The most numerous aircraft missing from DCS

[Rudel_chw]

18 minutes ago, WinterH said:

Belsimtek did them to be fair. Thus, I believe ED being uninterested in making Cold War aircraft is a very much accurate observation, sadly.

Belsimtek was kind of a fictional third party, formed by ED on 2013 with part of their manpower to prototype how the third party concept would work within the DCS environment. It was dissolved on 2018, after several true third parties were formed, its personnel returning to ED. Other iconic cold war aircraft that they did were the F-5E, the UH-1 and the Mi-8.

[WinterH]

1 minute ago, Rudel_chw said:

Belsimtek was kind of a fictional third party, formed by ED on 2013 with part of their manpower to prototype how the third party concept would work within the DCS environment. It was dissolved on 2018, after several true third parties were formed, its personnel returning to ED. Other iconic cold war aircraft that they did were the F-5E, the UH-1 and the Mi-8.

Belsimtek still had their own module development plans aside from ED, and was developing them until they were basically gobbled up by ED in 2018, postponing, and at some cases effectively cancelling projects like F-4E (thankfully Heatblur eventually decided to pick it up themselves from scratch), Mi-24P (which we eventually got last year thankfully), and AH-1, their workforce at the time were used for helping with (at the time) rather slowly progressing developing of modern aircraft like F/A-18C and then F-16C. Belsimtek also chose their modules in nice pairings, even with a 3rd party module in case of F-5/MiG-21 pairing.

[Avimimus]

Updated.

[Avimimus]

Updated Mig-17 and added TS-11 Iskra

[Silver_Dragon]

39 minutes ago, Avimimus said:

Updated Mig-17 and added TS-11 Iskra

A-1, A-6, Bo-105, CH-47, F-100, G.91, Kfir, J-8, Mig-17, Mig-23, OH-58, Tornado IDS has no "planned", has Modules on actively develop by ED or 3rd Parties, you can extract them from the list.

Tu-16 has no present as IA on DCS World, has only the Xian H-6 Chinesse Bomber.

Edited June 2, 2023 by Silver_Dragon

[Avimimus]

47 minutes ago, Silver_Dragon said:

A-1, A-6, Bo-105, CH-47, F-100, G.91, Kfir, J-8, Mig-17, Mig-23, OH-58, Tornado IDS has no "planned", has Modules on actively develop by ED or 3rd Parties, you can extract them from the list.

Tu-16 has no present as IA on DCS World, has only the Xian H-6 Chinesse Bomber.

 

So you are saying that I should change them from 'planned' to 'in active development' in this list?

By planned I simply meant that they are in development for a future version, but not flyable in the current version.

[Silver_Dragon]

"planned" can be misleading, that it is awaiting development and "not active". Putting in the name of the post as "the most numerous aircrafts missing on DCS World" is also confusing, since many have not only been officially presented, but many are already shown flying, even though they are in development. It is better to put them "in development", than "planned".

On the "unofficial Roadmap" I put "in develop" all official modules put by ED official on your newsletters, and "planned" other modules with require official presentations.

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by Silver_Dragon

[MAXsenna]

So you are saying that I should change them from 'planned' to 'in active development' in this list?
By planned I simply meant that they are in development for a future version, but not flyable in the current version.

I agree with SD on this one.
It would be better to mark the ones we know are in active development and have been confirmed by ED as in "development".
Will make the list more sexy too. IMHO.

I do appreciate the list though.

Cheers!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[Harlikwin]

Sloowly, ever so slowly DCS is moving toward some sort of semi cohesive 70's planeset...

[Avimimus]

@Silver_Dragon @MAXsenna - Done. I almost put 'on develop' out of tradition in tribute to Silver Dragon. But I decided to keep it simpler. Anyway, I tried to incorporate your advice and add the developers. The gaps are currently the C-130 and La-7 (as they didn't really fit with the existing categories). I should add those and the PC-9 eventually.

Anyway, I made this list mainly for myself to see how many aircraft could be developed before getting around to the ones I want most (e.g. Su-17), and decided to share. I don't expect it to be perfect but I do appreciate feedback.

 

18 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

Sloowly, ever so slowly DCS is moving toward some sort of semi cohesive 70's planeset...

Exactly! It is just a matter of time - if they keep developing the sim they'll have to develop a more complete planeset due to simply having built everything else already!

Of course if they get into variants (e.g. F/A-18A) that could slow things down. There is also the issue of aircraft modules not really filling in vehicle or AI aircraft assets (Hopefully map developers will step in there). I do find it a bit strange to have the exact switchology of a particular production aircraft (often down to the year or the specific airframe) - but not have anything appropriate for it to fight... 

 

[Harlikwin]

6 hours ago, Avimimus said:

@Silver_Dragon @MAXsenna - Done. I almost put 'on develop' out of tradition in tribute to Silver Dragon. But I decided to keep it simpler. Anyway, I tried to incorporate your advice and add the developers. The gaps are currently the C-130 and La-7 (as they didn't really fit with the existing categories). I should add those and the PC-9 eventually.

Anyway, I made this list mainly for myself to see how many aircraft could be developed before getting around to the ones I want most (e.g. Su-17), and decided to share. I don't expect it to be perfect but I do appreciate feedback.

 

Exactly! It is just a matter of time - if they keep developing the sim they'll have to develop a more complete planeset due to simply having built everything else already!

Of course if they get into variants (e.g. F/A-18A) that could slow things down. There is also the issue of aircraft modules not really filling in vehicle or AI aircraft assets (Hopefully map developers will step in there). I do find it a bit strange to have the exact switchology of a particular production aircraft (often down to the year or the specific airframe) - but not have anything appropriate for it to fight... 

 

Honestly they really need to do the teen-A's at somepoint. Using a half neutered but not really -C version for 80's stuff is just pure cringe in MP, and the "blue" guys don't really help, always whining for more "capabilities". The Muh TGP crowd is the worst of em... Sorry kiddo, learn a new trick or two. 

And ultimately your comment about no one to fight is exactly why the 70's era will literally end up being the best era in DCS. Its filled with a ton of variety of planes, some older, some newer and making the transition to "modern" stuff as we consider it, but still quirky enough for not everything. I mean you still will have 60's or even 50's era planes since they were still in use, and then the "new" hotness of the 70's planes like the Mirage F1 or mig23 etc, or even appropriately modeled things like the early F14's. But the most important reason will be that "balance" more or less existed naturally in that environment up to about the early 80's. 

 

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by Harlikwin

[Avimimus]

I agree (and the F/A-18A could include a CF-188, so easy sell to me). The 1970s should be pretty great (lots of analogue dials, a bit less switchology, unreliable missiles...) I'm really looking forward to the Mig-23, Su-17, F-8, Kfir etc.

[Vampyre]

F4U-4B/-5

OV-10 Bronco

S-3 Viking

A-3 Skywarrior

Hawk

Harrier (first gen)

Q-5 Fantan

Tu-22 Blinder

 

Helicopters- 

CH-53

NH-90

AW-101

SA-330/332/532

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by Vampyre

[GUFA]

One thing that DCS really needs to do is get many more AI assets into the game whether they be air/sea/land/civilian. I simply dont understand how ED releases a map, say Persian Gulf and they don't release any of the local assets for it. How about some King Airs, CN 235s and EADS Panther helicopters to add some UAE aircraft to the lineup. Start them of as AI then develop (some) to FF.

Another thing that grinds my gears is 'Role Balancing' between the FF modules. So we have the Chinook in development, so WHY is there no OPFOR counter being planed such as the big MIL helis. Surely a Mil 6 Hook is required "Poste Haste".

[303_Kermit]

On 9/7/2020 at 12:57 AM, Avimimus said:

 

0.42 F4D

 

 

Quite funny mistake. 

5,2 F-4 All variants  and most produced variant F-4E 1,37 so why F-4D?

Also there's a lot of inconsistency:
Meteor (Gloster?) is counted as all variants together, as F-4 - only one specific.
So ether:
3,97 meteor
5,2 F-4 

or
1,55 Meteor F.8
1,37 F-4E

otherwise whole list is just rubbish. 

Edited June 8, 2023 by 303_Kermit

[Logan54]

MiG-25(1190), Mi-6(926), Su-9(more then 1160)

Edited June 8, 2023 by Logan54

[Avimimus]

6 hours ago, 303_Kermit said:

Quite funny mistake. 

5,2 F-4 All variants  and most produced variant F-4E 1,37 so why F-4D?

Yes. Definitely. I probably got the decimal in the wrong place, then sorted the list without looking at why I was sorting.

Do feel free to suggest corrections. This list was made quickly for my own use, then I decided to share it (in case people were curious about what the biggest gaps are).  It wasn't intended to be flawless. There are undoubtedly more mistakes to be caught.

The issue around variants is quite tricky, and probably unsolvable. Assessing when changes were large enough to constitute an aircraft which can't be substituted for by another similar variant is quite complicated, and very dependent on doctrine (e.g. for some purposes an improved bomb-sight makes a major difference, for other purposes a new engine may have a marginal effect). So, it is always unclear what should be 'lumped' and what should be 'split' (with subvariants listed separately).

4 hours ago, Logan54 said:

MiG-25(1190), Mi-6(926), Su-9(more then 1160)

I checked through these. I've updated the Mi-6, but the others were pretty close (with rounding being the major source of error). I've tried to keep it to two significant digits where possible.

[draconus]

On 6/8/2023 at 11:53 AM, 303_Kermit said:

Quite funny mistake. 

5,2 F-4 All variants  and most produced variant F-4E 1,37 so why F-4D?

Mistake is yours. It's not F-4D, it's F4D and numbers are correct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F4D_Skyray

[303_Kermit]

40 minutes ago, draconus said:

Mistake is yours. It's not F-4D, it's F4D and numbers are correct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F4D_Skyray

F4D - 422planes in "The most numerous planes missing in DCS" list... I don't think it makes any sense. And if you know a history of development of F-4 Phantom II you may understand, that in fact the both construction are somehow strangely connected. 

Edited June 9, 2023 by 303_Kermit

[WinterH]

All this colorful discussion aside, I'll approach the matter from a different angle: I don't think number of aircraft produced is an overly important factor in deciding what modules shall be made for DCS. Sure it has some weight maybe, but pretty much takes a distant last after various things important for different people like fitting a period/theater/history, having good fits as enemies/allies in DCS as existing or upcoming modules, being interesting to fly, being old, new, good, bad, or even just looking good :))

For AI aircraft I can agree to a degree. But it ain't easy/cheap to make 3d models to the degree of quality ED has set for even those, and we're waiting for some updated ones for years now.