DCS Discussion

[Skoop]

Looks great, a bunch of new dcs modules I'll be buying.  Would love for a Vietnam map to be soon to release with a phantom or A6 versus more Middle East maps.  The kola map will be cool, but I'd like to see the Caucasus map be fleshed out into Ukraine and crimea. 

[Jarhead0331]

Looks great, a bunch of new dcs modules I'll be buying.  Would love for a Vietnam map to be soon to release with a phantom or A6 versus more Middle East maps.  The kola map will be cool, but I'd like to see the Caucasus map be fleshed out into Ukraine and crimea. 

Well, the Phantom is almost here. I expect it before March 2024. Some of the terrain previewed in the video looks like it could be Vietnam, but no official announcement. With Iraq and Afghanistan officially confirmed, and with Sinai, Persian Gulf and Syria, we've got much of the middle east. Might be nice to have these era specific though, so one could authentically recreate the wars of the 50s/60s/70s.

I think the big reveal is the full-fidelity Fulcrum-A, which a lot of people have been speculating about. Its 1980s tech, but will still be cool to have.

The video was great, but no real big surprises for me. Most everything I'm looking forward to and that was featured in the video is already common knowledge. Was a little surprised to see the A7 in there, as I feel like it is really quite some time away, like late 2025, if we're lucky. In what I hope is the near term,I'm most looking forward to the Kiowa. I really hope Polychops can pull it together and get this out the door.

[Destraex]

Yep the Fulcrum will finally give some much needed refor enemy party FULL fidelity love to online servers. 80s or not we currently have the mig21 as the most modern full fidelity redfor aircraft. If you don't count the Hind and Black Shark. Suffice to say if I have the funds to allocate I will want to show my support for redfor modules by purchasing this. It's a fascinating aircraft but a Su-27 would have been better. Of course even though the older versions of the Su-27 is common knowledge in the west due to the fall of the soviet union and a lot of it's allies like the Ukraine having intimate knowledge of it, I think it is still blocked as a module for DCS by the original manufacturers because it is still in service.

I enjoyed the ww2 pacific assets/carrier shown as well. Wonder if the carrier will be as good as the supercarrier module.

[Redwolf]

Had hoped they did a full fidelity Flanker first, but I'd take a Mig-29, too.

Overall looks like an expensive year ahead. My only hope are technical delays :D

[Jarhead0331]

Had hoped they did a full fidelity Flanker first, but I'd take a Mig-29, too.

Overall looks like an expensive year ahead. My only hope are technical delays :D

I think a lot of the stuff featured in the video won't be released in 2024...The chinook really only has external modeling. There is a long way to go. I'll also be surprised to see Afghanistan and Iraq, Kola, Hellcat and WWII carrier this year. Finally, as I mentioned above, no way we'll see the A7 this year either. So if we're lucky, we'll get the Phantom, Kiowa, Corsair and Fulcrum, assuming they have been working on it for awhile.

[CaptainKoloth]

Yep the Fulcrum will finally give some much needed refor enemy party FULL fidelity love to online servers. 80s or not we currently have the mig21 as the most modern full fidelity redfor aircraft. If you don't count the Hind and Black Shark. Suffice to say if I have the funds to allocate I will want to show my support for redfor modules by purchasing this. It's a fascinating aircraft but a Su-27 would have been better. Of course even though the older versions of the Su-27 is common knowledge in the west due to the fall of the soviet union and a lot of it's allies like the Ukraine having intimate knowledge of it, I think it is still blocked as a module for DCS by the original manufacturers because it is still in service.

It's not really a question of it being in service or not. They've talked about this pretty extensively in interviews. There are basically two requirements they impose upon themselves for making an aircraft: 1) Sufficient demand that they think it will be profitable (obviously), 2) sufficient PUBLICLY RELEASED documentation to develop the aircraft to their high standard of realism. That "publicly released" is what trips a lot of people up becuase they explicitly exclude "well some guy leaked it on a forum and it's floating around everywhere on the internet". It has to have been officially released to the public by some source with the authority to do so (which doesn't necessarily mean the original manufacturer of the aircraft - often the governments operating the aircraft have legal rights to the IP and manuals). This is why some older aircraft like the F-14D haven't been released while other newer ones like the AH-64D have; they just don't have the documentation for certain aircraft as for whatever reason the operating authorities haven't always released them. Remember, some of the DCS aircraft like the F-16 and JF-17 are in service or even for sale in basically their exact DCS configuration right now, so it's not as if the manufacturers have some sort of right to block release as long as ED isn't using proprietary information to develop the sim.

Same with essentially all fourth-gen and later REDFOR aircraft; the Russians just haven't released that data. The going assumption in the community has been that the MiG-29 would be possible because the Germans operated it and have released the appropriate manuals in full as I understand it. But for that reason, don't get your hopes up for a Su-27. It may be that the systems are "known" and again even that you can "find" the relevant documentation floating around, but their policy is not to do that. And that's not a Russia-specific issue, in theory they could get in trouble with Western authorities for doing that with their aircraft as well. It's not the Boeings and Lockheeds and Mikoyans that will come after you, it's the relevant governments operating the aircraft.

[Jarhead0331]

Yep the Fulcrum will finally give some much needed refor enemy party FULL fidelity love to online servers. 80s or not we currently have the mig21 as the most modern full fidelity redfor aircraft. If you don't count the Hind and Black Shark. Suffice to say if I have the funds to allocate I will want to show my support for redfor modules by purchasing this. It's a fascinating aircraft but a Su-27 would have been better. Of course even though the older versions of the Su-27 is common knowledge in the west due to the fall of the soviet union and a lot of it's allies like the Ukraine having intimate knowledge of it, I think it is still blocked as a module for DCS by the original manufacturers because it is still in service.

It's not really a question of it being in service or not. They've talked about this pretty extensively in interviews. There are basically two requirements they impose upon themselves for making an aircraft: 1) Sufficient demand that they think it will be profitable (obviously), 2) sufficient PUBLICLY RELEASED documentation to develop the aircraft to their high standard of realism. That "publicly released" is what trips a lot of people up becuase they explicitly exclude "well some guy leaked it on a forum and it's floating around everywhere on the internet". It has to have been officially released to the public by some source with the authority to do so (which doesn't necessarily mean the original manufacturer of the aircraft - often the governments operating the aircraft have legal rights to the IP and manuals). This is why some older aircraft like the F-14D haven't been released while other newer ones like the AH-64D have; they just don't have the documentation for certain aircraft as for whatever reason the operating authorities haven't always released them. Remember, some of the DCS aircraft like the F-16 and JF-17 are in service or even for sale in basically their exact DCS configuration right now, so it's not as if the manufacturers have some sort of right to block release as long as ED isn't using proprietary information to develop the sim.

Same with essentially all fourth-gen and later REDFOR aircraft; the Russians just haven't released that data. The going assumption in the community has been that the MiG-29 would be possible because the Germans operated it and have released the appropriate manuals in full as I understand it. But for that reason, don't get your hopes up for a Su-27. It may be that the systems are "known" and again even that you can "find" the relevant documentation floating around, but their policy is not to do that. And that's not a Russia-specific issue, in theory they could get in trouble with Western authorities for doing that with their aircraft as well. It's not the Boeings and Lockheeds and Mikoyans that will come after you, it's the relevant governments operating the aircraft.

While all of this is true, there are exceptions and you mentioned at least one. The JF-17 is definitely suspect in terms of where Deka acquired the information on performance, avionics and weaponry, and whether it is even accurate or complete. Most speculate that it's based mainly on guess work and hypotheticals. Not sure why ED gave this one a pass. Perhaps the demand for an advanced modern redfor aircraft was too great and this is the best they were going to get.

[CaptainKoloth]

Yep the Fulcrum will finally give some much needed refor enemy party FULL fidelity love to online servers. 80s or not we currently have the mig21 as the most modern full fidelity redfor aircraft. If you don't count the Hind and Black Shark. Suffice to say if I have the funds to allocate I will want to show my support for redfor modules by purchasing this. It's a fascinating aircraft but a Su-27 would have been better. Of course even though the older versions of the Su-27 is common knowledge in the west due to the fall of the soviet union and a lot of it's allies like the Ukraine having intimate knowledge of it, I think it is still blocked as a module for DCS by the original manufacturers because it is still in service.

It's not really a question of it being in service or not. They've talked about this pretty extensively in interviews. There are basically two requirements they impose upon themselves for making an aircraft: 1) Sufficient demand that they think it will be profitable (obviously), 2) sufficient PUBLICLY RELEASED documentation to develop the aircraft to their high standard of realism. That "publicly released" is what trips a lot of people up becuase they explicitly exclude "well some guy leaked it on a forum and it's floating around everywhere on the internet". It has to have been officially released to the public by some source with the authority to do so (which doesn't necessarily mean the original manufacturer of the aircraft - often the governments operating the aircraft have legal rights to the IP and manuals). This is why some older aircraft like the F-14D haven't been released while other newer ones like the AH-64D have; they just don't have the documentation for certain aircraft as for whatever reason the operating authorities haven't always released them. Remember, some of the DCS aircraft like the F-16 and JF-17 are in service or even for sale in basically their exact DCS configuration right now, so it's not as if the manufacturers have some sort of right to block release as long as ED isn't using proprietary information to develop the sim.

Same with essentially all fourth-gen and later REDFOR aircraft; the Russians just haven't released that data. The going assumption in the community has been that the MiG-29 would be possible because the Germans operated it and have released the appropriate manuals in full as I understand it. But for that reason, don't get your hopes up for a Su-27. It may be that the systems are "known" and again even that you can "find" the relevant documentation floating around, but their policy is not to do that. And that's not a Russia-specific issue, in theory they could get in trouble with Western authorities for doing that with their aircraft as well. It's not the Boeings and Lockheeds and Mikoyans that will come after you, it's the relevant governments operating the aircraft.

While all of this is true, there are exceptions and you mentioned at least one. The JF-17 is definitely suspect in terms of where Deka acquired the information on performance, avionics and weaponry, and whether it is even accurate or complete. Most speculate that it's based mainly on guess work and hypotheticals. Not sure why ED gave this one a pass. Perhaps the demand for an advanced modern redfor aircraft was too great and this is the best they were going to get.

Yeah, I'm not claiming they always necessarily live up to that standard, and the Ka-50 is similarly questionable -especially inasmuch as it never really fully entered service- but seems to have been "grandfathered in". There's an upcoming J-8II, also from Deka, in much the same boat. Personally I don't really care if it's hyper-switch-accurate as long as it's fun to play and "more or less accurate". And Deka's planes seem to be very well received across the board (93% on Steam, that objective and indisputable measure of quality).

[Toonces]

The flight sim community in general would be better if more people could accept "more or less accurate."

[SirAndrewD]

The flight sim community in general would be better if more people could accept "more or less accurate."

In the golden days they would and did.  There used to be a dividing line between study and survey sims, and some of the most popular were the "less accurate" survey type games. 

I for one would love something like that today.  Il2 Great Battles despite being survey has a much higher learning curve than say, games like Aces over Europe.  The Strike Fighters games fit the bill very well but they've fallen so far behind on tech that they really aren't viable.

So DCS it is!  But I will say if a very good Strike Fighters esque survey sim comes out with modern tech, it's a day one buy for me.

[CaptainKoloth]

The flight sim community in general would be better if more people could accept "more or less accurate."

In the golden days they would and did.  There used to be a dividing line between study and survey sims, and some of the most popular were the "less accurate" survey type games. 

I for one would love something like that today.  Il2 Great Battles despite being study has a much higher learning curve than say, games like Aces over Europe.  The Strike Fighters games fit the bill very well but they've fallen so far behind on tech that they really aren't viable.

So DCS it is!  But I will say if a very good Strike Fighters esque survey sim comes out with modern tech, it's a day one buy for me.

A lot of those 90s flight sims had fairly detailed systems modeling of aircraft for which the data were more or less speculative, like the F-22, X-32/35, and RAH-66. As a real-life (recreational private) pilot, I can state with a fair degree of certainty that you can fly all the hours you want in DCS/MSFs, you'll still have a huge learning curve when you get in the real plane, so I figure as long as I'm essentially pretending to fly anyway I'd rather get to pretend across a wider range of aircraft.

One of the most useful perspectives I ever heard on flying, this from a real test pilot I talked to who actually had flown dozens of real aircraft, was that "piloting is piloting and you only need to learn it once; the rest is just systems and checklists". So to that end I figure again, ok, maybe the simulation of the system is only 75% accurate and in the real airplane thus MFD page is different or this button does something else, but it's not like it makes the experience somehow fundamentally different.

So all that is a long-winded way of saying, I agree with you, I don't know why people get so hung up on rivet-by-rivet accuracy. I'm not sure if it's a "community thing" or an "Eagle Dynamics thing" but they're definitely set on it.

[Destraex]

The flight sim community in general would be better if more people could accept "more or less accurate."

In the golden days they would and did.  There used to be a dividing line between study and survey sims, and some of the most popular were the "less accurate" survey type games. 

I for one would love something like that today.  Il2 Great Battles despite being study has a much higher learning curve than say, games like Aces over Europe.  The Strike Fighters games fit the bill very well but they've fallen so far behind on tech that they really aren't viable.

So DCS it is!  But I will say if a very good Strike Fighters esque survey sim comes out with modern tech, it's a day one buy for me.

A lot of those 90s flight sims had fairly detailed systems modeling of aircraft for which the data were more or less speculative, like the F-22, X-32/35, and RAH-66. As a real-life (recreational private) pilot, I can state with a fair degree of certainty that you can fly all the hours you want in DCS/MSFs, you'll still have a huge learning curve when you get in the real plane, so I figure as long as I'm essentially pretending to fly anyway I'd rather get to pretend across a wider range of aircraft.

One of the most useful perspectives I ever heard on flying, this from a real test pilot I talked to who actually had flown dozens of real aircraft, was that "piloting is piloting and you only need to learn it once; the rest is just systems and checklists". So to that end I figure again, ok, maybe the simulation of the system is only 75% accurate and in the real airplane thus MFD page is different or this button does something else, but it's not like it makes the experience somehow fundamentally different.

So all that is a long-winded way of saying, I agree with you, I don't know why people get so hung up on rivet-by-rivet accuracy. I'm not sure if it's a "community thing" or an "Eagle Dynamics thing" but they're definitely set on it.

You might have a huge learning curve outside of DCS if you have the aim of being able to fly the real thing eventually. That's true. For me I just like to play around with the best possible model that can be had WHILE all the other models ARE of a comparable quality for comparison. I am as interested in the aircraft and what they were like as much as flying them. I guess that means I cover a cross section between button pusher and the joy of flight itself kinda guy when I play DCS. I like that DCS is a study sim.
Sure you are never going to get perfection, but at least their are standards and fairly high ones for DCS and aim to be consistent when compared to the old 90s cold war sort of sims where almost zero data was available.

Besides. These full fidelity modules provide a steady income stream to DCS and give it an amazing reputation. People are drawn to the TOP GUN of combat simulations.

What ever happened to the entry level sim DCS world was going to release, it was called modern warfare or something.
That would be a solution for those who just want to shoot stuff on a higher level than war thunder. Il2 is also fine, the only high learning curve in that was that it was not a clickable cockpit button pusher so I prefered DCS over it.

What I would say is that in some cases where the real documentation and specifications are lost to time; I am talking about the Zero specifically here, that DCS simply go for a best guess because their is no other choice and never will be. Some zeros are still flying and some extrapolation may be needed. I am sure the best possible ZERO can be added to the DCS stable with a disclaimer.

Right now DCS already has low fidelity Su-27s and other redfor aircraft. So they are their in those forms for you to fly in a simpler format. But people like me would love a super highly detailed wonderful work of art like the Tomcat and so many others on the blue forces side are for the redfor. Somehow somebody has to get former redfor operators to publicly release the necessary documents. I can think of one right now that might be happy to do that, but they are rather busy right now and ED might not want contact with them.

Mods are another DCS option for those willing to accept less official and exacting product. You might get your F-22 or 35 from a mod.

I am happy to fly with fewer more complete study aircraft in DCS. This is what DCS has become and it sounds like a lower fidelity alternative game might need to fill a market niche for you guys. I do feel for you people as I cannot think of anything that might fill that niche that is even on the horizon. I guess microprose might be the key here as they keep doing their old titles.

[CaptainKoloth]

The flight sim community in general would be better if more people could accept "more or less accurate."

In the golden days they would and did.  There used to be a dividing line between study and survey sims, and some of the most popular were the "less accurate" survey type games. 

I for one would love something like that today.  Il2 Great Battles despite being study has a much higher learning curve than say, games like Aces over Europe.  The Strike Fighters games fit the bill very well but they've fallen so far behind on tech that they really aren't viable.

So DCS it is!  But I will say if a very good Strike Fighters esque survey sim comes out with modern tech, it's a day one buy for me.

A lot of those 90s flight sims had fairly detailed systems modeling of aircraft for which the data were more or less speculative, like the F-22, X-32/35, and RAH-66. As a real-life (recreational private) pilot, I can state with a fair degree of certainty that you can fly all the hours you want in DCS/MSFs, you'll still have a huge learning curve when you get in the real plane, so I figure as long as I'm essentially pretending to fly anyway I'd rather get to pretend across a wider range of aircraft.

One of the most useful perspectives I ever heard on flying, this from a real test pilot I talked to who actually had flown dozens of real aircraft, was that "piloting is piloting and you only need to learn it once; the rest is just systems and checklists". So to that end I figure again, ok, maybe the simulation of the system is only 75% accurate and in the real airplane thus MFD page is different or this button does something else, but it's not like it makes the experience somehow fundamentally different.

So all that is a long-winded way of saying, I agree with you, I don't know why people get so hung up on rivet-by-rivet accuracy. I'm not sure if it's a "community thing" or an "Eagle Dynamics thing" but they're definitely set on it.

You might have a huge learning curve outside of DCS if you have the aim of being able to fly the real thing eventually. That's true. For me I just like to play around with the best possible model that can be had WHILE all the other models ARE of a comparable quality for comparison. I am as interested in the aircraft and what they were like as much as flying them. I guess that means I cover a cross section between button pusher and the joy of flight itself kinda guy when I play DCS. I like that DCS is a study sim.
Sure you are never going to get perfection, but at least their are standards and fairly high ones for DCS and aim to be consistent when compared to the old 90s cold war sort of sims where almost zero data was available.

Besides. These full fidelity modules provide a steady income stream to DCS and give it an amazing reputation. People are drawn to the TOP GUN of combat simulations.

What ever happened to the entry level sim DCS world was going to release, it was called modern warfare or something.
That would be a solution for those who just want to shoot stuff on a higher level than war thunder. Il2 is also fine, the only high learning curve in that was that it was not a clickable cockpit button pusher so I prefered DCS over it.

What I would say is that in some cases where the real documentation and specifications are lost to time; I am talking about the Zero specifically here, that DCS simply go for a best guess because their is no other choice and never will be. Some zeros are still flying and some extrapolation may be needed. I am sure the best possible ZERO can be added to the DCS stable with a disclaimer.

Right now DCS already has low fidelity Su-27s and other redfor aircraft. So they are their in those forms for you to fly in a simpler format. But people like me would love a super highly detailed wonderful work of art like the Tomcat and so many others on the blue forces side are for the redfor. Somehow somebody has to get former redfor operators to publicly release the necessary documents. I can think of one right now that might be happy to do that, but they are rather busy right now and ED might not want contact with them.

Mods are another DCS option for those willing to accept less official and exacting product. You might get your F-22 or 35 from a mod.

I am happy to fly with fewer more complete study aircraft in DCS. This is what DCS has become and it sounds like a lower fidelity alternative game might need to fill a market niche for you guys. I do feel for you people as I cannot think of anything that might fill that niche that is even on the horizon. I guess microprose might be the key here as they keep doing their old titles.

I don't disagree with anything you said, I love the super high fidelity models as well. I just don't think it has to be am either/or decision, that "it's perfectly accurate high fidelity or we refuse to do it at all". As you say they could choose to do in parallel lower fidelity stuff like Flaming Cliffs or Modern Air Combat which was their more arcadey thing which they announced to great fanfare and then silently abandoned and never mentioned again. But they seem to have chosen not to do any more of the latter, which I think is sad. It is awesome that they allow such great mod support- a huge update to the Su-30 mod just dropped which the community seems to really like.

[Skoop]

You guys do realize that there are a ton of settings and cheat keys that make things super easy.  It's just a matter of buckling down firing it up and giving it a try. 

[CaptainKoloth]

You guys do realize that there are a ton of settings and cheat keys that make things super easy.  It's just a matter of buckling down firing it up and giving it a try. 

We're making a different point. We're not saying it's too hard to learn. We're asking where the cheat button is that lets us fly an F-35 or MiG-25 or RAH-66 or F-105 (for example).

Look at all the aircraft that shipped with a game like Jane's Fighters Anthology. Obviously it wasn't remotely comparable to DCS in really any way whatsoever, but that was the norm of 90s flight sims with regard to your choice of steed.