Harlikwin

Any word on if iranian fields will be added, they are in the "high detail" area but don't see anything listed. Major mistake if not.

Well, the MP guys care as much for your opinion as you do theirs. It is what it is. And the splitting the community thing is a real issue in MP. An easy solution would be to offer server licenses like other games do, but thats not how DCS/ED works.

There is a free reskin mod thats good. But it doesn't pass IC IIRC so no MP love.

Frankly I like the map at this point, mainly the SA portion is actually pretty cool to fly thru. But like the conflicts/potential conflicts are basically missing there. So no one really bought it or uses it for MP. IMO a good MP map needs to have the following elements: A relevant conflict (or more than 1). And the planeset to support it. Some terrain variety (hills/mountains/valleys for helos etc) A decent airfield distribution to minimize flight times for the aero-quake crowd (of which I'm part of). Cauc works well for this on the latter 2 points, and well you can at least hypothetical a conflict there anywhere from 1950 to the present. Syria hits on all 3 very well. Sinai, Well misses on the conflict thing mostly/sorta. Terrain is flat/boring Airfields are sort of ok SA Hits on the conflict but misses on the plane set. Terrain in SA is good Airfields are grim, too smol for most fast jets unless you are creative (I managed to TO/land a mig29 at each one), but well... You aren't doing it in a viper.

1) Well, the mig23 was doable for 3rd parties, and the SU-17 is also "maybe" being done by 3rd parties. Frankly I don't care who develops it as long as its good. For ww2 tho, its generally less of a problem but its head scratching why the decision to not have a coherent plane set exists. 2) I expect the 29 to have a nice clicky pit, and hopefully the old school soviet era nav system and Lazur datalink (a core feature would be interesting AI wise), its not 100% clear what exactly you are doing with (if its gonna be a export polish/german one, it might be neat to also have an option for a garmin duct taped to the hud). But ultimately where I will grade you, and alot of other people will grade you will be the Radar and EO/IRST which are very very well known in terms of technical parameters. If the EO sees through clouds for example, well game over. Similarly, the radar had various problems locking stuff in LD/SD situations due to the inadequate processor. I honestly hope you guys can do a good job on it but your track record with sensors to date is frankly poor relative to what 3rd party devs have been able to do. I understand you guys have a mig29 pilot or two on hand to help out with the finer points of what the "limitations" of the sensor systems were and what circumstances they should have problems with. Fundamentally I think you guys really need to evaluate core gameplay loops when thinking about modules. I.e. The whole chinook troop/logi thing from what I understand/hear from others is that its still a pretty big mess. But that was a "good" idea, just needs to be implemented better (And transferred to the other cargo helos). For the kiowa/gaz for example, a good gameplay loop to add to the game would have been some sort of additional "scout helo" gameplay. I.e. rather than just making it a poor mans apache it would have been good to have the kiowa be able to direct AI/player airstrikes by other units, or even call in artillery. That would have significantly enhanced the value proposition of the module. For various fast jets, well, the big thing is the air to ground or air to air "experience", and that needs work frankly as I noted above. And obviously for good MP you need some sort unit "balance" which well, finally was getting there and in lets say January I was excited about DCS. But then the 3rd party problems have really soured me on DCS.

Yeah, I mean the video and this post is it in a nutshell. I've been in DCS for like 6-7 years at this point, and in the past bought almost all the modules. But this year, its 1/however many. I no longer have any faith that DCS is gonna get fixed in any reasonable amount of time. And each year that drags on with major Core game problems further reinforces that point. Hence I've stopped buying stuff for now. Realistically the problem can be broken down into 2 categories, Core game issues and the module issues. And until most of this is addressed I'm not really buying anything new, there is basically no point. CORE: Clouds/weather: At this point the core game stuff is pretty unforgivable. Like we don't have weather system anyone can actually use because clouds don't block LOS for the AI or IR missiles. That is major fail and its been this way for IDK, 4 years or something absurd like that. And weather has major impacts on air ops, be in WW2 (love getting sniped by 88's thru clouds) or modern. Ground unit AI: The main thing here is just how units react to air attack, like no tank commander is gonna sit in an empty field with enemy air/helos around, he's gonna find cover. Nor will that commander be taking pot shots at passing fast jets, he's gonna hope they don't see him or have something more important to do. AI of this sort is not hard to implement. Also some sort of mission/kill/morale kill for units would be great. Also, giving us more relevant target types than "tonk", probably the worst thing DCS is guilty of is that the A-10 module came first and the focus was bombing tanks-n-toyotas. Whereas in an actual modern air war, you are hitting depots/bridges/C3I etc etc. Yes there can be some CAS, but the focus in DCS is waay too CAS centric. (I also realize that this is partly a mission designer problem). Air-unit-AI Its been improved lately but still pretty bad. Especially wingmen. Post above covers some of it. SAM/IADS This is a huge topic, but at a minimum fix the AI SAM guidance behaviors on a basic level so I can't abuse the existing guidance behavior which is wrong (i.e. always flying lead pursuit, so I can easily fly SAMs into the ground). There is nothing sekrit about this, documents are out there starting from the SA-2 and up through the early double digit sams. I am playing a air-combat game and a big part of that is dealing with SAMs/IADS, and IADS doesn't exist at all in DCS. Also it would be nice to have more actual relevant sams for cold war which would be pretty easy to do as the 3D models can be recycled i.e. early Chapperal, add early manpads Sa-7/redeye/Sa14 etc (who cares if you use the igla model, no one can tell from 5k feet). The CORE game is about Air-to-Air combat and Air to ground combat. FOCUS on fixing how that works. Modules: Frankly I have far fewer issues with the actual modules in DCS but there some serious general problems that need to be addressed. Coherency The biggest general problem is the slapdash plane sets. 0 coherency. WW2 is great example, you have some 1944 allied planes, a 1944 map or two, and then 1945 German unicorn planes (109K? why not a G-6?). Like who the hell thought that was a good idea? And then there is the I-16, like why? I predict that DCS pacific war will be an absolute disaster for the same reason. We have what the F4U (coming 20nevernever) by the look of it, and a hellcat... Well where is the Opfor? Back in the Day when BST was around you at least got "matched" sets of planes which was a really good idea, and I wonder whatever happened to that. Yes, Mig15 vs F86, smart... Modeling standards and parity. For DCS to be good, you have to model things to roughly the same standard across modules. I realize that this is hard and requires work, but its the only reasonable way to do things, especially for MP. Currently there are huge disparities between modules radars and how thats modeled for each jet and this leads to abuse and "gamey" tactics. The F15E radar is basically the gold standard for how modern radars should be modeled. And frankly no ED module is even close to that level of fidelity which is tragic. But its also a problem for older modules, i.e. the F5E or the Mig21 radars by 2024 standards are really poorly modeled. Frankly there needs to be a 2-3 year update cycle for older modules that brings them up to modern standards if ED expects to keep selling them. I realize its work, but probably the biggest draw to DCS is the large planeset, especially for MP. SENSORS The other major elephant in the room is sensor modeling. This means radars/RWRs/TGP's/DL's etc. Modern air combat is 100% about these sorts of systems and in general with the exception of the F15E radar and the older F4 radar, sensors in most DCS modules are really poorly done. Frankly its my opinion ED should get out of the modern jet business and focus on WW2 or Korea/VN era because its pretty clear that modern sensors are not a thing ED knows how to do. I realize you guys are "working on it" and its complex, thus far I have 0 faith that it will be done well at all. This is triply true of things like TGP's which at this point are symbiology simulators, none of the major IR pain points are modeled in DCS at all, no Diurnal crossover, no real difference between IR images for day/night, no signal attenuation due to range, ED is using a LWIR (I assume) model developed for the Apache (LWIR sensor), for all the modern jet TGP's which are MWIR with the exception of lantirn. Modern air combat is ALL about the sensors, and DCS fails pretty hard for the most part here (F15E/F4 exempted). The one saving grace I suppose is that the audience/community doesn't actually have any clue how any of it supposed to work or look. Parting shot on maps: A big problem with the various maps is that they make very little sense. And IDK why ED commissions some maps. The reason Cauc and Syria are popular are because they are interesting and relevant places to fly, plus cauc is free. But terrain/geography in a relevant place is crucial. Caucus has mountains which make for interesting gameplay. Syria, well also does in various decent spots along with a good airfield layout, plus to Ugra's credit they are constantly improving it and upgrading it, I can't really say the same for any other map (normandy I suppose gets some updates). South Atlantic: Fails because no relevant units to do the falklands air war. And while I like the map, the SA part of it, there are no good ways to setup a MP sever with em. Sinai: Fails, its a modern map for a war last fought in 1973. Literally the Dev should bust out the delete tool and look at historical sat imagery and get to deleting. I guess we now have modern conflict there, but its basically JDAM vs toyota at best, which isn't interesting at all. I regret buying it. Kola: this may end up being good someday when its done, but the actual fought over part of the map (Rus/finn border) is basically flat. Afghanistan: A map for bombing toyotas... like I don't get the appeal, nor did I buy it. Iraq map: The decision to not have Iranian airbases is mind boggling, literally one of the biggest/longest air war of the 20th century was the iran/iraq war. And DCS at this point at least has enough of the plane set to actually do it right. F4E/F5E/F14 vs Mig21/(well we woulda had a mig23 who knows now)/mig29. Instead ED inexplicably thinks bombing Toyotas is what people want... Yup fair point. ED has at least somewhat fixed the performance issues and VR is now pretty playable. As for the 29 I'm bracing myself to be dissapointed. I doubt ED will get the radar or EO/IR systems right. And if the sensors are gonna be FC3 level, well I already own that jet.

So are there any iranian airbases on the Iraq map. And if not why not. The iran/iraq air war was one of the largest/longest air war of the 20th century.

Yeah, I guess we will see how it all turns out.

I think the issue here is likely the M2k FM, or at least in large part.

Honestly the biggest think with the SC kuz and crew would just be having a guy guide you to the correct holdback ramp position or some "abstraction" to enable that. But I doubt ED does anything.

Any news on a radar model?

Datalink correction signal for R-27 series of missile. Surely you have this information in those vast archives you mention, and I'm sure you will do a great job implementing this unique capability for the missile in the DCS Mig-29 module.

Czech article by the look of it.

Well, the mi24 was done well, so I hope the 29 will be too.

I mean realistically from what I've read is the earlier radar and presumably the export one suffered from being overwhelmed with clutter processing at times over certain high clutter terrain. Also in general they should suffer more than contemporary western radars since the inverted cassegrain antenna while having good gain, also had much larger side lobes compared to planar array antennas. So if ED should elect to do a real radar model like Raz or HB, then it should have trouble on the deck, and then when looking at city "terrain tiles" as one example.

The export version was also missing one of the autonomous search modes. Range is a funky thing as well because of course it depends on processing alot in some cases but not others, i.e. in lookup it should have similar performance to the regular soviet radar. But in the presence of clutter or jamming I would expect that weaker processor to have significant problems and not process as well or use simpler processing schema, hence more clutter. IIRC mig29 pilots of the 9.12 reported a good bit of clutter issues over radar/radio reflective terrain i.e. cities/marshes/swamps and so forth. Similarly, for the IRST, the consensus was that it was worthless as a search instrument, but worked quite well with the helmet in WVR missile cueing. Though ED would have to actually build an IR/IRST model for that, and I'm not really hopeful about it.

Fulcrum "DL" didn't work like TAKT that you have on the SU-27 variants. IF we get one in our "stripped down" variant, it will most likely be some form of Lazur which was used by various warpac countries. Which is basically GCI steering commands. Razbam had planned to have an entire GCI system for the mig-23 with Lazur with both AI and human steering, but I very much doubt ED would even consider adding something that cool. I'll be happy with an IRST that doesn't see through clouds and actually has the limitations of KOLS.

Needs to have some iranian airfields before I buy it... IDK how much the region changed from the 90's to the early 2k's, but it probably changed a decent bit after that.

While I agree one party doing the modeling is better from a consistency standpoint, there are still a bunch of problems, i.e. there are 2 different magic2's in game now with different performance (and thats a recent example). Plus ED is SLOOOW to fix any missile. And, unfortunately you are wrong on the R3S, but its an oft repeated myth, cuz its copy pasta-ed all over the web. The R3S is derived from the sidewinder but not a copy. The seeker is probably the closest part, but it has more gimbal angle IIRC, and a different track rate. The rest of the missile actually has some significant improvements. The main two are the gas generator which has a longer burn time/different composition (more flight time). And then a decently better rocket motor. So overall the missile has a decent bit more range than the 9B.

Brother if Razbam and HB can do a whole decent radar sim on one core, this is vastly easier.

So I realize its likely a bit political, but there are 2 versions of the magic II in the game, your's/ED's and Razbams, maybe since they are IRL the same missile they should be the same in game.

Thats because there is an IR coefficient for the engine for each plane which is a lazy way to do it. And often hilariously wrong because seeker models don't exist, i.e. a 9B seeker doesn't see the same part of the spectrum as 9J seeker or 9M seeker. And also doubly wrong because in the case of some missiles they minimally care about things like the afterburner and plume at long range. For example a 9B should have a huge problem locking the F86 cuz its literally got to see up its tailpipe (which is smol). A 9J should care less and if it can see the rear aspect probably good enough. And finally the 9M lol, doesn't care.

The 9B should basically only really see REALLY hot stuff like the inside of the flame diverters/compression stages of the engine, basically right up the pipe. It should also go for clutter and alot of other things in DCS, but hey we don't actually have an IR model in DCS. Its probably too generous in DCS. J/P should mostly see the ass end i.e. (external parts of the engine, i.e. the feathers) etc. Again, IRL its entirely based on the geometry of the aircraft, in DCS its not because there is no IR modeling going on. Also realize where the seeker is looking is basically the top of your hud not the center. null

nvm