Vogel

Yeah I only fly Open Beta, I think most people do given how almost everything is "early access" these days lol.

The difference with Steam typically is that it's a bit behind the standalone, at least that's my understanding. Honestly I would just use the standalone client, that way ED gets 100% of the sales instead of Steam taking a hefty 30% of the cut.

Title says it all, it's a hefty patch chaps so better download somewhat ahead of time if you plan on flying. Patch notes: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/news/changelog/openbeta/2.7.0.4625/ On a side note, the DCS 2.7 launch/Spring sale is now live for the standalone version of the sim, up to 50% off most modules! Tempted by the Viper tbh.

Does anyone have a link to where they say it's out in two weeks? All I'm seeing is late Q2 2021, which would be late May or early June?

Hmmm. I might give it a miss then, not sure. The ED maps can get a bit choppy with lots of units, so I can’t imagine how bad Syria would be. The fact folks with 32Gb of system RAM are struggling is showing some glaring issues in my opinion. It’s still very much an excessive amount of RAM to have for most games, I realise DCS is something of a unique case on the market but ouch...

.... *proceeds to throw money at screen* I had no idea it was so close. Will pre-order later today lol!

Haha the hype train is indeed heading to orbit at this point xD. I'll be pre-ordering too before long, probably when I get my next paycheck. Did ED give a release window yet?

Hi folks! With the Hind just around the corner, I've been once again looking at the Syria map and wondering if I should get it. My concern is that I've noted on the ED forums there are many people, with high spec machines, stating they're getting poor performance and lots of stuttering (even with a RTX 2080 & 32Gb RAM). I'm running a similar system setup, with an i7 9700K. Developer feedback is non-existent on the ED forums, seemingly they're a non-english speaking team so ED handles communications "when they can". This has lead to more than a few frustrated players dealing with insane RAM usage on just an empty instant action mission, with the map filling up the entirety of their system RAM. Curious if anyone here has had similar experiences? Hesistant to drop £40 on a map that I might not even use due to poor performance. Cheers, Vogel

Curious if any of you gents have any aviation artwork hanging on the walls? I confess I'm a sucker for stuff like this, if I bought every piece I went "ooohhhh" and "aaaaahhhh" at I'd probably need a second mortgage and a small section of the national gallery gallery to hang them in . I've got one relatively "cheap" print from the folks at Aces High in Buckinghamshire (next to RAF Halton where I used to live), they had a signing event and I managed to get lots of former RAF chaps from WWII service (BoB and onwards) to sign the print for me so it's a bit special. I imagine most, if not all of them have since passed on. I remember being particularly gutted that Geoffery Wellum was supposed to be in attendance but was sadly ill an couldn't make it. I've read his book "First Light" many times and it never gets old. Been looking on their site today and saw a print of a SHAR engaging an Argentine Mirage over the Falklands, signed by Cdr 'Sharkey' Ward himself... the print alone is over a hundred quid (never mind a nice frame for it) but damn does it look great. Oh so tempting... sometimes I wonder if it would be better if I wanted to collect something cheap like stamps lol! IMG_2781.heic

Damn, that's rough luck. Will the place you bought it from be able to provide a replacement for you?

My "Aircraft" folder just got a little bigger lol. Some gorgeous wallpapers in here! My current wallpaper: Have quite a thing for the Spitfire at the moment, been reading quite a bit of material about her as well as getting to grips with the LF Mk.IX in DCS. Some other shots from my wallpaper folder are in order however! Hope you like them :). By the way, @Firefly do you have any higher resolution shots of those pictures you listed? The E model 109 and the Spit look stunning!

Aye, they only just recently finished a sale too! I picked up the "Achtung! Spitfire!" campaign, and the one featuring the A-20. Also got the Spitfire Mk.Vb and P-40E collector planes :). I thought about getting the 109 G-6, but given we're getting the G-6 late in Normandy I didn't think I'd bother. The value is ridiculous to be honest, the base game is like £5.50 or something bonkers.

I picked up Roland Whites new book "Harrier 809", following 809 NAS's antics during the Falklands war. It's been extremely fun to read so far. The way he writes makes it flow like a fast paced story, but manages to cover a lot of historical details on events in a very factual way. A welcome break from some books which are very turgid and hard to read. His previous works including "Vulcan 607" on the Black Buck raids and Phoenix Squadron describing Ark Royal and her Buccaneer squadrons flight to Belize to disuade Guatamala from invading the isolated colony. All great books and recommended reads :).

Curious if any of you are into the Paradox games like Hearts of Iron or Crusader Kings etc? I'm playing a bit more HOI IV these days, curious if anyone wanted to give a go on multiplayer at some point?

Nice screenshots! Sorry that Spit slipped by us, the blighter was going hell for leather on the deck so it was hard to spot him. At least I made them both pay for it afterwards xD.

I do love a good screenshot thread, these are mixed bag of some of my favourites in my folder. Hope you like them . Loved the colour of the clouds against the aircraft in this one, the lighting really makes it. Keeping up relations from the RIO seat, where'd I put that Polaroid?! Hawkeye against the ocean. China Lake skin is so clean! Cabbage crates coming over the briny!

I think the Shinden-Kai would be more than capable of going toe to toe with late war allied fighters. They could take the A7M2 also, despite only 8 examples being completed. It all hangs on how much documentation survives for such aircraft. Also we see people outplaying other pilots in inferior machines all the time in any sim. MiG-15’s hunting down modern jets in DCS or taking early war fighters like the Hurricane Mk.II up against the best 109’s and 190’s. I’m sure in the right hands a good pilot will be able to take A6M5’s etc and kill “better” allied aircraft, just how allied pilots in China did with P-40’s or Buffalos etc. It would be a shame to see such an important theatre of WW2 be ignored because people felt the Japanese weren’t “competitive” enough.

Very fair points, I was only looking at win/loss ratios in general.

There are several options available. They could even set it in the early Sino-Japanese war period on mainland China and the surrounding islands, the issue here though is that the aircraft that flew in that campaign (P-40's, Buffalos etc) were WOEFULLY inadequate versus the Zero. So if you were flying and allied aircraft it would be a bit of an unpleasent experience. However, something tells me there could be difficulties getting that scenario to work given how fragile the CCP are about depictions of their nations history, factual or not. In light of that, the Guadalcanal campaign would be a good spot, but then you're really starting to see the Japanese aircraft fall from grace with the F4U introduced in '42 which would just utterly dominate. Ah, the perils of trying to have a historical simulator whilst also trying to retain a semblence of computer game "balance" . The A7M2 would be an ideal example of a later war IJN fighter, however only eight were ever built and I don't think they saw any real active service. The Kawanishi N1K was a good aircraft, probably the only option for a mid to late war aircraft first introduced in '42 with multiple upgrades throughout its service life. Midway would of course be popular, but given how airfields are a chaotic mess generally speaking I can't imagine any ability for people to use the correct stacking and protocols for recovery onto the carrier. It's bad enough in DCS with people throwing away the manual for case II recoveries and just zooming straight in, regardless of what activity is going on either in the pattern or on the deck. I'd like to see SOME carrier operations, but in conjunction with a sizable number of ground based airfields so people don't all try to pile onto just a small handful of fleet carriers and end up smashing into each other.

The aforementioned one sided slaughters is why I think an early war scenario would be best for any Pacific theatre scenario. The IJN would still have an intact aviation air wing along with their CV’s. That, and the A6M2’s etc would be more on par with the main US offering of the time, the F4F Wildcat (which I adore) plus P-40’s and whatever else. It would be amazing to see the Dauntless, Avenger and Devastator also, some fun options for multi-crew.

Was having a little go in the Bf-109 G-14, getting used to the torque on take off and putting in that right rudder and a bit of right brake. However I was finding it very difficult to slide my pedals how I wanted to whilst also putting downwards pressure on the toe brake to ensure I was taxiing in a straight line. I used the Saitek Pro Flight pedals for years but they broke and I heard they got really shoddy construction quality (they were already iffy) under Logitechs wing after Saitek got bought out. Wishing I'd saved up some more for some Crosswind pedals :(. Unsure if it's just my technique, or an issue inherent with the product. In DCS the rudder honestly doesn't see a lot of use on the ground. At the most you use a bit of differential braking on the MiG but it doesn't require simultaneous rudder input and brake.

Yeah, early to mid war would likely be the better spot. Zeros really couldn’t hold a candle to late war Corsairs etc. The A7M and Shiden Kai were good fighters though.

Watching several videos on IL-2 this evening to prep me getting back in the cockpit and I was thinking, has 1C ever dropped any hints to a possible pacific expansion? The pacific theatre is easily my favourite in WWII, I just adore the naval aircraft of the IJN and USN. Leatherneck studios dropped a massive news update for their utterly gorgeous looking Vought F4U Corsair and its left me wishing that we could see a pacific expansion for IL-2. I'd be reliving my Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2 days in F4F Wildcats and Zero's or the B6N2's etc. A man can dream... right?

Apologies, I may have drastically understated this lol. I was going from memory, but the actual total is still only 37 of the 175 episodes from DS9's seasons.

IT'S A FAAAAAAAAKE! Garak is my favourite character in DS9, "plan, simple Garak". What's even more amazing he's only in 13 episodes in total, but carries such a presence when he's there :).