Airwolf-CAVU

CDU defaults to UTC Nav>Time>-0800 as LCL Nevada is 8hrs behind UTC

I tried to file a support ticket for a refund on the campaign since it lacks 2.7 and current A10 support…the response was not helpful.

What’s the latest here???

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful responses and the welcome back. ON AIRCRAFT: ^^ Thanks Munkwolf for the links and Yurgon for the experienced opinion. This seems to be the theme: Hornet's a good option because it's nearing Release and has lots of community attention/content - more than the Mighty Hawg these days - plus its a versatile and fun aircraft to fly. Insofar as naval aviation (outside the de facto interest from Top Gun), I have close family who drives the new Growler so may as well be able to study up and talk shop with him over beers, if I had to pick a module. I think this is different though? Those P-47s are variants of the same airframe...seems like with A-10C they're just adding more realism/currency to the existing airframe (block/lot). In classic software dev, if you deprecate something it's usually for a short scoped time-period. This reduces maintenance burden and keeps the UX simple (especially for new adopters...even for experience folks, keeping straight the different HOTAS commands in A-10C II vs. OG is just confusing as heck). ON CAMPAIGNS/CONTENT: ^^ Pikey and RRB, I appreciate the push here and definitely do see the value as being the Aircraft itself (it literally equates to the investment made); however, you hit the nail on the head: for me, it's simply time available right now at this phase in my life. I bought DCS: A-10 or DCS: F/A-18, not DCS: Mission Builder...so, I want to spend points studying the aircraft not how to build IADS in Syria. I'll spend hours cycling through tanking practice but avoid generating scenarios. I think ED understands this tack and that's why they're after a Dynamic campaign engine plus releasing SP Campaigns bundled w/ some modules. Meanwhile..Liberation?! ^^ thanks Stearmandriver - I had no idea this existed and, indeed, this is probably just the right balance of "Mission Building" I want to be involved in these days. I'll definitely give this a try ASAP.

BLUF: Thrilled to be back...been jealous reading the forums and watching evolutions of DCS over the past few years. Would appreciate your help, so skip to the Questions section to bypass my melodramatic summary… I love DCS…I could not be happier with the trajectory, and it’s thrilling that study sims are making a comeback. I attribute this largely to IL-2 (including RoF) and DCS....things certainly seemed dead even in the early 2010s. So happy I no longer have to dwell on my first study sim loves: Microprose F-15 SE III, Janes F15, Longbow. However, as with many of you, it’s been a love-hate relationship that has ebbed and flowed over the years…here’s my quick story (please correct if memory provides inaccuracies): My DCS Story: 2009 – started with OG Black Shark CPU: AMD Phenom II 965BE GPU: Single HD5970 Top-of-the-line system; ran well, maybe 45fps, generally had a good time at 720p during real missions 2010 – picked up A-10C and never went back to Black Shark CPU: AMD Phenom II 965BE GPU: Single HD5970 Perf degrading, usually kept over 30fps at 720p...I started to get concerned. Generally enthralled but not much campaign/community content…interest came and went. Sadly, this would be the last year I could play DCS well on my 2 year old system (was top-of-line). Fun note: I have a good friend who’s an AF Hog driver (AETC) and back in 2010 he sat with my HOTAS Warthog, flew the sim, and could not believe it…just now in 2021 he sent me a link to this article: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40620/a-10-warthog-pilots-are-using-the-digital-combat-simulator-video-game-to-train-in-vr 2011 – DCS World launched…perf got worse, still only flew the Hawg CPU: AMD Phenom II 965BE, but OC’d it more…didn’t help much (see BLAB) GPU: 2x HD5970s…added another card, didn’t help much (see BLAB) Struggled with maintaining 30fps at 720p BLAB: DCSW does not utilize multiple CPU cores well, nor does it utilize Crossfired GPUs. Super! At least I could play all the other games…so I often did for the next 4 years. :( 2015 – DCS 1.5 launched; DCS 2.0alpha launched CPU: AMD Phenom II 965BE GPU: New GTX 970 helped me take a swipe at 1080p…but just barely Struggled to stay above 20fps at 1080p during heavy action EDGE turned out to be a great long-term bet by ED…yet it did not solve my now very aged CPU/GPU combinations or fix the single-core single-GPU emphasis (as some suspected it may). 2017 to 2021 – sent overseas for 3+ years CPU/GPU: Packed away in my HHG, no sim’ing, no fun… At least once a week….for 3+ years…. I read about DCS’s progress and watched the YouTube/Instagram videos proliferate…could not BELIEVE the announcements around F-16, AH-64D, F-18, F-14…WOW! Mind blown…but all I could do was track things and wait to return back CONUS to give it another go. 2021 – DCS 2.7, I gave up and went gangbuster…didn’t even try to run on my old system CPU: i7-10700K OC’d to 4.85 GPU: RTX 3080 NOTE: I did try using my GTX 970 with the new CPU…and still only managed 30-45fps at 1080p. HAHA! Just proves you need both CPU and GPU to be top-of-the-line to really get any mileage out of DCS. For the first time in 10 years, I can play DCS smoothly again…and for the first time ever I’m at 60+fps on Ultra doing 1440p. IT IS INCREDIBLE….and it only cost me about $2,400! My Beefs with DCS (I love all the same stuff you love, btw…that list is too long): Performance = no question here…it costs a fortune to run DCS well and consistently over time. And I’m praying that my current top-of-the-line system keeps me at playable framerates longer than my last top-of-the-line system (2 years). Reliably merging the Aircraft with the World = missions/campaigns still seem super-buggy and constantly requiring high-LoE updates to maintain functionality as DCS constantly upgrades. It sucks to just be doing the same out-of-box missions from 2010 for A-10C. ED: you guys built these AMAZING high-fidelity aircraft…and this incredible digital world with beautiful clouds, terrain, and units on the ground…but are failing at unifying those 2 aspects together in a reliable and consistent way via community/ED-sponsored campaigns that do not fall apart every few months. [head-on-desk] My Questions to the community: Is ED seriously not supporting Red Flag for NTTR and A-10C II on 2.7? Building NTTR seemed like a questionable gamble for ED (not sure it paid off considering the new theaters, little content for NTTR I see now)…but having worked there before, I LOVED IT. And I adored the Red Flag Campaign…so is ED also falling victim to their own AI-brutality in mission design breaking with upgrades…is it too much of a pain for even ED to update? Should I ask for a refund here? Why does A-10C original even exist? I was quite surprised to see that OG A10 still is a separate module…how confusing and unnecessary. Why? It’s been over a year. All the content should be A-10C II by now… What SP campaigns should I play for A-10C II? Seems like just Enemy Within 3.0 - really? I want Red Flag…but see above. I played Enemy Within back in the day…happy to see there’s a 3.0 supporting A10-C II here. I see Piercing Fury is user-supported now…but it’s failing me on Mission 2 (I saw the fix threads…but don’t have time to screw with this stuff in the waning hours after the kids go to sleep…I just want to fly and blow sh*t up, fixes not working for me). Given the above experience with A10-C II - what do you think of investing in Hornet? What’s the single player campaign story there? I really want to dive into the Hornet once it goes on sale. I’m thinking to buy: Hornet SuperCarrier Persian Gulf Raven One But that’s a lot of money just to potentially be disappointed that I cannot play through campaigns after upgrades, etc. Other recommendations? I bought F-14 from HB…even though I won’t have time to study it. Just bought because I read they did a great job and want to support 3rd party on awesome modules like this. I’m definitely going all-in on AH-64D (same story, support the cause) but again worried about SP Campaign content… Thanks everyone and cheers