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DCS AJS-37: Road to Release


Cobra847

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Sure, it is getting updates but still has some stupid bugs from day one and stuff like the PBR rework, new sounds and fixes to the pilot model and especially damage model are still pending. Once these are addressed you can absolutely call it out of EA - will it be perfect and totally bug free? No, no one expects that and such is DCS that it'll probably introduce new bugs down the road but it sure will be a solid and polished module. The problem with the Viggen is that HB has two EA modules in the pipeline at the same time and it kinda has been abandoned at time due to the Tomcat development. I do hope they'll learn from this.

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What is really frustrating me is the lack of communication from Heatblur about the remaining issues of the Viggen. For example, I can't remember how many years ago it was that Heatblur has said anything about the EP-13 control panel for example, which is still totally absent and can only be used through keybindings. I have a hard time to understand why this is still not implemented after all these years since the EA release of the Viggen.


Edited by QuiGon
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What did expect? lol .. I blame the players pushing devs,  saying, I need this jet, I want this jet, they should make this jet... but yet have no clue the amount of work that goes into developing these jets, and then you have ED showing off a A6 in a official DCS trailer for something else and players assuming its a full fidelity aircraft that is just around the corner for release ..

 

Meanwhile 3+ years on no sign of the Viggen been completed, players have moved on, I hardly ever see if been flown on MP servers. It's not bringing in the cash and HB are forced to focus on modules that are the next cash cow, with less resources been used on the Viggen.    

 

Yes it easy to blame HB but they are not the problem it's the player base... all these 3rd party devs are the same, with RAZ been the worst.

 

Look at the stupid thread that was created by some noob "Heatblur F-4 Phantom"    the list go on and on.  That OP has NO clue, just money in his pocket to incite devs and watch he will be long gone from DCS even if there is ever a F4 released.  

 

Bottom line is ED and the 3rd party devs don't want to have this conversation, its not in their interests when they are trying to bring money in the door and players don't want to wait forever no matter how bad the beta release is as long as they get what they want.  

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5 hours ago, QuiGon said:

What is really frustrating me is the lack of communication from Heatblur about the remaining issues of the Viggen. For example, I can't remember how many years ago it was that Heatblur has said anything about the EP-13 control panel for example, which is still totally absent and can only be used through keybindings. I have a hard time to understand why this is still not implemented after all these years since the EA release of the Viggen.

 

 

 

The thing is, NONE of the DCS jets are bug free. There is no such thing called a bug free game or sim these days. Almost all sims and games will have SOME bugs that are just always never fixed.

 

As for creating modules, the most successful so far, having full support with SP campaigns being churned out are F-18, its also unpolished. Just don't expect perfection module. Most modules take extreme work and long time to finish and to reach somewhat stable position...that being said, one also needs to work on the module that is cash cow or would get the most sales...meaning, not niche groups satisfaction modules.

 

Heatblur's only hit module seems to be the Tomcat, as always getting most sales. That Topgun fame jet.

 

Maybe the team that does the Viggen is too small or some might have left...well, we won't know the exact reason why the Viggen is only having small minor updates.

 

 

 

 

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Your forgetting how these jets are sold and marketed.... wonderful road map and timelines, reality is empty promises and nothing gets completed, or its so slow, players give up and its long forgotten for the reasons above in my previous post.   Anyone who's been around PC gaming, ( I have since the Vic-20) know no game is perfect and the fact is never will be, that's not the issue here. 

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52 minutes ago, F900EX said:

Meanwhile 3+ years on no sign of the Viggen been completed, players have moved on, I hardly ever see if been flown on MP servers.

 

I guess we play on different servers then. Ever played on Alpenwolf's Cold War server? Lots of Viggens active there, in A-A and A-G roles! Also on BlueFlag you can often find a couple of Viggens trying to sink the enemy fleet.

But yeah, the Viggen is not well suited to the current DCS online environment (maybe the Dynamic Campaign will change that a bit), as DCS (public) multiplayer is more of a free for all, than planned missions, which is what the Viggen does best. So while it is not the most popular plattform in MP, it can be great fun in SP.

 

 

35 minutes ago, jojyrocks said:

The thing is, NONE of the DCS jets are bug free. There is no such thing called a bug free game or sim these days. Almost all sims and games will have SOME bugs that are just always never fixed.

 

There's a difference between being "bug free" and "feature incomplete". The EP-13 panel for example is not bugged, it is completely missing!


Edited by QuiGon
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I'm currently looking through Viggen bug reports here on the forums, to see which bugs are still not fixed and I gotta say it's really frustrating to see quite a number of bug reports from months ago, that have not seen any reaction from Heatblur, not even an acknowledgement! This is really sad, as the community puts quite some effort into making those reports and it's night and day compared to how Heatblur treats Tomcat bug reports, which pretty much always get a reaction from Heatblur within a few days at max. :sad:


Edited by QuiGon
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3 minutes ago, Desert Fox said:

 

Yeah, mixed up AJ and JA here 🙄 As to the practical differences: i guess that's going to be hard to find out looking at how he says these features were basically just introduced to be ported over to the Gripen later - which is still classified. So i guess we won't know until the Gripen gets de-classified too 😄 Just thought i mention it for the sake of mentioning it when you asked for further differences but mixed up AJ and JA 😄

 

Yeah, the JA-37 is obviously a very different beast. Though for the AJ-37, wouldn't it just be a straight copy of the current one? Just without TERNAV, BK-90, RB-15F and maybe U22/A capability?

 

Apart from that I'm not aware of anything else, everything else should be identical.

 

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Modules I own: F-14A/B, Mi-24P, AV-8B N/A, AJS 37, F-5E-3, MiG-21bis, F-16CM, F/A-18C, Supercarrier, Mi-8MTV2, UH-1H, Mirage 2000C, FC3, MiG-15bis, Ka-50, A-10C (+ A-10C II), P-47D, P-51D, C-101, Yak-52, WWII Assets, CA, NS430, Hawk.

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53 minutes ago, Desert Fox said:

Might be HUD changes to the AJ but i'm not sure where i read about and if it was the AJ or JA... will post if i find it again.

The JA HUD is different from the AJ(S) one. The AJ and AJS are the same.
A better video than the one above.


Edited by MYSE1234
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Like Northstar said above, differences between AJ and AJS are relatively little: TERNAV, BK 90 capability, RB 15F capability, I think also the RB 74 (AIM-9L equivalent). Not entirely sure, but I think jammer/counter measure pods were added to AJ in 80s, along with RB75 (Maverick) capability. Though might be wrong on the jammer pod. I vaguely recall it is possible to disable TERNAV with an input to computer, but don't quote me on that.

 

Overall, AJ and AJS really are very, very similar.

JA37 is whole another beast, later JA37D or Di more so with AMRAAM capability even. But JA cockpit looks very different from AJ one. But JA doesn't have AJ's ground attack capabilities either.

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40 minutes ago, WinterH said:

I vaguely recall it is possible to disable TERNAV with an input to computer, but don't quote me on that.

Yeah you just need to input some TAKT/IN code I can't remember off the top of my head.

 

I think the ideal step to reproduce an AJ would be to introduce an option in the mission editor that disables TERNAV, rather than going through a computer code. That's not really all the story either because iirc the cartridge system is also part of the AJS upgrade (and in fact, TERNAV is stored on the cartridge rather than on the plane), but it would be close enough imo.

 

edit: also, the JA retrains some ground attack capability, hence the A. I'm fairly certain it could still employ unguided rockets.


Edited by TLTeo
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On 2/8/2021 at 2:40 PM, WinterH said:

Like Northstar said above, differences between AJ and AJS are relatively little: TERNAV, BK 90 capability, RB 15F capability, I think also the RB 74 (AIM-9L equivalent). Not entirely sure, but I think jammer/counter measure pods were added to AJ in 80s, along with RB75 (Maverick) capability. Though might be wrong on the jammer pod. I vaguely recall it is possible to disable TERNAV with an input to computer, but don't quote me on that.

 

Overall, AJ and AJS really are very, very similar.

JA37 is whole another beast, later JA37D or Di more so with AMRAAM capability even. But JA cockpit looks very different from AJ one. But JA doesn't have AJ's ground attack capabilities either.

There is a thread about turning the AJS 37 into an AJ 37 here:

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
 
And i really did not see this happen.
Or better said: i really did not see this happen to the Viggen... head over to the changelogs again and go through them from oldest to newest and not check for the AJS-37 only but also for the F-14. You'll clearly see the F-14 roughly gets, in terms of substantial progress, in a month what the Viggen got over the course of the last year. Roughly, i didn't weight factors and put up an Excel sheet for that...
 
In the meantime people in here are literally begging for month to get the damn lights fixed (and indeed after half a year they managed to "fix" the taxi light... well, kind of...) or to finally have that EP-13 controls implemented (thread from 2018! Some dev was kind enough to add an [ART] tag here tho, thanks a lot for showing attention!). Just some other remarkable examples of many telling what known issues have not been fixed for years and how far away we are from "complete product": Damage/flight model still is a joke, Lysbomb still broken since release and pretty much unusable, roll center still not clickable in a FOUR YEAR OLD PLANE that was meant to be finished last year (!) and please don't get me started over the horrible control mapping options in the Viggen which did not see any work for... well... ages (compare to the F-14 here again, you'd be surprised what HB is capable of if they WANT TO). Like said, just some remarkable examples picked, go through the bugs section for lots more and investigate if you like.
 
Again, hold all this against the promise that was made in the first post in this thread and also against the fact how much work is done and the overall difference in level of quality on the F-14 instead at the same time and then come in again and tell the Viggen is not (pretty much) abandoned.
 
One might say now, the F-14 will be finished soon (strange, looking at how the F-14 is out for what? Two years and the Viggen for four years?) and then the Viggen will see some love... but on the horizon i see an A-6 which will need a lot of attention too while the F-14 will still need after-release work and fixes... guess who will be the ugly kid living in the backyard shed? Maybe, if we are lucky, some dev will peek in and give some speech about how the Viggen will never be let down and be finished eventually and how great the community is and thanks for the fish... and then leave again.
 
Remind me in a year, seriously. If you read that in 2022 or later please quote me in this thread and we'll see where we went. My guess is: not that far with the Viggen. Probably a "release candidate" with most obvious things done half-assed so it can officially be put aside, but nothing more when looking under the hood. Put some duct tape on it and pretend it's fixed.
 
I'd love to be wrong here but i don't believe it after having bought the Viggen back then on day 2 and having groundhog day every time i come back to her and bump into shit i remember well from a year ago or two... or even four.
 
Well said. I have also given up hope but still hope your prophesy will be proven wrong. We'll be here in a year and see if the viggen still remains the oldest early access module in DCS.

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I'll digress from replying in length as the proof is (as always) in the pudding. We've been quiet on the Viggen because we're simply about to turn the corner on "finishing" it.
The Viggen will leave EA in March with several new features and final elements added - several of which have been longstanding issues. In fact - we've prioritized leaving EA on the F-14 for the Viggen.

 

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Just now, Cobra847 said:

.. We've been quiet on the Viggen because we're simply about to turn the corner on "finishing" it.
The Viggen will leave EA in March with several new features and final elements added - several of which have been longstanding issues...

 

Great News, hope the Tomcat crowd doesn't alarm too much 🙂

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13 minutes ago, Cobra847 said:

I'll digress from replying in length as the proof is (as always) in the pudding. We've been quiet on the Viggen because we're simply about to turn the corner on "finishing" it.
The Viggen will leave EA in March with several new features and final elements added - several of which have been longstanding issues. In fact - we've prioritized leaving EA on the F-14 for the Viggen.

 

Awesome stuff!

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Modules I own: F-14A/B, Mi-24P, AV-8B N/A, AJS 37, F-5E-3, MiG-21bis, F-16CM, F/A-18C, Supercarrier, Mi-8MTV2, UH-1H, Mirage 2000C, FC3, MiG-15bis, Ka-50, A-10C (+ A-10C II), P-47D, P-51D, C-101, Yak-52, WWII Assets, CA, NS430, Hawk.

Terrains I own: South Atlantic, Syria, The Channel, SoH/PG, Marianas.

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Peripherals: VKB Gunfighter Mk.II w. MCG Pro, MFG Crosswind V3 Graphite, Logitech Extreme 3D Pro.

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11 hours ago, Saab87 said:

Does that mean the new sound and PBR textures will be included in the March patch?

And afterburner effect, landing light, left wing position lights, anticollision light clipping, missing illumination of cockpit gauges and radio channel selectors... hopefully they've been saving all these fixes for the big push out of EA.


Edited by Machalot
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8 hours ago, Machalot said:

And afterburner effect, landing light, left wing position lights, anticollision light clipping, missing illumination of cockpit gauges and radio channel selectors... hopefully they've been saving all these fixes for the big push out of EA.

 

I hope so too, as there are still a lot of issues left to fix for this module! So many issues in fact, that I can't really see them all being fixed this month. :noexpression:

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Yeah I really do hope all of these bigger issues get fixed and the module finally leaves EA with all its promised features. Would be the best case for everyone and allow them to fully focus on the Tomcat. I have quite frankly stopped flying the Viggen since 2.5.6 released as there were too many new issues. 


Edited by Skysurfer
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5 years is probably the oldest Early Access in DCS?

I appreciate the heatblur work, many systems are made very well, the more annoying are all these small bugs. 

Lacking some  3d models, knobs, switches animation, lighting, missing animations toe brakes, trims,  and various minor bugs in systems. 

Cockpit model, and texture quality look outdated, especially compared to the F-14 

I bought the F-14 and I like it very much, but Viggen is more important to me and I wish it was full made and 100% compliant with the flight manual. 

HB did a lot of additional work that is not available in other modules, such as generated missions from reconnaissance cardridge data , frequencies of airports in radio presets, usefull additional data in kreeboard, elint file, custom data cardridge, shared data from F10 cardridge.

If there was such a need, I could pay extra for it. 

Maybe HB would make a refreshed version with an additional, old AJ like F-14A/B or with a new module JA 🙂

 

 

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4 hours ago, gcze said:

5 years is probably the oldest Early Access in DCS?

I appreciate the heatblur work, many systems are made very well, the more annoying are all these small bugs. 

Lacking some  3d models, knobs, switches animation, lighting, missing animations toe brakes, trims,  and various minor bugs in systems. 

Cockpit model, and texture quality look outdated, especially compared to the F-14 

I bought the F-14 and I like it very much, but Viggen is more important to me and I wish it was full made and 100% compliant with the flight manual. 

HB did a lot of additional work that is not available in other modules, such as generated missions from reconnaissance cardridge data , frequencies of airports in radio presets, usefull additional data in kreeboard, elint file, custom data cardridge, shared data from F10 cardridge.

If there was such a need, I could pay extra for it. 

Maybe HB would make a refreshed version with an additional, old AJ like F-14A/B or with a new module JA 🙂

 

 

 + 100%

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To be picky, the Viggen was released in early 2017 so we've just entered the 4th year. I agree it's a very long time, but I do prefer this method to RB's way of arbitrarily declaring incomplete products to be out of EA, leaving key features as "future implementation" (whatever that means). It's good to know that they're doing the final push though, hopefully the last issues will be sorted out soon.

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@TLTeo 100+

Yeah its a very long time now and the Viggen has a really big role in our Squadron. If we made fast Strike Missions with heavy guarded Targets (SA-10, SA-19, SA-15) we even choose the Viggen for this.
So we have round about 20 People which are fly the Viggen very often. But within the last months the Viggen wasn´t seen that much in the skies of our Servers.

I really would enjoy to have my old, very capable and damn fast ground pounder back. It was even funny to overtake some F-18s at 45k ft with nearly mach 2.0 and full armed with RB-75s, then take a break down with maximum throttle to at least 30ft agl and the taking out some SA-10 positions, with the RB-75...

Thats exactly why i like this plane so much. Its old, its low tech, but its fast as hell and beats down every single SAM. 😄 

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1 hour ago, RasendeWildsau said:

@TLTeo 100+
Thats exactly why i like this plane so much. Its old, its low tech, but its fast as hell and beats down every single SAM. 😄 

 

Well, any plane can take out a single SA-10 or 15 by just flying low enough. I want to see you do that with heavy AAA, IR short range systems and manpads around the area. 😉 

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