this is nothing to be unexpected. Why spend weight on something you only use during the time the plane is on the ground? The USAF always has access to looooong runways so they don't mind that one of their fighters actually uses the full length of that runway. Sometimes you need well over 1.5nm of runway length to stop, which isn't inaccurate when you still have a lot of fuel and ordnance on board. Now the lack of an antiskid, that is still an issue

Sooo, all paid and all on 3rd party maps so far. Not that I play campaigns much, but it is kind of a shame that the F-16 isn't getting a campaign for Caucasus (or Marianas) that's just included with the module like all other modules bar those released in the last few years have so far. The F-18 has had a campaign forever now as well, why not the F-16 considering it's much more feature complete than the F-18 was at the time it got it?

I imagine both the community and ED would much rather do a new variant of the jet (older, newer, completely different block) than a 2 seater. IRL the role F-16Ds play in combat is pretty small compared to what other 2 seaters like the Hornets do. They're mostly used for training and familiarisation. As you said, what we have right now are 2 excellent mods, the F-16I and F-16D, that work well but of course are limited by them being mods. It'll just have to suffice for the few that mainly want to fly 2 seaters

Hell, RAZBAM found a way to do changing RCS for the Mirage. ED could collaborate with them on a global system

I would imagine that's a feature coming with the DTC/planner. Hopefully the first iteration but maybe it would take longer. Afaik, the HSD threat rings are integrated into the steerpoints (which is why you can select them), so there would be a finite number. Right now there is of course a way to exceed that number, so it wouldn't tie in correctly. How I'd imagine it could work is you use the planner to either make your own rings or to copy them over from a finite number of SAM sites you can select/prioritise