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

[SeeYouAtTheMerge]

1 hour ago, _SteelFalcon_ said:

and the uncage long to get to A-G Gun. it's such a pain to take your hands off the controls to click this mfd button.

Unfortunately that one isnt apart of M4.2+

[WHOGX5]

There has been quite a few messages since my last reply, and it feels like some people in this thread think I mention all the systems I did in my post merely because I want to sit and LARP useless features, and I can tell you that this is definitely not the case. All the items I've mentioned have a direct impact on the combat effectiveness of the DCS F-16C, as well as the user experience. That is why I mentioned the things I did.

As it stands currently, the DCS F-16C is unable to employ most real world tactics due to there being so many missing or inoperative systems, and its performance in combat is therefore very lackluster. It doesn't matter if you're doing BVR, WVR, SEAD, AI, or just hurling some bombs on a target. There's always several aspects of this aircraft that's missing or not working correctly, limiting your combat effectiveness in each of these roles. In my post I also put special emphasis on the SEAD role as, after all, this is the primary role of the F-16CM-50, and the DCS F-16C's performance in this role is woefully inadequate.

You also have to remember that the combat environment we have in DCS is quite dated and sterile. In the 2007-era which the DCS F-16C is based on, you'd have much more capable weapon systems to face off against, which for the SEAD role would include things like both datalinked and home-on-jam SAM missiles, integrated air defense networks with intelligent and coordinated SAM operators, GPS and communications jamming, ground based radar decoys, etc. That is why I really appreciate when ED models things in depth, like the INS and its fix functions as well as GPS reception, which now enables the future addition of things like GPS jamming, which is a staple of modern warfare that even civilian aircraft and airliners have to contend with on a daily basis. And if we get GPS jamming, this also highlights one aspect of why the Digital Terrain System is important, as it, amongst many other things, increases the INS accuracy over topographically varied terrain. And all of a sudden, this has ripple effects into mission planning, where you might choose to ingress towards a target over more rugged terrain if you expect to encounter GPS jamming in order to maintain higher INS accuracy, rather than ingressing over the flat desert or ocean and having to do manual INS fixes, or it might affect which weapons you choose to employ, opting for LGB's instead of JDAMs, or it encourages you to actually make use of Offset Aimpoints or VRP/VIPs when engaging targets, et cetera. Just with the addition of a few systems, it makes the experience so much deeper, and it also gives you very good reasons to learn your aircraft more in-depth and to actually make use all the functions that have already been implemented into this product to their full potential.

And for those who mainly want to hop in their jet, fly out to the range in a sterile environment, and drop some bombs on targets to blow off some steam after a hard days work, they can still do that. But it also allows people to get so much more out of the product, to get more invested into DCS as a platform, to increase customer retention, and in the end increasing future revenue for ED. These dedicated people who go in-depth are also usually the ones who creates a lot of content which benefits the entire community, stuff like tutorials, complex missions and campaigns, video content, etc., which entices new customers to join the fray and turns their toe dipping in DCS into a full submersion.

And certain items I mentioned, like having a damage model, doesn't increase combat effectiveness, but it is of course an important aspect of combat. As it is right now in the DCS F-16C, the "damage model" is basically a big boolean. Either you audibly hear things hitting your aircraft, but not a single system is affected, or you die. Compared to other ED airframes, like the DCS A-10C or DCS F/A-18C, those modules actually model individual systems getting damaged, and you might actually end up utilizing emergency and backup systems to limp your jet back to base, and you might actually need to use your knowledge about how the fuel, hydraulic and electrical systems work in order to survive such an ordeal, isolate busted fuel lines, circumvent broken systems and components, etc. So when people claim the DCS F-16C has a damage model, that is simply not true because none of these things exist in what we currently have.

[greenmamba]

The other issue here that i see, well i am not even sure if this is an issue, but to me, ED really needs to understand that the F-16 is an iconic aircraft, it is not just another module where you can make profit off. This airplane is like the F-4, it made generations dream and still does. Having an aircraft like that not being taken care off like it deserves is hearth breaking. The F-16 constantly feels like it is hiding in its own shadow in DCS. This is also one of the main reason why people are so upset. 

Edited July 5, 2024 by greenmamba

[Goetsch]

Just out of curiosity, are real life F16s also prone to oil leaks when damaged?

[greenmamba]

That if your engine is damaged which means you won't fly very long anyway with an oil leak. Hydraulic is more plausible to happen and you keep flying. 

[HPLsCat]

FBW without systems depth makes for a boring module. The choices you do have in the Viper are false choices, and generally don't matter. Dig deep and it's painfully obvious.

Radar modes don't matter, HAD/HARM modes don't matter, ATC and ground ops are lifeless (after years of promises).

But it's going to come out of EA, we all know this, and we also know what that means for development.

[RyanR]

On 7/3/2024 at 5:55 PM, Mach3DS said:

As far as textures go -- Texac has created a new paint kit that adds basically ALL the missing parts including Normals.  Roughmaster has also added many of these as well.  Texac has added all the wing missing rivets and panels and corrected the misplacement of some of them.  Also on the tail the same thing.  There are many talented livery artists out there.  I've done my own work as well.  Basically, a lot of the issues have been corrected by the users already.  

 

 

 

Wow? Where can one get these paint kits? I've been having fun with just messing around with the ED templates. Thanks!

 

-Ryan

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

On 7/5/2024 at 10:00 PM, RyanR said:

Where can one get these paint kits?

The User Files:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3331063/

[NineLine]

On 7/1/2024 at 12:02 PM, 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.

Broken some of the issues into individual bug reports and locked them for now as I investigate. 

Tankers is not specific to the F-16

Manual is WIP and I am sure it will improve but its resource intensive as we only have so many working on documentation

Jealousy I haven't digested yet, but documentation for one module doesn't mean its available for another, some things can transfer over but its not always as clear cut.

This will take me some time to dig through, so I ask for patience as I mix this with other tasks, thanks. 

[Spartan111sqn]

But, this reaction is due to these complaints of the customers, or all these things and other ones have been already identified by ED teams in the F16?

[NineLine]

58 minutes ago, Spartan111sqn said:

But, this reaction is due to these complaints of the customers, or all these things and other ones have been already identified by ED teams in the F16?

The post was a well-thought-out and descriptive explanation one what this person thought was missing or not working, so I want to take our time and give the best answers on everything I can. 

[Furiz]

Great to see all those issues reported, a step in the right direction

[WHOGX5]

17 hours ago, NineLine said:

The post was a well-thought-out and descriptive explanation one what this person thought was missing or not working, so I want to take our time and give the best answers on everything I can. 

Thank you, much appreciated!

[Sniper_1-1]

On 5/31/2024 at 4:15 PM, WHOGX5 said:

Does this mean that some of the features listed on the official DCS F-16C product page are not to be expected as a part of the full release DCS F-16C product? I'm thinking in particular of these two points:

• 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.
• Detailed simulation of the Viper’s engines, fuel, electrical, hydraulic, comms, lighting and emergency systems and many more.

Out of these two points, many of the systems mentioned are left in a kind of half-baked state. Whether it's all the external infrared emitters who are completely missing, the lack of cockpit spotlights, different systems not being electrically powered correctly during different tests and operating modes, SEC mode not functioning correctly, implemented systems not giving off MFL/PFL messages as they should, entire panels missing from the external textures of the aircraft, etc., etc..

I think it would be interesting for the community to know which features on the product page can be expected at full release, and in general if ED is planning to cut out any features which would be present in a USAF F-16CM-50 M4.2+ circa 2007 from the full release, or even post-early access? The list of post-early access features is quite limited, so are those the only features which will be added post-release?

at this point eagle dynamics should just hire lee1hy, and texac for full time livery creating, also is you go to the ded page on the viper half of the stuff hasent been implemented. also when can we get DTC (data transfer cartrage) in the F16 

[Goetsch]

The F16 should at least update the existing Skin before making complex engineering improvements, I mean most of the ED Skin isn't even as good as today's FC2024

[Furiz]

F-16 basically didn't make a step forward in some time and as we can see from this thread many of its systems are not finished or even touched, it's manual is not updated since 11 July 2023, I'm sorry to say but that is not really encouraging.

[BIGNEWY]

10 minutes ago, Furiz said:

F-16 basically didn't make a step forward in some time and as we can see from this thread many of its systems are not finished or even touched, it's manual is not updated since 11 July 2023, I'm sorry to say but that is not really encouraging.

The last tasks will take time, so you will need to be patient. 
From the roadmap, marked in blue is what is in progress currently 

• Sniper XR Advanced Targeting Pod (ATP). This will replace the current TGP when ready.

After Early Access

• Data Transfer Cartridge (DTC) and Mission Editor/Planner.
• Air-to-Air datalink assignments (after DTC IDM Datalink Functions).
• RWR Handoff PRF Tones (waiting on PRF tone library).
• ALE-50 Towed Decoy.

[Nealius]

Will the introduction of the Sniper XR remove the LITENING from the module entirely, or will we still be able to equip it to simulate non-US users like how we can simulate non-US Hornets with the option of LITENING as well?

[Tholozor]

3 hours ago, Nealius said:

Will the introduction of the Sniper XR remove the LITENING from the module entirely, or will we still be able to equip it to simulate non-US users like how we can simulate non-US Hornets with the option of LITENING as well?

LITENING will remains as-is until after Sniper, then will be replaced with LANTIRN.

[buceador]

On 7/2/2024 at 5:20 PM, NineLine said:

That said, I mostly agree with you, the Viper is not gonna eat rounds like something like the A-10C

Agreed but I don't think I have ever been able to eject from the Viper after being hit, I think 'cockpit damage' level is set too low, almost every type of impact kills the pilot.

[Nealius]

1 hour ago, buceador said:

Agreed but I don't think I have ever been able to eject from the Viper after being hit, I think 'cockpit damage' level is set too low, almost every type of impact kills the pilot.

I've had to do many dead-stick landings after a MANPADS hit shredded my fuel tanks. Insta-kills seem to be for anything larger than a MANPADS warhead.

[Pavlin_33]

On 7/5/2024 at 1:31 PM, Goetsch said:

Just out of curiosity, are real life F16s also prone to oil leaks when damaged?

Yes and even when undamaged. There is a video on YT of real F-16 having its engine sieze up after an airborne oil leak.

[metzger]

F-16 also missing some functionality for SP gameplay, which were back in the day a standard part of the other modules.

- A-10C which I believe is the best overall product which ED delivered, was not only delivered with almost no bugs, better simulated systems and more depth. It also got AI jtac modeled for it and it actually worked really well (for an AI jtac). Your A-10 AI wingman was given some functionalities to make it more useful, commands for weapon selection and attack direction to name a few, datalink which also worked with the jtac etc.. F-16 AI wing is bare bones, completely useless, you can't even tell him a specific ground target to attack let alone direction or weapon. 

- Ka-50 which is the second best after A-10 imho, also had some interresting AI functionalities which other helicopters does not. Like AI reckon and DL you targets, or sending AI to attack a specific target from a specific location using the DL sent to him and so on..

Those were actually kind a working if used correctly and were part of the package delivered with the modules, with the addition of some good default free campaings as well. ED completely threw that out the window and almost any module released afterwards was just 'lonely' and mostly only usable in MP or with heavy scripting from mission designers. 

 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

19 hours ago, metzger said:

ED completely threw that out the window and almost any module released afterwards was just ‘lonely’

 

[nessuno0505]

When A-10C and Ka-50 came out ED had only those two modules, so they could concentrate on the minutiae, which is what made us fall in love with DCS: the extreme accuracy in details. Now maybe they've grown up, but we have: f/a-18c, f-16c, ah-64d, plus a long series of aircrafts and helicopters that are certainly easier to simulate as they are less complex in avionics, but which still need to be maintained and bug fixed over time. Maybe ED no longer has time to go into as much detail as when there were only a-10c and ka-50. Perhaps they chose to focus more on quantity, partially sacrificing quality. Certainly the frenzy of users to buy everything that comes out in early access has not helped to make it clear what we really want from DCS. As far as I'm concerned, I'd prefer to see fewer modules, but a return of those few at the same a-10c and ka-50 quality ED has amply demonstrated to be capable of and which we have been used to.