22.03.2024 - MiG-29A Announcement | Afghanistan Development Report | Spring Sale Final Hours

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22 March 2024

 

Dear Fighter Pilots, Partners and Friends, 

It is with great excitement that we officially announce DCS: MiG-29A Fulcrum. This remarkable, Soviet Union-era fighter will be a full-fidelity module based on a photogrammetry cockpit of the exported variant supplied to the Warsaw Pact countries. The MiG-29A will be by far the most authentic and accurate simulation of this iconic aircraft for the PC. 

DCS: Afghanistan map by Eagle Dynamics is progressing at full throttle with significant milestones achieved since the project’s inception. The progress report below provides a good overview along with post-early access release plans.

The DCS Spring Sale 2024 is in its final hours and you can still benefit from the amazing deals, until the 24th of March at 15:00 GMT. Please enjoy this opportunity to upgrade your collection of aircraft, terrains, tech packs and campaigns with up to -50% savings.

Thank you for your passion and support.

Yours sincerely, 

Eagle Dynamics

 

MiG-29A Fulcrum

Announcement

Our MiG-29A, NATO codename Fulcrum, will be the export modification of the “A” version that was supplied to Warsaw Pact countries. The MiG-29A was designed to counter all types of aerial targets with radar- and infrared-guided R-27, R-73, and R-60 air-to-air missiles and its single-barreled 30mm cannon with 150 rounds of ammunition. The MiG-29A also has limited visual ground attack capability with 50 to 500 kg bombs, cluster bombs, and unguided S-5, S-8 and S-24 rockets.

The MiG-29A can operate day or night and in all weather conditions. Its radar is capable of look-down / shoot-down in a heavy electronic countermeasure environment. The weapons control system consists of two complexes: the Fire Control Radar (FCR) and the Optical-Electronic Targeting Navigation System (OETNS). The OETNS includes an optical-electronic sighting system (OESS), a navigation system, a weapon control system, a unified display system, and multifunctional control panels. The OEPS includes an optical location station OLS that consists of an Infrared Search and Track System (IRST), a Laser Range Finder (LRF), and a Helmet-Mounted Sight (HMS) designation system.

The MiG-29 is equipped with the SPO-15 “Beryoza” Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) defence system that is designed to warn of radar-directed weapon attacks. To protect against infrared-guided weapons, the MiG-29A features flare dispensers.

The navigation system consists of on-board navigation equipment, a vertical and heading information complex, and an airborne signal system as part of the Optical-Electronic Targeting Navigation System (OETNS).

Key features of the DCS module: MiG-29A Fulcrum

At Early Access Release: 

• Fully interactive and highly detailed cockpit that is based on 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry.
• Highly detailed and accurately reproduced external model.
• Highly detailed pilot model.
• In-depth study of aircraft systems and equipment.
• Detailed model of the navigation system with the gyro platform reference system, air data computer, and navigation equipment.
• Defensive equipment to include the SPO-15LM “Beryoza” and Flare dispenser system.
• Fire Control Radar with authentic modes for aerial targets.
• OETNS with modes for air and ground targets.

At Final Release: 

• Addition of Identify Friend or Foe interrogation system.
• Addition of Ground Control Intercept (GCI) command system.

 

 

Afghanistan 

Development Report

The development of the DCS: Afghanistan Map is progressing on schedule with significant milestones achieved. We are committed to delivering a highly immersive and authentic representation of Afghanistan for virtual pilots to explore and engage in combat operations. Continued collaboration, testing, and refinement will ensure the map’s successful completion and release to our DCS community.

Development Progress

We have made substantial progress in recreating the diverse landscape of Afghanistan. This includes the rugged mountain ranges of the Hindu Kush, the vast deserts of the Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut, and the fertile valleys and river basins. Efforts have been dedicated to accurately portraying the unique cultural and urban features of Afghanistan. This involves recreating cities like Kandahar and Herat, with special attention to landmarks, infrastructure, and architectural styles like the blue mosque of Herat. Aerial imagery has been utilised to enhance the realism and accuracy of the map. High-resolution satellite imagery is being integrated to provide authentic terrain textures and details.

The diverse terrain and complex topography of Afghanistan has presented technical challenges due to the large mountainous ranges. Optimization efforts are ongoing to maintain performance without compromising on visual fidelity, particularly in densely populated urban areas and detailed terrain features. The map is designed to look equally as good from low to high altitude.

Future Plans

In the above screenshot, you can see the area of DCS: Afghanistan that will be available in Early Access. The airfields that will be available at launch include Kandahar, Herat, Bost, Camp Bastion, Chaghcharan, Dwyer, Farah, Maymana Zahiraddin Faryabi, Qala i Naw, Shindand, Tirinkot, and Zaranj. The focus will be on completing the detailing of terrain features, including rivers, roads, vegetation, rocks, small stones, ground clutter and geological formations to enhance immersion and realism. Extensive testing and optimization will be conducted to ensure optimal performance and compatibility with a wide range of hardware configurations. Please stay tuned for the pre-order coming soon!

 

Spring Sale

Final Hours

The DCS Spring Sale 2024 is your chance to grab massive 50% savings across almost our entire range of aircraft, terrains, tech packs, campaigns and more! Please make sure that you do not miss out on this opportunity and remember the DCS Spring Sale 2024 runs until the 24th of March, 2024 at 15:00 GMT.  

Thank you again for your passion and support, 

Yours sincerely,

 

[Beirut]

I'll fly Air Afghanistan. Sounds good. 

[joker62]

8 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

It is with great excitement that

and it's with great pleasure that I read this newsletter.

just a couple of questions

About the Mig-29A. Nothing is mentioned about the flight model. Are you forgetting this or are you planning to say something later?

About Afghanistan Map.

Quote

In the above screenshot, you can see the area of DCS: Afghanistan that will be available in Early Access

Does this mean there could be an expansion or completion of certain areas and airports not available at EA?

Thanks for your work.

 

[Jetguy06]

3 minutes ago, joker62 said:

About Afghanistan Map.

Does this mean there could be an expansion or completion of certain areas and airports not available at EA?

Thanks for your work.

 

I'd like to know as well. I'm honestly disappointed that Bagram isn't included in the initial map. I was really looking forward to flying out of there.

[Guille H. Mono]

Regarding Afghanistan Terrain, What are the plans for the other half of the country?

[SteelPig]

I've noticed that Afghanistan Map will be rather small in EA release, roughly half of the PG Map. Is that cause uncertainties regarding new tech used? 

[Silver_Dragon]

12 minutes ago, joker62 said:

and it's with great pleasure that I read this newsletter.

just a couple of questions

About the Mig-29A. Nothing is mentioned about the flight model. Are you forgetting this or are you planning to say something later?

About Afghanistan Map.

Does this mean there could be an expansion or completion of certain areas and airports not available at EA?

Thanks for your work.

 

Fly Model on thr Mig-29A has PFM.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

Didn't the 9.12A have a chaff dispenser? The newsletter only mentions flares... 

[Mike Force Team]

Mike Force Team is very happy to read the update on the Afghanistan Map.  I understand that the Afghan Map will be a smaller size while in the early-release phase.  Will ED later update the Afghan Map that shows the entire map of the country?  To allow naval assets like the aircraft carriers to participate, can the Afghan map be extended through Pakistan so that it goes to the Arabian Sea?  

Mike Force Team

[BIGNEWY]

 

20 minutes ago, Guille H. Mono said:

Regarding Afghanistan Terrain, What are the plans for the other half of the country?

It will be all of Afghanistan, the newsletter just goes into more detail about the portion for early access.

[ThorBrasil]

28 minutes ago, joker62 said:

and it's with great pleasure that I read this newsletter.

just a couple of questions

About the Mig-29A. Nothing is mentioned about the flight model. Are you forgetting this or are you planning to say something later?

About Afghanistan Map.

Does this mean there could be an expansion or completion of certain areas and airports not available at EA?

Thanks for your work.

 

If I'm not mistaken, they said on Discord that the flight model will be the same as the MiG-29A FC3 model.

Edited March 22 by ThorBrasil

[joker62]

Just now, BIGNEWY said:

It will be all of Afghanistan, the newsletter just goes into more detail about the portion for early access.

AWESOME thank you!

[lmp]

Thank you very much for the newsletter. One nitpick though - the insignia on the wings of that Polish MiG shouldn't be mirrored.

[MAXsenna]

Wooo! Thank you ED! Yet another great newsletter! ALL of Afghanistan, music in my ears! And preorder soon! What about preorder of the MiG-29? CGI will be implemented. Will this be available for other modules? 

Wish for next newsletter, progress report on the upcoming revamped ATC. 

Cheers! 

[statrekmike]

At the risk of sounding overly critical. Is there any long term plan to expand out to Bagram? At the moment, the map doesn't really offer much in regards to GWOT era aviation and since ED has put so much effort into airplanes like the Hornet and F-16, it seems odd not to give at least one of them a viable staging area. This is especially the case when you consider the historic weight that Afghanistan has when it comes to modern combat aviation.

  Without a viable spot for a carrier or Bagram airbase. There isn't really any room for even semi-authentic GWOT combat flights in anything but perhaps helicopters. It is going to be tough not to think about that when it comes time to pre-order.

[Gary]

4 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Wish for next newsletter, progress report on the upcoming revamped ATC. 

Cheers! 

I'd love to see this too - please.

[NineLine]

52 minutes ago, statrekmike said:

At the risk of sounding overly critical. Is there any long term plan to expand out to Bagram? At the moment, the map doesn't really offer much in regards to GWOT era aviation and since ED has put so much effort into airplanes like the Hornet and F-16, it seems odd not to give at least one of them a viable staging area. This is especially the case when you consider the historic weight that Afghanistan has when it comes to modern combat aviation.

  Without a viable spot for a carrier or Bagram airbase. There isn't really any room for even semi-authentic GWOT combat flights in anything but perhaps helicopters. It is going to be tough not to think about that when it comes time to pre-order.

The map will be expanded in the future. This is the initial phase for Early Access. Thanks. 

[Art-J]

@statrekmike Read BN's reposnse a couple of posts above yours. The rest of the country will follow later.

EDIT: Sniped by NL  

Edited March 22 by Art-J

[SlipHavoc]

2 hours ago, SteelPig said:

I've noticed that Afghanistan Map will be rather small in EA release, roughly half of the PG Map. Is that cause uncertainties regarding new tech used? 

Small?  The yellow area shown in the Afghanistan Map screenshot is about 300 nmi by 400 nmi.  That's almost exactly the same as the high-detail area in the Persian Gulf map, and the high-detail area of the Syria map is "only" about 420 nmi by 360 nmi, and a good portion of both of those is ocean.  The high-detail area in the Caucasus map is smaller than that, and also about half ocean.

Edited March 22 by SlipHavoc
changed red to yellow

[SteelPig]

10 minutes ago, SlipHavoc said:

Small?  The red area shown in the Afghanistan Map screenshot is about 300 nmi by 400 nmi.  That's almost exactly the same as the high-detail area in the Persian Gulf map, and the high-detail area of the Syria map is "only" about 420 nmi by 360 nmi, and a good portion of both of those is ocean.  The high-detail area in the Caucasus map is smaller than that, and also about half ocean.

All I see is a yellow box, and this is roughly half of the size of PG. 

[Silver_Dragon]

2 minutes ago, SteelPig said:

All I see is a yellow box, and this is roughly half of the size of PG. 

Remember many zones of persian gulf (south and east), has low detail or no modeled.

[MAXsenna]

All I see is a yellow box, and this is roughly half of the size of PG. 

Well, you did get your answer above, right? Though, if I was ED I would've made two boxes, one for EA, and a complete for release.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[SlipHavoc]

7 minutes ago, SteelPig said:

All I see is a yellow box, and this is roughly half of the size of PG. 

Sorry, the yellow box.  And that covers basically everything of interest in the PG map: all the airfields, and all the detailed terrain.  And people are talking about only being able to fly helicopters on the Afghanistan map... I bet they don't only fly helicopters on PG.

[jeventy26]

Does this mean Iraq is not before Afghanistan?  

[Northstar98]

On 3/22/2024 at 5:20 PM, SlipHavoc said:

Small?  The red area shown in the Afghanistan Map screenshot is about 300 nmi by 400 nmi.  That's almost exactly the same as the high-detail area in the Persian Gulf map, and the high-detail area of the Syria map is "only" about 420 nmi by 360 nmi, and a good portion of both of those is ocean.  The high-detail area in the Caucasus map is smaller than that, and also about half ocean.

You're comparing apples with oranges here - on the one hand you're comparing the total map area (at least at release) with just the area of the highly detailed area.

On 3/22/2024 at 5:44 PM, SlipHavoc said:

And that covers basically everything of interest in the PG map: all the airfields, and all the detailed terrain.

Everything of interest? Do you mean all of the usable areas? Because there's plenty of areas of interest on the PG map that aren't usable, despite them fitting within the total area of the map. Personally, it should've kept the Straits of Hormuz name it had initially, because for a Persain Gulf theatre, it's rather lacking.

On 3/22/2024 at 5:44 PM, SlipHavoc said:

And people are talking about only being able to fly helicopters on the Afghanistan map... I bet they don't only fly helicopters on PG.

That remark was referring to the historical context of the areas we're getting (GWOT) - not the size of the map (or rather, not directly).

So no, they wouldn't, because the historical context of Afghanistan doesn't apply to the PG map.

Edited March 25 by Northstar98
grammar