How much does your DCS experience rely on community contributions?

[Dangerzone]

I’ve heard that most DCS players focus on single-player. My own experience is mostly MP, where community contributions are essential — hosted servers, mission design, scripting tools like MOOSE/MIST, SRS, Overlordbot, and the list goes on...

It’s made me wonder: is my reliance on community-created content typical, or am I in a niche?

This poll is a way to gauge how much of the DCS experience really depends on volunteer and community input — whether it’s essential, just a bonus, or barely needed. Even in single-player, many missions and tools come from the community, so the impact may be larger than it appears.

I’m curious where others stand. Feel free to share thoughts in the comments as well. 

Obviously if you play multiplayer, unless you're hosting your own server and creating your own missions without any third-party tools, you are relying on community contributions such as the hoster - but I don't know how much of an impact this has if the majority of players are SP as I've been told...

Edited Thursday at 03:44 AM by Dangerzone

[dutchili]

Major component: SRS for radio communications in Multi-Player.

Major component: Tacview for debriefing in both MP and SP

Major component: LotATC for air traffic control in MP

My discord uses several mods to enhance the visual experience at airfields and target area's.

[Lace]

Minimal.  SP only I use Tacview for debriefs, 476th range targets, and a couple of SAM asset packs.  No other community/unofficial mods, no scripts.

[Qcumber]

Does this include using third party software for VR? 

[Mr_sukebe]

Interesting question, things that spring to mind that I use:

- Simshaker

- Quad views / DFR

- Emptt VR hangar

- a host of excellent skins

- scripts, MIST,CTLD and CSAR

Now, I tend to avoid non core mod aircraft, ships and similar.  They’re often brilliant, however if I want to host a mission for someone to join, they’d need to have the same mod, which can be a pain.

my thoughts are that this is easily the most helpful game forum that I’m a member of and there’s some very talented people amongst our community who are very helpful

[Dangerzone]

On 6/5/2025 at 4:45 PM, Qcumber said:

Does this include using third party software for VR? 

Not really. This is more stuff directly related to DCS itself. 

Edit: I'm sorry - I shouldn't have said that. I didn't really have 3rd party software for VR in mind when I was asking the question - however in reflection, if 3rd party  community based VR software is essential for people, then that would be considered a community contribution. Sorry for my poor response yesterday.

Edited 12 hours ago by Dangerzone

[Mike145]

I mainly fly the UH1 but usually fly one sortie with either stand alone F4, A4 or OH6.

I do find DCS is enhanced with the scenery mods and ground force mods. 

[MAXsenna]

I heavily rely on different types of enhancement mods, community modules and 3rd party software to make the experience better. SP only. 

[Rudel_chw]

Major, I enjoy trying out new community-created liveries, missions, campaigns, and new assets. Dcs would not be the same for me if I had to go back to official content only.

[sthompson]

I'm mostly SP but still benefit from community contributions. Especially VAICOM for voice control of the AI. Also SRS when I do fly MP. And there are a few mods that make setting up my HOTAS the way I want to so much easier.

[freehand]

I did like the caucases map mod but could live with nothing to be honest.

[VIKBELL]

I have clean install  but I want to see some better of the Mod stuff in the game.   A-4 Skyhawk the and the best of that quality.

[Beirut]

#1 - I need my community-made RCAF skins. 

#2 - A few asset mods. 

#3 - There is no #3.

[SteelPig]

I fly in a squadron and we use SRS, DCS-DTC and a hand full of mods. Would we stop flying without them? No. But they make things easier and more interesting. 

[TOViper]

Major²: OpenXR Toolkit (I don't know what I would do without the Toolkit when flying in VR; without the tool DCS is just a messy-ugly-awful terrain stuttering thing)
Often: Buddy Spike MP scenarios and COOP Server scenarios.
Sometimes: SRS
Rarely: A-4E
Seldomly: VAICOM Pro

That's it.

Edited yesterday at 11:35 AM by TOViper

[kuschmu]

On 6/5/2025 at 9:04 AM, Mr_sukebe said:

Now, I tend to avoid non core mod aircraft, ships and similar.  They’re often brilliant, however if I want to host a mission for someone to join, they’d need to have the same mod, which can be a pain.

Not necessarily. You could use the b) tool from here 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3342776/

which can provide access to a mission with non-ED mods. The respective non-ED mods are just not usable then by clients which do not have them.

[Seasick]

Major. DCE campaigns account for 90% of my flying time. Also Qad Views Foveated, a must.

[Qcumber]

This thread has become a bit confused and needs clarification. I asked above and was told that this pole related to DCS content elements only and not VR performance related 3rd party apps such as QVFR, OXRTK etc. 

@Dangerzone could you please clarify this in the original post?

Most people who use VR (if not all) rely on third party software. 

[Czar66]

I'd probably am an outlier in DCS. My time in DCS has been nearly 100% been in Briefing Room 3rd party application for mission generation with random parameters. Something done quick with minimal predictability to keep the memory going on my modules.

I voted 'critical' because of that application. If it wasn't for Briefing Room, I'd vote for 'none' or 'minimal' for those Playground like scenarios on User Files and I used to spent all the time in scenarios I have made for myself with mission editor.

Community made liveries are also nice and if it wasn't for them, some modules would feel incomplete. F-14A from HB doesn't have Jolly Rogers skin from the 70s as an example.

[Dangerzone]

14 hours ago, SteelPig said:

I fly in a squadron and we use SRS, DCS-DTC and a hand full of mods. Would we stop flying without them? No. But they make things easier and more interesting. 

But if you fly in a squadron - I'm guessing someone other than ED is creating missions and hosting the server, so you are relying on community contributions such as the server hosting, mission designing and maybe scripting too, etc? 

5 hours ago, Qcumber said:

This thread has become a bit confused and needs clarification. I asked above and was told that this pole related to DCS content elements only and not VR performance related 3rd party apps such as QVFR, OXRTK etc. 

@Dangerzone could you please clarify this in the original post?

Most people who use VR (if not all) rely on third party software. 

Sure thing. And I need to make an apology to you. I think my previous response to you was bad. My idea was more about how much people rely on other community contributors for their DCS experience. This includes any community contribution.

Reflecting on this - it could include Mods (Such as QVFR) for sure. But it could also include non-commercial content creators (C130 mod, etc) - or 3rd party community missions, or using a community server, or using scripts, etc. It's a pretty broad spectrum. My understanding is that the majority of players are Single Player only - so this poll was a way of referencing just how many people here are happy with "ED only" material, vs how many actually rely on other community members also contributing something to the mix. 

I wasn't really focusing on QVFR, etc that are essential to people running DCS - but in all honesty reflecting back on this - if they are non commercial community contributions, then I was probably wrong with my previous response, and they probably should be considered, but it's not limited only to those. 

Or another way to put it. how much would DCS suffer if there was no volunteer / community contribution at all.

Edited 12 hours ago by Dangerzone

[SteelPig]

7 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

But if you fly in a squadron - I'm guessing someone other than ED is creating missions and hosting the server, so you are relying on community contributions such as the server hosting, mission designing and maybe scripting too, etc? 

 

No, most missions are build by us and the servers are our own. 

[cfrag]

15 minutes ago, SteelPig said:

No, most missions are build by us and the servers are our own.

Ah, that raises an interesting point: If you are a member of squad "A", and fly a mission that was hosted on a server that is owned by your squad, but not you, and that mission was created by a member of your squad that isn't you, does that constitute 'using community contributions'? After all, a point can be made that both mission and server aren't yours and that they are contributed by others that are not part of the product that you purchased from ED. 

Also, I know few squadrons-level missions that aren't using at least one the following: CTLD, MIST, SSB or MOOSE; all community-contributions (IIRC), so technically, I think that such missions fall under "community use" since they rely on community-provided frameworks.