Exorcet

I went ahead and made an image to represent what the livery manager might look like based on the module manager: The quick options are additive: Default Livery is the first livery on the list when the aircraft is set as a member of its home nation Home Country Liveries are the above along with any other livery from the home nation Historical Liveries are the above along with export liveries or liveries representing similar but not identical foreign planes (F-2 vs F-16) Basic Liveries - I included an option for devs to have a small list of varied livers for those players with limited disc space Extra Liveries - Basically the opposite of Basic, an extended list for those users with no concerns about disc space All Liveries - Check all boxes, download everything. To the right is the full list of liveries for manual selection There is a confirm choices button below to tell DCS to go ahead of add/remove liveries as requested. I just wanted to put something together to start the discussion on what exactly should be included so that we don't end up with a vague request.

You have fast jets trying to cover a slow prop plane. That's why this isn't working. Escort is not a good choice for AWACS cover, what Escort is for is covering packages that are moving along waypoints. If the defended target is stationary or orbiting, you just need to setup a CAP flight next to its orbit. You also had the escort task at WP0. Don't do this, it doesn't give the AI time to set itself up. The E-2 Also is told to fly to its final waypoint at 30,000 ft but orbit at 20,000 ft. Why the big gap in altitude? It only complicates things (and AWACS flying low doesn't make much sense). Again you had escort at WP0. I gave them a waypoint to form up and then pushed the escort task down the line and it seemed to work. EDIT I deactivated the client planes for testing by the way, so don't forget to fix them if you use the mission modification I added FA-18C - Stage 1 Rockets and Guns fix Escort 2.miz

Again, your opinions are not universal. All you've said is that you don't like the idea of managing individual skins. You've also been given multiple solutions to the problem, so I don't know why you keep bringing it up. I'll try to explain one last time: Liveries would be divided by plane because that's only sensible. You can't put F-16 liveries on the F-86. This already divides 1000's of liveries into groups of 10's and maybe at worst 100's. With options like "disable all" for each plane, you don't have much clicking to do unless you want a very precise list of liveries, in which case the ability to go through each would be a benefit. Now how things will end up working in the actual game code is another matter, but conceptually there is a very simple and easy to use solution being proposed. There are zero WWII aircraft in the entirety of my F-16 campaign. Additionally, an aircraft with no livery still loads, it just has the default missing texture skin. What are you talking about.

And yet so many people enjoy the F-14A because the engines suck compared to the B. Modeling limitations isn't a bad thing. Also, a simulator, what better way to get acquainted with why something failed, or didn't work by experiencing it yourself. The new canopy by itself is an excuse to create a few test missions on NTTR or something, with some creativity it could prove useful in DCS. I disagree. Simulation can be limited to specific domains. You've actually unintentionally pointed out a "flaw" in DCS simulation. We don't have to deal with reliability, well unless we opt in to random failures. By default every plane and weapon in DCS is 100% reliable, unlike history. If DCS had the Natter the reliability of its components would not be simulated, and it would likely work under idealized conditions, at least considering DCS's scope of simulation today. You say that such a simulation isn't useful or valid, but it is. It can provide an idea of what the Natter could be expected to achieve with more testing or development, without having to invest in said development. Now of course simulating some things may take a few more liberties than others, but at the end of the day a simulator certainly has room for things outside of precise history. How worthwhile the Phantom's windscreen is would depend on its limitations and why it failed. Just because it wasn't a success or substantial improvement doesn't mean it should be rejected immediately in my opinion.

And what's being proposed here is hardly any different. This topic keeps coming up mostly due to file space, and it's frequently mentioned by people who do bring it up that they don't care about liveries for planes they don't have/fly/see. Even without thumbnails or naming conventions someone could make use of the manager by scrolling through all the WWII planes and disabling all liveries because they only fly the F-14. What sense does it make to have all the liveries in a single list when they're plane exclusive? This isn't any where near as complicated as you're trying to make it.

It's not a big deal with proper tools: Download base livery only Download historic liveries only Download assorted liverys up to X GB Download all Someone just needs to sit down for an hour or so and come up with some feasible options. I'm just going to hit download all always until my drive is full, then buy a new drive. What do I care about MP anyway, I play single player pretty much exclusively.

As AI, some of the more modern aircraft may be realistic. I think we could use a few AI additions along with slightly better modeling of aircraft capability to make them feel distinct. As things stand right now, you don't feel much difference when fighting a MiG-29 as opposed to a Su-27 since the AI flies everything the same and likes to cheat with stuff like SA and detection range.

What does simulation mean to you? I work in the simulation industry and quite often I simulate things that have never existed historically. A simulation isn't limited to modeling history or the scarcity of things in the real world. "What if" is perfectly acceptable. And the option to have a one piece screen is hardly what if, since it existed.

A livery manager is what we need. We have a sort of backbone for this in the module manager. Just add a section for liveries. The user could choose by plane what to download. This way module makers could have even more liveries, but those with disc space issues wouldn't need to worry about how to fit them.

The border with a hostile nation could very well be considered important to defend. If you prevent the crossing of the border, you've essentially protected the rest of the country without needing to deploy missiles everywhere.

If the missile is modeled correctly, yes. The MIM-104 slows down far faster than the S-300 though, and the effective range is tiny for what is supposed to be a long range SAM system. The missile that the Patriot replaced had ranges up to 100 miles. This doesn't mean that the Patriot has the same range, but having around a 3rd of the range seems questionable. We can also look at the placement of Patriots in the real world: https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_topics/20130207_130207-map_nato-support-to-turkey.pdf From NATO, it seems like The Turkey/Syria border is covered primarily by a pair of Patriot sites. The distance between them being ~120 miles. That could imply a 60 mile effective range, otherwise it would be possible to fly between the Patriots without risk of being attacked.

I'm pretty convinced that the problem is actually the drag on the Patriot. Unfortunately I don't have information indicating what the real value should be, I've tried to ask ED to confirm if the drag value is correct as is according to their info, but I never got an answer.

My statement was under the assumption that we had both, so we could switch at will to fit the desired scenario. If we only got one, then yeah the choice would have to be more deliberate if the desire was to fill as many historical roles as possible. I can't say anything about the chance that we'll see the frameless canopy, just pointing out that the virtual plane doesn't have to be bound by the same rules regarding scarcity as the real plane. Indeed it might end up being too much work for Heatblur to consider.

The missile should only be affected if your radar performance is degraded (ie you lose lock on the target). If that does happen the missile will go for the target's last known position, but the chance of it missing is greater. I haven't tried jamming in the Hornet recently so I'm not sure how it interacts with the radar currently, but you should be able to test that.

How common it was doesn't really matter for a simulation though. We could have the option to fly the common configuration, or the rare one. Neither is more correct. What I'd consider a bigger factor is how much work it is for Heatblur to make another model for the plane.

Randomized unit positions are needed, but there is a problem with truly random placement in a zone, not everywhere in the circle is going to (or should be treated as) a valid point. Units could end up on buildings, on mountains, in rivers, in trees, etc. If we do have this feature it needs to do a little bit more than just randomize positions within a zone. I think it might actually be preferable to define spawn points instead of zones and have the points be selected randomly. These points can be kept in reasonable locations to avoid the issues of a purely random in zone spawns.

External tanks are an important and limited resource. You typically don't want to drop them, even if they are empty. That said there is a waypoint action option for setting flights to drop tanks when empty. You can try adding this option to your flight in the ME.

X Plane can use live weahter (I think MSFS can too) so I don't think the wind interacting with terrain is fixed, but dynamic like the rest of weather. I should also clarify that when I said the other sims model "this", I was referring to wind over terrain, not the grid method I was suggesting. The grid method would make sense to precompute currently since DCS doesn't have varying weather.

The missile will switch to HOJ mode, lofting will not work, and there is some discussion about reduced accuracy against jammers in another thread.

If you want CFD on terrain and cities, yes real wind is expensive, but that's not the only option. The terrain can be broken up into large grids classified roughly as moutains, plains, city, etc and have different wind effects modeled. Also, X-Plane and MSFS model this for terrain.

Agreed. It should be easier than it is for the E with Razbam as they had to do all the FM work from nothing. ED has a FM for the C without CFT's, working on a FF Eagle might leave them enough time to do a CFT based flight model. I also wouldn't mind seeing some of the proposed FAST packs beyond extra fuel for what if scenarios.

You can't jump, only accelerate time.

To drop bombs from the E, one needs to own the E. If they only own the C, then that's their bomber I guess. Beyond that, why not? Maybe someone has a creative pre E scenario where C's are performing ground attack, or they're using the C as a stand in for export Eagles that have done more AG.

The AI doesn't use fuel when not moving.

Check your bindings. There are multiple options for MSL override. One is a button press, that one won't let you deselect the mode with the same button. The other is a switch, I think it's under the category "Special for Joystick". This one deselects MSL when you release the switch.