Exorcet

I understand, but I was also hoping that short comings with the current AI could help develop the improved versions to come.

You can try opening the control menu while in flight, then pressing a key. It will bring you to the binding so you can figure out what each does. This is not a complete list: F1 - cockpit F2- external F3 - flyby F4 - external chase F5 - look at nearby external F6 - missile F7 - ground units F9 - ships F10 - map F11 - free camera / stationary camera / airbase camera F12 - static objects

I've only been testing this for a short while, but I'm already seeing a trend. Ace AI tends to lose to Veteran and Trained AI in BVR fights. This happens because: A - Ace shoots earlier than Vet/Trained, leading to lower missile Pk. B - AI does not anticipate being fired upon and flies directly at the enemy until missiles go active. To be given a fighting chance, Ace AI needs to have missile launch range set to halfway between Max and NEZ, while hopefully having a longer ranged missile than their opponents in the first place. AI missile ranging logic needs to be looked at. The AI also needs tactics against preemptive missile launches, instead of waiting for a confirmed missile launch to react. I've also noticed that mixed AI skill flights will stagger missile launches (because lower skill levels wait until closer range to shoot) and this seems to provide an advantage in that when flying together mid-high skill AI will take long range shots to pressure targets into maneuvering while low-mid skill AI take high Pk shots that are more likely to kill. By accident, mixed skill flights are using more advanced tactics than homogenized flights. AI Skill Backwards Result.trk

I set up a mission to test the effect of AI skill settings against each other, however before I could get to that I noticed that one flight of AI would crash into each other consistently starting to attack. See attacked the track. F-15's fly to the J-11's and consistently 2 and 3 destroy each other. The J-11's sometimes also crash but for some reason do so less often. AI wing collision.trk

You have two formation options in the same waypoint. The default trail that is autocreated with the group and a modern bomber formation that you added. I'm guessing you want the second one. Either delete the trail formation, or delete the modern formation and set the autogenerated trail to modern. This will give you the formation you expect. As for the S turns, your groups are close together at spawn. Separate them so that they have more room to maneuver into position.

Map size isn't really a reason to keep them out. Plenty of people play fly compressed missions, it wouldn't be any different with a bomber. Besides they don't just use their fuel for range, but also for endurance. That's what a lot of people say about the simulation genre in general. The people doing it for a living might be more likely to call it boring than someone looking from the outside. The module also doesn't have to be strictly multicrew. Give it AI like the F-14. The player can stick to mostly flying and employ other systems when they want.

Try posting the mission, it makes debugging easier. What time are you changing? If you change the WP0 time that will change spawn behavior. You can place units to the map and have them start later by using the "Uncontrolled" checkbox and giving them a start command.

Jester is the F-14 AI. However if you're going to play online he can be replaced by a player. Jester is not an expert RIO. He can do the basics, but don't rely on him to solve complex problems. Heatblur (the F-14 developers) have put a lot of work into Jester and continue to make improvements, but a human RIO is better. If you do fly with Jester you will want to make sure to learn his limitations and bind some of the commands you can give to him to your controls so you can help him when he needs assistance. DCS has squadrons. I don't fly online very much, but this section of the forum has squad recruitment posts. DCS does have some online events, but as someone who plays mostly offline, I wouldn't be able to give the most detail.

It would still provide increased fuel capacity, which comes with some benefits. Increased loiter for long missions and less tankers needed for a given mission size for example.

This is truly an impressive update to start the year with. I don't think anyone can be disappointed with this plan for DCS. Hopefully all goes well and to schedule, best of luck to the developers and thanks for the hard work.

I don't think it's too early to float ideas to ED, as long as they actually respond to them and some discussion emerges. I really wish they took that approach with the BVR AI, many good ideas were brought up before its release, but none of them were really integrated into the AI revamp.

Smart weapons were designed for a reason, the other side's technology isn't going to stand still. You don't have to limit JDAM strikes to MG armed buildings or SA-3 sites. Fight tougher opponents and suddenly employing smart weapons is just as exciting as using dumb bombs. The airframe also becomes more relevant. The speed to loft bombs and avoid missiles means a F-16 can approaching things different than a A-10. Though on the other hand, there is nothing wrong with missions using older weapons. In a real war with peer opponents, smart weapons might get depleted over time, forcing the use of dumb weapons in their place. It's a simple idea, but general enough to be used in a wide range of DCS missions.

From what I've seen on the forum, FC3 is still getting significant updates. Just look at the F-15's radar. The R-27 is also the missile getting the most attention from ED after the AIM-120, and the only planes to carry it are from FC3.

In case I don't get to it tomorrow, from my testing: Don't use carpet bombing for attacking a small target or target point, this by design uses the formation of the bombers to determine the increase the spread of bombs. Use a regular bombing task, set weapon to bombs, release all, and make sure "group attack" is checked. Make sure the bombing waypoint is a few miles from the target (20 or so miles).

If you are having trouble with a mission, please post it. It makes debugging much easier. I added a flight of 4 B-52 to the map and they dropped all their bombs in a single pass.

Also true, but we're in a simulator. We can fix the odds if we want. It's not necessary to simulate the common conditions. Everyone has different interests, which is why I made a point of bringing up a customizable experience. A slider lets everyone get the experience they want. Also, connecting with my first point about how realism may not lead to where one expects, even if DCS had long repair times, that doesn't mean a player would have to spend them stuck in the cockpit. In fact in real life the pilot wouldn't be in the plane while repairs are on going. We could simply take out another plane and leave the repair time as a strategic element of the game that effects things outside of player participation. I'd also like more visuals for ground crew. As it stands, the unrealistic ghost crew that serves your plane can be problematic. If you don't see any equipment around your plane, it's quite easy to forget you have external power connected and taxi off without requesting a disconnect. These are functional as well as immersive changes.

Rearm and refuel doesn't always take hours. Quite a few planes boast being able to perform the task in minutes. In anycase, I think a sim should have the option to model everything realistically, even if few might use it. Put a slider somewhere to set reload time so that it can go from 1x speed to 10x speed, or whatever is needed. Also, real life is a really mixed bag. In topics like this people like to argue that reality always goes a certain way, and that it's boring, but that's not really true. Just for example contrast this: With this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lachhiman_Gurung The wiki story sounds like a video doesn't it? But it's actually the true to life story. Of course, the situation I quoted isn't unrealistic either, I just want to point out that that even in an extremely realistic environment, it can be hard to predict what will happen.

A huge yes to this. A very long requested feature that would be very powerful. Moving triggers are borderline unusable when limited to unit level only.

The C is already underpowered for BVR fights, bring on the A. Being worse is a selling point, it means it's different. Capability is relative anyway. In period correct servers, it's still going to be one of the top planes. It will certainly outperform MiG-21's and Mirage F1's.

Is there any possibility of having an AI A-7D included with the A-7E module? This is just for the sake of slight historical accuracy, as A-7D's were used by the Air Force and would make more sense as land based units. The two versions should be fairly similar, I think the D may be a little lighter. If adding a second AI version is too much, then perhaps the inclusion of Air Force liveries and the ability to disable folding wings (it seems like I was mistaken and the D retains folding wings) would suffice? Of course I would not say no to a flyable A-7D either, but I'd assume this is out of scope for now.

Great to see multicore coming along. I really want to see how this impacts performance. Also, while I know it was long, long shot, I was eagerly hoping to see a teaser for FF F-15C. Maybe next year.

While this should be among standard wingmen commands, we currently have two ways of doing this. One is through scripting, where you can display any plane's fuel state at any time. The other is a recently added trigger that activates when a plane reaches a specified fuel state.

AI does have radar. It's why many mission makers really want detection triggers in addition to X in zone triggers. X in zone is all seeing, while AI radars are limited by RCS, beaming, terrain, etc.

It depends on the mission, but minutes are just fractions of hours anyway. 15 minutes = 0.25 hours, etc. Also, the previously mentioned FPAS MFD page will tell you how much fuel you'll have when you arrive at a waypoint, so you can just bring it up instead of trying to work it out yourself. I've found that it's fairly accurate.

Like anything, AWACS have evolved over time. Having period correct or nation correct AWACS could mean having different levels of radar performance. EC-121's for example had less range than E-3's and also were worse at dealing with targets over land. We also need weaknesses like that modeled along with modeling the actual command and control elements of AWACS.