Eldur

Listen to this absolute banger of a pro tip and don't do this:

I just hope it will finally get the Tetris easteregg on the SYST page it deserves

Looking forward to the weather system updates, tone map and VR improvements. Thrilled to have a humidity slider that I can drag down though to increase visibility past like 5nm on a CAVOK day without having to add shader mods anymore (or just give us the pre-2.5.6.50321 visiblity back finally!) The La-7 looks nice, can't wait for their Su-22 though

At first I was like: Who wants to pay for another Normandy map? Then I was like: Ugra: announces Normandy 2 ED's The Channel: Am I a joke to you? Then I got to the part explaining the pricing, coming to the conclusion that this new map ofc is based on the old one, but also somehow must include The Channel given that owning it reduces the price tag and simply asking the question: Why would they want to make that complete area that we do already have again from scratch? And with those owner's discounts, I'm absolutely all in for the upgrade! This will be a great addition. And the new tech that delivers stuff you don't own in lower quality seems to be the first step towards a grand scale world map, I can perfectly see the exact same thing happen with the Gulf, Syriam Caucasus and the upcoming Sinai as well as the already announced Afghanistan maps and probably an Iraq map as well. And, hopefully, one day... the Crimea, where it all started with Flanker to LOMAC+FC (for purely nostalgic reasons; I've been wanting to see the Crimea back since BS1).

Absolutely looking forward to the Tohneighdo! I'm quite glad about the version they chose, but I hope they'll make at least an early 90's British GR.1 with TIALD as well afterwards. GR.4 with Brimstone would be cool as well, but I guess it's too classified still and it probably would be similar with the German ASSTA upgrades, at least the latest ones. Totally wouldn't mind getting an ECR later on though, or even the F.3 ADV (not the greatest fighter, but certainly not a bad interceptor either). But let's take the one they're making first But I'd really like to know more about the devs, especially their "decades of experience" in the business. I could find exactly nothing so far... ... and that didn't bring anything forth either. Absolutely zero information on what they did before. Shall I wait for that "Hey guys, we're those solid blokes that made DI's Tornado back in the 90s..." mic drop? I mean, most of us have been wanting that thing from Heatblur, especially with their expertise and the Tomcat and Viggen in their portfolio already... I wouldn't be surprised if the community wants to get it at around their level of detail anyway now I got it very late (like late 2000s) myself as well, Installation isn't really a problem (-> DOSBox!), but I can't make it accept all input axes, basically stuck with just pitch and yaw, unable to map throttle and rudder. If I just could get that done, I'd probably actually still dump time in it... just did that a bit with keyboard only That's absolutely a fair point to this day. They've got their plate packed a lot already. Maybe they could secure the F-111F for themselves though Let's just hope that AviaStorm can provide a similar level of quality as that's what we all want to get I'm pretty sure it's not completely banned as opposed to the JP233. I'm rather sure the KB44 and STABOs are still in service even now, might even be the case with MUSA. MIFF and MUSPA however have been classified as mines and therefor been decomissioned. I guess you're speaking about Fast Talking Performance... That guy speaks faster than a Tornado could fly even with the ramps not welded shut. Very hard to understand acoustically sometimes, still great to listen to though I actually do wonder in which cases that did happen... Did I miss something? I just remember seeing OctopusG's video a few months ago basically teasering it without having dropped an official announcement yet and the only other thing I could find was a video of a never released CubanAce mod from 2017.

Just three words are enough to sum up this newsletter's content: ~Wags

[Edited into spoiler since it's not the main point of this post] But enough the usual MS rant... (I mean, the real worst thing they ever did was dropping the Sidewinder product line - we do need fricken FFB!) I'm glad the F1 cockpit brightness has been fixed finally! This post was sponsored by my totally broken eyes (road to next surgery...), aaaaas always!

To be fair, the DCS community has plenty of practice with that based on how the Hornet's 404s had been for quite a long time...

I was almost expecting a 3rd new map, but I'll take that F-100D as well. Great to see Grinnelli becoming a 3rd party dev! Excited for the voiceovers, but to be fair, when I read about the sight overhaul, I was hoping for an actual representation in VR instead of getting a flat overlay up my face... but maybe some day

To be fair, the only objection so far I could have is: How would I be supposed to reach all those knobs and switches at the bottom row with that scope covering the whole thing up? The only way to reach those is either reaching inside that thing and therefore not seeing any results of manipulation, taking the thing off on the ground (which most people here do probably) or unicorn magic.

I wish he'd update this still. Was just about right and looked great, getting the pre-Channel map haze and visibility back in VR. The only other option is lefuneste's 3dmigoto mod with the haze setting in it which somehow though looks not as good as Mustang's shader (and it keeps breaking constantly with DCS updates as well), or for the matter of fact, ED's shaders prior to 2.5.6.50321. Sad thing though is that ED never acknowledged that anything was changed back then, but it certainly did. I'm literally unable to make out airfields that I totally know where they are from 20k ft and above or more than 5nm of distance without such mods since even at the CAVOK standard DCS day.

I was excited when I first heard about those and wanted to improve my Quest experience with them. The sound is decent and naturally has a wider range than the Quest speakers which are basically tablet speakers. Being off ear it's great for immersion, but I also noticed they're not perfect and come with a few things that might turn out to be deteriorating your experience. First off, they're quite heavy for their size and the way they're mounted at an angle to be positioned just off of the ears, most of the weight typically is in front of the ears which basically makes the HMD front heavy, even with a battery pack sitting at the back. Next thing is when I set down my Quest, it usually sits on the headset itself and the back of the strap with the battery pack. With the earphones attacked, the latter is no longer the case and the battery pack is left hanging in the air, putting constant gravitational strain on the whole headstrap which might get problematic over time. You can't just flip the earphones up sadly since they went with a design, probably to make them stay in place better, that requires you to loose a screw with a small hex key by one revolution in order to set it to one out of five possible angles and tighten it up after the change. For being able to access that you need to take the earphones out of the holding brackets so I basically ended up with taking them out everytime I put the HMD down which kinda kills the "just put the thing on the thing and get going" of the Quest. Also, I kept smacking my right controller into the earphone when doing any archery stuff in VR which I love to do. Oh, almost forgot, there's no mic on it, but you can order a boom mic for it as it has the attachment port for it. But don't expect anything stunning from it, it's a very tiny and thin antenna like thing. It's probably better to just use the one built into the headset or get an Antlion ModMic Wireless which is preferred by a lot of VR YouTubers. Can't say if it somehow fits the Aero. It came with some sets of bracket inserts for various consumer grade headsets like Q1, Q2, Reverb G2, VIVE and I think even the Index. For people interested in getting off ear audio for the Quest 2, check out Logitech Chorus as well which apparently just dropped this week (first heard of them like yesterday and it was an announcement mentioned on Thrill's tuesday newsday). Seems to be an interesting solution at least for that HMD. EDIT: Here's a review video of the VR Ears: One comment saying:

Any chance of adding the possibility to simply use keyboard keys instead of just buttons on HOTAS? I still have some free cursor keys just right there, but no space left on various HOTAS mappings... would be awesome!

That feature goes on/off on Win+Grip on the controllers by default, but I guess you aren't pressing that combo...

Exactly. Check your SteamVR settings to see the resolution you got. Remember: 400% in Steam equals PD 2.0 in DCS as SteamVR scales the total area while DCS scales each axis.

It is a terrible place in general with everyone and their dog having their own discord and you need to join a gajillion of servers to stay updated while there's not even the simplest ever possible way of organizing the server list anyhow in that POS (piece of software) even after over half a decade of literally everyone asking for it and the whole thing becoming laggy as hell as you add more to your list... how could anyone possibly even like that? Totally don't get the vibe... I'm always glad when such information gets dropped here where it should be first anyway Didn't know about the exact differences between the Kfir models though, thanks for clearing that up Not wanting to start a discussion about other sims, but SF2/WoV had the C2 and it has a HUD there while the Nesher and Mirages don't. They got the different HUDs and radar scopes quite well in that series; I was amazed of how good their Tomcat avionics and symbology was after seeing Heatblur's in DCS, I was honestly expecting massive differences because SF just is a "lightweight" sim compared to DCS. So I'd expect the C2 to have a HUD at least in DCS, but to be fair, I don't know much about its specifications beyond from what I learned though my flight simming years.

A Kfir? You're killing me... Was going to ask as well, but rather if it would be a C1 or C2 since the text was only talking C1/F-21A. Loved the C2 in Strike Fighters 2, glad to see it on the horizon of DCS, especially with several variants!

For Voice Attack, check out VAICOM Pro, I think that might solve your issue (you basically just say i.e. "Senaki" instead of having to know at which spot it is - BTW it's ordered by range from your aircraft). Never managed to get it to run on my end though (non-English OS, voice recognition basically fails there already even with English language pack installed).

That CP/G unboarding animation looks great! Looking forward to more of this... But now it's time for a MEME BREAK! RAZBAM: Here's a nice Falklands map that also has fjords for those of you who want to have some Scandinavia-like terrain! orbx: Challenge accepted Totally stoked by that announcement! So awesome! My personal wish: Expand a bit to the east (gathering from the red line on the screenshot) to have Arkhangelsk included. This already gives me some SEII vibes, but that port/city has to be in there as well.

What a wasted chance though! Anyway, can't wait for the full weather sim

I'm basically in dire straits constantly and it ain't getting better within the last few years due to obvious reasons, but at least I can still pay for DCS modules! Had to find my wallet first though, it was anxiously hiding in a place I didn't expect it to My first thought was (discount was visible already): Oh, 80 full price for this bird might be much... but then I re-realized they'll bring another 3 versions, of which especially the last one will have some significant differences IIRC. And with the discount, it was fair enough. The only thing I could gripe about is the current excange rate of my local currency (a year ago that would have been somewhere around 10-15€ less), but that's force majeure.

Lucky git. Downloading 89GB. Takes aeons, aaaas always. (3rd world bamboo internet here) Glad it has a menu soundtrack!

Not as long as Windows 10 which still is in Early Access and will be until it will be totally replaced by the abomination that Windows 11 is.

Costa Cordalis! To be fair, I'm glad its going to be out tomorrow. It's *bleep*-ing hot today. Wouldn't be fun anyway... and I'd rather it running smooth and not bringing any uncomfortable issues.

OK, now it's going to become about 20% cooler Hope you'll get the FM right