bies

Practically any aircraft on this list would be awesome.

Is Kola Peninsula being modeled as 1980s with numerous Soviet military bases still online?

Today i've heard my virtual Hind mate for the first time. He has such a nice calm voice. Great job ED recording his lines!

It works perfectly, thanks.

Hi, are some newer DCS modules not supported? I use my pad without problem for most modules, but Mi-24 or Mirage F.1 causes some error:

Last time i've heard an interview with F-22 USAF pilot. He stated F-16, due to its small size and crosssection and blended wing-body shape is notoriously hard to detect from the front when intake is masked by the nose - even for cutting edge F-22 radar, incomparably more advanced and sensitive than our 35-15 years old conventional mechanical small antenna F-16 and F/A-18 radars. This is obviously classified technology, but older mechanical small size antenna radars were far from perfect detection devices we have right now. With ED implementing more and more phanomena influencing radar operation our radars will have even more limitations then there have right now.

So we are waiting for curved DCS Earth map

Probably historically relevant either A/E from Vietnam war and operation in Kambodia or "F", final variant with powerfull engines and higher flight performance used from mid 1970s, through 1980s, taking part in El Dorado Canyon operation, up to Gulf War 1991. F-111F being the best variant overall and F-111A/E being the best in relation to its timeframe opponents/interceptors/SAMs capabilities. Both would be equally exciting.

You would like to have additional controls for single soldier, like FPS, inside DCS, to walk armound, shoot personal gun etc., something like Call of Duty? Do i understand correctly? Well it would be nice, an ultimate experience, but i guess it's absolutely impossible from technical standpoint, it's not a matter of intention. Imagine DCS map is 450,000km² when Call of Duty map is like 25km², 18 thousand times(!) smaller. There is a reason for that. Theoretically you could add a few commands to lie down, shoot a gun etc., but compared to typical FPS graphics quality, number of details inside 18 thousand times bigger map, detailed animations, weapon parameters, infantry AI, physics of every single infantryman bullet, gun, recoil, gunsight. Now add reasonable number of infantryman, like what means even 100-200 soldiers inside 450,000km² map - total emptyness, then armored vehicles, artillery, tanks, support weapon, all reasonably detailed to have reasonable experienced. Technically impossible. It would overhelm NASA supercomputers. Operation Flashpoint / ArmA serie tries to take the best from both worlds compromising both of them as well. But it is not even close to DCS when it comes to aircraft enviroment, you are circling around crossing the whole map in 20-40 seconds of straight flight and it has significantly smaller level of detail than typical "small", "staged", linear FPS at the same time. Even balancing DCS scale to accomodate both jets and helicopters offering attractive experience stretches the engine to the limits. Let alone reasonable experience around single infantryman.

There is an interview with Lt. Col. Fred "Spanky" Clifton, experienced aggressor pilot, with 500 hours in MiG-29 alone and way more than 1000 hours in different NATO jets. He was one of the members of MiG-29 evaluation program. He conducted a lot ot mock air combat flying MiG-29 against whole lot of different NATO fighters evaluating many different tactics from NATO and Warsaw Pact syllabus. The whole interview is long and very interesting, he was praising MiG-29 for many things, helmet sight, performance etc. but IRSTS absolutely wasn't one of them: https://jalopnik.com/how-to-win-in-a-dogfight-stories-from-a-pilot-who-flew-1682723379 In short using IRSTS like a radar replacement with cold war technology aircrafts like MiG-29 and Su-27 is not realistic at all and when ED release weather component influencing all IRSTS/FLIR sensors it is going to be usefull only in a very specific situations for which it was designed to be used, like high altitude, good weather bomber interception during extensive radar jamming. Such IR sensors were being used since 1950 for this purpose in most interceptors like F-101 Voodo, F-102 Delta Dagger, F-106 Delta Dart, J-35 Draken, F-4 Phantom, MiG-23S, F-14A Tomcat, MiG-25PD, MiG-29, Su-27S/P - in short in any fighter planned to be often used in an interceptor role. In tactical fighter variants like F-4E, F-14A they very often dismont it, replacing it with different more usefull sensor or avionics. (Modern PIRATE Eurofighter's sensor is totally different beasts according to the pilots, but this is basically very advanced FLIR, aided with modern fast computers, capable of detecting much smaller heat emisions and tracking many targets at once from relatively big distance, not simple infra red sensor. But is is still prone to adverse weather compromising its parameters.) BTW: "nerf" term has nothing to do with DCS since it is made for realistic representation, not artificial balance "buffing" and "nerfing" sensors to equalize different aircrafts for the "MP win rate".

Who knows, when it comes to this examples light grey fighter F-15 seems realistic and beneficial. But Maybe Razbam will surprise us later on? Current Harrier is made by Razbam and the only 3rd party considering making different variant like Falkland War Sea Harrier is also Razbam. Fighter Viggen - Heatblur, having Swedish coders and gathering big amount of information for Viggen module, contacting with Swedish military, if they woundn't be able to make fighter variant nobody else wouldn't be able as well. Super Hornet, considering Boeing refused even the oldest one with basically identical avionics as our 2005 Hornet, it would be completely pointless to make just a new external 3d model and FM and repeat the whole 5-6 long years of extensive work of bunch of experienced ED developers... Just to repeat all the rest for some 3rd party copying the whole ED work. Tornado, i guess it would be British Tornado, like GR4, but British are refusing to model anything even remotely recent from their inventory, let alone fairly recent Tornado GR4, some developers said in the interview they refused GR1 and refused 1980s Sea Harrier old Blue Vixen radar basic parameters. Just British policy i guess, it's not an accident we have 0 British modules more recent than WW2. And GR4 was a virgin variant anyway, with long range standoff missiles, subsonic with dismounted ramps in air intakes replaced by steel rods, with 2 sensors below the nose disturbing airflow for the engines at higher speeds, with disabled terrain following radars. Just bunch of classified electronics and airliner-like flight profile. In most cases it is just far more reasonable to make completely different airframe.

Making different variants of the same airframe by different companies would be really bad idea for 2 reasons: 1) Lack of uniformity. Many identical systems, shared between different variants, would be made in a different way only because two different 3rd parties would use their own, different approach to model such IRL identical systems. They would even look a bit different externally and internally is places that should look 100% identical. 2) Wasted parallel work time. Some 50% of the whole work of both 3rd parties would be wasted, wasting whole lot of time for nothing - external 3d model, big parts of the cockpit, gauges, logic of different shared systems, hydraulic, sensors, devices, avionics etc. - already done by other developers being work on again for no reason. Big amounts of wasted parallel work, wasted manhours. Different variants are great, but not being developed by different 3rd parties.

2000s digital avionics, glass cockpit, GPS Apache or Warthog obviously have nothing to do with 1980s damaging whole atmosphere. There is already many 2000s servers if i want to fly Apache or Warthog. But looking at current DCS modules being developed right now 1980s late Cold War is going to be filled with biggest amount of period correct full fidelity flayable machines among all periods; A-7E, Su-17, A-6E, MiG-23MLA, Tornado IDS, F-4E, Bolkov 105, early Kiowa, Kfir. We already have F-14A/B, MiG-21bis, Mirage F.1, F-5E, Mi-24, Mi-8, UH-1 extensively used during 1980s. Most FC3 MiG-29A, F-15C, A-10A, Su-25A, Su-27S. No need to take 2000s digital / GPS 2000s modules making the server generic like any 2000s server. I suspect it might have something to do with many period correct modules are still being work on. Great idea creating this server and such setup. Keep up!

F-104, the earlier/lighter the better. Like late 1950s USAF F-104A used in combatby Pakistan and Taiwan. Or multirole F-104C with refuel probe. Or 1967 F-104A reengined with J79-GE-19 with the most ridiculous performance. F-105 obviously. The eralier/faster the better.

Exactly. That's why, similar to weapon systems unified by ED, there should be a general ED set of basic rules to apply in this manner, obliging all 3rd parties. I.e. max tested G * some coeficient like 1.5 = breaking load. Just unified universally through all modules. Obviously it would need to be more nuanced, considering more variables, wing type and shape, non-symmetrical loads, additional data available for different situations etc. Because obviously all 3rd parties and ED are doing their best to approximate such situations, they may just use different methodology right now, which should be unified over the long term.

It sounds possible. Different treaties impacted many weapon systems parameters. With typical payload and the most unvavourable Lo - Lo flight profile Tornado IDS had combat radius of 490-520km. It looks like more than enough for most DCS maps, covering with virtual ring practically whole map. British GR1 would be great as well but IIRC Great Britain will not allow anything even remotely recent to be modeled in DCS.

Good hints. When it comes to additional fin fuel tank, if it was big or small is obviously relative term. Considering DCS maps size i think our Tornado will be able to perform strike mission deep inside enemy territory at low altitude and go all the way back without refueling, with just 2 drop tanks for longer missions and it will still have refueling probe. British GR1 were operating from British island, then to attack Soviet targets in Eastern Europe and go back. I guess that's why they ended up with a bit more internal fuel compared to German and Italian ones operating from the continent.

Instead of JP233 Germans use MW-1 dispenser which was arguably even more capable and more universal carrying many different types of submunitions for different purpose like anti-tank, anti-personel/non armored assets, parachute mines, anti-runway etc. and different combinations of those. German IDS were integrated with HARM since 1982, instead of ALARM.

Personally i doubt lower FPS of map like Marianas is a performance issue per se, it looks like it is conscious and deliberate decision of developer for this map to have exceptionally high visual fidelity at cost of some performance. So far i didn't see ED decreasing visual fidelity of Marianas map to increase its performance. Its always some compromise. Obviously if they would decrease level of detail, terrain mesh resolution, textures resolution etc. performance would skyrocket, but they have chosen not to do that for this particular map. There are some optimisation measures which can improve the situation a bit, but there is no magic techniqe which can give both fantastic visual fidelity and fantastic performance at the same time. This would require different way how PC interact with this map, like Vulkan API or multithreading they are working on.

Yes, but it doesn't work like that, developers are testing their map thousands of times, they are doing it practically every day through the years. It's not like thay are working for like 2 years, then going online and say: "we are fucked, 10fps". They are fine tuning level of details, texture resolution, terrain mesh, objects, they are very well aware what is current performance. It's all a compromise between visual fidelity and performance. You can make phenomenal quality desert or one tiny island with poor performance and poor quality BosWash megalopolis or Shanghai with high performance.

This are not even trees, Kola Peninsula will have far more trees than Vietnam yet developers are confident they can make it maintaining decent performance. Marianas is just overall exceptionally high detail map, similar to Channel map, the obvious tradeoff of extremally detailed map is drop of performance. Like a bike, parked inside a small home garden behind the house, inside some village, one of many, with every spoke in the wheel visible - you will probably never see it but ED modeled it because they decided they want to sacrifice some performance for extreme details. Obviously maps like Syria, Persian Gulf, South Atlantic, Kola Peninsula, Sinai Peninsula, Northern Australia or possible future Vietnam will not have such extreme details, that's why bigger they still have / will have have a decent performance.

Yes, Kormoran 1 is planned according to developer's Discord.

Our IDS will be proper for all scenarios from early-mid 1980s Cold War, 1991 Gulf War, when Italian IDS identical to German variant were depoyed attacking Iraqi targets, up to Allied Force. Up to 1992 the differences between German IDS and British IDS named GR1 was minor. British had additional Laser Range Finder & Marked Target Seeker (LRMTS) under the forward fuselage received by the end of 1986, which slightly increased drag and was used to guide Paveway II laser guided bombs, but the target has to be designated by higher flying subsonic Buccaner with AN/AVQ-23E Pave Spike pod and Tornado had to fly at least at 10,000ft so its use against symmetrical opponent over enemy territory wasn't considered practically possible, making both planes exposed easy targets for enemy air defense and interceptors. GR1 also had additional small fuel tank inside vertical stabiliser and a bit different pylons compared to German and Italian variant. German was using MW-1 bomb dispenser with 4 different loadouts when British used similar JP-233. German and Italian IDS had also installation to fire HARM missiles since 1982 with digital MIL STD 1553B, when British didn't have this ability. German IDS were using Cerberus II/III self protection pod (developed in strict secret in cooperation with Israel which caused a scandal in Germany later on) + Saab BOZ chaff/flare dispenser when British used Sky Shadow + BOZ with similar function. German Marineflieger IDS were additionally integrated with AS.34 Kormoran anti-ship missiles. Only after the Gulf War ended both German/Italian IDS and British GR1 started to be significantly different. But if IIRC British will not allow to model any British aircraft even remotely recent due to their policy.

Exactly, "modern day" Vietnam would be just as bad and incomprehensible as modern day Normandy, modern day Kursk or modern day El Alamein - totally wasted opportunity with zero atmosphere. Let alone it would be incomparably harder on CPU with far, far lower frame rates, population of Vietnam tripled(!) since 1960s, together with big urban areas, infrastructure etc.

Simply doing things, seeing the enemy, seeing our bombs explosions all around, dodging AAA, just feel the adrenaline rush, actually risking of being shoot down to be able to hit the target, being forced to fly inside enemy territory, maneuvering at very low altitude with aid of TFR which was still operable during Cold War and Gulf War era, counting on speed and low altitude maneuvering to avoid interceptors of the era which had limited capabilities without very advanced radars or long range missiles. GR4 would be takeoff, release Storm Shadows 300nm from the target at high altitude without any risk, land. And even if you would get intercepted somehow 300nm from the target 1 in 10 missions you would just receive missile warning when advanced doppler radar guide AMRAAM/ski and you are dead. I just have a feeling variant they are doing is going to rock.