Wags

DCS: Syria Map Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Updated 14 June 2020 Note: This FAQ is very much subject to change, and nothing should be construed as a "promise". This the current intention as of 13 June 2020. Who is developing this map? This is a 3rd party map created by Ugra Media, the same team that created the DCS: Normandy 1944 Map. Please find their forum page here: https://forums.eagle.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=646 When will this map be available? The map will soon enter closed external beta testing. The map will then be released based on test results and the time needed to resolve identified issues.We currently estimate Summer 2020. How much will this map cost? It will normally cost $49.99 USD, but it will be a $39.99 USD at release and while in early access (a 20% savings). Only once complete and out of early access, it will be priced at $49.99 USD. Where is the map located? In encompasses much the eastern Mediterranean from northern Israel up to southern Turkey. In includes all or portions of Syria, Israel, Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. How large is the map? It is approximately 600 km north to south and 500 km east to west. What period is this map based on? It roughly corresponds to today’s world. However, this does not exclude creating historical conflicts in the region. Are there different climatic regions? Yes, along the western coast and mountains, the terrain is temperate with trees, grass, crops, and other vegetation. East of the coastal mountain range, the map is much more arid and typical of a desert. What cities are included? Major cities that are created in detail with unique landmarks include Damascus, Tripoli (Lebanon), Latakia, Tartus, Homs, Aleppo, Hamah, Palmyra, Haifa, Acre, Beirut, Incirlik/Adana and more. What about historically significant locations? The historical battlefields of the Golan Heights, the Bekaa Valley, Ar-Raqqah, and more are represented. What airfields will be included? Quite a few across the map that include the following. Israel: Ramat David Megiddo Haifa International Airport Ein Shemer Turkey: Incirlik Adana Sakirpasa International Airport Hatay Syria: Damascus International Airport Bassel Al-Assad (Hmeymim) Khalkhalah Marj Ruhayyil Mezzeh Al-Dumayr An Nasiriyah Palymyra Hama Tabqa Jirah Kuweires Aleppo Abu Al-Duhur Taftanaz Minakh Qabr Al-Sitt Heliport Der Salman Heliport Marj Al Sultan Heliport Lebanon: Beirut International Airport Rayak Wujah Al Hajar Rene Mouawad Jordan King Hussein Air College (Mafraq) How detailed are the airfields? Very! Ugra Media has gone to great lengths to accurately recreate each airfield, down to berms, bunkers, shelters, revetments, and ground support equipment. What other military targets are available? Many, and they include Army bases, munition depots, power plants, factories, ports, Petroleum Oil Lubricants (POL) facilities, and command centers. It is very much a target rich environment.

DCS: F/A-18C Hornet - Targeting Pod Moving Target Track To track a target with the Hornet targeting pod, we recommend using the FLIR camera as it provides more contrast to lock on to. Place the crosshairs in front of the target in an stabilized action slew mode, then set to no-action slew area track, and then to a no-action point track mode. We are tuning the values, but for now: CCD camera: 6 nm FLIR camera: 11.5 nm

Correct, I misspoke. DEST, not INS. Apologies. Kind regards, Matt

Dear dmatt, We are still refining moving target track. The CCD track range is rather too short and the HUD indication is not tracking correctly. Once we are satisfied with it, I'll be happy to create a video about it. In the meantime, simply slew the stabilized cross hairs in front of the target and double-click the SCS in the direction of the FLIR DDI to go to a no-action point track. Currently about 6 nm for CCD and 12 for FLIR. Kind regards, Matt

F-16C Viper Update and Steerpoint Creation

The offset function should certainly be there in the next update, and I plan another video concerning this. For the internal build I was using for the video, an issue was introduced late yesterday that prevented me from demonstrating this. Thank you and kind regards, Matt

Dear Tom, You are quite correct. This is the rather coarse MAP (real beam mapping) mode. Later, EXP1, EX2, and EXP3 sub-modes will be added with increasing beam resolution. For MAP mode, it is useful for large geographic features. Thank you and kind regards, Matt

Pay special attention to where snark trails converge. Good luck!

Great stuff and thanks for sharing!

Fear not pilots, I'm alive and kicking (well, maybe not kicking). My wife and I just moved to a new home, and it was rather complicated by the pandemic... like inability to have an internet line installed. I am back though and catching up. Kind regards, Matt

Dear all, Thank you all for the feedback and items for us to consider. Nick, Kate, and I will take all your comments to heart and discuss how we can best structure and term the release of our products. All the of the comments are welcome, and even the most critical allow us to better understand where we can do better. In the end, this is your product and we cannot do it without you. Thank you and kind regards, Matt

Dear all, Thank you for all the insightful and helpful comments received over the past few days pertaining to F/A-18 and Early Access. Please allow me to address the most common questions and concerns we have identified. We believe in the Early Access business model and the value that Community involvement brings at an early stage: It gets the product into quality user hands swiftly which focuses the dev team. Despite the occasional ‘pitchforks and burning ceremonies’ we sometimes witness, the value of reading the ‘good, the bad and the ugly’ is immense. This generates buzz internally and externally which is good for moral and general awareness. It generates funding which we couldn’t raise in existing capital markets for such a relatively small and rather niche genre. It makes the product into a ‘Community Venture’ for all those involved, users, devs and investors alike. It generates Community opportunities for those who wish to create large Sub Communities, YT and FB Channels and Forums (even Reddit is ultimately a commercial venture). Complex products such as Hornet and Viper often go through rough patches. This is mainly due to limited resource availability, productivity variability and the unknown unknowns we encounter along the way. Despite the experience we have accumulated in DCS after approximately 5 million man-hours invested, 3.3 million lines of C++ code and 1.4 million lines of LUA currently in the build (without empty lines), it is not uncommon that devs and their managers overestimate productivity expectations to a certain degree. As quality is the key driver to delivering acceptable update satisfaction, we often find ourselves between a rock and a hard place, especially as we are compelled to deliver to an ever content-hungry clientele and to a growing customer base which today is in excess of 300,000 active monthly users and 55,000 daily users. Despite the obvious complexity of aircraft such as the Viper and Hornet, we have delivered in excess of 40,000 and 85,000 units respectively to-date and this is in no small way thanks to the community’s passion, involvement and willingness to try out such products early and to actively participate in the overall development story. (Note: a total of 2 million products were shipped in the previous 15 years and approx. 400,000 in 2019.) May I also draw your attention to the less visible side of Early Access and that is user-generated content. Without the thousands and thousands of community created missions, addons, skins and in particular the massive number of videos available online and the tens of millions of views generated during this ongoing Early Access phase, there is simply no way that we would have been able to build the level of awareness and excitement which we have witnessed to-date. This aspect is an important factor in the growth and sustainability of the hardcore simulator genre. Consider this carefully, you are the ones participating with us in the growth of our hobby and this truly is the enabling factor in our common destiny. But let’s take a small step back and ensure we all agree on the meaning of Early Access. Despite a small number of customers believing that it means ‘feature complete’, the term seems to be self-evident. In fact, it is not defined by us but to us from our friends at Steam. It is one that we will continue to adhere to for the sake of clarity and the avoidance of doubt: “Steam Early Access enables you to sell your game on Steam while it is still being developed and provide context to customers that a product should be considered "unfinished". Early Access is a place for games that are in a playable alpha or beta state, are worth the current value of the playable build, and that you plan to continue to develop for release.” This definition is quite clear and valuable. Delivering a product with the qualifier “Early Access” helps set the context for prospective customers as it provides them with information about the initial state of completeness in addition to describing our aspirations and objectives. The term Early Access ensures that customers fully understand and recognize that they are getting involved with a ‘work in progress’. We believe that by the end of this year, the Hornet will no longer be in an early stage of development and hence we will qualify it as ‘Out of Early Access’. This does not mean that we will stop working on it by any means. It is a definition to assist the prospective Buyer in understanding the status of the product by qualifying its late development status. It is not destined as a message to existing users attempting to shy away from any further investment. However, in the light of the recent concerns voiced by certain members of our Community and in order to respect your wishes, we have released a survey inviting you to actively participate in ranking the 40 plus features we believe are key to the future roadmap of the Hornet. The results of this poll will form an important decision-making factor for our resource allocation from here on and will be the reporting benchmark that we will set our dates to. A few additional items that we feel might be of interest to you: We have decided to focus more of our energies on the Hornet until the end of 2020 and as such the Viper will need to be on a slower burn, but development will by no means be suspended. We hired a new engineer to work on new weapons such as Maverick, JDAM/JSOW, and HARM, and they will continue full steam ahead in addition to system capabilities such as steerpoint creation (not just modification) and updates to the targeting pod such as Cursor Zero (CZ). HOTAS commands are certainly an item we will continue to work on but as I am sure most of you understand, these are highly dependent on the actual availability of a system modes, sensors and weapons. Therefore, we will address this feature as part of the specific weapon, sensor, and avionics task, rather than as a single HOTAS catch-all feature. While we certainly understand the desire for the ATFLIR, we decided to place it in the Out of Early Access list as the Listening TGP will provide virtually all the same functionality. We first wish to prioritize unique Hornet features that are not in place anywhere in the program. However, we do look forward to reviewing the upcoming poll on this matter and will discuss the findings openly. Following an in-depth review of all Hornet stores, it was judged that several items such as sea mines and Shrike were of limited value in the simulation. Whilst it might be still of interest to the highest purists in the Community, we would like to consider including these at some later point to be agreed. Thank you again for all your support and continued feedback. We are grateful for your passion and commitment; without you where would we be? Fly safe, Matt

Dear NPO, We are reading all of your comments and we appreciate them all. Later today and tomorrow, I will field the questions that are not already addressed in Nick's earlier post. Thank you and kind regards, Matt

Dear Community and Hornet Pilots, Today I would like to discuss with you our DCS: F/A-18C Hornet roadmap. We look forward to working with you in a constructive and efficient manner to create an achievable and transparent roadmap that covers the features to be delivered by the end of 2020 that will bring the Hornet out of Early Access. I have also included the features that we plan to work on in 2021 to sustain the Hornet after Early Access completion. DCS: F/A-18C Out of Early Access Features: 1. Completion of the Litening Targeting Pod (to be delivered with next update) 2. Dynamic launch zone, AUTO mode for JDAM (to be delivered with next update) 3. AG radar. MAP + Fixed Target Track (FTT) (to be delivered with next update) 4. SLAM air-to-surface missile (to be delivered in next update) 5. [ complex ] AG radar. EXP modes (1-2-3), GMT and GMTT modes, and SEA search mode 6. [ difficult ] Azimuth / Elevation air-to-air radar mode with AUTO IFF modes 7. [ difficult ] Coupled autopilot modes 8. [ difficult ] ACLS mode 9. [ difficult ] Datalink symbols, EW symbols, and AG mode for JHMCS 10. [ normal ] Correct possible flare number loaded 11. [ normal ] ASPJ ECM jammer 12. [ normal ] Adjust countermeasure programs when on ground 13. [ normal ] Mark points 14. [ normal ] Offset waypoints 15. [ difficult ] SLAM-ER air-to-surface missile 16. [ difficult ] Harpoon, SEA radar directed mode (FTT) 17. [ iterations during 2020 until completed] Update flight model for ground effect, takeoff pitch effects, auto-pilot based on FPM, touch and go handling, and other remaining flight model issues Complex - 12-20 weeks of development Difficult - 4-8 weeks of development Normal - 2-3 weeks of development DCS: F/A-18C Hornet Improvements in 2021: 1. Jamming targets not displayed on radar, should be in dugout 2. Aircraft Setup Card in Options 3. Mission Card for 60 waypoints with properties (Sequence 1, 2, 3, PP, PB, Initial, etc.) 4. RWS RAID air-to-air radar sub-mode missing 5. Radar SPOT mode 6. AG radar interleaved mode (SEA and GMT) 7. AG radar. AGR (air to ground ranging) mode 8. HARM Pre-Briefed mode 9. GBU-32 JDAM 10. Select AA and AG on ground 11. TALD decoy 12. AIM-7P 13. Mk-77 firebomb 14. GBU-24 Paveway III LGB 15. IN LAR cue is missing 16. The missing function of WIDE radar auto acquisition mode, cannot slew it 17. UFC BU page 18. Flight member TGT ground target SA page symbol missing 19. Fuel BIT (FLBIT) Page 20. MUMI Page 21. Gun sparks at night 22. INS / GPS full simulation and alignment (carrier and ground) 23. LOFT modes, ARM, JPF, and other JDAM and JSOW remaining functions 24. BDU-45 Training Bomb 25. GEN-X decoy 26. S/A and AUTO countermeasure modes 27. ATFLIR We decided to first focus on the most difficult features to develop and finish them this year. This, however, will slow down our F-16C Viper development efforts. However, F-16C will continue to be updated in 2020, and it will receive updates to the targeting pod, updates for HUD and HSD, steerpoint creation, and the addition of more weapons. We are open and look forward to your comments and requests. Let’s discuss it and finalize the plan! Sincerely, The Eagle Dynamics Team

Dear Community and Hornet Pilots, Today I would like to discuss with you our DCS: F/A-18C Hornet roadmap. We look forward to working with you in a constructive and efficient manner to create an achievable and transparent roadmap that covers the features to be delivered by the end of 2020 that will bring the Hornet out of Early Access. I have also included the features that we plan to work on in 2021 to sustain the Hornet after Early Access completion. DCS: F/A-18C Out of Early Access Features: 1. Completion of the Litening Targeting Pod (to be delivered with next update) 2. Dynamic launch zone, AUTO mode for JDAM (to be delivered with next update) 3. AG radar. MAP + Fixed Target Track (FTT) (to be delivered with next update) 4. SLAM air-to-surface missile (to be delivered in next update) 5. [ complex ] AG radar. EXP modes (1-2-3), GMT and GMTT modes, and SEA search mode 6. [ difficult ] Azimuth / Elevation air-to-air radar mode with AUTO IFF modes 7. [ difficult ] Coupled autopilot modes 8. [ difficult ] ACLS mode 9. [ difficult ] Datalink symbols, EW symbols, and AG mode for JHMCS 10. [ normal ] Correct possible flare number loaded 11. [ normal ] ASPJ ECM jammer 12. [ normal ] Adjust countermeasure programs when on ground 13. [ normal ] Mark points 14. [ normal ] Offset waypoints 15. [ difficult ] SLAM-ER air-to-surface missile 16. [ difficult ] Harpoon, SEA radar directed mode (FTT) 17. [ iterations during 2020 until completed] Update flight model for ground effect, takeoff pitch effects, auto-pilot based on FPM, touch and go handling, and other remaining flight model issues Complex - 12-20 weeks of development Difficult - 4-8 weeks of development Normal - 2-3 weeks of development DCS: F/A-18C Hornet Improvements in 2021: 1. Jamming targets not displayed on radar, should be in dugout 2. Aircraft Setup Card in Options 3. Mission Card for 60 waypoints with properties (Sequence 1, 2, 3, PP, PB, Initial, etc.) 4. RWS RAID air-to-air radar sub-mode missing 5. Radar SPOT mode 6. AG radar interleaved mode (SEA and GMT) 7. AG radar. AGR (air to ground ranging) mode 8. HARM Pre-Briefed mode 9. GBU-32 JDAM 10. Select AA and AG on ground 11. TALD decoy 12. AIM-7P 13. Mk-77 firebomb 14. GBU-24 Paveway III LGB 15. IN LAR cue is missing 16. The missing function of WIDE radar auto acquisition mode, cannot slew it 17. UFC BU page 18. Flight member TGT ground target SA page symbol missing 19. Fuel BIT (FLBIT) Page 20. MUMI Page 21. Gun sparks at night 22. INS / GPS full simulation and alignment (carrier and ground) 23. LOFT modes, ARM, JPF, and other JDAM and JSOW remaining functions 24. BDU-45 Training Bomb 25. GEN-X decoy 26. S/A and AUTO countermeasure modes 27. ATFLIR We decided to first focus on the most difficult features to develop and finish them this year. This, however, will slow down our F-16C Viper development efforts. However, F-16C will continue to be updated in 2020, and it will receive updates to the targeting pod, updates for HUD and HSD, steerpoint creation, and the addition of more weapons. We are open and look forward to your comments and requests. Let’s discuss it and finalize the plan! Sincerely, The Eagle Dynamics Team

Dear all, Thankfully, the Hornet and Viper AG radar modes are remarkably similar. As such, and like TWS, the initial heavy lifting for the Hornet AG radar mode will make the Viper AG radar mode much easier and faster. Kind regards, Matt

Dear all, One of the biggest new items in development for the Hornet is the Air-to-Ground (AG) radar. We will start with the Real Beam MAP mode, and then implement other modes that include Ground Moving Target (GMT), Sea Search (SEA), and Terrain Avoidance (TA). Today was a milestone in that we introduced the AG radar rendering into our internal development version (what we term the trunk). This is still very much work-in-progress, but as we flesh it out, I’ll be sure to bring you updates. Kind regards, Matt

Dear NRG, Sorry, but from her post: [ April-May 2020 ] Supercarrier EA Kind regards, Matt

Dear mmoccio, Per Kate's update, we are now looking at April-May 2020. Once we have a firmer estimate, we look forward to providing it. Kind regards, Matt

Dear Callsign, Sorry, but that will not be possible. We'll need to release DCS: Supercarrier as a single package that includes the Nimitz-class carrier, the Kuznetsov-class carrier, and the Arleigh Burke-DDG. Kind regards, Matt

Dear Harlikwin, Thank you for the feedback. A week ago we were deep into testing and a release on the 15th was feasible. Over the weekend and the early this week, the team and testers put in a great deal of overtime, and it was judged a couple of days ago that the 15th would not be possible for a solid release. At that time, Kate, Nick, and myself started drafting the announcement that was released today. This took a couple of days given the scope of what was relayed. I hope this makes the timelines a bit more clear. Kind regards, Matt

Dear Pimp, I hope this weekend. While in the hands of our valuable external testers, we've been tuning a lot of fine-line up LSO commands. I think we are pretty close now and to the point I can make a much more representative video. We've also adjusted the PLAT camera quite a bit during the testing stage, and I plan to create a video of that too. Thank you for your patience. Kind regards, Matt

Dear all, Thank you for your patience, and no one is more disappointed than us that we were unable to meet our planned release date. Although the Single Player experience is quite solid for the Early Access version, we discovered significant network issues during extensive testing over the past week. In good consciousness, we cannot release it in its current multiplayer state. Considering the disappointing F-16C state at Early Access release, we will not repeat the same mistakes for Supercarrier. We are sincerely sorry for this delay, and we thank you for your continued patience as we bring Supercarrier to a state that we can all be proud of. Kind regards, Matt

Will I have to own DCS: Supercarrier to include it in a host dedicated server? No, you will not. We will treat the Supercarrier module just like a map in that servers are not required to own the module. Only joined clients are required to own the module to take advantage of all its features.

Dear all, Please find an updated draft of the Supercarrier Guide that includes additions like the landing grading system, LSO displays, and Mission Editor features. Thanks, Wags DCS Supercarrier Operations Guide (Draft).pdf