East Afghanistan Launch

[Graphics]

 

 

21st February 2025

Dear Fighter Pilots, Partners and Friends, 

We are delighted to announce that our new DCS: East Afghanistan region is now available in the latest DCS update! You will also see some great improvements to the southwest region! Check out the launch trailer.

This new area contains 10 new airfields, several large cities such as Kabul, and a massive amount of dramatic terrain for you to explore. The DCS: Afghanistan map has been improved throughout with higher quality textures, normal maps,  updated airfields and urban areas, as well as a more precise terrain mesh. The addition of the eastern region increases the high-detail of this map to 2,290,164 Km2 and now expands to the Arabian Sea for carrier operations. Enjoy! 

Alongside our East Afghanistan terrain launch, the new DCS Update introduces improvements to the DCS Core, various modules and assets. Please find an overview of the most significant fixes and additions below and make sure you update to version DCS 2.9.13.6818 now.

Thank you for your passion and support.

Yours sincerely, 

Eagle Dynamics

 

East Afghanistan

Out Now!

The next region of DCS: Afghanistan is now available: East Afghanistan! This new area leverages our latest map technology and lessons learned from previous terrains, including the Southwest region. The eastern region is characterised by its rugged, mountainous terrain, interspersed with agricultural areas around Bagram and along waterways. Kabul, the capital and largest city in Afghanistan, includes several points of interest such as hospitals, historical sites, monuments, and unique neighborhoods. The Eastern region also includes the urban areas of Bagram, Gardez, Jalalabad, and Khost and 10 highly-detailed airfields:

• Bagram

• Kabul

• Jalalabad

• Gardez

• Khost

• Sharana

• Bamyan

• Urgoon Heliport

• Ghazni Heliport

• Khost Heliport

Along with the release of the Eastern region, the entire map offers improved surface textures, ground clutter, noise, and normal maps. We have also upgraded the transition between ground texture types and increased the visual quality of surfaces throughout. In the months ahead, we will continue to enhance the map’s performance and visual fidelity, as well as improving AI pathfinding. 

For carrier ops, the current update now expands to include the Arabian Gulf, albeit at a lower resolution. In parallel to continued improvement on the Southwest and Eastern regions, we now move our focus to North Afghanistan. New missions for DCS: Black Shark 3 and DCS: Flaming Cliffs 2024 have also been added for DCS: Afghanistan, enjoy!

Flexible purchase options provide customers the choice of purchasing one or more of three regions of Afghanistan: Southwest, East and North. You can purchase DCS: Southwest Afghanistan and  DCS: East Afghanistan for $29.99 each. Alternatively, you may purchase the entire DCS: Afghanistan map for the early access discounted price of $55.99. This will include all current and future regions and updates.

 

DCS Update 

Development Progress

DCS Core
This week’s update saw numerous changes and improvements including AI aircraft being unable to react to radar-launched missiles outside of visual range if not equipped with an onboard radar warning receiver. The initial implementation of tactical turns when flying in a two-ship with an AI wingman has also been added, and AI aircraft now use enhanced lead pursuit for more timely rejoins. Various additional improvements have been made to the S-3B. The Mi-28 can now land on small helipads, and the MiG-31 damage model has been upgraded. Ground and naval AI also saw improvements with Chinese Assets pack ships. The HQ-7B short range SAM has received accuracy refinements, and artillery now fire at secondary targets again.

Graphical and performance improvements to the DCS Core include the addition of both High and Low SSAO effect options and a number of shader compilation errors have been fixed. This update also saw important bug resolutions to the Mission Editor. The dedicated server saw certain options improved in addition to bug fixes. Numerous weapon improvements for both SAMs and Tomahawk were implemented, and magnetic north has been updated to better reflect current real world deviation. 

 

Eagle Dynamics Modules

The DCS: F-16C Viper saw the following improvements: addition of a mouse click function on the throttle to move between OFF and IDLE; the Ground Moving Target game crash is now fixed; Dogfight Mode stuck with NO RAD indication is fixed; new parking brake and anti-skid control bindings added; pilot survivability improved. 

The DCS: F/A-18C continues to see enhancements such as adjustments to the AIM-9X tracking near gimbal limits; similar pilot damage modelling as the Viper, and several fixes including a PDLT crash in EXP mode; interface between the data link pod and the AGM-84 fixed; and AUTO bombing mode based on an OAP now fixed.

Both of these aircraft and the DCS: F-5E also include air-to-air infrared-guided missile seekers being actively distracted by flares prior to missile launch. This makes pre-emptive flares effective when flying against these aircraft. AI aircraft saw a large number of behaviour and functional improvements. 

DCS: F-5E Remastered improvements include more correct radar display when powered off and refined gun dispersion. The DCS: L-39 Albatros saw fixes for certain clickable cockpit elements, while the Yak-52 control binding animation and auto start issues were fixed. WWII Warbirds such as the DCS: P-47D Thunderbolt and DCS: P-51D Mustang benefit from corrections to their engine performance and lighting systems, respectively.

Third-Party Modules
Magnitude 3, developers of the DCS: MiG-21bis, have fixed SPO-10 lights, while IndiaFoxtEcho has upgraded collision models, cockpit functionality, and gunsight operation for the DCS: MB-339A/PAN. Deka Ironwork Simulations brought loadout panel improvements to the DCS: JF-17F Thunder, solving mission editor freezes and refining data link text overlay. For a more detailed list of all the changes in this week’s DCS Update, please read the complete changelog.

DCS: F-4E Phantom II by Heatblur, saw numerous bug fixes and mission improvements. 

DCS: Mirage F1 by Aerges also saw a large number of improvements to systems and input bindings. 

We hope you enjoy exploring the new East Afghanistan region and take advantage of the many improvements included in this update. As always, stay tuned for more news.

Thank you again for your passion and support, 

Yours sincerely,

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

I'm looking forward to reading this week's newsletter, and the upcoming "2025 roadmap" newsletter too! 

[Beirut]

Wasn't impressed with Afghanistan at first but this was a quality improvement. It's a much more enjoyable map now. 

[BIGNEWY]

Great to hear, and we will continue to improve during early access. 

thank you 

[dcn]

59分钟前，Graphics说：

DCS: JF-17F Thunder

JF-17F?What is that

[MadMonty]

43 minutes ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

I'm looking forward to reading this week's newsletter, and the upcoming "2025 roadmap" newsletter too! 

Seems I have missed the 2025 newsletter announcement. Where did you find it?

[MiGCap1]

Good news!

But it would also be great if You could enhance the quality of the German WWII birds, too, and not only the US/British types ... the Fw 190D for example would benefit from a complete overhaul.

Don't forget: It is one of the aircraft which are the reason a lot of people sent You money via Kickstarter, more than a decade ago now. Including me. 

[Furiz]

8 minutes ago, dcn said:

JF-17F?What is that

It is a non US modern jet, which is great cause it gives DCS much needed diversity, it wuld be great if we had more non US jets from modern era.

[sirrah]

9 minutes ago, Furiz said:

It is a non US modern jet, which is great cause it gives DCS much needed diversity, it wuld be great if we had more non US jets from modern era.

I think @dcn was referring to the "F" in JF-17F 

 

[Furiz]

6 minutes ago, sirrah said:

I think @dcn was referring to the "F" in JF-17F 

 

Oh, that might be a typo

[Hoirtel]

27 minutes ago, Furiz said:

Oh, that might be a typo

Definitely two f's in Jeff... 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

55 minutes ago, MadMonty said:

Where did you find it?

I didn’t, which was the point of my post

[hannibal]

Love for older modules always welcomed. Thank uuu Eagle dynamicsss!

[JD]

2 hours ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

I'm looking forward to reading this week's newsletter, and the upcoming "2025 roadmap" newsletter too! 

Same here, still miss the 2025 roadmap, or at least news about Vulkan and DC

[Kvek]

Last newsletters are only a summary of the last update changelog. I think it should add recent changes and things comming in the near future. Or at leats different information besides the last update.

[SlipHavoc]

I think they learned a lesson about roadmaps, which is that people take them way too seriously, and then literally for years afterwards, bring up stuff that hasn't been done for various reasons, always in the most rudely sarcastic and negative way possible.  I'd be quite surprised to see any kind of official roadmap published for 2025.

[T.Power]

Thought I'd take my Hind for a walk east along the river from Herat to see how much had changed since the initial release.  Well, it's barely recognizable, after a solid hour of gawping at the scenery which now includes rolling hills and river banks that have great depth and texture, I ended up running out of gas and had to land in a tiny village at around 7,000ft, thankfully they had the kettle on.

[dcn]

9小时前，Furiz说：

Oh, that might be a typo

I guess he confused JF-17 with MiG-17F.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

12 hours ago, dcn said:

I guess he confused JF-17 with MiG-17F.

Way to go, now some model kitbasher is going to go out, buy a JF-17 and MiG-17 kit, and use them to create some kind of monstrosity.

[Boosterdog]

On 2/21/2025 at 3:38 PM, BIGNEWY said:

Great to hear, and we will continue to improve during early access. 

thank you 

Many watercourses have frankly bizarre geometry from 100M tall elevated embankments through to graviity defying angles. Firstly I hope ED were aware of this prior to release given how obvious it is and secondly, is a fix in the works short term? 

[BIGNEWY]

Just now, Boosterdog said:

Many watercourses have frankly bizarre geometry from 100M tall elevated embankments through to graviity defying angles. Firstly I hope ED were aware of this prior to release given how obvious it is and secondly, is a fix in the works short term? 

Many geometry issues have been reported by us and by the community which is very helpful. The terrain is early access and we will continue to refine and improve where needed. 

thank you 

[Boosterdog]

Just now, BIGNEWY said:

Many geometry issues have been reported by us and by the community which is very helpful. The terrain is early access and we will continue to refine and improve where needed. 

thank you 

Thanks but thats not what I asked

 

[Dondy]

On 2/21/2025 at 4:02 PM, Graphics said:

Eagle Dynamics Modules

...

Both of these aircraft and the DCS: F-5E also include air-to-air infrared-guided missile seekers being actively distracted by flares prior to missile launch. This makes pre-emptive flares effective when flying against these aircraft. AI aircraft saw a large number of behaviour and functional improvements.

What does this exaclty mean? I thought flare effectiveness is independent on the Aircraft using the flares? I find the sentences above a little bit unclear and maybe missleading? Or maybe it is because english is not my first language, so I apologize

[JD]

On 2/21/2025 at 7:51 PM, SlipHavoc said:

I think they learned a lesson about roadmaps, which is that people take them way too seriously, and then literally for years afterwards, bring up stuff that hasn't been done for various reasons, always in the most rudely sarcastic and negative way possible.  I'd be quite surprised to see any kind of official roadmap published for 2025.

Nobody said anything about dates. We do not expect ED to tell us when they are going to release features and modules. But it would be appriciated to see something like "we are working on this, had issues with that so it will take some time to fix it, that thing is on pause now blah blah blah". That would be enough

[Wing]

Really impressed with the new revised Afghanistan textures. Looks great

 

Edited February 23 by Wing