Eddie

Yep, as Howie knows we did have such a project in work within the 476th by one of our members, however lack of interest in supporting such an endeavour from ED combined with real life issues to halt work on it. Rather than a long post on what we'd like to have, I'll simply say, see the Weapon Delivery Planner and DTC functionality in Falcon BMS. That is all. And it's not just for the A-10C either, all modern (and even back to 60's & 70's) aircraft use such systems, with many settings only configurable before flight using such a system.

No. It provides positional data from the navigation system, aircraft navigation systems, the A-10C included, are not GPS they are INS assisted by GPS. All positional data is INS based first and foremost, GPS is only there to eliminate any errors that would occur overtime due to gyroscopic drift etc. and the aircraft can operate entirely normally without GPS being available. JDAM is the same in that regard.

No, they don't. WCMD as Howie quite correctly states is INS only. WCMD-ER was an upgrade intended to add GPS assistance but it was cancelled.

The CBU-97/105 should deploy the BLU-108s in such a way that they cover a 800 ft wide x 1600 ft long pattern (the chutes on each BLU should open sequentially on ensure even spread). HOF does not, and should not be a consideration for the SFW, the submunition spread is all pre programmed, or should be. HOF only affects the point at which the CBU canister opens, it has no impact on the chute deployment or skeet dispersal. A single 97/105 should be quite capable of taking out 6 MBTs, subject them being inside the design footprint of course. At present in DCS the CBU-97/105 is generally about as effective against light/heavy armour as the CBU-87/103 should be. And the CBU-87/103 is significantly less effective than in should be vs light armour, and even soft skinned targets. So to directly answer the question, no 6 MBTs with 6 SFWs is not even close to a decent ratio, it's downright pitiful.

You should be able to assign VHF for the player flight, just type a VHF freqenucy in the box, likewise to have AI flights and AWACS/Tankers use UHF just change the default 124.000 to a UHF freqency. The only limitation to my knowledge is that you can't change between AM and FM modulation.

I've had Victor and Fox Mike working at around 150-170 NM using transmitted messages, with an A-10C flying at medium altitude with clear line of sight. However I'll add that from what your posts suggests the purpose of the comms is using Victor/Fox Mike doesn't really make much sense. If as I suspect, you're making comms messages from C2/AWACS/JSTARS/other fights then they should be coming over Uniform (UHF). DCS is largely incorrect when it comes to what radios are used for what purpose in the included campaigns and SP missions. IRL VHF/AM & VHF/FM are used for intra-flight comms and in the case of VHF/FM sometimes close range comms with JTACs (although UHF can also be used for that purpose). Where A-10Cs aren't dealing with JTACs /VHF/FM is often used for flight comms as it has the shortest effective range, otherwise it's VHF/AM. UHF is used for all inter-flight/package, AWACS, Military ATC, J-STARS, and other command and control purposes. It is actually impossible to talk to an AWACS controller over VHF as the guys in the back all have UHF and SATCOM radios (apart from guard transceivers of course). Only the pilots in the front have VHF radios. Military aviation prefers UHF for important comms between flights and other agencies as it provides better practical range and better audio quality, as well as being less congested than VHF frequencies as it is not shared with civil aviation traffic.

If anyone feels like reading the, now, unclassified written analysis documents..... http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB443/docs/area51_48.PDF http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB443/docs/area51_49.PDF http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB443/docs/area51_50.PDF

I'm quite sure you do. Here's hoping you all get chance to actually realise it.

Indeed. I think people need to be careful with their criticism, especially in this area. Flying, military or civil is an inherently visual undertaking, so the quality of visuals in a flight sim product is very important. And as you also point out, a developer who works with code associated with visuals is hardly likely to be of great use in other areas anyway. Also, your comment on DCS being a game is a very good one. It is an entertainment product, albeit one which broadly aims to replicate reality. The overall environment is a very important aspect of that, so flying a WWII aircraft in as accurate a representation of a WWII era theatre with WWII era vehicles, with AI that employ a reasonable replication of WWII tactics etc. is all very important to the entertainment value. The same is true for any other era people care to mention. To me, just dumping aircraft X into any old terrain and flying around with none of your actions having any real impact on your surroundings, or in the case of combat any real impact on the mission isn't all that entertaining.

Of course missile physics are a very important area. "Critical" for air combat, hmm, in the context of DCS at present perhaps not, given that without matching improvements in guidance the current improvement has lead to weapons which in a few cases are further from reality than they were to start with. Personally I'd have considered it better to wait until you can actually finish the job before you release it, perhaps there were/are good and sensible reasons not to in this case, but that doesn't really change the issue at hand. As I work in the aviation industry where anything less than perfect is simply not acceptable, perhaps wrongly, I expect that same standard and attention to detail everywhere. Which is why I have the viewpoint that I do with respect to many areas. While AAM implementation is of course an important aspect of a modern military flight simulator product, I'd put it to you that such things aren't really worth much without AI that can utilise them correctly/believably. Or aircraft AI that cannot follow simple, basic, procedural elements of flying an aircraft, let alone fighting in one. That's the big issue here, not that the things that have been worked on are entirely pointless/wasted/wrong (or any other negative term you care to choose), but that in the pyramid of elements that would make the perfect sim some of the blocks halfway up, or even at the top, are being worked on before some blocks at the bottom. In the long run this just makes everything seem very disjointed and often removes much of the enjoyment that could have been had from the sim otherwise. I think what worries many is that it seems to be the case that aircraft are being produced which do not necessarily relate or "fit" with each other in a seemingly random order and often without any supporting elements coming along with them. While there may well be a grand master plan to bring everything together, as it has not been made public to any degree, people rightly work on the assumption that it does not exist. With such an outlook is it any wonder people start asking questions and voicing concerns?

Quite a bit more complex than that actually and not exactly representative of my view or the points I'm trying to make. While I would agree that things like AI improvements are more important that contrails, to use your examples. They are also very poor comparisons, as they would be highly unlikely to be areas worked on by the same people and thus work on one is unlikely to adversely impact the other. But that said, I would say that in my opinion there have been a few too many "superficial" improvements versus "fundamental" improvements.

Right, well. At what point did I say "past modules didn't bring anything along"? I'll save you reading my posts again, although perhaps you ought to, I didn't say that. What I actually said was: Take specific note of the second sentence: Taking your mention of the warehouse feature from FC3, yes it has been added, but what does it actually "add" to peoples experience at this point? Apart from making it possible to restrict and/or limit the available weapons in a mission, nothing really. Now of course it is a necessary step along the road, but in itself it doesn't actually add much at all. And since it was initially added nothing further has been built upon it, nor has there been any indication of where it may go in the future. As you pointed out, I did experience the development of FC3, and a few other products from the point of view of the test team, but it wasn't exactly a great experience and the frustration involved with the process and the issues I had with it is the reason I left the team (but that is not a conversation for this forum in my eyes). To expand on that, while resource management is an important area that should be given attention, can anyone really think that such a thing is more important to an air combat simulator than ATC, AWACS, various aspects of AI, atmospheric modelling, and all the other numerous things that most people consider to be lacking/missing from DCS. Now I know what you're about to type to counter that, it's going to be the old "the developer for X wouldn't do much good working on Y argument" isn't it. And while that point isn't without merit, it only goes so far, and in this particular case I don't think it's a valid or sensible counter. So again, yes things are moving, but are the right things moving in the right way and in the right order. That's the question.

Erm, no. You have decided, incorrectly, that that was my conclusion due to your own bias perhaps influenced by your previous experience with others on these forums. Neither I, nor others I discuss the subject with, think that ED or the 3rd party developers are "willfully ignoring" anything. There is a concern that perhaps people aren't realizing/understanding what is actually lacking and by what degree, but that's simply a unsubstantiated suspicion based on what has been talked about, or more importantly not talked about over the past 6 years. But of course it's not possible to actually know what others are actually thinking/planning unless they communicate such, so suspicion and assumption, as undesirable as they are is all most people have. Personally I am acutely aware of the amount of work that would need to be done to implement many of the things I personally wish to see in DCS, at least if they are done properly. There is a great deal of work to be done, perhaps it is happening in the background, perhaps it isn't. But until we start to see it appear within the version(s) of DCS which people have on their own PCs, it's all just talk, and not much of that either. As I've said in this very thread already I'm sure there is the desire (at least for the most part) to make the needed advances and things will happen at some point, the doubt is whether it'll be enough, or too little too late.

You're correct in saying that things don't pay for themselves and paid products are needed to support other features. But equally paid products actually need to bring new features. Simply adding an aircraft and nothing else along with it doesn't cut it, if the argument that producing aircraft and other paid modules to support further development on "world" features is to hold up, then those other features actually need to be realised along with those paid products. Especially when the "world" features are all very important aspects of modern (and other eras) warfare and have been notably absent from DCS since BS1 with no significant advances been seen (by the end user, background code doesn't really count, as fundamentally necessary as it may be). I don't think you give people the credit they deserve by assuming they don't realise something has to pay for it. I'm yet to come across someone from the established sim community (either DCS or Falcon/others) who doesn't understand and acknowledge this fact (internet bravado aside) in a TS or face to face discussion. But the issue a lot of people away from these forums have with DCS is that, for whatever reason, many of the lacking areas haven't seen any real movement in the 6 years since DCS Black Shark was released. Now that's not to say that those individuals think nothing has advanced, many things have, but most of the fundamental aspects lacking from aviation and air combat simulation haven't. Now maybe/hopefully that'll change over the next few years as things pick up with DCS World and the 3rd parties, but only time will tell. In the meantime, there are quite a large number of people who are either staying away from DCS, or even leaving DCS, because of these limitations. And that is something which no sensible person can afford to ignore.

Hmmmm, people agreeing with me on the ED forums rather than starting pointless arguments based on their own ignorance and misconceptions? I'm not entirely sure how to react to that?! There may be some hope for this place afterall. :D Anyway, on to the topic at hand, I see the same stumbling block when it comes to civil aircraft in DCS World. While I'm not really interested in such things personally, I wouldn't see their introduction as a bad thing per se. In fact they could add a great deal of immersion and purpose to missions and flying in general. But until things like ATC and basic flying skills for the AI see some big improvements adding them in a credible way would be impossible. The same issue is true for "WWII" stuff, "cold war" stuff, "Vietnam" stuff, etc. etc. Without the requisite supporting features it's just a poor facsimile of air combat (or ground combat in the case of Combined Arms). Take something like the Mig-21, yes the aircraft is one I and many other are glad to see (although my interest is purely from a fly it in order to learn how best to kill it standpoint). But in order to be able to fly anything like realistic combat missions in that aircraft you'd need other aircraft and ground units (especially air defence) from the same era. A Mig-21 facing a Patriot battery isn't exactly great gameplay in most cases. Now of course there will always be room for scenarios with older aircraft operating against newer threats, but it shouldn't be the norm or the only way to go. Equally it should be possible to fly a newer aircraft against older air defence systems and hostile aircraft. After all what is more "fun", being shot at by something you can relatively easily defeat (SA-2 for example), or by something you don't have much of a chance against (SA-21). This is especially true for the newer/less experienced players. At the moment we're forced into to flying against a bit of a mish-mash of air defences which really don't belong together, and without the matching countermeasures as well. And what about the military utility helicopters such as the UH-1H and Mi-8? Yes you can fly them around, and now actually pick up and move "cargo", but beyond simply doing it for the "challenge" etc, what is the point? And by that I mean, what tactical or strategic value to those aircraft bring to a scenario? The answer at present is very little, if any. Now if you give them the ability to actually transport real supplies for ground forces/air bases/FARPS etc. and really move ground forces around, be it just troops or other equipment, with the things being usable either by the AI or human players afterwards such aircraft become just as important as fighters or attack aircraft (maybe even more so). Personally I'd be reasonably interested in a Pavehawk, for example, if you could actually use it to accomplish missions that really matter to a MP (or even SP) scenario. The term Sandbox is used a lot for a variety of games these days, and while having sandbox functionality isn't necessarily a bad thing and can allow for some great scenarios, it is also often used as an excuse for lack of actual game content. And in the long run a "Sandbox" without a real game along side it can only last so long and go so far before it becomes boring and/or frustrating.

I don't have any issue with WWII era aircraft being produced per se, given that I have zero interest in them they are utterly irrelevant to me. If a developer comes along to make WWII era aircraft or associated products then again it's irrelevant as they wouldn't have made a modern aircraft anyway so there is nothing lost there. The concern is if developers start to go down the WWII route instead of something else. This idea of one sim for everything is all well and good, but, DCS can't even do a good job of truly simulating modern air combat (a great flight model for a plane and being able to click buttons etc. is not representative of air combat). Simply adding more and more aircraft won't solve that issue. Without fundamental changes and much work on the basics such as AI for aircraft that can actually fly an aircraft correctly and operate in a believable manner in combat, ATC/AWACS functionality (with AI interacting the same as players) and numerous other parts of the modern battlefield (and also the 1940's/50's/60's......) there will always be massive holes that just adding extra aircraft cannot fill. Now I'm sure there is desire to correct these deficiencies, I'm just not sure there is enough of it, or that they will be corrected fast enough given my previous experience and interactions around here. But only time will tell.

Assuming you could project a duplicate LASER beam along the attack direction of the weapon (if you don't it won't see the reflection in the first place), you'd still need to have the processing capability to duplicate any LASER energy fast enough that the weapon would actually be able to change its flight path before impact. Then you have the issue that the weapon would be unlikely to switch on to an alternative source of LASER energy given the size of the sensor FOV unless the alternative target was pretty close to the intended target, in which case the target would likely still be in the blast/frag pattern anyway. Next you have to added cost of developing and installing such a system on your armoured vehicles (not a small cost given the number of them). And the complication of maintaining such a system, which would require additional maintenance personnel and supply chain, more cost. All to protect a vehicle which, in the real world, is actually considered reasonably expendable from a strategic standpoint. But the biggest issue with your idea, is why go to all that trouble, when simply deploying the vehicles smoke screen (either engine generated, or grenade based white phosphorus etc) would ultimately be more effective and faster. ;)

Every aircraft uses a unique LASER code which is assigned either in the ATO, or as part of the Sqn directives etc. No two aircraft operating in the airspace will have the same LASER code on their weapons. If the enemy managed to get hold of the LASER codes for a given flight, they'd have got their hands on the ATO itself and you (and every other aircraft in the sky) would have much bigger problems than someone maybe knowing your weapon LASER code. In short this is DCS "problem" stemming from poor procedures/preparation, it just isn't an issue in reality.

SUU-25 illumination flare dispenser.

Marking/Indicating targets/other points of interest. And yes use it in MP often.

In reality the A-10C is now at suite 7, which has many, many features that we do not have. HMSS (or whatever the American's are calling it, I forget) being one of them. The A-10C modelled in DCS is suite 3, quite a long way behind what out there now.

Don't do it Noodle, run away, it's not worth the frustration. ;)

IFF functionality in the A-10C is essentially the same to the transponders in civil aircraft, with the exception that being a military aircraft, the A-10C also has modes 1, 2, and 4 as well as mode 3 (A & C for civil aircraft). There are quite a few functions missing from the A-10C in DCS, most notably JTRS/SADL, with what we have in DCS having little in common with the real thing. For the time being however, adding IFF functionality in DCS would be pretty much pointless, as until things such as ATC, AWACS, GCI, and the general aircraft & air defence AI can make use of it (which would not be a trivial task to implement), nothing would be added.