bfr

I had a go (editing the F15 C to an E) and it is indeed quite good fun. Definitely going to try changing the season like you did as the winter lighting levels and subdued ground colours make it damn easy at some sections to lose the planes in front if you're not flying up each others backsides (and its challenging to keep too close formation as the AI jets do seem to vary speeds a bit around the route).

Certainly it looks like it can bite you if you try to make it do things it doesn't want to. At the same time from the videos it does also look like you can throw it around a fair bit. I can see myself doing an awful lot of joyriding in it (probably resulting in numerous instances of my virtual demise) before I start figuring out how to actually fight in it.

Yeah, no different than when the Tomcat came along and many of us realised quite quickly that the wings not only swing but are detachable if you pull on the stick hard enough Hell, i've even managed to make a Viggen disassemble itself before now.

I'd also vote for Syria in a 'if you can own only one additional map'. I think I've got all the modern era maps and Nevada is the one I find myself using the least.

Just don't sign up for the pre-sale the day it goes up as they usually drag out for a while. Plus there is pretty much always at least some big hints dropped a few days before actual release, so there is little fear of missing the discount boat if you're the kind of person who checks in on the forums every few days.

Yes I did upgrade but for things other than DCS and I had some spare cash at the time. I'm getting better frame rates now in DCS obviously, but it was rarely dipping below 50 on the old setup anyway.

I must admit I got so used to fighting in 9X-equipped jets that it was a pleasant change of pace doing A2A practice in the Strike Eagle to see rear aspect shots with even the 9M miss occasionally (especially if the opponent hadn't depleted their compliment of flares yet).

Yet somehow I was running an 8GB card until a 2-3 months ago that was doing fine driving an ultrawide monitor at just over 2K resolution.

Pretty sure it happened with the Strike Eagle in DCS too initially where people forgot to change the fuel slider when setting up quick practice scenarios and forgot a fully fuelled jet carries a not insignificant weight of fuel.

This 'not enough RAM for the future' argument keeps getting made but unless you're planning on running the same card for a very long time (like 3+ generations, when possibly just raw performance will start to bite you first anyway and you'll be forced to reduce resolution and/or quality to get decent FPS or just upgrade) i'm struggling to think of cases where it turned out to be a real world problem. Game studios will write stuff for what the majority of hardware out there is capable of supporting, otherwise they aren't going to get much money back in sales.

Fair. I'd completely forgot about the Jeff. And mentioning the small LS-6s reminds me that the SDB should be fun when those eventually arrive for the SE (which might be a while yet).

Certainly some of the pre-release teaser footage featured it on the jet (but never showed it being used) so its definitely not just appeared recently. I vaguely remember some people taking that and its presence as a game asset to incorrectly believe it was going to be a useable thing at release or shortly after. It'd be certainly nice to have another decent standoff weapon in the game though, which seems to be mostly limited to stuff exclusive to the Hornet currently (i'm very deliberately not counting the A version of the JSOW for the Eagle and Viper as its of such limited use).

The current model has been there longer than the SE has been released for if I remember rightly?

Agreed. A lot of things in fancy jets are there because it ultimately makes the pilot's job easier or increases awareness. I struggled with the F-14 at first because of the lack of information in the HUD (oh what i'd give for even the Sparrowhawk HUD as an update!), and the F-4 is even lower tech in that regard. I literally tore a wing off because I got a bit grabby and there wasn't a computer in the middle to say 'no' (and I lost count of the number of spins I ended up in!). To get a mental picture of BVR contacts then you're relying on the (usually AI) guy in the back telling you or you have to hop in the back to look at the scope. Even the way the front canopy is structured (and it'll be similar issues on an F-4) caused occasional problems with visibility at key moments because of the struts in your forward eyeline that just aren't an issue in a Hornet or Viper.

Pretty proficient on the Hornet and have kept up with things on the Eagle as they've come out. I'm OK on the Viper, but a bit behind in some areas. Tomcat & Viggen I love to fly but not to fight in (just never quite got to grips with learning the Viggen systems and never really got on with Jester in the F-14). Clocked a fair few hours on the Harrier when it was new, but that mostly gathers dust now and it'd be like starting from scratch to get back into it (especially as a lot of things were added/changed since I moved onto other things). Same story with the A-10.

Or have a game of dare in multiplayer where each player positions themselves along the runway at the farthest point from which they think they'll be able to take off from the remaining tarmac.

I'm expecting something slightly tougher than the F-14, which was definitely a shock to the system having come from the more modern jets. Especially how it would quite gladly let (and often willingly assist) you kill yourself and your RIO if you got a bit heavy on the stick.

Yes, they blink and the eyes move around like in the video. Thats in-game footage. Do the eyes widen just before you slam into the ground because you were too busy looking at (literal) eye candy and not looking where you were going?!

The reason I suggested it isn't is that there are examples of modules that are a long way from being feature complete that have ended up as available on trial. Its Razbam's product though at the end of the day and their commercial decision if they want to offer that option or not (much like they haven't participated in sales much lately, even with mature products like the M2000 and Harrier).

That isn't all that relevant (e.g. Apache has been available on trial for ages). It's a publisher decision as much as anything else as to whether a module goes into the trial programme or not.

Are you running any mods and/or is the recording without explicitly hitting RCD mission-specific? Certainly on mine it only records when you tell it to (just checked now and the last files in the folder are timestamped from July when I was intentionally tinkering around with the RCD feature)

You can. Hell, I can remember often enough having to go in and clear double mappings DCS itself creates by default.

Its impressive in terms of frame rate boost but also obviously not a free lunch. The slightly less crisp cockpit text I could just about cope with but (and its a while since I last tried it so it might've been fixed since) the ghosting/smearing in external views was a complete no-no.

Aye, my bad.

Also don't forget holding TDC Depress (I think) before you try and directionally slew if you have 'realistic TDC slew' enabled in settings.