Exorcet

OK I guess we're getting somewhere if you can see that development can be planned in an ordered fashion now. You're not in a position to say that unfortunately. It's a reasonable concern to be sure, but not something that can you can say with certainty without information on how DCS is developed. Where is the counter for these disagreements? In any case since I'm not the one arguing for majority rules, I don't care how many people agree or don't. What I care about is finding solutions to various user desires. Something more helpful and less short sighted than "I don't personally want this, so it can be never be added." You know even less what works for them, so your advice isn't worth much. Feel free to share it, but try to realize when it's not helping. Learning AAR gives you no authority because it still doesn't make you the person requesting the feature.

OK, but where does the idea that AAR assists can't coexist with all these other things come from? If you want a really, really simple example of both coexisting with no negative impact to your list, here it is: Add DC, AI, damage, SAM's first, then add AAR assists later. This is why the against argument seems so ridiculous. Wanting something more than something else is absolutely reasonable. Acting like adding a specific feature will shut off other features of the game makes no sense at all. Being completely against something without even considering a workable solution for all sides comes across as being against something for the sake of being against it and nothing else. Based on what though? ED is not a 1 person developer. Work on one project does not mean resources are taken from another. If people were genuinely interested in friendly discussion I'd expect that people would at least make room for an idea instead of trying to shoot it down at every opportunity. Also what if a large portion of people disagree with you? Does that mean your desired features should be barred from the game? People that like to speak for other people are the kind of people that probably shouldn't speak for other people. I think it's fine to give your opinion, but if someone else says that their ways work better for them, well people generally know themselves better than strangers.

That's actually a complicated question. If a new feature takes nothing away from the sim it's fair game. Adding Mario Kart banana peels to DCS isn't something I'd care to have, but if I didn't have to use them then they are as good as non existent. No reason to care about of them if you don't like them. Unfortunately though, ED have limited resources so sometimes choices need to be made on what development work to prioritize. I'd like to see this done with back and forth communication between ED and players We as player have wants while ED knows its own budget and time constraints. To effectively make a realistic list we could ask ED what resources it would take to add a feature while they could let us know what resources are available. Shouting "no, never add this" to an idea right away is of no help. Well look at that, the feature that is ridiculous to expect in a simulator, was in a simulator. This is from the Jane's USNF manual. Not a DCS level sim for sure, but something that took a good few steps to represent realistic air combat for its time. Aids fit in perfectly with simulators because simulators allow us to control things that are beyond our control in real life. So all the things you mentioned are totally fine for DCS. Now if people were asking for these things we'd need to decide how to prioritize them for inclusion as I outlined above. Some things may end up low on the list. That's the nature of finite resources. An outright no however doesn't make sense very often. Maybe. No reason to be upset about it though. No there was a perfectly reasonable request for an assist that with met with off topic replies. It doesn't seem arbitrary when it's a popular request with a lot of community support. And the reason for wanting a refund was more to do with people denying training aids to new players than anything else.

That option exists to level the playing field, but the newsletter mentioned degraded error correction for RED side. I'm not sure if that means always or only when unrestricted SATNAV is unchecked.

The ME allows us to view lists of objects in our missions which is very helpful, but we can't edit the information in these lists. This would be helpful, especially if we could multiselect, allowing us to change to change things like skill level for many groups at a time. I envision something like this: An "Enable Editing" checkbox that can allow for the unit list to be locked to prevent accidental changes. There could also be additional options like setting the ME to automatically add unit or group name prefixes or suffixes. The ME does this automatically as of now, but is limited to numbers. In the example image above there is a dropdown for unit Skill for Ground-1. If multiple units were selected, the screen should appear the same but with the light blue highlight on more units, and the dropdown menu should impact all selected units. It might also be nice to expand the unit list to show which liveries are selected. At the moment it can be a big hassle to set camo for different ground units across a mission.

The Strike Eagle is technically multirole, but in US service it's a bomber. It has radar performance as good as the C Eagle, the same weapons, and better engines to offset its heavier weight and higher drag. If you want to fight in air combat it might be a good pick if you don't mind stretching its in service use or pretending it's not a US version. The F-16 is the primary fighter of a few air forces and the most numerous in the USAF. While the F-15C and F-22 would be the primary air superiority fighters, the F-16 was designed for air to air first and will sometimes perform air to air missions. It was actually the first fighter to score an AMRAAM kill. It's a great airframe, the only downside is the lack of space for a big radar.

GPS is separated by coalition. Ideally the F-16 should always be on the Blue side to get its actual performance. Red side is hardcoded to have reduced performance. See here for more info or if you're interested in revising how DCS works in this regard: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/343270-modified-unrestrictive-satnav-option/

It's not only ammo but fuel that you need to worry about. I haven't played this mission, but if the AI uses afterburner a lot of fuel dips below a certain amount they will refuse to attack anything. Something that might help, with R Alt + J you can jump into any friendly flyable aircraft. If you need to, you can fly your wingmen's planes for them.

You would need to ask the poll respondents if you wanted to find out since the poll isn't very specific. Looking at the poll itself, the most straightforward interpretation is: Yes - I want this badly vs No - I don't want this badly And as it turns out the 33/66 split is compatible with a 100% vote of wanting easy AAR, but where only 33% of people want it "badly". No supporting evidence for this statement anywhere.

If 33% is not enough to warrant support of a feature, then what does that say about something that supposedly only has 10% support? From Sharpe's logic, AAR assist has around 3 times the support of MP and should take higher priority than it. If an AAR assist isn't worth developer effort, presumably MP is even an even bigger waste of resources. On the other hand if MP is fine, then AAR assist has more than enough support to warrant ED's resources. There's nothing to grasp for here.

Nowhere in the poll does it say against. I await your post requesting the cancellation of multiplayer

It actually turns out that they can. If the assist did exist and people used to refuel in missions, it could help get them accustomed to the idea of doing it manually. One real life analogue, training wheels, are intended to help the user work up to the point where the training aid is removed. Even if the user at first never considers moving up the ladder, they can change their mind later. Some people may never move up, but that's also fine. If it doesn't impact you, who care? No where does the poll say against. 33% support is a sizeable amount of the playerbase, so that poll seems like a good indicator that it would be a popular addition in a sim where not everyone is going to be interested in every feature.

And that goes for everything. If we needed 100% approval for new features, would DCS have any features at all? You're waiting for ATC and so am I. How many people at ED work on both? I don't know. Unless somehow AAR assists and ATC were totally mutally exclusive I see no reason to be against one or the other. Giving your opinion on what is higher priority is fine, anything else beyond that without even knowing how ED works internally just seems odd. And worthwhile is a subjective assessment, meaning it will vary from person to person, meaning AAR assist could be among the most worthwhile additions to DCS.

You're not really going to be done with this topic as it's popular enough that new people will pop in and ask for it every now and then. A poll was already made showing a good amount of support for the feature, but this topic has come up multiple times over the years that a poll isn't all that necessary to see that it's something that people want. As of now ED has no plans for a refueling assist, but it's good to let them know what players want. Or just refine the exist AI control of player aircraft. Done, no new flight model needed. There are many ideas that have been proposed if you have a problem with one, there are many others. Although since it would seem you're not interested in using the assist, you shouldn't care in the first place. You can provide AAR tips if you want, but that's not what people are asking for. So it doesn't really help. WT has nothing to do with this as people would just play it if it suited them better than DCS with an assist.

The subject covers a lot of things. Though even in that case, fuel weight and management does play a role. If your fuel is fixed to a specific amount you're losing part of the experience, which can be a hindrance to learning depend on what you want to do. If it's just AAR for the sake of AAR I guess it's not a big deal, but I'd think some people would want to learn AAR to perform in a mission environment. Stopping all development of DCS also requires no extra work from the devs. Why would AAR assist be better than unlimited fuel? For the reasons mentioned many times now: more realism, better learning, and the ability to assist mission makers/testers.

There are more situations that just that one, as was explained. If you don't have to worry about being able to successfully AAR, then you can fly any mission regardless of fuel requirements or length. In that case having fuel management is a plus as it's part of the mission experience. Though even in the simple AAR in a vacuum mission, fuel management is extra realism. So why not have the option? Then pretend you're flying a plane and save yourself $60 on a module.

Again unlimited fuel isn't the solution. It removes fuel management. As people are interested in the sim aspect of DCS, an AAR assist would be preferable. One example is DCS, where the game manages the rudder for you on take off if you so wish, or starts the plane for you. There are also racing games where you can pass control to the AI, as you can in DCS by using the jump plane function.

That's not really accurate. I don't play War Thunder, but I don't think it has AAR at all. Correct me if I'm wrong. Assists don't diminish realism or challenge. An AAR assist isn't going to take away AAR, and no one is asking for AAR to go away. If you want a simplified experience or just want to skip refueling entirely, there is unlimited fuel. If you want to experience AAR but find it too challenging, need some help practicing, or want a fast forward button when testing large complex missions that you build, that is where an assist comes in. Let's also not forget the "easy modes" included in DCS already like takeoff and rudder assist which are intended by the devs to make full fideility modules more accessible. Assists are part of DCS by design. There are no shortage of concepts for how the assist would work. We don't have a set in stone feature only because we haven't gone past the proposal stage. Unlimited fuel isn't a training aid and removes the fuel experience entirely, which goes against the point if you want to try to include realism in your sim experience. It's not a solution, and this has been explained many times before. The change in aircraft performance from fuel weight while tanking is small, but much larger is the change in weight throughout the mission, especially if you're considering things like g limits, optimum cruise, aircraft settings (CAT I vs CAT III for example), etc. Unlimited fuel takes that away.

Use night vision. Lights in the night are just big beacons that let the enemy know where to shoot.

I remember being able to use aircraft jump to control wingmen and then return to my own aircraft in the past. This no longer works because now your original plane flies off to the nearest airbase when jumped out of. This is very problematic as it restricts jumping to a situation where your aircraft is destroyed unless you can jump back before the AI manages to get shot down or land. Example in the attached track, player aircraft is set to fly straight and then orbit in N-S orientation, but when I jump it goes RTB. AI_jump_route.trk

That narrows mission selection. If you can't reliably refuel, you're not doing a long distance mission. On the other hand, an assist would mean that any mission is open to being flown. It has not even really been defined yet, so how could that be? Also, since unlimited fuel seems to be accepted, AAR assist seems like it would be an ever more acceptable assist since it doesn't just wave away a problem and take all effort out from the player. Unlimited fuel simply removes fuel from the sim, unrealistic and does nothing for skill. AAR assist allows for fuel management practice, requires the pilot to fly the plane, and also allows the pilot to get a feel for how refueling fits into a mission if it's used to refuel mid mission. That's something that random tanker practice doesn't get you. MSF Simulator isn't an arcade game. War Thunder has an arcade mode and a sim mode. Whatever you want to classify them, a refueling assist in DCS does not remove realistic refueling from the sim, not does it alter flight physics, weapons, AI, etc. DCS is still going to be DCS even with assists, which are already part of DCS by design. Let's say the same for dynamic campaigns. Stop spending time asking for more features and just build them yourself. Besides, practice refueling doesn't provide all the benefits of an assist. So then a refuel assist should be fine as the same logic is followed, except it doesn't remove important physics like the change in aircraft performance with fuel weight, or the need for the player to manage fuel. This topic comes up often enough that it's probably impacting a large number of players. If you want to go by % of player base then this should probably be somewhere on the higher end of priority. Not only does it impact refueling, but mission design. When it comes to development resources, this is why I'm a proponent of using what already exists. The AI knows how to refuel, so one possible form of refueling assist is AI control. Minimal work needed to add to DCS. Another option is expanding the range of the fueling probe. Yet another is to transfer fuel by proximity. The code already exists in part since it's needed for airbase refuel/rearm and supply truck rearm. This won't be a heavy project in all likelyhood. And then ED is going to improve refueling code anyway so it's good time to add an assist which should bring down the resource cost by lumping it with another project. Absolutely. The best part, the AI remembering the flight plan is how to it used to work. I'm not aware of patch notes mentioning the removal of this, so I'd assume it's a bug that they forget. If that's true, then the code for auto AAR is already in DCS. If the change was intentional, it needs to be reverted as taking control of wingmen without sending your original plane off into the void is a very good way to get around AI limitations.

The benefits have been listed before. If the barrier to AAR are lowered it allows players to approach AAR more often and to practice more often. Instead of being required to choose between a refueling practice session or flying a mission an assist allows players to do both at once, effectively making it possible to practice refueling in any session. Exactly, so there is no reason why assists don't fit here, which is pretty obvious given the very many other assists that already exist. Meaning what exactly?

One of the other explosion triggers uses mass TNT as the explosion volume. This might be similar. Did you try checking the DCS manual for an explanation? Switched Condition trigger with a flag counter. Have the flag count up to a certain value and reset, or have the flag continually assign random values. When the Switched Condition trigger is met the artillery should trigger. Example: Trigger 1 > Continuous Action > No Condition > Flag Increase by 1 [Increase does not have to be 1, can be any value that makes sense for your mission] Trigger 2 > Switched Condition > Flag value is maximum > Flag set random value (0, 0) [This is using flag random to set flag to 0 by setting the min and max random values to 0] Trigger 3 > Switched Condition > Flag value is maximum > Shelling Zone It is a bit cumbersome, but for this like setting artillery timing or flashing SAM sites this is what needs to be done.

Refuel is exactly the same. Easy refuel means you can regularly play missions that involve refuel and become accustomed to the process, and not just the immediate refueling, but fuel management and finding the tanker. Not only could an easy refuel option be a helpful earning tool, it could easily be better than unlimited fuel. People are only OK with the existing option because they're in the sim already, not because of their utility. Not to mention that it doesn't really matter if it helps people train or not. DCS doesn't exist to make pilots. Not when it can be a training tool or a tool to help mission makers simply their missions.

Sorry for misunderstanding then. Although the concept of a final release is complicated by DCS itself being an evolving product. The Hawk would just continue to become more and more broken as DCS was updated which is why it needed to be pulled. On paper this shouldn't be the case anymore as ED would take over. Hopefully the issue is resolved and we never find out.