More Modern Everything!

[smoking_ace420]

The Cold War ended almost 40 years ago. It's time DCS is updated with everything from the 21st century, at the very least SAMs, fighters and strike aircraft, AWACS, ect. The Vipers and Hornets are left with no 21st century environments where they belong.

[SteelPig]

The Vipers and Hornets we have are from the same timeframe. 

[TheBiggerBass]

From what I have read from RL air forces recently dogfighting and even manned aircrafts do not not play the role anymore as they used to in modern warfare. I guess it's mandatory to include drones - a lot of them - when you want to sim a modern combat. That's a bit out of scope for DCS I guess.

[MAXsenna]

24 minutes ago, TheBiggerBass said:

That's a bit out of scope for DCS I guess.

Drones? There are drones in DCS. Even some flyable mods.  

[OmasRachE]

I don´t know if anyone would have great fun in playing a combat flight sim that represents the 2025 battlefield. BVR from hundrets of miles away in an F35, F16s degradet to hunt shahed drones, and combined arms with randomly exploding collums due to dji drones.

 

My desire would be a vietnam theatre where we can use our Phantoms, Migs and Hueys like its meant to be. And new modules from that time like the Hun, or F105. Aircrafts that actually need to be flown by the pilot. That said I would also appreciate more from the late 90s/early 2000. Since we are about to loose the Strike Eagle I am realy looking forward to the FF Eagle and the Typhoon. And I would agree that some newer SAMs would be nice.

[Ramius007]

We dont have present time flyable modules in the first place, our lot 20 Hornet is already phased out from USN, and retiring from USMC, same with Harrier, F-15C retired this year, except Jeff we dont really have FF module that can play modern redfor, and even Jeff is old, no AESA pre blk.3 variant, A-10C kinda fit, but have fun against 2020's threats, same can be said about Apache facing manpads proliferation and UAV that can attack helicopters, any realistic scenario would be painfull with existing assets. What DCS really lack, are early 2000's threats, our early XXIc modules have to face boring early 80's Soviet SAMs, new CH assets will be filling this hole a bit, but it's a long way.

Edited August 19 by Ramius007

[TheBiggerBass]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb Ramius007:

We dont have present time flyable modules in the first place, our lot 20 Hornet is already phased out from USN, and retiring from USMC, same with Harrier, F-15C retired this year, except Jeff we dont really have FF module that can play modern redfor, and even Jeff is old, no AESA pre blk.3 variant, A-10C kinda fit, but have fun against 2020's threats, same can be said about Apache facing manpads proliferation and UAV that can attack helicopters, any realistic scenario would be painfull with existing assets. What DCS really lack, are early 2000's threats, our early XXIc modules have to face boring early 80's Soviet SAMs, new CH assets will be filling this hole a bit, but it's a long way.

Agree 100%. In year 2000+ RL missions aircrafts from the 60ies/70ies/80ies/90ies were used, which is the main focus of DCS. Even 50ies jets are still in use in some minor air forces.

[smoking_ace420]

19 hours ago, SteelPig said:

The Vipers and Hornets we have are from the same timeframe. 

I thought they were from the early 00s. 

[OmasRachE]

F16 1991 and F18 somewhat around 1999 if I remeber it correct.

[Ramius007]

Link 16, helmet and aim-9x were not a thing before XXIc, GPS in aircrafts? certainly not 1991, during Desert Storm ground GPS tools were common, but ALL planes used during confict based on INS, drifting like hell, and pilots often turned back to radio navigation. Fun fact, that even things like NVG during 90's was not a std on F-15's. Our Hornet C lot 20 have upgraded engines and radar over 80's predecessor, it's still relatively close to CW one, if we remove DL, helmet and modern weapons,maybe for those reasons ED added Welleye II that was retired shortly after ODS, so there was practically no chance that lot 20 could even use it... Same can be said about DCS Viper. If you had to use early 80's Viper it would be a culture shock, especially old pulse doppler radar with range comperable to Fulcrum and similarly prone to notching and jamming. A Vipers were not HARM capable either, but older Vipers C were rather comperable to one we have in a2g, just diffrent weapon options with various foreign customers.

[draconus]

On 8/20/2025 at 8:25 AM, OmasRachE said:

F16 1991 and F18 somewhat around 1999 if I remeber it correct.

The DCS: F-16C Viper is based on the United States F-16CM Block 50, roughly M4.2+, which operated in the 2007 timeframe.

The DCS: F/A-18C Lot 20 is based on the United States Navy / US Marine Corps F/A-18C in the 2002(ish) time frame.

This is from modules' subforum descriptions and FAQ.

On 8/20/2025 at 3:51 AM, smoking_ace420 said:

I thought they were from the early 00s. 

And you're right.

On 8/19/2025 at 3:05 PM, OmasRachE said:

BVR from hundrets of miles away in an F35

Yeah, no. Only on paper.

[Ramius007]

2 hours ago, draconus said:

The DCS: F-16C Viper is based on the United States F-16CM Block 50, roughly M4.2+, which operated in the 2007 timeframe.

Yeah, it was funny to me, when people were complaining about Codename Flanker Su-30 saying it's fantasy super secret plane, when Su-30MKI is actully older than Viper we have in DCS, of course devs added some weapons that are not even in service, or are on never Russian planes, but jet itself with weapons that are already in game is preety much our Viper/Hornet era. Btw, I reccomend this mod, even to people who are not planning to fly it, works very well as AI opponent in missions,we really miss something like this in core assets currently, and you can adjust weapons to scenario date. With r-77-1 finally it's F-teen peer in a2a, without having to lua hack FC-3 planes and grant them pl-12. Mod is not breaking IC

Edited 10 hours ago by Ramius007

[Gunfreak]

50 minutes ago, Ramius007 said:

Yeah, it was funny to me, when people were complaining about Codename Flanker Su-30 saying it's fantasy super secret plane, when Su-30MKI is actully older than Viper we have in DCS, of course devs added some weapons that are not even in service, or are on never Russian planes, but jet itself with weapons that are already in game is preety much our Viper/Hornet era. Btw, I reccomend this mod, even to people who are not planning to fly it, works very well as AI opponent in missions,we really miss something like this in core assets currently, and you can adjust weapons to scenario date. With r-77-1 finally it's F-teen peer in a2a, without having to lua hack FC-3 planes and grant them pl-12. Mod is not breaking IC

It's not the age of the aircraft, but access to public data, and ideally the aircraft itself. 
We don't have a single British jet, even old stuff, as the British government simply doesn't grant access to that stuff. Both the Typhoon and Tornado we are getting  are German aircraft. 
And given that the Russian aircraft themselves only used the R27 until around 2015(with the R77 only existing as less capable export version up to that point) It's actually quite realistic to have Russian MiGs and SUs flying around with R27s up until at least 2010.

[Ramius007]

7 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

It's not the age of the aircraft, but access to public data, and ideally the aircraft itself. 
We don't have a single British jet, even old stuff, as the British government simply doesn't grant access to that stuff. Both the Typhoon and Tornado we are getting  are German aircraft. 
And given that the Russian aircraft themselves only used the R27 until around 2015(with the R77 only existing as less capable export version up to that point) It's actually quite realistic to have Russian MiGs and SUs flying around with R27s up until at least 2010.

You dont have data on crew workflow during combat, but this kind of data is to some degree restricted even on current modern FF modules, technology itself is preety old, PESA radar was first used on 1985 Mig-31, a lot of weapons are late CW standard, capabilities are preety well known, also something being classified, doesnt mean that it's not known for aviation enthusiasts, You can proapbly find on internet that "classified" Su-27 manual, that prevent us from getting FF old Flanker, of coure becouse of legal status, cant be added to DCS, but does it mean it's secret or unknown?

[draconus]

9 minutes ago, Ramius007 said:

You dont have data on crew workflow during combat, but this kind of data is to some degree restricted even on current modern FF modules, technology itself is preety old, PESA radar was first used on 1985 Mig-31, a lot of weapons are late CW standard, capabilities are preety well known, also something being classified, doesnt mean that it's not known for aviation enthusiasts, You can proapbly find on internet that "classified" Su-27 manual, that prevent us from getting FF old Flanker, of coure becouse of legal status, cant be added to DCS, but does it mean it's secret or unknown?

Please, don't turn it into yet another "Why no FF redfor?". You seem to know the reasons and the answers are still the same. "Pretty well known" and leaked docs are not gonna cut it for FF module and modeling any modern russian aircraft can endanger ED employees located there.

[Ramius007]

4 hours ago, draconus said:

Please, don't turn it into yet another "Why no FF redfor?". You seem to know the reasons and the answers are still the same. "Pretty well known" and leaked docs are not gonna cut it for FF module and modeling any modern russian aircraft can endanger ED employees located there.

I'm not even trying to make it another "Why no FF redfor?" I m just giving valid reasons, and those are legal, or unwillingness of ED employees to break local law, and this is understandable, I just made a reminder, that no lack of information or "secrecy" of those planes are reasons, this would be a thing, for not having most modern chinese jets, where we really struggle even with finding of cockpit photos, not even talking about performance charts or weapon capabilities. OTOH I firmly belive in future modern FF "redfor" but most likely it will be based on version used by some export customer, maybe Indian, or Maleysian, maybe Algierian, but I wouldnt expect actual workflow or specific detailed informations about avionics being modelled, as I dont expect from F-35 or even some planes we already have in game already. If ED was talking about aiming at 90% realistic Hornet, I think that 80% realistic Su-30 is possible, just not based on Russian version.