PeaceSells

Yes it would be weird. I seems I'm wrong, in the youtube video you can hear the pilot saying "MiG-29!". I could swear it was an Su-27. I think that Su-27's have participated in training with F-15's before, not sure about Su-27's with F-14's though...

No, not really... look carefully.

The aircraft on the first one looks like an Su-27 to me.

I agree 100% with you that it serves to make up for the game serious limitations. BUT... The real problem with that is that it inevitably overcompensates and makes one of the most important aspects of combat (situational awareness) excessively simple and easy. The truth is that, if the AI can't provide you with the necessary info on the field, it's ALWAYS going to be unrealistic, no matter if you use F10 or not. One way you have unrealistic lack of info and the other way you have unrealistic access to info. Imagine you're a real pilot and, every time you want to know what info your side has on the field, a map with simple enemy icons pop up in your mind. That's not fun, IMO. You can come up with all sorts of crutches to compensate lack of realistic comms, but, if the game lacks a minimally realistic form of military comms, there's just no way around the fact that it isn't realistic and will never be, no matter what crutch you come up with. (btw, that's why DCS isn't seen by the community as a military simulator, it's an aircraft physics emulator) I particularly prefer, since I know it's not going to be realistic anyway, have the joy of search out the aircraft window, use the aircraft pods and MFDs (if available) and try to pay attention to the limited radio calls, instead of searching the F10 map for 2-dimensional cartoonish enemy icons. Even if this will result in me failing the mission... as you said, it isn't real...

After flying both in guns-only dogfights against AI, to me the 33 felt significantly less maneuverable than the 27. Maybe there's some catch that I don't know about the 33, but I don't wish to be in the cockpit of a 33 if things turn into a dogfight. EDIT: It seems that if you use lots of 'stick deflection limiter override' you can maneuver at very low speeds and have some kind of advantage. You'll have to use rudders to make the aircraft roll though.

I'm almost sure it's a bug, because, when you do that, the wheel brake start button becomes inverted: while pressed, it releases the brake and when you un-press it, the break kicks in again.

No, you're right. This kind of optimization is used in all games since forever... I remember discovering years ago in Unreal Tournament 2004 that only the side of the gun that faced the camera was modeled. Funny that coincidentally yesterday I was trying to see if pressing the trigger on my joystick would move the trigger on the Su-27 stick (with my TrackHat Kit), when I also discovered this optimization in DCS for the first time, lol

That's a good idea, IMO. You do get calls regarding enemy's positions... In battle, DCS doesn't give you massive amounts of intel, but you also don't have massive amounts of things going on in a DCS battlefield. It's very simple with very poor enemy AI.

Of course, with the amount of mission designers that cater to that audience, that number is not surprising at all. IRL you'd get enemies much better coordinated and smarter than DCS AI. And DCS Su-25 does have it's own navigation system, no need for GPS or F10. Unless you use the F10 purely as a map, without showing your positon in it. That simulates a better kneeboard map, and that I find realistic. Depends on your concept of fun... flying the real aircraft IRL would be fun for many people here, but I guess not for the arcade gamers...

But... ... it's about realism, not difficulty...

No, I never did... It simply strikes me as odd that the campaigns for the 'study sim' modules show you that kind of info on the mission planner...

Why not make it 'enemy hidden by default' instead of 'enemy visible by default' and have the mission maker intentionally turn them visible only if he wants it? I say this because even in the A-10C campaign and in all other ED campaigns I've seen so far, enemies are visible with their waypoints, etc. in the mission planner...

Thanks for the info Aries! My post was actually just a response to the post above it, so I wasn't actually intending to edit anything, but since it seems so simple I might try it!

+1 And even if your side knows the position of every enemy, you don't have a map that simply appears in front of you out of nowhere and shows you them. You're informed by calls, or, depending on your aircraft, by datalink on your MFD. No need for the F10 fog of war (assuming you want to play in sim mode, of course).

But not the enemies' waypoints complete with timings, speeds, altitude and enemies' loadouts! The cool thing about the F10 map is that you can disable the enemies' locations in DCS options, if you're more into the 'sim' style than 'game' style. But there's no option like that for the mission planner... Unless you can see their waypoints in the mission planner...

Exactly! But wouldn't that be Interdiction instead?

In the Su-25 (not the Su-25T) campaign, I was given bullseye coordinates. In the Su-25T campaign (cool campaign BTW), I don't remember being assigned targets while airborne, you'll just see their location and waypoints in the mission planner. I haven't flown the A-10C in combat yet, but I suspect you can receive target coordinates on data-link and have it shown in your MFD map and HUD, but I guess you'll still have to do some search around it with the pod or visually...

IRL, CAS means you'll take-off without knowing the exact location of your targets and if there will be any targets at all. In DCS mission planner you see every enemy's waypoints and exact vehicle type... I don't know why DCS is like that...

Is hardware limitation an issue? Isn't it just the part of the terrain around the aircraft that gets loaded into memory at any given time? Or would it increase the system load to expand the map?

I have no knowledge of the DCS engine, but I believe that changing a gun's dispersion should be just a matter of swapping one number with another...

True, we are yet to see 1.6...1.7...1.8.... :D. So still a long way. 2017 is not the year unfortunately by the looks. But the new engine is already 2.1. Will there even be a 1.6, 1.7, etc?

I thought that the release of the new Caucasus compatible with the 2.x engine was the merge itself. Is it not? Because I guess everything else is already compatible with 2.x, except the Caucasus and its campaigns and missions...

Hey, I'm starting to fly the Huey and I'm having A LOT OF FUN. One thing that draws my attention is that I can destroy armored vehicles like APCs and IFVs with the 7.62 miniguns pretty easily, often in one pass. The 7.62 M60 from the doors can also destroy these. I think APCs and IFVs are made to resist small firearms calibers like the 7.62. I know that IRL 7.62 can disable unarmored vehicles and maybe sometimes even stuff like Humvees, but APCs and IFVs... I don't think so... And if you fly the Su-25 and shoot the same APCs and IFVs with the 20 mm gun pods, you'll see that it's much harder to destroy them with the 20 mm than the 7.62 mm... Maybe nerf a bit the 7.62 caliber? Best regards!

Flew the Huey again in different missions and this time I couldn't notice differences between 1.5 and 2.1. It could have been the altitude or weather difference before. This time I set the same altitude above sea level.

Coincidentally or not, I've just noticed that the Huey flies significantly differently in 1.5 and 2.1. In 2.1 (Nevada) it feels more "tight" and the added lift from forward flight only kicks in at higher speeds. In 1.5 the ball slip indicator keeps moving a lot more to the sides.