Kang

This. It isn't that they started including animated crew at some point. It is just completely arbitrary. Some old ZU-23s come with crew, reasonably recent ZSU-57s don't. Just one example. If ED doesn't want to include animated (or even static) crews on the ground units that's kinda okay by me, even if I'd prefer them to be there, but it's irritating how some units have them and others don't and it doesn't follow even the slightest hint of a system.

I generally suggest the Huey.

It is generally a bit odd that some units have animated (or modeled) crew while others are solely the vehicle/emplacement.

There is no denying that it makes for a very fun mission.

No, it's all DCS standalone. But thanks for the input, I hear it might not be a Tomcat issue and more of a DCS problem, as some people at least had the same trouble just hitting another module at random. Shrug?

For a week now DCS has been on about 'authorization failing' for my F-14 and me consequently unable to use it. Is that a global issue somehow or is there something I missed one has to do with a recent update? Oddly enough it only affects the F-14, no other module?

There is a certain truth to this, really, and it doesn't deserve to be lost among the unrelated heated arguments.

Please make it an option, as I prefer it the way it is for practical reasons.

Sometimes you need to vent and share. I'm sorry for your loss and I sincerely hope you have people in your life you can turn to. We are kinda here, but it probably isn't the same.

I'm not saying that's wrong, all I'm saying is that there was a long, long, loooong time in which said 'severe bugs' got fixed in situ on the OB after a week or so, whereas the otherwise exact same version got pushed to 'Stable' months later with no further fixes. I know that ED has improved on that a bit since, but at least a majority of the multiplayer community has switched to OB entirely at that time and hasn't seen much reason to go back.

Can do, sure. But to be honest, not with all the craft I have that potentially could.

That's not wrong at all. I am convinced a lot of it has come from literal years in which the two options were virtually identical, except that 'Stable' was two months or so behind on new content.

To add a pet peeve of mine: there are actually different kinds of communities in DCS multiplayer. The fact that 'hardcore milsim' and 'air quake' are the kinds that get most of the attention betrays the fact that others exist as well. Still, definitely get the sentiment that doing your own missions on your own time is just more convenient sometimes. The only trouble is that - admittedly slightly pending on scenario - the AI sometimes does have rather severe limitations, both as opposition and as ally.

I can understand the frustration there, but frankly, I disagree as well. Sure it would be nice to have an option for such things, but I am quite convinced that the very task of 'detecting improper landing attempt' prior to actual touchdown is a rather complicated task in itself, and even if you manage that magically, what then? You can flash the wave-off lights, which the people that upset you are just as likely to ignore or you can trigger a script that instantly explodes their plane, which - lets face it - might not exactly further your realistic immersion either, even if you don't quite think that it would be overreacting. At the end of the day, the much more walkable way is to establish rules to your own server which you and/or your admins actually enforce manually. Yes, it might descend into chaos when you aren't there, but frankly, then it might not matter much to you. How about you do that? See, two can play this silly game. Who made you the pope of flight sims?

A little picture I took when I was trying out the FW-190A a little while back. Nice of the friends of the Reich to turn up and fly alongside for a bit, referring to the two-ship Su-27.

To be honest, I am not exactly sure about the precise sub-type, but yes, an A-26 would be quite a worthwhile addition, not least for its long service life, making it a viable vehicle to add to plenty of scenarios.

Definitely would need an overhaul of some of the old FC2 era naval assets as well as adding several new ones. The thing is that it seems that neither really happens. The 'year of naval focus' is a distant memory that produced one freighter (not complaining, it's very useful, just not a lot) and since then things have been in the 'yea, we are totally adding more ships, but we can't possibly show you until they are perfectly done, which might be in 2084' state that so many things end up in.

It's not Ugra Media but OnReTech.

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/shop/modules/dcs_combined_arms/

As in, find a way of having it use both basket and boom depending on who calls?

Not surprising, really. Travelling the world is what we are waiting for on that loading screen.

Is that all technically part of the livery?

I don't see much point in simulating all the 'inner workings' of solely AI units, really. There is no harm at all in using a whole lot of shortcuts that can simulate that perfectly well with much less strain on the computing resources. The trouble isn't that the approach of tabulated flight models was inherently bad, it's more that some AI units just have utterly ridiculous values in those tables.