Lace

What do we think will be teased at the end of the new year video release? Let the wild speculation begin...

Thanks. I have similar ones for my most flown types. The blue boxes are controls which are common to all types (or very close in functionality), the white boxes are a/c specific. Makes remembering the mapping a little easier.

I've posted this before, but this is my Viper XBox map which I use when away from my 'pit. It is actually quite a versatile tool and with some imaginative mapping and modifiers you can still be close to 100% combat effective when compared to a 'proper' HOTAS. Obviously the LMB/RMB combined with the VR cursor removes the requirement to map the non-HOTAS controls, like gear handles, canopy switches, MFD OSBs etc.

I should have thought that it was obvious that my post was referring to the scenery civvy traffic, but thanks for killing those kittens.

Loving the increased capabilities the new GMT mode brings to the Viper. However I am curious about one thing - how does the GMT mode know the difference between military and civilian traffic? Are there any plans to have civvy road traffic to be detected too? Therefore adding realistic ground clutter, and making enemy units less obvious? I'm sure this is more of a DCS core issue, rather than a Viper specific one, but it is relevant to how the Viper is fought with the GMT mode.

Welcome. I am of a similar vintage, having started late '80s, and growing up with Falcon 3.0 and MFS, returning after a long hiatus with the DCS A-10 and being completely humbled by the experience. The level of detail was mind-blowing and required a serious investment of time. A few years later the Viper came along and that was it. The time was found, the books studied and the parts collected for the 'pit. The experience (in VR) of actually sitting in the a/c was more than I could have dreamed back in those Falcon 3.0 days, even with my modest hardware. People moan about the DCS Viper, but while admittedly it is unfinished, and likely to remain so for some time, it is still a great module and the one I spend the most time flying. Take your time, learn the capabilities of the a/c, RTFM, and most importantly enjoy it. @darkman222 Good luck with the PPL. It takes time, and is rarely a smooth journey (especially in the UK - not sure about Germany), but is very much worth the effort! The sim flying helps in some ways, especially with the checks, scans and RNAV. Not so much with the stick waggling. See if there is an XP11 module for your training aircraft and sit there in VR learning where all the switches etc are. It will save you time (and money) in the real aircraft.

Let the speculation commence...

Not to mention the real flying too. TacView is not just for gamers.

You don't say what kind of mission - assuming transport as the Mi-8 was never intended as a night attack a/c. Take off the NODs, fly IFR.

The expected use of many of the early F-16 operators was very different to that of the USA, i.e. defensive rather than force projection. Range not so much of an issue if the Soviets have already rolled into your sovereign territory. At that point nobody cares about loiter times, rapid turnaround is the name of the game.

Interesting stuff, it will be nice when fully implemented. What about A-10C DECM vs Gun Dish (for example)? I've not really treated Shilkas as a real threat when jamming, as they always seem to track behind the a/c.

Only once they have exhausted all the real-world units we are currently missing. So, never.

Voted snake, but actually I think some form of UH/SH-60 would be a better fit for the implied DCS timeframe. A Sea King could be pretty versatile too

Yep.

Nice!

Actually, it wasn't. It was built for two purposes. Why would a pure bomber have a FLIR sensor on an upper surface...? It was also an AWACS killer, close in with sidewinders, slitting throats in the night. Allegedly.

Temperature inversions would be a nice feature too.

It doesn't. I (and many others) will continue to buy every module and map released, as by doing so we are supporting a company, and maybe eventually we will get the ones we really want. Ever the optimist. Nobody is asking ED to do this all for free, most of us are willing and able to pay more for a module than some people would pay for a full game. I don't see many threads about the costs. I buy modules knowing full well I will never fly them, because it does nobody any good to see ED or any of the 3rd parties fail due to lack of sales. What grates, is that DCS is effectively a monopoly. It is the only high-fidelity modern combat flight simulator on the market, and the problem with monopolies is without competition it is very easy to get complacent. Competition is healthy and DCS has none (excepting the other WWII sim, and the generation-older Viper sim). Again, this sounds like a complaint, but it really isn't. I fully understand commercial pressures, and that ED and The Battlefield Simulator have other non-commercial clients who pay far more for systems trainers. Take it as a compliment that we users want it ALL and want it NOW. It's only because ED are doing such a good job that there is such demand. If the product was mediocre, nobody would care which modules or theatres were produced. As for the F-14A, that does give me hope that perhaps if HB can do it, it will maybe set a precedent that each module will cover a number of variants rather than one model/year/block. This seems like low-hanging fruit and would add much more variety to the line up, and though I'm not the biggest Tomcat fan, it would be nice to see ED follow suit with an F-16A, F/A-18A, FF A-10A, etc. Playing DCS is like taking pleasure in planting an avenue of oak trees. You enjoy watching the saplings grow, and know that one day the mighty trees will make an impressive sight, but at the same time it brings sadness because you know that you will be long dead before that happens.

Well ok, yes, we all would like the whole planet modelled and useable for operations, but who honestly would have put the Marianas map above Fulda Gap, or GIUK, or Afghanistan, Iraq, Balkans, Korea, Vietnam, etc. in a wish list? I know people wanted an all-water (i.e. high FPS) map for blue water carrier ops, but the Marianas isn't that. I know it is 'free' in the sense it is available as part of the core DCS game, but it is certainly not 'free' in terms of developer/programmer time. Likewise the aircraft and assets. Ideally we all want everything, but I'm not going to live to 200, so realistically we need focus. Look at the asset database for Command:MO, there are literally tens-of-thousands of air, sea and land assets, from the end of WWII to the near future. There is no way DCS can offer an authentic battlefield environment covering all regions and all timeframes of the 70 years through WWII to 2010ish, at least not to the level of fidelity and visual quality we as a community demand. The result is lots of artistic licencing. F-16C standing in for an 'A' model. Caucasus standing in for Norway, SoH standing in for Kuwait, M2000 for MIII, Syria for Afghanistan, etc etc. This is not a complaint about the work ED are doing. DCS is the flight sim I wished for as a kid in the late 80's/early 90's. What they have achieved is amazing, but also frustrating, knowing that they produce a couple of FF modules a year (for 2021 we've had the Mi-24, Mosquito, and maybe the AH-64 will make it in). How long will it take to get the aircraft I want? When will we see an F-111 (or any currently unmodeled a/c) for example? It doesn't feature on the roadmap, so maybe 2025+, but by then, how much time will be going into reworking the then older F/A-18C? Surely that will be due an update, so as the number of modules increases, it stands that the development time of new modules will also increase as time is dedicated to the updating and maintenance of existing modules. So we may never see an F-111, which seems to be one of the most wished for a/c on the forums. What does that mean for the less popular but still historically significant aircraft? They have no chance. Will we ever see FF A-models? Probably not, because why would the air-quakers buy something which is less capable than what is currently on offer? If there is no financial incentive for the developers, it won't be made, so there will always be massive holes in the inventory when it comes to flyable assets, which means DCS will never be the true sandbox it prides itself on being. It is a sandbox in that it has no particular focus, but not in the wider sense of sandbox depth like C:MO. Perhaps it should stop referring to itself as such. Lifted straight from DCS World front page (and long overdue a re-write): DCS is a true "sandbox" simulation that is also designed to cover multiple time periods of interest such as WWII, Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf War and others. Current regions to battle include the Caucasus, Nevada Test and Training Range, and Normandy 1944. New maps in development include the Persian gulf, Syria and others.

Ha ha, yes, that is the question. I have an older model. Short of buying the newer ones and testing them out I can't honestly say, but I would like to think that any genuine Microsoft (I should have said 'genuine', not 'original' in my response above) controllers will behave in the same way. My point was that in my experience, the non-Microsoft copies do not perform as well.

The problem with DCS is that its USP is the thing holding it back, namely the glacially-slow development of modules (and even AI units), which in turn is due to our (as a community) demands for ultimate realism and fidelity of systems. Factor in the sandbox nature of DCS, and we have a handful of units covering a time period of 70+ years and a bunch of seemingly unrelated maps. Even if we had a Vietnam map, which units do we have that could realistically fight there? The F-5 and UH-1 are too modern. The F-14 could if you squint, but never really fought there. Maybe when we get an A-6 and F-8 we might have something, but then it depends on the versions modelled. Focus is what is needed. Nobody wanted the Marianas. Falklands is great, but it needs a SHAR and SuE at least to make it relevant. Modern Falklands makes no sense. Maybe when we get Eurofighter Typhoon, but again, we will be getting a German version first. I know Razbam have plans for more South Atlantic modules, but what is the timescale, five years? ten? Will I buy it? yes, of course, and it will be great, but that is not the point. Syria is a versatile map, and a lot of the modern and LOMAC stuff fit in there, and Afghanistan would work in a similar way. The SoH map seemed solely to be for the benefit of the Hornet. DCS is trying to be too much, and this is ultimately why there is no coherence between the modules and the maps and what the players want. Given a blank sheet of paper I would love to see DCS: Vietnam '68, or DCS: Falklands '82, DCS: Germany '88. DCS: Iraq '91, DCS: Afghanistan '06, etc. Each fleshed out with relevant ground, naval and air units, with relevant FF modules. The problem is, we are not starting with a blank sheet of paper, and it would be incredibly wasteful to throw away the excellent work which has been done so far. This is not a complaint about what ED are doing, it's a wish for more, but since more takes time, it would be nice if they would focus on one period/conflict/region and finish it, before going somewhere else at random. Regarding Korea and Taiwan, the elephant in the room is that any present-day conflict is going to involve lots of 5th-gen aircraft which do not feature is the DCS inventory, and realistically probably never will. Again they would be great maps, but they would need to be modelled at a time which fits our current line up of assets, so 1990-2010 I guess. A bit of a ramble I know, but just a few thoughts on the seeming lack of direction.

I've just tried it on my system, and I start with 6x 9-Mikes. Warehouse quantities show 30 Mikes and 30 Limas.

I use an XBox controller for flying when I'm away from my main simpits. For me the original, genuine Microsoft ones are the best for a couple of reasons. I have tried others, from cheap knock-offs, to the fancy Razer Wolverine, but none are as useful for DCS. With the original MS product, the triggers are independent axes, i.e, you can map the left and right triggers to separate things. I use left and right toe brakes. In addition, the 'back' and 'start' buttons are recognised by DCS as actual buttons. This allows me to use them as modifiers, which doubles (actually quadruples) up the number of inputs you can map to the controller buttons. The other controllers I tried do not have these functions, which massively limits the utility of the controller. Some have additional re-mappable buttons which sounds good, until you realise they are just mimicking other button presses, and not actually adding anything to the functionality of the device. Battery/wired is down to personal preference. At least wired don't shut down mid-flight if you forget to charge them. I know people look down on game controllers, and I'm not going to argue they are better than a proper HOTAS setup, but with a bit of thought, you can find them very useful for complex aircraft. I've attached my Viper controls to demonstrate just how much can be mapped.

Hmm, no. It wasn't like that before. Maybe something changed with an update. You're right though, the wingman isn't much help in the fight.

Exactly. One would hope that each developer is actually measuring the cockpits as part of the development process. Cockpits are different sizes IRL. The Mirage is tiny, the A-10 huge. Going on how big your TM stick is looking is about as unscientific as it gets. Trust that the devs have got it right, rather than how it 'feels' to the untrained observer.