What is the point of sticking to a particular year or air force?

[ebabil]

I can understand the logic of "we can't find enough documents to implement particular features but I don't understand sticking to an air force version or a year.

For instance, if our block used cft or drag chute, or apwks,  and if you find its documents,  why not? Who cares what some AF commamders chose to use?

If we care that much, why don't we stick 2007 skins? Why are there even fictional skins? 

I simply can't understand saying it wasn't there at 2007 so we can't put it. It's already been one year since the release,  so you can implement 2008 features too

[Mr_sukebe]

I'll repost what I said elsewhere in answer to basically the same question:

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In a perfect world, I agree.

It would be brill to be able choose a specific version of an aircraft.  The key issue is where to stop?

For example, the F16 has multiple blocks, but is that where it stops?  I’m not familiar enough to comment, but do purchasing countries then further modify?

Do you eventually get to a point of a player looking for an August 2001 version of a Singaporean F16 that has been outfitted for ground attack?

 

If DCS had simplistic modelling, maybe that might be viable.  However, if that made up example required a specific new gauge or set of controls, then DCS would be trying to model it.

 

So right now, ED have taken the route of putting a stake in the ground for what appears to be a good option.  That means that ED can confirm a definitive scope and also plan the budget and expected price for a player.  We know that there’s bound to be some variances against what some players want.

 

Maybe the right question would be whether players would be willing to pay for the development costs for the variant being suggested, as that is really what it comes down to.

[Northstar98]

My best guess is to limit scope and to provide something authentic, as that's essentially the overall goal and niche of DCS (even if there are aspects where it falls over on).

[Y-Man]

If you realize how many variations of F-16's there are, then you start to understand why a company would limit itself to doing just 1 version.  There are a lot of blocks of F-16's.  A models, 1, 5, 10, 15, 20(FMS), and that's not including any sub blocks of each of those blocks.  C models, 25, 30, 32, 40, 42, 50, 52, 60(FMS), and again not including any sub blocks or the many avionics software and hardware variations.  It's taken ED this long just to do 1 block with a particular avionics software/hardware config.  So adding in all the other possible variations, is a task that would be insurmountable by a company that also does more than a single high fidelity airframe.

 

FMS=foreign military sales, aircraft not owned/operated by the USAF

[Bunny Clark]

Two reasons: realism and scope. 

 

There is no reality where mix and match features are plausible. No single feature or function of a fighter jet in the real world exists in a vacuum. F-16s in service with other nations have a wide range of different capabilities: they mount CFTs, carry different weapons, use different RWRs, use different EW suites - including internal jammers, different radars, different FLIR pods, different cockpit panels, switches, and displays, different HUDs, different HMDs. So, for realism, does ED try to make this all match? If someone wants a Viper that carries Harpoons, should that jet then also represent the specific sets of modifications in use by a nation that employs Harpoon on the F-16? Or should it be a purely fictional 2007 USAF F-16CM Blk50 that can carry Harpoon? Do we expect ED to model every possible variant in use by all 27 nations that fly the F-16? Do we just get some random subset of variations based on what the community thinks is cool and ED can find documentation for? Do we go the BMS route and just let users hodgepodge features together willy-nilly which may or may not represent a realistic aircraft in service somewhere in the world? With development progress on the Viper already well behind what many people would want, does significantly increasing the scope of the module make any sense at all?

 

ED has chosen to solve these problems by sticking to a well-defined and limited scope. It means fewer fun toys for us, but given the minefield of problems that lay outside of this scope, I can hardly blame them for that decision. 

[ebabil]

If a nation used harpoon successfully and if ed can reach its technical data and even if ed has resources to employ to implement it, then why not? Where is the harm (not the missile one) doing that? Why is that unrealistic? If a xxxx country's viper carried harpoon, then it is real right? Or they carried it to mock with the NATO? 

[Northstar98]

On 12/21/2020 at 8:17 PM, ebabil said:

If a nation used harpoon successfully and if ed can reach its technical data and even if ed has resources to employ to implement it, then why not?

Because it's not representative of the aircraft they're making.

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Where is the harm (not the missile one) doing that? Why is that unrealistic?

Because the aircraft is different. ED are modelling an F-16CM of a particular variant and from a particular time. They did this presumably so they would have what Bunny Clark said: to have a well defined scope and a clear feature set to work on.

The F-16CM's launch didn't go brilliantly, and that's putting it lightly, and people are complaining that the features our F-16CM is actually supposed to have is progressing too slowly for their liking. Adding more features that were never planned, nor are representative of the aircraft they're producing, just sounds like a way of making it worse and delaying the completion of the module.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see an F-16CM with AGM-158 and GBU-39, and everything else. I'd also like to see an older F-16CG Block 40 w. LANTIRN etc and even the F-16A Block 15. But I have to accept that those weapons and stores aren't representative of our aircraft. And I'd rather have something accurately represent what it's actually supposed to represent, rather than have a match up of different variants melded into one essentially made-up aircraft.

I think that the better option would be to develop new variants, recycling as much as possible that can do what you want.

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If a xxxx country's viper carried harpoon, then it is real right? Or they carried it to mock with the NATO? 

That xxxx country's F-16 is a different F-16 to what we've got. AFAIK (at least from this) export F-16s are the only ones to be integrated with the Harpoon. The Harpoon requires essentially a patch for the SMS system, and an interface adapter for the pylon. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Northstar98
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[Bunny Clark]

1 hour ago, ebabil said:

Why is that unrealistic? If a xxxx country's viper carried harpoon, then it is real right? Or they carried it to mock with the NATO? 

Well, let's use an example. Turkey operates F-16s with Harpoon capability. The most similar of their aircraft to what we have in DCS are the F-16C CCIP Block 50 aircraft manufactured locally by Turkish Aircraft Industries (TUSAS) under license as part of the Peace Onyx IV program. They use different engines (TEI F129 IPE), a different radar (APG-68(v)9), and are equipped with the Loral ALQ-178(V)5 Rapport III internal ECM system, which is mounted in an expanded fairing at the base of the vertical stabilizer, so the aircraft exterior also looks different. They can also carry the AGM-142 Popeye, and the SLAM-ER. 

 

So if we take the F-16 we currently have in DCS and just add a Harpoon then we have either: A USAF F-16CM carrying a weapon it was never cleared to carry and has never carried operationally, or a Turkish F-16C with the wrong engines, wrong radar, and without it's ECM system. Neither of these options are realistic. 

[BIGNEWY]

Hi, 

 

I have mentioned it  before in other posts, but we need to stick to a particular time / model so the projects scope can be maintained, we need a goal so we can complete a project. 

 

If we dont draw a line in the sand somewhere a project can snowball with feature creep. 

 

thanks

[RPY Variable]

This aircraft is so iconic, it is an export success used worldwide. So it is kind of a shame to be this strict with this particular USAF version.
For example: Chile, Greece, South Korea and Taiwan Block 52's are AGM-84 Harpoon capable. Oman and Turkey Block 50's also, as well as Egypt block 40. I'm not implying to add all the features of all the F-16's variants, please don't take this into the extreme. Just to draw the line a couple of inches to the right. I would love to have an AGM-84 Harpoon capable Viper. Even more, the lack of it was was almost a no buy for me. This one thing would add so much missions possibilities.

If we lived in a universe where it would be feasible to have a DCS pack with all the F-16 variant I wouldn't mind, but that ain't going to happen. It's not like if ED will be making another F-16 variant in the future, and if so, it wouldn't have much sense to do so just two add a couple of features and take a couple more. So if we are going to stick with this DCS F-16 for the next 15+ years, I wouldn't mind a little more flexibility. It also would be great for business .

[ebabil]

Yea, DCS is our only combat sim platform. If we can't get these goodies from it, there is no other option. And I don't think ED allows another dev to produce 201X viper variants. So it means we will never ever have enriched viper..

[Nealius]

So why hasn't this scope been applied to the whole of the DCS World? Our assets are scattered all over the place. Even if you try to formulate timeframe subsets of our assets, nothing really matches correctly. Except maybe the F-86/MiG-15 pairing. 

[Northstar98]

On 12/22/2020 at 6:19 AM, mikel.132 said:

This aircraft is so iconic, it is an export success used worldwide. So it is kind of a shame to be this strict with this particular USAF version.
For example: Chile, Greece, South Korea and Taiwan Block 52's are AGM-84 Harpoon capable. Oman and Turkey Block 50's also, as well as Egypt block 40. I'm not implying to add all the features of all the F-16's variants, please don't take this into the extreme. Just to draw the line a couple of inches to the right. I would love to have an AGM-84 Harpoon capable Viper. Even more, the lack of it was was almost a no buy for me. This one thing would add so much missions possibilities.

If we lived in a universe where it would be feasible to have a DCS pack with all the F-16 variant I wouldn't mind, but that ain't going to happen. It's not like if ED will be making another F-16 variant in the future, and if so, it wouldn't have much sense to do so just two add a couple of features and take a couple more. So if we are going to stick with this DCS F-16 for the next 15+ years, I wouldn't mind a little more flexibility.

I understand the point your making - I didn't get the F-16 variant I wanted either, but the ship has sailed and I think ED should deliver what they set out to deliver.

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It also would be great for business .

Here I'm going to disagree, adding these weapons, as wished for as they are, are outside the planned features list and people are already complaining that the work on F-16C is progressing too slowly for their liking and that the F-16C will probably never get finished.

And as has been said before, the F-16Cs operating Harpoon are specially modified to do so, and often feature different avionics, RADARs etc, we won't get any of those so we'll either have a fictional USAF variant, or a fictional export variant, that's combines features across multiple variants; something ED has no desire to do.

On 12/22/2020 at 7:58 AM, Nealius said:

So why hasn't this scope been applied to the whole of the DCS World?

I thought it was... The F/A-18C is supposed to be a USN Lot 20 aircraft centred around the mid-2000s (only thing here though is we do have some older weapons that are out of service, my guessing is that they were used as a simple stepping stone for newer weapons), and the LITENING I, which I thought was just to be an interim targeting pod until ATFLIR got developed.

Otherwise yes, I think it's important be consistent with variants where feasible.

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Our assets are scattered all over the place. Even if you try to formulate timeframe subsets of our assets, nothing really matches correctly. Except maybe the F-86/MiG-15 pairing. 

Spot on, which is why one of my personal wishlist is for ED to pick an era, I don't really care which, and then flesh that era out, with assets and maps. So far the only place this has been done is WWII, which is by far the most fleshed out era in DCS when you consider the modules, assets and maps.

When I think about it, the vast majority of assets in DCS are no newer than the early 90s (save for the BLUFOR ships in the Supercarrier module, a few Chinese ships, and something like 4 ground vehicles). No ground based air defence system is newer than 1990; and the best REDFOR are going to get in the forseeable future is an early 80s 9-12 MiG-29.

In light of that I'd argue that doing these much more modern aircraft, as great and as capable as they are, was kinda a move that led to ED shooting themselves in the foot, and it probably would've been better to do 80s variants instead, and then maybe later offer an upgrade, in the same fashion as the A-10C; they'd fit everything else way better and apart from a few things like the data cartridge, they'd probably both be feature complete by now.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Northstar98
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[ebabil]

Selecting an era for whole game is far worse than selecting an era for a plane. It should be up to players which assets to use.

[Northstar98]

On 12/22/2020 at 11:15 AM, ebabil said:

Selecting an era for whole game is far worse than selecting an era for a plane. It should be up to players which assets to use.

Absolutely agreed, that was my point about missions being up to you, as they absolutely should be.

I was just making the point that if you want to do something historically consistent your hands are tied with what you can do because DCS is kinda all over the place with nothing fleshed out.

My only other point is that I wish developers could pick an era and then concentrate on that before doing a completely different one, because otherwise we get a mess with nothing consistent with very little fitting each other (particularly if you want to make peer-to-peer missions).

But I'm all too happy for people to craft whatever mission with which ever assets they see fit, as it should be. The aircraft should be realistic, but the scenarios should be up to you (and it's not like we can really do historical missions at the moment anyway). 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Northstar98
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[CarbonFox]

I'm fine with sticking to one year and specific make of the aircraft. I just wish ED had gone with an F-16C that was sporting the APG-68 (V9) and Sniper XR pod.

[Nealius]

4 hours ago, ebabil said:

Selecting an era for whole game is far worse than selecting an era for a plane. It should be up to players which assets to use.

 

Not selecting one era for the whole game, but selecting eras for the game. Plural. Not just whilly-nilly spanning a time frame from 1943 alll the way up to the 2010s. 

[Northstar98]

On 12/22/2020 at 3:33 PM, CarbonFox said:

I'm fine with sticking to one year and specific make of the aircraft. I just wish ED had gone with an F-16C that was sporting the APG-68 (V9) and Sniper XR pod.

We should be getting Sniper XR, according to this it was deployed on the F-16C in 2006, and according to this our software tape (which is at least M4.2/M4.3) should support Sniper XR (which came with M4.1). It was on the planned features list, but has now been taken off of it again (though curiously, the JSOW is on it, which according to the link above didn't come until M5.1).

Personally if we were going to do a modern aircraft, I would've preferred a M5.1+ F-16CM Block 50 or even better M6.1 (though my preference is still for the F-16CG Block 40 c. late 80s to mid 90s).

On 12/22/2020 at 4:17 PM, Nealius said:

Not selecting one era for the whole game, but selecting eras for the game. Plural. Not just whilly-nilly spanning a time frame from 1943 alll the way up to the 2010s. 

Yeah, that's the issue here, we have a huge spread of aircraft from the mid 40 to late 2010s; but hardly anything even remotely comprehensive for any one decade, especially when you consider full-fidelity modules and assets (on both sides) and maps. It's quite literally a mile wide but an inch deep, which makes making missions with historically consistent units and keeping it peer-to-peer very difficult.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Northstar98
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