Lace

This. And this. There are numerous ways to cheat. The biggest is the consequence free exceeding of a/c operating limits. Players can choose to fly within the limits, or outside of them. If you are worried about cheating on MP servers, then find a better server. For the vast majority who never play MP, this is a completely insignificant issue and not worthy of EDs precious time IMHO. There are far bigger issues to address.

To each their own. I'll be up ahead spotting targets for you in a Kiowa.

That makes my head hurt, the amount of button mapping that will be required. I just know that I'm going to buy the Apache, and I also know I'm never going to spend the time learning it.

Any skinners want to take this one? Will we get to 'pickle' Rick?

How much time do you have on NODs? They are more limited IRL than you might imagine, especially without active illumination.

The M61. It's one of the few weapons carried which require a bit of skill, along with an appreciation of tactical manoeuvring and actually 'beating' an opponent, rather than just pickling off a suicidal robot. It's the weapon the Viper was made for.

WWII I'd imagine. It is the same in the UK. Often invisible from the ground, but once airborne you can see hundreds of familiar three-runway triangles typical of WWII bomber fields, especially over Yorkshire & Lincolnshire. Most now absorbed by farms or industrial estates but there are a few still in use as airfields.

Snap. Been flying the Harrier out of RAF Akrotiri quite a bit recently too. Ugra have done a great job with the Cyprus addition.

I have used the trigger zone/explosion for IEDs in missions, but the idea of actual mines would be good as part of the CA. Trenches/berms etc might be tough given they would need to modify the underlying terrain mesh (I guess the reason we don't have any decent anti-runway munitions). I also like the idea of destructible trees.

In an ideal world, then yes. However the time taken to model each individual net would be a huge task, compared with three or four generic ones in different sizes.

So, two weeks then? Pre-ordered. First WWII a/c I've been looking forward to getting.

As a placeable static object in the ME. A couple of different sizes and colours would be great for artillery, FOBS, SAMs, and general mobile and semi mobile units. A versatile, non timeframe specific and realistic addition.

If you only have 2 hours a week, then my suggestion is stick with the Hornet. You already love and are familiar with the it and carrier ops element, and at 2 hours a week it could take you months to get trained up on any new module. Can you not spend some other time, lunch break, daily commute, etc. to study up the manuals. Make an A5 QREF cheat sheet and look over it every time you have a spare five minutes. Carry simplified checklists on your phone and look over them regularly. Make your desktop wallpaper an F-18 cockpit, so every day you are looking at the position of buttons, instruments, controls etc. Focus on the Hornet, but maybe simplify to one or two mission types, rather than the full gamut. Pick a few weapons and forget the others (for now at least). Chair fly the missions and have a plan for each two hour flight, with a specific learning objective, and then debrief the next day away from the computer and with the manual/guide.

I had a list which I posted a while back, but many of the issues I had raised have now been addressed or are in the process of being addressed. Weather - visually a huge improvement now, but turbulence especially in and around CB should be implemented, as should dynamic weather systems, with options to deteriorate or improve as desired. (I'm sure it will be). ATC - Desperately in need of overhaul, and currently in progress too. SC comms adds immersion even if not 100% accurate (apparently). A/D environment - More vehicles, marshalling personnel, armourers, maintainers, etc. Again SC has shown us what we can expect on land based A/D soon (I hope). AI/UFO FM physics - Always improving I guess, and a lot down to the mission designer to correctly set up (as mentioned above). Dynamic campaign - I don't want to feel like I'm in a movie, I want to feel like I'm fighting a war. I don't want a storyline, I want a strategic objective. Tied in with this... Logistics - Realistic warehouse stocks, and interruptible logistic supply chains. Better make sure that C-17 full of JDAMs makes it though or you'll be dropping iron bombs for the next few days. - Likewise spares and realistic repair times for campaign missions. More AI air, land and sea units - If you want realistic scenarios then we need a much broader selection of units - another one which is in process, but seems glacially slow. Other stuff in which is being worked on and will help include the thermal modelling/FLIR implementation, weapon blast effect, ground unit reaction to effective enemy fire, etc.

I think the Recce/BDA mission is essential for the new dynamic campaign. If players needed to actually gather intel, rather than just be presented with it on a map, it would add a huge element of realism to the tactical planning of sorties, and the strategic considerations of target selection.

The Viper will always be special to me as it was my first real introduction to military combat simulation in Spectrum Holobyte's excellent Falcon 3.0. It is my primary DCS module even in its unfinished state and the only one which is getting it's own dedicated VR sim-pit built in my study. There are so many aircraft currently offered within DCS and many more coming in the near future, but none which will knock the Viper off it's top spot IMHO (That will maybe only happen with a GR1 Tonka).

Good info there Northstar. If only we had the depth and breadth of units to run realistic scenarios to go with the realistic basing. As always, some poetic licencing will be required for any map or module use. Also, wartime dispersal will mean many units are far away from their 'normal' homes.

AGM-145 is for DEAD, not SEAD. IRL a DEAD package will not be a single aircraft firing a single weapon, there will be multiple coordinated flights, combined with EW aircraft & HARM shooters to supress, while other aircraft destroy with JSOWs or CBU. You might be able to kill older SAM systems alone, but any of the modern stuff can target even the low-observable standoff weapons.

GIUK gap would be great, but DCS is not a naval combat simulator, and in order to incorporate the non-carrier based air assets, we would need to expand to include Scotland for Lossie and Kinloss, maybe even down to Leuchars. Norway too, even right up to mainland Russia. Otherwise the REDFOR will all be air-started Bears and Backfires. It would end up as a huuuge map, or just lots of cold water. As you say a better option would be the Kola Peninsula and the Barents sea to the north. You could still include Norway, Finland (and maybe the far north of Sweden too to allow the Viggen to be operated from it's native frozen lakes and roads) and the Russian naval and air bases around Murmansk/Severomorsk. Still plenty of water like GIUK, but with the option of some ground warfare to support, and a smaller, less densely developed geographic area, like the maps we currently have.

Thanks, I'll take a look at those. From a quick glance the main choice seems to be 64GB slower RAM, or 32GB faster RAM. At the moment I'm running 32, but aware it might be worth future-proofing a bit with the 64GB option.

I may be breaking some forum rules here, but I think anyone on reading here would be interested in Operation Crossbow - A UK charity in the process of (re) building a flying Mosquito. This will be the fourth flying Mosquito in the world and only example outside of North America. Newsletter Signup - The People's Mosquito (peoplesmosquito.org.uk) NB, I am in no way affiliated with the People's Mosquito charity.

That'll be why then. The red triangle are DL symbols shared via other flights or AWACS aircraft. In order to lock you need your aircraft to detect the target. Most likely reason it won't is your antenna elevation - your RADAR needs to be scanning the right bit of sky, both in azimuth and elevation in order to detect the returns from the target aircraft. Azimuth is achieved by moving the TDC cursor over the target, but your antenna may still be scanning over or under the target. You need to move it up or down until you get a white dot indicating a solid return (which may or may not be in the same place as the DL symbol, but should be close), or a solid red triangle (indicating a correlated return). Fortunately, the number on the red triangle is the DL target altitude. The two numbers on your acquisition cursor are the upper and lower altitude limits of your scan. If the red number is between the two white numbers then your RADAR should pick up a return. However, this is a huge topic and well worth further reading if you want to get the most from DCS. The Viper manual is a good place to start and I'm pretty sure the APG-68 manual is out there somewhere too...

Is it a RADAR return (white dot) or Datalink symbol (red triangle)? You can only lock a primary return, DL symbology there for information only.

Nope, Marianas was a non starter for me. Maybe after a bit of optimisation it will improve (I found the same with Syria though, and even the SoH back in the day). I'm well aware of the compromises I am making with my hardware (I even started a thread about a new laptop earlier this week). Of course we expect more, and games have moved on immeasurably from the early 90's, not quite sure the point you are making here, I'm not comparing DCS to Falcon 3.0, other that in the same sense, it requires (required) the very best hardware to run it. Cars now are much better than cars in the 90s, but there are still people out there who think we would be flying around in autonomous pods by now. Expectations should be managed accordingly. The 'pick two' analogy works for so many aspects of our lives. I am willing to sacrifice quality for VR immersion, some are happier with a 4k monitor and TrackIR. I would love to turn it up to 11, hence the search for some better hardware, but the latest software has always and will always be one step ahead of the latest hardware, it's what ensures longevity in the software, and drives demand for new hardware. If DCS maxed out ran at 90fps on a 2080, nobody (ok the miners would) would need new GPUs, which would be bad news for hardware manufacturers, and there would be a thread right here on how ED is being too conservative and the graphics would be so much better if they were willing to push the limits of the new hardware. Everything is a compromise.

VA is the manoeuvring speed, i.e the maximum speed for full control deflection. Below this and you can pull any single control to the stops and will not overstress the aircraft. Above it and you will exceed the design loading for the aircraft. Whether this will break stuff depends on a lot of factors, but it is not something done routinely. The reality is that it is easy to do in the sim (no physical resistance to control movement) and hard to do unintentionally IRL (lots of physical resistance to control movement).