Kang

I would suggest merging the several identical threads of this, in case somebody wants to add any content to it.

Just wondered, do you already have plans in regards to what liveries and skins shall be available for the C-130J, either at launch or eventually? Classic USAF Grey I'd consider pretty much a given, but curious about any other decisions.

You got your forums here at last. Well done! And quite the bombshell to announce the module isn't far away. Congratulations! I can perfectly understand being a bit wary about buying DCS modules right now, really. But it'd be a lie to say I wasn't interested in the C-130. Exciting news indeed.

You indeed don't, as Raven said. Think less pinpoint attack (which is what we pretty much always need in DCS) and more area suppression. Another thing to keep in mind here is that these kinds of attacks are not one-off missions, usually. Many of the unknowns and necessary corrections are done between the runs. Basically, you do this according to the table and then wait for the radio call on how your rockets landed and the next formation gets told: «Fire about 200m after passing that tree!»

You are probably right with that, but I find it amusing how it seems to create discussion volume like nothing else, for something that is mostly a sideshow.

Perhaps you are right and I am really misjudging the timelines there. No idea how far away a DCS 3.0 really is.

I doubt that's going to happen, as it might cause more trouble. It would force the previous modules into deprecation, thus only speeding up their decay status of 'continue to work as-is'. That would make me at least not so happy about paying full price to get them back again. Any sort of discount for previous owners would eat a lot into the profit margin, seeing how, say, the Harrier enthusiasts most likely are previous owners in a vast majority of the DCS community. But one can dream, I reckon.

It isn't your file that is unsafe, mate. It is the fact that your solution is to just include a modified file with your mission, which most users will neither want to nor be able to question. Your autoexec file might be good, but will one I include be?

Somewhat relatedly it would be good to have means of triggering a reloading sequence.

Guess not.

A decidedly more practical and useful idea than the monthly 'all automatic AAR wish' thread.

I'm sure the need to develop meaningful electronic warfare all around into the core of DCS makes the Growler prohibitively elaborate. That and its silly name.

Yes, but hasn't that been @cfrag's entire point, quite exactly?

Are they? When I start the DCS launcher I can decide not to update but then I can't launch the game either.

I imagine it must have been rough for the man to see what the country he fought for turned into in his final years.

Playing around with the Mirage 2000C online, was joined in flight by a Phantom piloted by Tim Pickle of the VFS-252 on their server

Yes, screenshots focused on user mods used to be in a separate thread, but evidently that was given up.

My thinking exactly, regarding the recon mode. As far as the line between the two scenarios goes, I think you are looking at it a bit too much through the prism of real life procedure. Within DCS they'd have pretty much the same effect, I believe. The main reason the are usually distinct is that to effective direct the fire one needs knowledge and experience on either how to aim artillery guns properly or how things look from a CAS run. Since in DCS they only have to relay position and - if we are ambitious - an attack direction, that should be a bit simpler.

Definitely in favour. Not only would this be a major enhancement of the Combined Arms experience, it would also make light observer vehicles much more viable within DCS. Think OH-58, or L-39, for example. A modest rework of JTAC is long overdue anyways, in particular about the way it would be very welcome indeed to have them pick their own targets without the need for scripting in the mission, and adding the functionality for them to communicate with artillery should really be part of that. In a second step it would of course also be nice to be able to direct artillery via radio, especially for aforementioned light aircraft. Perhaps a kneeboard-based map reference grid could be implemented. But that is both far away and mayhaps not what this thread is really about.

The fact that you mentioned this in another thread does not really make it any less disappointing. But lets get a bit back onto topic: I agree that it would be a little nasty to have a 'magic' landing capacity that does whatever, but seeing how this is not an actively controlled module and quite certainly part of the mission design, I would relegate that to the mission designers for a first phase. This leaves two wishes for me: 1.) a system that actually allows for ships/boats landing/beaching/docking in some reasonable albeit simplified way and 2.) adding more assets, both in these vehicles and related beachhead materials. The former is a task that should be worthwhile, despite being on the trickier side of things, and will likely take some time. The latter, while not trivial, should not be a huge problem.

I take some offence to that stance, but I'll agree that the WW2 asset pack certainly contains other things that are decidedly more useful. Personally I would have expected the boats to have the option to reach beaches and drop ramps, though, even if there was no further disembarkation happening after.

Sometimes it's as if that whole 'lets go for the rare late-war 109' was a bit of a bad move in retrospect...

Having proper animations for the different stages of the event would certainly be amazing, but I think that is mostly artwork that can be tackled later on and slowly expanded to ever more types of ships. First of all the basic mechanics need to be established and implemented. The fact that you can pay money for an asset pack that contains non-functioning Higgins boats is a bit deplorable in itself. But then I can already hear the usual thing: we can't have further ships or major functions for ships implemented until the whole damage modeling for ships is redone (ETA 2076)...

Sounds interesting. What actually are the requirements for the Higgins boats in DCS? Is this mostly about having a decently flat beach?

That's fair. It's probably also pretty deep down into the large pile of things suffering that fate.