DCS F-16C Early Access, what's left, what's next.

[SlipHavoc]

Speaking for myself, I always find it quite frustrating when a long and seemingly comprehensive post like that does not contain so much as one single link to a source or other document.  I've seen too many incorrect posts here to take people at their word.  The post referenced above on the AIM-120 is a distinct contrast, with many links and even screenshots directly embedded in the post.  With that kind of data, at least we can all be talking about the same things, but if it's just someone saying they talked to some "community members" (not even specifically SMEs, although the same issue would apply), we have no way to verify anything.

[peterbrownbyu]

The reason for this "panic" will be clarified once you have the time to read the post. I'm also saddened to see my post be merged and buried into another thread which is already solved in what seems like a backhanded moderation move, presumably to make it harder for the community to find my post. I put a lot of effort into this post and think it deserves its own thread, so I would appreciate if it was unmerged back into its original thread. And if you or any other ED employee wants to discuss any of these points, I'd happy to converse with you.

Maybe it wasn't your thread before, but it is now

The hand waving and silent thread-burying is nothing new. Neither is the good old fashioned 'no documentation' argument. I consider that argument a cop out more often than not, unless they're prepared to argue that there is no publicly available documentation or direct SME confirmation for external IR lights, steerpoint classification, DTS, or an accurate data cartridge (not to mention the textures and damage model). For those systems that don't have as much public documentation, I'm in favor of a little extrapolation as long as it doesn't damage immersion. 8/10 realism is still way better than 2/10. The current alq-184 implementation (and all jammers in the game, for that matter) is a prime example of letting perfect be the enemy of good. But I digress

Another hot take, they could ignore every one of those issues you listed in favor of an immersive EW environment and improved IADS AI, and the viper would be twice as fun overnight. Cockpits and systems and planes are only as much fun as the scenarios they're used in. Keep your eyes on the prize guys and gals

Great writeup and hopefully we see these issues addressed. Until then, there's always that other Viper sim with world war 1 era graphics (but at least the jammers work)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BIGNEWY]

A reminder to all, please keep to our forum rules, posts that break the rules will be moderated. Rules can be found at the top of the forum. 

thank you 

[Biwi]

12 hours ago, WHOGX5 said:

In order not to drag this out too much, as this post is quite lengthy as it is, I'll get straight to the point. The DCS F-16C is not ready for full release. This thread is in response to a post by BIGNEWY saying that the Sniper XR is the last major item before the DCS F-16C is ready for full release. Below I've listed some of the reasons why the DCS F-16C is not ready to leave early access, even with the Sniper XR added, by describing the current state of this product. This post was written with the help and contributions of several community members, who I want to send my deepest thanks to; you know who you are. Lastly, this is not an all-inclusive list, but rather a summary of the major aspects which are currently missing or unfinished in the DCS F-16C (there are A LOT of smaller items remaining in addition to this, including quite a few bugs). It's quite lengthy though, so go get a bag of crisps, crack a beer, and lets get on with it:

- Damage model: Practically nonexistent, with no real damage being simulated except fuel leaks and your wings getting blown off. I put this at the top of the list because I cannot see how you can have a digital combat simulator without combat damage being simulated.

- Maintainance / Pilot Fault List: Practically nonexistent, still only shows a single message which is the "FLCS BIT FAIL" if the FLCS bit fails. This is the entire error reporting system of the F-16C and is therefore an essential system in order to keep tabs on the status of your aircraft, even when you haven't taken any combat damage. For example, if your L16 time isn't set, you should get a "LK16 TIME REQD" message to tell this to the pilot. At the moment, you will eventually notice that something is wrong with datalink, and then you have to figure out what the issue is on your own through troubleshooting, rather than just checking the PFLD and immediately knowing what's wrong. This is just one example of many where proper MFL and PFL messages would be incredibly helpful, and the reason why those systems exist in real life.

- Steerpoints: Exists in a very limited state. Only supports regular steerpoints, markpoints, and a partial implementation of D/L steerpoints. Many types of steerpoints are completely missing, like pre-planned threats, geographical lines, SEAD steerpoints, a plethora of LINK 16 steerpoint types, etc. We're also still missing different CRUS TOS functionality, like having DES TOS reference HACK time instead of SYSTEM time, and also the ability to blank DES TOS times and have the CRUS TOS required velocity be calculated for a steerpoint without a DES TOS, based on the DES TOS of a later steerpoint; an incredibly useful feature for improved timekeeping.

- Digital Terrain System: Completely missing including its subsystems like PGCAS, TRN, OW/C, DBTC & PR. An essential system from the earliest tapes of the F-16CM-50 where you load the terrain data of a 480x480 nautical mile area wherein the DTS has features both to avoid CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) which was the biggest cause of death in the USAF at the time, to providing various subsystems to facilitate safer low altitude operations including a kind of digital "terrain following radar" mode, to decreasing INS drift by comparing your radar altitude to the know terrain elevation in different parts of the map, and also to allow more accurate targeting without using active sensors. This is for example what makes high angle JHMCS markpoints accurate, as it can reference the known ground elevation of the location you're looking at. Without the Digital Terrain System implementation, the DCS F-16C has much higher risk of CFIT, much higher risk of flying into terrain/obstacles during low altitude operations, much lower targeting accuracy (especially at longer ranges and in uneven terrain), and higher INS drift over non-flat terrain than a real F-16C of our block and tape would.

- ECM: Barely implemented. Currently only barrage jamming is kinda working, and even that is extremely ineffective most of the time. MODE 1 and MODE 2 self-protection jamming is wholly inefficient under all circumstances, as the ALQ-184 currently is seemingly incapable of breaking SAM radar locks. There's also no ability to choose which bands to jam, making it impossible to jam certain surface threats without jamming your own radar for A-A sanitizing. Neither MODE 1, 2 or 3 should inhibit your radar, but rather MODE 2 & 3 should reduce the effectiveness of your radar while actively jamming in the same band as your radar, and not impact the radar at all while jamming in other bands. The AN/ALQ-184 in DCS also has 360 degree coverage, whereas it would have roughly 120 degree cones fore and aft of the pod in real life, with diminshing effect closer to the outer limits of those cones. MODE 1 should only use the aft emitter to jam threats, while MODE 2 & 3 use both fore and aft emitters. It should also have high/low settings to angle the jamming emitters downwards for surface threats and upwards for higher altitude A-A threats, as well as cooperative jamming where multiple F-16C's in close formation boost jamming effectiveness. As an aside to this, chaff is completely useless against certain threats. You can drop 120 chaff in 1 second and you still will never be able to spoof an SA-5. This in combination with an inability to break locks during jamming, means that your only real defense once an SA-5 is locked on to you is to dive towards the ground and break line-of-sight. Other emitters have similar issues.

- SEAD: This point encompasses a lot of different systems which are necessary for efficient SEAD, which after all is the primary role of the F-16CM-50 in the USAF. As mentioned, the AN/ALQ-184 is completely useless in self-protect mode (MODE 1 and MODE 2) as it cannot break locks, decreasing survivability, as using barrage mode will constantly transmit your location, and also disable all your active sensors as well as the HTS pod. Most importantly, the AN/ALQ-184 is unable to break locks, meaning it can only be used pre-emptively (not very good when employing wild weasel tactics). The AGM-88 has modes like TI/GS/DL which have not been implemented, limiting the AGM-88's effectiveness in the SEAD role. Also, many different AGM-88 HOTAS commands are completely missing. HAD priority targets are missing. The LINK 16 Special Channel net has a very rudimentary implementation. The ability to target/blank pre-planned threats is completely missing. The ability to store detected emitters as SEAD STPTs is completely absent, greatly decreasing your ability to engage SEAD threats as they will just disappear after going inactive for a while, and the only way currently to target these emitters once they go inactive is if you have a human wingman, because then you can send that emitter to him via L16, and then he can send it back to you. If you've got no human wingman, you're out of luck. The AN/ALR-56M Radar Warning Receiver is still incorrectly implemented, making it useless for any kind of high threat environment (the kinds of environments where SEAD is required) as it conveys no relative lethality of detected emitters but rather displays all threats as equally lethal, being especially useless for pop-up threats and active missile avoidance as you can never tell how much of a threat a detected emitter poses to you. In real life, the late cold war saw multiple datalink capable SAMs which don't give RWR warnings at all, increasing the need for the kind of relative lethality displaying of threats that the AN/ALR-56M does in real life, especially for SEAD operations. Currently, we don't have any datalink capable SAMs in DCS, but if it's ever added, the F-16CM-50 will be completely unable to operate in that kind of environment, unlike its real world counterpart. The AN/ALR-56M should also use data provided by the INS to update detected threat locations during maneuvering when emitters may end up in RWR blind spots, and even flip the symbology when rolling the aircraft upside down, so emitters are displayed in the correct direction under all circumstances. Having a functioning RWR is maybe the most important aspect of being combat effective in the SEAD role, and currently we don't have that.

- AN/ALR-56M: Even though I mentioned the issues with the RWR just above, I'm still making this a separate point just to emphasize the importance of this system. If I could only pick a single thing that'd be fixed in the DCS F-16C, it'd be the AN/ALR-56M. Right now, the DCS F-16C is completely handicapped, not merely in SEAD, but in all combat situations, because the current RWR implementation is not merely incorrect, but it makes the RWR close to useless. The AN/ALR-56M was chosen as the new standard RWR for the USAF because of it's incredible capabilities and the added situational awareness it provided to its pilots, and this is also why it was rolled out so early on the F-16CJ/CM-50, the USAF's primary SEAD platform. However, in DCS, the AN/ALR-56M is the single least capable RWR in the whole modern US fighters lineup, and in many ways it's even inferior to the old 1980's SPO-15 mounted on the MiG-29A. If you get an AMRAAM fired at you, the SPO-15 (and the real life AN/ALR-56M) will indicate how quickly the missile is approaching and how close it is to impacting you, allowing you to plan your missile defence and perform last ditch maneuvers. With the DCS AN/ALR-56M, you have no indication of how far away a missile is except when it impacts your aircraft. This really, really, really, really needs to be fixed, especially for a SEAD platform like the F-16CM-50.

- Air-to-air: This is also a collection of different things. AIM-120 is still missing many features, including target size options and not least the HPRF mode, greatly reducing the maximum effective range of the AIM-120 and making the bread and butter SKATE tactic non-viable against most threats, as you need to guide it all the way to MPRF mode, a.k.a "pitbull". The Uplook Search (ULS) radar mode is still completely missing. STT mode is extremely ineffective at long range, and even against a high aspect non-maneuvering target which is detectable in RWS/VSR, it will not be able to produce a stable lock. A-A, MRM and NAV master mode are also unable to have different CRM modes selected and retained. COAST mode is still missing, meaning that notching will immediately break your radar lock and the aircraft will not even attempt to reacquire the target. On the topic of notching, the current radar implementation is EXTREMELY suceptible to notching. You can be 5 nautical miles away from an enormous KC-135 in look-up conditions against a clear blue sky, and it will still notch you as it reaches 90 degrees aspect, even if it's only for a split second, which should be physically impossible with a modern radar like the AN/APG-68V(5). Even notching against ground clutter should be extremely ineffective unless the target is very close to the ground or has a big chaff cloud next to it. Auto range scaling in SAM/DTT modes still automatically decreases the range scale, which it shouldn't, making those modes useless for situational awareness as you should still be able to freely sanitize the airspace beyond your bugged tracks in those modes. Also the HAFUs are completely unreliable, making TWS especially useless as the art of upgrading tracks is a complete black box. Blanking LINK 16 symbology will often blank all the correlated bricks as well, meaning you cannot even see the things which you've detected with your own radar. You can lock them up though and launch missiles at them, you just cannot see them on the display. Contacts which start jamming will often get snapped to exactly 99.0 nm distance on your FCR, often forcibly rescaling your FCR and requiring you to reset the FCR range settings in the middle of combat, to be able and reaqcuire that same threat. HAFU identity is also very unreliable, with enemy threats often being displayed as green friendlies for no apparent reason. And when you're in ACM mode, the bore cross in the HUD and bore ellipse in the HMCS still do not show true radar line-of-sight like they do in real life, but are instead completely static paintings giving no information at all regarding where your radar is actually pointing.

- Air-to-ground: Ground radar is still extremely janky and cumbersome. Ground maps will regularly instantly blank itself during maneuvering. When entering many different radar modes, rather than the radar moving quickly to it's starting angle and then sweeping to generate a map, it often moves really slowly to it's starting angle and just does nothing for a couple of seconds, and only then does it actually start mapping. GMT mode doesn't actually lock onto the target, but rather just the point on the ground your cursor happens to be over. Gain/Contrast/Level settings for the ground radar are not granular at all, and it is often very difficult/impossible to achieve a good balance between them. Changing these settings should also only apply for what is mapped after changing those settings, so if you raise gain in the middle of a sweep, the first half of the map will be low gain and the second half will be high gain. On some maps, like Persian Gulf, you seemingly cannot ground map terrain, only objects. JDAMs still cannot be programmed properly. JSOWs cannot be programmed properly. GBU-24 is there in spirit, but still hasn't had its guidance modes properly implemented, making it quite useless and unable to even reach the target when dropped at max range and high altitude. IFF interrogations are not possible in A-G mode, which they should be. There are also missing munitions, like the CBU-89/104's, various training munitions, possibly even the JASSM.

- Lighting: Some things are completely missing, like the external IR emitters which our tape and block of DCS F-16C should have, being selectable through the COVERT modes to allow external lighting at night which isn't visible to the naked eye, and also to only illuminate the lights on top of your aircraft, to stop ground threats from spotting you. If you look at the the external lights through NVGs, you'll see that the green lights seem to be NVIS compatible, but the red lights will completely fry your retina. Cockpit flood lights have very low intensity even at the max setting, and also little to no light scattering, meaning they don't actually flood the cockpit. They're more like focused spotlights, leaving many parts of the cockpit completely in the dark, even at full intensity, including the new pilot body kneeboard which is completely unreadable at night even with every single internal light source set to maximum. On the topic of spotlights, the actual Cockpit Spotlights under the glareshield are completely inop. The Cockpit Spotlights are also the only light source in the entire aircraft which are usable purely with battery power, and are commonly used in real life to monitor engine instruments during startup at night. They are also used to illuminate the pilot body kneeboard when the pilot don't want to illuminate the entire cockpit with flood lights, in order to be more NVG friendly. In addition to these points, there are also issues with light intensities. Some lights like the left indexer or external formation lights, etc., usually go from slightly dim to quite bright between 0% and 5%, and then every setting above is just almost indistinguishable amounts of extreme brightness. With other lights, most notably the cockpit flood lights, you can barely see them at all between 0% and 50% intensity, and then they go up to kinda bright at 100%. This becomes even more troublesome because of the way light brightness works in the F-16C, because when the flood lights are set to high brightness, every other malfunction and indicator light in the cockpit will go to max brightness too. This means that we can't have a bit of flood lighting without getting completely blinded by every other light source. Some lights also don't seem to be NVIS compatible at all, especially the RWR panel which is extremely bright and will wash out your NVGs. The right indexer lights seem fully NVIS compatible and won't blind you even on max brightness, while the left indexer will wash out your entire NVGs at max brightness, and still be very bright at only a few percents intensity.

- Textures: The default DCS F-16C textures (including those available in the texture template) are of incredibly low quality, with not merely bolts and screws missing, but entire panels. Also the textures themselves are just poor in quality compared to what you'll find in the DCS User Files section. ED should honestly just pay Roughmaster to make a new texture template for the DCS F-16C, and remake all the low-quality liveries which are currently available for the DCS F-16C, as Roughmasters liveries are of such incredibly high quality that it's almost incomprehensible. Cockpit textures are also missing textures for multiple things.

- Tankers: When refueling at a KC-135, the boom still has no resistance and exerts no force on the aircraft. In real life, the boom will push back against the aircraft when connected, allowing the aircraft to "rest" and stabilize itself against the boom. This currently doesn't happen in DCS, making aerial refueling more difficult as you need to have more accurate thrust management than real pilots do in order to stay in position. Tankers in DCS also will never extend the boom farther than the halfway point when connecting even if the player is close to center and fully stabilized, so the player always has to move closer than the halfway point to connect, rather than like they do it in real life where the boom operator will extend the boom to meet the connecting aircraft. When it comes to tanker external lights, they will not turn on their position lights until the receiving aircraft is less than 1 nautical mile away, making night rejoins extremely difficult unless you want to fry the boom operator with an STT lock. Also, there are no external flood lights on the tankers, making them practically invisible while refueling at night, except for the fore/aft and up/down lights. Also, the background lighting on the fore/aft lights is very bright at night, making your fore/aft position incredibly hard to see. During daytime, the lights are very dim and the glass on the fore/aft and up/down lights is very reflective, with reflections often obscuring what the lights are indicating, especially when the sun is low in the sky. Lastly, tankers still do not transmit TACAN in A/A mode, but you have to use T/R mode instead as if they were a ground based station, meaning you also cannot see the tanker A/A TACAN distance on your DED/HUD. It would also be nice to have some basic boom operator functionality, like giving break-away calls and raising the boom if the player is to close/unstable (including an actual boom collision model), giving heads ups before entering turns, reading off the amount of transferred fuel at regular intervals, maybe even having the player be able to request a certain fuel amount via the radio menu.

- DCS F-16C manual: This manual is still not up to date, and new features which are added to the DCS Stable branch still aren't updated in the manual, leading to a lot of unecessary threads on the forum as a lot of information about how systems work are lost to the sands of time in the Viper Mini-Updates thread, and usually have to be conveyed through word-of-mouth. For the things which are correct in the manual, the systems are in many cases bugged and not working according to the manual, leading to further confusion in the community when being referred to the manual. Honestly, everytime a feature is added or changed in the DCS F-16C, this should also be reflected in the manual, including a changelog of added/changed features in the manual itself. If systems are not functioning correctly, this should also be noted in the manual with a small notice in that section. After all, DCS is now a unified stable branch and then it'd make sense for every change to be in the documentation, since this isn't a beta build anymore.

- The jealousy: Things which have been implemented in other ED modules, but not the DCS F-16C, even though they should be present for our block and tape. Things like the HSD Expanded Data, whose equivalents are present in the A-10C and F/A-18C, but which for some reason isn't planned to be implemented for the DCS F-16C even though it was present in the simulated block and tape IRL, greatly reducing situational awareness via datalink. Or the decision of ED to not implement the AN/ARC-210 radio which was already in active service for our block, tape and year of F-16 (confirmed by multiple ED active duty SMEs + non-ED active duty SME's + US DoD fiscal reports showing amount of quarterly AN/ARC-210 unit installations for USAF and ANG + the actual real world documentation for our tape of F-16CM-50 describing AN/ARC-210 functionality) because "it was more common later", leaving the DCS F-16C as the only modern US aircraft in DCS without the AN/ARC-210 (A-10C, AV-8B, F-15E, F/A-18C), and therefore it is the only modern US aircraft in DCS without the ability to tune multiple UHF frequencies and use a single radio for the entire UHF/VHF/FM range with HAVE QUICK capability, even though it could do this in real life during our tape and time. The AN/ARC-210 would be a very simple item to implement too as it requires no 3D modelling changes, but merely new DED pages, and seeing as this radio is already implemented in other ED modules like the A-10C and F/A-18C, it should be quite simple to port to the F-16C, making ED's resistance to implementing this radio even more of a question mark, seeing what an enormous improvement it'd be to the F-16's communications suite. There are also other things, like the HAVE QUICK page being available in the A-10C, allowing HQ functionality through SRS (SimpleRadio), however the HAVE QUICK page has not been implemented in the F-16C, making the F-16C unable to use HQ via SRS. The ability to choose Fighter/Mission Channels on LINK 16 is present in the F/A-18C, but not the F-16C forcing them to send D/L points to every F-16C on the server. Or the IFF page which has been implemented in the F/A-18C and allows setting Mode 1, 2, 3 and 4 codes, has not been implemented in the DCS F-16C, meaning we cannot set our squawk codes as you would IRL through the DED/ICP. We can only set Mode 3 via the analogue backup IFF panel. Also, the A-10C even has Mode 1 and Mode 4 timetable support, giving alerts at specific time intervals when the Mode 1 and Mode 4 codes change. The F-16C should have similar functionality where the aircraft will, instead of alerting, automatically disable/enable transponders, as well as change their transponder codes, based on certain time and position requirements. More importantly, none of these features require DTC as they can all be set from the cockpit. And even if DCS does not support HAVE QUICK and IFF functionality at this point in time, these things are supported through other softwares like SRS and LotAtc, and is as mentioned already present in other ED modules, so I don't see why we wouldn't get the same treatment in the F-16C? There are also some amazing features from non-ED modules like the Datalink Mission Assignment API in the M-2000C, which allows external sources (either AI GCI or a human via LotAtc) to send taskings via datalink to the aircraft and have them be viewed on the situational displays in the aircraft. The F-16CM-50 of our tape and year had that same kind of functionality via L16, where C2 assets can send a plethora of mission taskings which get received as a data messages, with the ability to view and accept/reject taskings via the HSD, and also send tasking completed/aborted messages to the C2 station. This would be a huge deal for human GCI/AWACS in DCS, especially with players speaking completely different languages, and it'd also open up a tonne of opportunities for mission creators to access this functionality via scripting.

I'm not going to delve into why the DTC and its related functionalities are absolutely essential, as they're already in active development. Other systems like the IDM functionality and towed decoys are at least on the roadmap. For all the other points mentioned above, there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. If these kinds of major systems are completely missing at a so-called "full release", that would set a new benchmark for what level of quality we can expect of DCS modules. In addition to all the essential features which are still missing, the amount of bugs which still remain is impossible to overlook, to the point where you cannot even cold start the DCS F-16C according to real life checklists, as there are several inaccuracies which would force you to abort the mission and put the jet into maintainance in real life.

In regards to BIGNEWY's recent comment that the DCS F-16C "is complete in regards to what we intend for the module. Our modules are never intended to be a 100% replication of the real aircraft.", I would like to point out that we're not even remotely close to a 100% replication, and people aren't even asking for 100% replication at this point. Making a 100% replication would mean adding things like the need to cycle the flight controls before initiating the FLCS BIT to warm up the hydraulics and get rid of any air bubbles in the lines, as the FLCS BIT will otherwise most likely fail. It would mean adding things like accurately modelled startup sequencies for individual systems like the FCR, MIDS terminal and other systems, where they run their own internal bits and take time to power up before being available for use. Or maybe some realistically modelled magnetic drift of the HMCS, sometimes requiring re-alignment in the air. These types of things are available in other F-16C simulators available on the civilian market, and I think we all would've hoped that the DCS F-16C would reach at least a similar level of depth and, as ED themselves have said, the DCS F-16C would be "the most realistic simulation possible" and offer a "detailed simulation of the Viper’s engines, fuel, electrical, hydraulic, comms, lighting and emergency systems and many more". I don't know how you can claim that the DCS F-16C delivers on any of those promises in its current state.

I realize that ED probably wants the DCS F-16C out of early access since it's been there for over four and a half years now, but it would be a huge mistake to do so at this point in time. For ED's own sake, for their own reputation, and the communities faith in their current and future products, they should never allow a module which is in the dire state of the DCS F-16C to be considered "full release". Full release means finished, irregardless of what your post-release plans are. You might add a feature or fix a bug later at your whim, but in the end, the full release is supposed to contain everything we customers paid for, a complete and stable product, and anything which is added to the product free of charge after full release is merely charitable work on the developers behalf. It is not the fulfillment of some obligation to their customers, but rather a completely voluntary act which goes beyond what the customer paid for, in order to increase customer satisfaction. And to say "here it is" and give us what have currently + the Sniper XR would be an incredible betrayal of trust, and I for one would never buy a DCS early access module again, if this is what I can expect from it. I'm happy to support ED and third-parties early in the development process even by purchasing pre-orders as long as they deliver a decent product upon full release, which is what has happened previously in my experience. But if the F-16C is pushed out like this, that'd be a turning point for DCS as a platform. And this is something I say as a long-time DCS customer, who has been flying DCS on a regular basis ever since the A-10C was released over a decade ago, and has spent so much time and money on DCS that I don't even want to attempt to add it all up due to fears of what I'll be faced with.

Without mentioning any specifics, I think we can all agree that the current drama in the DCS community is testing the community's faith in ED and DCS as a product. Pushing the DCS F-16C out of early access in its current state would do nothing to improve that situation, but would rather risk pouring fuel on the fire, which I don't think neither ED nor the community wants at this point. DCS isn't a perfect product, but it has the most potential of any combat flight sim on the market, and has been making strides to become the best combat simulator on the market. Please cherish this and do not make any reckless decisions in order to meet internal deadlines, while alienating your own customers. All I ask for is that when the F-16C reaches full release, the level of quality will at least be the same as other ED modules. The DCS A-10C which was released a very, very long time ago when ED was a much smaller company, was an incredible product. It had practically all the systems modelled that it would've had in real life to an incredible depth, only excluding certain systems which couldn't be modelled due to classification and such. It also had very few bugs, making it an absolute joy to fly, which it still is to this day. That level of quality is what I expect of an ED product, based on the benchmark that ED themselves set. Not only would a DCS F-16C release in anything close to its current state be well below this benchmark, but it'd also not even live up to what ED themselves have claimed their goals are for this product on the DCS F-16C product page and in promotional videos and press materials. 

So my final words in this very long post is simply a plea to ED: Please do not push the DCS F-16C out of early access before it lives up to the level of quality and fidelity which the community has come to expect of ED products.

Thanks for pointing these out, it is indeed worrying that ED is considering the F-16 almost ready to step out of EA given its current development state. It would be nice if ED could start by fixing the many bugs and update the manual since you cannot tell if some system behaviors we were used to were updated or are caused by bugs. Also it is urgent ED fixes the radar, for now the Viper is completely blind and useless against any airborne threat. Having to depress the override button on the FCR to kinda reset it and get a lock (when the radar "sees" a contact which quite often it doesn't even when it should) is not a solution. I hope ED will consider your message and give it some love. 

Edited July 2 by Biwi

[PawlaczGMD]

The reason to worry about this state of F-16 leaving EA is that critical functions are missing, and ED will no longer be obligated to work on them. I believe they will put some effort into the F-16 after EA, but that's a different game. Who knows how many years it will take to fix the outstanding functions, and you can always tell us they are in progress. And if they never materialize, then ED did nothing wrong because the module is "complete", we should just be happy with what is given as "charity".

[WHOGX5]

4 hours ago, ACS_Dev said:

Excellent reply, quite thorough.

As it stands, based on my discussions with people who work jets of this very block as we speak, it is simply not possible to use the DCS F-16 as a pilot realistically would. The discrepancies he so thoroughly laid out begin before you even finish your walk-around, as the jet is missing panels that the pilot is (from my research) required to inspect. Now I understand that few are doing inspections on their aircraft (it currently requires ejecting), however this is a sim for rivet counters.

Things like the PFLD are critical to the operation of the jet yet are almost completely absent. I understand the desire to move it out of early access, however fundamental features such as error/warning reporting/display are very much key features in any aircraft, much less a 4th gen fighter.

The jet cannot perform peacetime training duties very well as it is missing multiple staple training weapons, namely the CATM-120.

The jet is also crippled in combat use by severe feature modeling deficits in every one of its staple weapons besides perhaps the GBU-12, as he says... I again would also like to plug my expansive thread chronicling the hundreds of AIM-120C-6 and C-7 missiles in air force inventory concurrent with the M4.2 OFP's development and rollout, missiles which should be available to us but are not. At this time it is not even clear if we have the AIM-120C-4.

To avoid repeating him too much, I will just say that despite having the 1st hand observations, information, contacts, connections, SMEs, motivation and technical expertise needed to make some truly groundbreaking content for DCS with the F-16 I have had to give up on the idea because ED's F-16 simply does not and (unfortunately) likely never will feature the level of detail needed to truly simulate even the most basic true-to-life operations. It would be my favorite aircraft if not for these issues.

That AIM-120 thread of yours is an absolutely incredible piece of work on your part!

I also agree with your sentiment that the DCS F-16C does not feature the level of detail needed to simulate basic true-to-life operations. On the topic of AIM-120's, you cannot employ SKATE tactics properly as there is no HPRF mode, and guiding the missile until pitbull will 99% put you inside of the desired out range unless you're up against a vastly inferior platform, and in addition to this, the AIM-120 in DCS is seemingly incapable of reaquiring a target after a lock has been broke. And I don't need to reiterate myself regarding SEAD operations, as I covered that in my post.

And regarding the CATM-120 and other training munitions, one of the features I really wish DCS would implement, which is present in other combat simulators, is that when you use training munitions and you "launch" them, then an invisible copy of your munition which does no damage would be launched so that it shows up on tacview and can be used for training purposes without actually killing each other. As far as I know, in real life the ACMI pods even provide kill indications on the HUD of the participating aircraft if and when the simulated missile would've impacted the target, allowing actual aerial combat to be simulated in real time without firing live munitions. This would be great to have in DCS, especially for online communities. This could also extend to other training missiles too.

3 hours ago, SlipHavoc said:

Speaking for myself, I always find it quite frustrating when a long and seemingly comprehensive post like that does not contain so much as one single link to a source or other document.  I've seen too many incorrect posts here to take people at their word.  The post referenced above on the AIM-120 is a distinct contrast, with many links and even screenshots directly embedded in the post.  With that kind of data, at least we can all be talking about the same things, but if it's just someone saying they talked to some "community members" (not even specifically SMEs, although the same issue would apply), we have no way to verify anything.

Well, I chose not to run the risk of breaking forum rules by adding any mentions of specific documents and such. Suffice to say, ED definitely has access to all the necessary documentation to verify my claims.

[WHOGX5]

2 hours ago, peterbrownbyu said:

Maybe it wasn't your thread before, but it is now

The hand waving and silent thread-burying is nothing new. Neither is the good old fashioned 'no documentation' argument. I consider that argument a cop out more often than not, unless they're prepared to argue that there is no publicly available documentation or direct SME confirmation for external IR lights, steerpoint classification, DTS, or an accurate data cartridge (not to mention the textures and damage model). For those systems that don't have as much public documentation, I'm in favor of a little extrapolation as long as it doesn't damage immersion. 8/10 realism is still way better than 2/10. The current alq-184 implementation (and all jammers in the game, for that matter) is a prime example of letting perfect be the enemy of good. But I digress

Another hot take, they could ignore every one of those issues you listed in favor of an immersive EW environment and improved IADS AI, and the viper would be twice as fun overnight. Cockpits and systems and planes are only as much fun as the scenarios they're used in. Keep your eyes on the prize guys and gals

Great writeup and hopefully we see these issues addressed. Until then, there's always that other Viper sim with world war 1 era graphics (but at least the jammers work)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As I mentioned in my previous reply, there is no way that ED does not have documentation on these things. If they didn't have the relevant manuals, they wouldn't have gotten as far as they have in modelling an F-16CM-50 M4.2+. I feel like the "no documentation" or "its classified" is often used to avoid responsiblitity, and I've even heard of people reporting issues referencing old manuals which are definitely in the public domain, and they still get told that they're not usable due to classification or similar.

[BIGNEWY]

4 minutes ago, WHOGX5 said:

As I mentioned in my previous reply, there is no way that ED does not have documentation on these things. If they didn't have the relevant manuals, they wouldn't have gotten as far as they have in modelling an F-16CM-50 M4.2+. I feel like the "no documentation" or "its classified" is often used to avoid responsiblitity, and I've even heard of people reporting issues referencing old manuals which are definitely in the public domain, and they still get told that they're not usable due to classification or similar.

As mentioned we have to be very careful about the information we use, DCS is a for entertainment product. 

Thank you 

[BIGNEWY]

Folks I know you are all passionate about the F-16C, we are also. But other sims are not to be discussed here, it has no bearing on DCS and the rules we have to follow when using data.

thank you  

 

[ColinM9991]

1 hour ago, BIGNEWY said:

DCS is a for entertainment product.

That's interesting given the F-16 product page says

Quote

The most realistic model of the F-16C imaginable, down to each bolt and flake of paint, animated controls surfaces, lights, damage model, and landing gear.

 

[BIGNEWY]

3 minutes ago, ColinM9991 said:

That's interesting given the F-16 product page says

 

As mentioned before we want all our aircraft to be as real as possible, but 100% is not possible for many reasons. 

[ColinM9991]

Just now, BIGNEWY said:

As mentioned before we want all our aircraft to be as real as possible, but 100% is not possible for many reasons. 

Absolutely - 100% definitely isn't possible given the subject matter. Though that's no reason for the damage model, as an example, to be lacking. The damage model is called out in this thread and is listed on the product page as being realistic, so that's a prime example to lean on.

[BIGNEWY]

Just now, ColinM9991 said:

Absolutely - 100% definitely isn't possible given the subject matter. Though that's no reason for the damage model, as an example, to be lacking. The damage model is called out in this thread and is listed on the product page as being realistic, so that's a prime example to lean on.

Damage model works currently, but yes we know it could be better, as we have mentioned in this thread work continues. Leaving early access is just us reaching our mile stones for the features we had planned in the roadmap. We still have bug fixes, planned improvements, feature request and more to work on. 

thank you 

[Thump]

Might as well have "3d model in game " as the only required qualification to force it out of EA and be done with the whole argument. 

At this point your goalposts are a game of "Who's Line Is It Anyway" where the features don't matter and the quality bar is irrelevant anyway.

Edited July 2 by Thump

[ColinM9991]

2 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Damage model works currently, but yes we know it could be better

This was mainly to give an example at how the product listing page is misleading, inaccurate and at odds with EDs statements, such as this one. It does work, but it's certainly not the most realistic imaginable.

Only when these have been implemented should the listing page actually call out that it's the most realistic model imaginable

[Drangoll]

17 minuti fa, BIGNEWY ha scritto:

We still have bug fixes, planned improvements, feature request and more to work on. 

What guarantees do customers have that such content will be delivered?

There is none.

 

However, this was promised to them at the time of purchase :

27 minuti fa, ColinM9991 ha scritto:

The most realistic model of the F-16C imaginable, down to each bolt and flake of paint, animated controls surfaces, lights, damage model, and landing gear.

This is why everybody is worried about the decreasing quality standards ED seems to be adhering to

Edited July 2 by Drangoll

[BIGNEWY]

Just now, Drangoll said:

What guarantees do customers have that such content will be delivered?

There is none.

We have said work will continue and it will, if that is not something you can accept apologies. You will just have to wait and see. 

8 minutes ago, ColinM9991 said:

This was mainly to give an example at how the product listing page is misleading, inaccurate and at odds with EDs statements, such as this one. It does work, but it's certainly not the most realistic imaginable.

Only when these have been implemented should the listing page actually call out that it's the most realistic model imaginable

People have different interpretations for many things and I understand you want more. I think it is pretty clear on our product page what we have planned. 

[ColinM9991]

4 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

People have different interpretations for many things and I understand you want more.

That's interesting to say the least. It makes it all the more misleading.

The combination of most and realistic make it pretty clear cut in my eyes, that could only mean one thing.

If EDs interpretation of that phrase is contrary to what the phrase actually means then maybe it's worth creating a wiki or guide that users can read to translate product listing descriptions to what they actually mean.

[BIGNEWY]

1 minute ago, ColinM9991 said:

That's interesting to say the least. It makes it all the more misleading.

The combination of most and realistic make it pretty clear cut in my eyes, that could only mean one thing.

If EDs interpretation of that phrase is contrary to what the phrase actually means then maybe it's worth creating a wiki or guide that users can read to translate product listing descriptions to what they actually mean.

I understand what you want, and we have said we will review what is being asked in this thread, but having a back and forth now about wording or interpretation isnt helpful, you have given your feedback we have replied. 

Please be patient.

Thank you 

[Silver_Dragon]

Everyone should remember that the current damage model is just a transitional thing, and ED has to implement the new damage model implemented in WW2 in modern modules, so talking about the F-16 damage model staying the same is unrealistic.

[skywalker22]

Please stop arguing guys, ED has their plans, and few posts here won't change that, not in the way this thread is going. And BN will close this thread. Stop acting like a children, whos bagging for a candy.

[Thump]

15 minutes ago, Silver_Dragon said:

Everyone should remember that the current damage model is just a transitional thing, and ED has to implement the new damage model implemented in WW2 in modern modules, so talking about the F-16 damage model staying the same is unrealistic.

5 years of transition (beginning with no damage model at release) is a pretty long transition....

[Moonshine]

12 hours ago, WHOGX5 said:

In your post I'm replying to now there is a lot of "can" and "may", and I get that you're a community manager and can't confirm or deny whatever you want, but it doesn't do much to reassure me of anything. I think it's not a stretch to say that ED tends to be quite opaque in their communication with the community, and it is often impossible to know what ED's intentions are, or what the status of their development is.

@BIGNEWY

please take a good look at this part. It has, regardless of module, been a long standing issue and is often criticized by the community. Funny enough, ED tried to combat this with Wags FAQ videos. Yet where are they? The first (and only one) is months back. Now you might say its up for interpretation however it really looks like you cant ever follow through or even finish what you promised/started. 
 

The feedback on the state of the F-16C from @WHOGX5 perfectly shows this. Thanks for writing this out. Ive been very keen and active in the past reporting bugs etc yet the way things have been handled and how the community has been treated on these issues have lead to me (and surely others) to not even bothering anymore. 
 

ED does not primarily need new modules to get people hyped. How about fixing the long standing issues on modules and most notably the core to not make scripting, planning, organizing and flying such a hassle? 
one not constantly monitoring the forums to keep current on whats broken or not is in for an unpleasant surprise everytime they fly in some form or another. Somewhat acceptable if its in open beta. But its all in stable now. As a paying customer this is not acceptable and very disappointing to see.

Edited July 2 by Moonshine
Typo

[BIGNEWY]

Just now, Moonshine said:

@BIGNEWY

please take a good look at this part. It has, regardless of module, been a long standing issue and id often criticized by the community. Funny enough, ED tried to combat this with Wags FAQ videos. Yet where are they? The first (and only one) is months back. Now you might say its up for interpretation however it really looks like you cant ever follow through or even finish what you promised/started. 
 

The feedback on the state of the F-16C from @WHOGX5 perfectly shows this. Thanks for writing this out. Ive been very keen and active in the past reporting bugs etc yet the way things have been handled and how the community has been treated on these issues have lead to me (and surely others) to not even bothering anymore. 
 

ED does not primarily need new modules to get people hyped. How about fixing the long standing issues on modules and most notably the core to not make scripting, planning, organizing and flying such a hassle? 
one not constantly monitoring the forums to keep current on whats broken or not is in for an unpleasant surprise everytime they fly in some form or another. Somewhat acceptable if its in open beta. But its all in stable now. As a paying customer this is not acceptable and very disappointing to see.

We have said we will review the post, and we will. 

thank you 

[ColinM9991]

29 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

but having a back and forth now about wording or interpretation isnt helpful

I'm sorry if you see it as only being about wording or interpretation when it's actually about the implication that ED are happy to mislead customers with inaccurate statements of functionality that isn't yet implemented. They're not key features, they're roadmap items.

Edited July 2 by ColinM9991
Edited to remove unnecessary sarcasm