Varis

Anybody can give us first impressions? Any basis for the "new ways of CA"? Is it worthwhile or better wait until we get CA 2.0?

The prospect of Heatblur making a helicopter is exciting indeed. There are many interesting machines which as of yet are not in DCS: Mi-6 Mi-10 Mi-26 Mi-14 (amphibious) Mi-2 (The Red gazelle) Mi-24 with rotating gun turret (Mi-24D?) (Mi-24 with doorgunner?) Mi-34 Ka-25 Ka-26 (even more agile) (Ka-29TB) (Ka-31) PZL W-3 Sokół That's only the Russian/Eastern Block helis...

It's a very new module so many players don't have it yet. Also there could be some issues that get sorted out in the first few weeks after the release. Servers that run it could easily lose new and casual players, too.

Also the results will be far from impressive if it closes on the 19th. You should give it at least 24 months I think.

Where is my helicopter? :director:

MAC... and hush until they tell us more! :smilewink:

As they say there are tricks to the trade so once you learn to learn the learning itself is less of a pain. Also check my signature. Older planes tend to be much more simple than the newer ones so it's faster to learn and have fun in them. Mig-15 F-5 L-39ZA Huey Gazelle all are great picks and you can get them going very fast compared to advanced platforms like A-10C or F-18 where you're shifting through radar modes, sensor modes, targeting modes, navigation modes... Ultimately up to you what you define as fun and how to spend your time. I would recommend the full experience eventually... sitting in the pit and manually starting can be a great immersive experience esp. when you do it in multiplayer. Also some of the advanced avionics are really there to help you carry out the mission, not to introduce game balance between the hornet and the migs...

The question is... big map like most we have or a small map like Normandy? What's the real benefit for going big? Or maybe bigger than ever and whole peninsula with parts of China/Russia and the big waters? Winter can be quite harsh in Korea... Inchon and middle/north with parts of China/Russia could make a nice small map. There's everything and plenty of mountains! At this stage either Korea or Europe (Baltics, North of the Alps or Mediterranean would be all awesome).

Comrade. No Russian jet. And Mr Hollywood Agent Man had his safety on.

Yeah... why did you think of the three planes in the first place? The Huey could be the easiest to learn if you want to have a first taste of helicopters. You have a good deal of options what to mount on the pylons, the door gunners can be tons of fun and you can also perform transport tasks. The gazelle feels equally easy - more modern and straightforward in some ways, the systems are more advanced but they are very simple to learn. Plus you can choose the easiest of 4 variants (a big upside of this module) if that's an issue. The only big disclaimer is that it's quite lively and may feel twitchy if you're new to helicopters. Ka-50 is lovely but it's a more complex package for the avionics and armament... all in Russian style although the English cockpit is available out of the box.

First off, the Harrier reportedly has the most quality issues and we're not certain if Razbam will be able to fix them in a reasonable time. Then again it's still for a few hours the cheapest module of the 3 with the sale ongoing. Primarily I'd say the style you most prefer would be a determining factor: Harrier - air to ground plus the peculiarities of a British VTOL aircraft, avionics is apparently similar to the Hornet but more limited/dated Hornet - most modern and tons of up to date avionics including HMS, also good in slow high angle of attack flight, capable of both air to ground and air to air (and it's developing very well). In my mind it's the most cookie cutter with the weakest personality, pretty much it's just what a balanced western multirole fighter would look like. Tomcat - mostly air to air, multicrew and a powerful craft with a weighty avionics package but is most dated of the 3 (and quality/the exact feature details of course are not yet known but Heatblur has a very strong reputation). Most believable to fly for Redfor (Iran) out of the 3 as well. Interestingly you could do carrier ops with all of the 3. With the Harrier you could fly from a FARP or a forest clearing... Tomcat would be pretty much carrier bound in practice.

What I figure the Mig-15 and WW2 campaigns would be pretty much a must if you want to get the most out of these aircraft, I went with the Epsom campaign. (Spitfire has 3 campaigns I believe - would need a few for german planes as well!) I hope the multiplayer community can find more uses for these aircraft in a few years... I'm building one half-baked CoOp scenario myself with all of them, german side not flyable though.

I accidentally also the Mi-8 and L-39ZA... and a few campaigns. What I read some campaigns can be a very good experience, but some players of course have a different view. I blame the community for exceeding my budget but at least the money goes to "a good purpose". Nice to see more people picking up a great platform! Do drop by the DCS Finland server some day if you're not already flying there - I do see some Mukelos flying time to time :smilewink:

Thanks man for the excellent write, especially the section on Russian naval doctrine was very illuminating. And welcome back, I took a 6 year break as well (after 10 year break from sims) after a false start in DCS when BS2 came out. First off I must apologize not replying to your 3 page essay in kind due to time pressures. So I leave the task of picking apart any misunderstood facts or gaps in reasoning to the rest of the DCS community. Perhaps there should be a forum rule that any long contribution to the discussion must sport an executive summary together with a list of forum rules that the included flames (if any) intend to violate, just to make the moderator's job easier :smilewink: Just a few notes below. Do you like helicopters? We do have the Ka-50, a full blown front line power house and a rare gift to DCS, thanks to Russia's difficulty in modernizing its aircraft designs and also politically better times I believe. Then there is the Mi-8, a strong icon and a very popular helicopter from the middle of the Cold War. Mi-24 is coming, in my mind the most iconic of all helicopters and it's a strange bird because it's more like the American equipment - brewing a ton of conflicting requirements into a single package instead of a clear single mission design we're used to from another direction of the compass. (I understand if some americans think Apache is #1, I'd give it a close second.) Did you know Razbam is making a Mig-23, I'd like to see the Mig-27 one day as well? The lack of Russian planes is probably because many developers of DCS are russians, not regardless of it. But the issue has been discussed in numerous threads, you should be able to find them. Obviously, would love to see more but I'm not hoping for anything 4th gen and high fidelity - but please do also note the JF-17. Mig-25 is one of the hottest items on my wishlist as well, sad if the SEAD version is still in operational use and can't be made for us but the other variants should already be possible in the immediate few years - the interceptor certainly would be interesting but equally much the recon version which was famously used by India for a long time. The Su-15, Su-17, Su-7 planes which you also referred to should be no-brainer even if they have been strangely overlooked so far - actually the middle of the Cold War could be where DCS holds the most promise! Go to the DCS Wishlist part and keep up the flag, if enough people ask for something it often gets made! TBH the situation is actually quite fair in DCS all considering, we do have aircraft that are even Czech or Swedish made, also France, not to mention very different time periods, already a far cry from a "most modern possible US vs USSR" type of lineup we've seen just way too many times in games. Also seeing that Razbam thinks 3 different versions of the Mirage 2000 is a good idea, perhaps we could have different variants of the Mig-21 as well? The most widespread fighter during the Cold War it's just as central as you say, so aircraft with different specs would be good to include in scenarios in different decades. Even the Mig-29 already has two variants, although at FC3 level. I suppose you already have the legendary Mig-15. Also do not miss the L-39 trainer, an interesting aircraft in its own right!

Well I guess if ED keeps it Early Access it means they still plan to do something. Even if it's just fixing the remaining terrain bugs and what features a few airbases are missing. (I recall from the last updates they didn't yet put in all the airbases they announced even.)

There's usually plenty of videos/guides for DCS on youtube. CA is probably best with a friend who knows it... you can make meaningful scenarios. My impression is a bit that it's a half done module but it can be a nice gimmick of sorts... quite a new perspective to DCS.

Actually I could maybe see DCS branching off into a new direction with a roughly FC3 level module detailing the latest/future/prototype aircraft. I'm sure that would be shunned by some but get a small multiplayer following too. After all they did WW2 aircraft as well. Why I don't see them doing it for a while is perhaps spreading their effort too thin... would be another generation/era of aircraft to support and you know, the players are ever hungry and would be asking more and more of them. Also, anybody has a good understanding of the detail needed for AI aircraft? This might be the most concrete contribution... what do you guys think? Shouldn't it become declassified before the other craft so we might see it in just 10-20 years in DCS? Or does it closely model the capacity and systems of some more advanced aircraft?

Thanks great points from all of you and this discussion has proven far more insightful than I initially hoped for! Very interesting point with the F5! Somehow I don't find the aircraft that appealing besides just the "good DCS trainer" aspect. I believe that despite being a simulator already, DCS has room for an aircraft progression since many players are new and others have glaring holes in their skills. Personally the Gazelle was much easier to pick up than Kamov, it's the complex avionics and many switches that can make a bewildering experience to a new player. The Mig-15 is even more simple and it's like a high-speed jet trainer with no avionics between you and awesome combat experiences. I really wonder why it doesn't get recommended to new players more. Also what do you think of the Sabre? Not as capable as the F5, but would be perhaps more similar to the L-39ZA, except for higher speed and perhaps more capacity in guns-only dogfights? The available campaigns and multiplayer missions could be an important factor. I gather some of the Red Flag campaigns are top-notch and a good pick if you're interested to learn about tactical and operational use of the aircraft involved. I should add that I have the Hornet Viggen Harrier A-10A Mig-15 Ka-50. The Hornet looks like it would already be a very capable AG platform in the short to mid term future, and systems probably are very similar to the A-10C. Sad thing about the Hawk, it's a very capable plane in the air. In DCS Finland the Hornet is an incredible craze but A-10C is a very good second. It's going to be interesting to see how the F-14 stirs up things as there is definite interest in its unique aspects and a bunch of people already received it as tournament prizes. L-39ZA sees some marginal attention (Finland never operated it) but if there is a good discussion you see many Mig-15 enthusiasts come out of the closet... might already be some of my doing :music_whistling: Yeah. To end with a note from Brian's Life, besides just smörgåsbord of smart stand-off weapons highly advanced targeting avionics interesting airframe unusual survivability long loiter time comprehensive countermeasures maneuverability popularity in AG missions BRRRRT what does the A-10C really have going for it? :pilotfly:

Have you considered Mig-15 & Sabre? Might fit in your scenarios too. I threw the same kind of stuff into a coop mission with ww2 equipment. No Ka-50 though and gazelle models were limited. Sounds interesting - there are some MP missions which use the trainers as well, but more low intensity setups are welcome. Might drop by some day.

A difference is that JF-17 is not flown (source: Wikipedia) by China and the developers (I guess) don't live in Pakistan. The aircraft maker may prefer a simulator rendition for marketing purposes as well. The Mig-19 has been operated by various nations including Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Vietnam... sounds like it would have a place in the DCS portfolio. It's possible that the focus of DCS is shifting with new clienteles and a more full feature set of the platform itself. High fidelity simulation would still remain a main quality criterion of DCS as the clickable cockpits etc are a trademark of DCS. If players want to take the platform in the direction of Red vs Blue scenarios then there is a commercial interest to cater to that. Still you don't need 1:1 matchups especially if there is a large number of different aircraft available, and also it's not an absolute requirement to make it modern day. Balance is left to the mission creator not the one implementing aircraft - but both sides should usually be the same generation or the gap is too large. That said DCS as a PvP game is thought of as a simulator and not a symmetrically balanced arena. There are probably some purely marketing reasons to make Blue-Red pairs so you can create the illusion that you are modeling the complete conflict. These can be single player based like much of DCS at the time being (AND a major format of multiplayer will be coop for a good time to come I think). Looking at the current selection of aircraft there must be various peculiar factors at play as explaining the what and why is not quite straightforward.

Fighter-bomber sounds good. 57mm cannon could be awesome! So far we just have the 37mm on the Mig-15.

Mig-19 seems to make good progress and they're very open about the status: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3662917&postcount=1 Still hard to say whether what remains is 2 months or 18 months. I imagine some of those are rather big items that require long periods of fine tuning. But might be up early 2019 if all goes well? Another question is at what completion level Razbam wants to release the module to us. I think they are trying to turn a new page and don't want to risk another Harrier. Still a question if they'd like to do a short early access or a pre-purchase+feature complete release. All of the above is mostly half-educated guesses, of course. ED doesn't make that much official statements on any mid/long-term schedules... which probably is a good thing ;-)

Heh I do remember the time when you were lucky to get a frame every second for your F/A-18 simulator :smilewink: They could set up a process that is more conservative with pushing new code to beta, so stable users would get the stuff a few weeks earlier in these cases. But that is away from something - would take resources, skill, and possibly slow down development a bit. In other words bringing sometimes broken stuff to beta rather liberally keeps the train moving and the code gets tested quickly.

Would think requiring the maps would be a wrong move commercially... and good luck starting a WW2 MP scene if that is implemented. CA seems a bit of use in some MP scenarios so if you want a "full package" then you'd go for it. For most players it's not in the core and if there isn't already a demand for it from your community you could easily wait for the next sale. Hopefully it will get good upgrades in the next few years but it seems ED thinks the improvements will come in other features.

If we leave the domain of typical modules there are some interesting engine aspects ED are working and which would improve the game quite a bit. CA 2.0, the dynamic campaign engine, dedicated server, CA campaign and so on. I wish there was more coming and I'm doubtful of any fast paced release cycle for these - in particular the dynamic campaign sounded like something Wags is genuinely excited about, but the work is still in early phases and it's a large upgrade. Dedicated server with better multiplayer would be a critically needed upgrade and it might come already in 2019. DCS 2.6 or 3.0 could also be very interesting but ED hasn't yet mentioned the subject for what I know. They have other planes in the pipeline and the materials we have seen for the Strike Eagle are in very very early phases. They don't even know what engine it will have. It would seem that expecting the 15E before late 2020 would be very very optimistic. (Excepting pre-purchase but for that to be an option a couple of things would have to turn out very very well in the meanwhile.) Sorry just love to shoot down other people's dreams :D Also I don't believe a "finished Harrier" in 2019. Technical people often can take several months to learn a job properly and it's only one coder (is he/she even full time?) that Razbam have added. But I hope they have kept also other resources on the module and people are bound to change their opinions on the module by the end of 2019. Yes I bought it too only recently... Mi-24 sounds it's more like 2020-2021 now. Not easy to approach this with a calm and clear mind. It sounds like Syria (including Israel, part of Turkey etc) could be the next map. I might be crazy but there could be a remote possibility that we see it in 2019. Could be an awesome one. Also near-complete versions of Normandy, Persian Gulf with more airbases and detailed map areas.