bfr

We don't know its a fact. Nothing to say that things can't be patched up and people return to what they were doing (or competent replacements be found if those who said they were 'done' are indeed 100% not ever returning).

The reality is that the core of DCS itself is an ever-moving train and for any given module then there is no guarantee it would still work down the line if no one is maintaining it. I don't know what arrangement ED have with third parties in terms of being able to take over maintenance of released modules if the original developer pulls out, abandons, goes bust or whatever. As Alba57 alluded to, I hope there is some kind of provision in place given we've had one instance of this previously with the Hawk.

On the plus side, some say "don't look at the basket and probe too much during AAR" and in the Harrier's case its damn near impossible

and maybe loose off a Sparrow as a futile gesture for the purposes of light foreplay before the knife fight begins.

And one particular bright spot amongst the announcement is the performance looks like its going to be pretty decent considering how far it looked like they were pushing the envelope in the previews issued to date.

Same here, albeit I haven't tried for a while ('can I land it on a carrier when I shouldn't?' is an essential part of breaking in any new module). Generally come in quite flat and on the cusp of a stall.

Is the 6 week turnaround between releases a hard limit though (as in they can't possibly do it more often than that now without undue risk) or just what ED currently want to work to in terms of work planning and release cadence?

Yeah, I'm aware of the intention to change the damage model (and ASM warheads) to something better but it has been on the 'to do' list for quite a while now. I hope it does happen as it would open a whole new side to the game versus the current situation where you seem to need an awful lot of firepower to put any decent-sized armed naval vessel out of the fight.

And it would still be a valid tactic if DCS' damage model supported taking out individual systems on ships. Sadly it doesn't and its been a sore point since forever. As it is then boats can basically fight on until they're on their way to the bottom.

I'm fairly sure there was a list of things due in the short to medium term doing the rounds in another thread and the -130 was towards the top of that list. I can't recall where the Maverick was in terms of priority but I assume it is fairly low down considering it was rarely even trained with IRL.

F is 15 in hex, April is the 4th month, so an F-4 launch has to be 15th April

Yeah, their flight paths seem fine but they seemed to come off and on the burners quite a lot. Although the puff of soot dropping out of burner became a handy reminder for me to also get off the gas. I think it'll be a good tool for brushing up on formation flying and voiceovers calling a lot of sharp turns also helps with avoiding those 'unexpected traffic conflict' moments. The only very minor gripes are that the AI don't seem to get THAT low that often and they missed some good low flying areas out (e.g. the valley upstream from the dam you pass is a cracking LL route). I don't know if the altitudes used are the mission having been set up conservatively or just a limitation of DCS but i'm sufficiently a lunatic that if you don't land with green smears and twigs on the underside of the jet then you weren't really trying.

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?