DCS: F-16C Viper EA Launch Impressions Thread

Flight Sims DCS F/-16C Viper
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I flew the Viper for a bit today.
Impressions:

  • I am quite rusty with the Viper. I had forgotten how little intuitive it feels to me compared to the A-10C or Hornet.
  • the plane is a lot more incomplete than I thought. I did read about what is there and what isn’t, but I admit I didn’t really grasp how much is still missing until I went through the MFD pages myself.
    Not sure yet how I feel about it. I might wait a bit until there is more available.
  • Radar seems to be a bit wonky at times. Or maybe just more realistic than in BMS. I definitely have a harder time picking up planes.

Edit: forgot to mention: first landing worked like a charm. :slight_smile:

Haven’t tried in VR yet. Will do that soon.

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I would much rather have it in the state she is in than not have it at all. It’s been years since I played BMS and I’m more than happy to re-familiarize myself with the plane while updates come in over the next few weeks.

I was pleasantly surprised at frame rates, especially in VR. I can’t put a finger on it but virtually sitting in this module and taking her out for a few circuits felt better and more connected than other recent modules.

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Effin’ A bro!

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One day a Pacific WWII fighter will be completed, TF 5.0 will come out and and IL-2 Battle of somewhere not in Europe will see the light of day. Till then I will just enjoy the fact that y’all are enjoying new jet toys so much. :smiley:

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It’s in haggard shape to be certain. We seem to be stuck in 1st stage AB, which really irks me. I’m hoping that gets addressed promptly.

But, some other bugs are a bit fun. Might as well have a bit of enjoyment at ED’s expense while we wait:

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And welcome to Twisted Metal.

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WOW switch buggered?

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Just for dogfight mode. It works otherwise, but when you switch to dogfight, WOW has no effect.

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Well…

:wink:

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I did the same, air start 1 mile in trail of the tanker, clean with 50% fuel, tanker connected then immediately gave transfer complete message, no gas transferred.

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Yup same for me.

Also as im going transsonic i noticed a weird tendency of the FLCS to enter pitch oscillations. Anybody else getting those?

Edit: Scratch that, i had my refueling door open. :roll_eyes:

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Haven’t noticed, but I did manage to fly it so far outside the envelope it never re-entered controlled flight. Pitch override did Jack Schnitt. I screamed all the way in, dying in VR is horrible.

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ahw… :frowning: Here’s a track of me doing it, what happens if you watch it? Do I do something different from you guys?

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@Chuck_Owl greatly respect your opinion as always, and I don’t even feel as if I disagree with you. But to me it feels as if this launch was inverted compared to the Hornet. The Hornet had a decently developed avionics suite for tasks like navigation, but was fairly bare-bones when it came to weapon systems, featuring only a SARH missile, the trusty old AIM-9M and a small selection of dumb air-to-ground munitions. The Viper is lacking in its avionics, but shipped out of the box with its selection of ARH missiles, JHMCS coupled with both the radar and HOBS missiles, and some smart munitions in the forms of LGB’s and the SFW cluster bomb. I understand it affects some people worse than others, that the multiplayer community has been hit due to this, and perhaps even I would have been unsatisfied if it wasn’t for the fact I wanted this plane to be in DCS so bad for a long time. But a lot of people are happy flying it. I for one would have been happy to fly her in a way rougher state than she is even now.

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I shouldn’t laugh but this sentence cracked me up :joy::joy:

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I feel much the same. Hence my vs Sex comment. I think that is because you wear the jet as much as sit in it. The view is remarkable and to have that coupled to a big engine in a nimble airframe makes one feel like the caped crusader.

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Figured it out: you’re using easy radio. Apparently that’s all it takes to make it work properly.

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Okay so a start of day 2 update:

Memory:
Almost everything I learned yesterday was on file and ready to take on the startup and flight.
MP is nice to have friends around to ask things like “What button was for ‘x’ again?”

Dogfight:
Just. Wow.

Yeah, that ^^ - getting on the six of a MiG-29 with not an ounce of trouble staying there, at least from the plane. I need to re-write my close in technique a bit here. With the Hornet, I can use the canopy bow to know where the nose is pointed relative to me while I maintain visual on the bandit (TrackIR), and as I sweep the nose around I can adjust accordingly. Well with the viper, the unobstructed view means I have no reference points in many cases. I also recently adjusted my TrackIR profile so I am still re-calibrating my muscle memory for real-life vs. game deflection when turning my head. So this one I won’t be critical of until I am more comfortable with the new TIR profile.

The lack of radar gun pipper is felt hard, and so far I have not learned to to uncage the AIM9s excluding the slave to HMD mode. Back to the books…

Instruments
Upfront display is generally in memory now, in terms of basic functionality. I still have to remember exactly which “keystrokes” per se, but it’s not that confusing once the concept has had time to stay in mind overnight.

Franze pointed out the G load is on the HUD in the upper left, so that’s one off my list.
I have learned to fight in the Hornet using Alpha as my primary metric - manage alpha and you can keep speed up in the turns quite well. The Viper will need another strategy, but until I learn that - afterburner does a damn good job.

Radios
The lack of dual multifunction (FM+VHF+UHF) radio like the bug is a disappointment, but that’s far from standard in many cases so realistically class the bug & harrier in the “bonus” group.

A Note on Prior Experience…:
And I am not referring to BMS.
I think knowing the Bug with good proficiency is what makes this really so easy. Mentally grasping what’s going on is really just a matter of mentally mapping the control systems into your brain.
I think a review from someone who has bought the Hornet and the Viper, and forays into both at roughly the same time as their first experience with advanced modern jets would yield some key insights, especially for any on-the-fence new customers - or you guys that have avoided the high-tech stuff.

A Note on Early Access:
While there are numerous disappointments, there’s a lot to be happy about.
I am inclined to say that the split of SP/MP and A2A/A2G of the customer base resulted in friendly fire. Speculating on the FB post about the Viper EA today, it appears the demand for TGP and other PGMs from the Hornet resulted in our lack of IFF, among potentially other A2A features. I’m sure if we reversed this A2G bias, the complaints would at least equal - with the “why no TGP” being right up there.

First Impressions:
Feature issues aside, this aircraft is great fun to fly right from the start.
How the updates are rolled out in terms of frequency, quality (not creating drastic bugs), and size (number features added or fixed) will be big for this modules post-launch success at generating revenue & attracting and retaining customers. A string of feature rich updates with little to no bugs will be needed before the new year to keep the community at large tamed. I don’t think it would go over well if in January we still have no damage model, for example.

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I’ll have to agree with Chuck on this one. It’s not so much that’s it’s lacking features, it’s just that critical things are broken. It feels like they rushed to add features like TGP, but failed in squashing critical bugs. The broken stores jettison is particularly limiting. I can only assuming the lack of a damage model is a bug, not an undeveloped feature. If they’ve intentionally released a plane without a damage model without warning EA buyers it would be appalling.

I can’t help and feel that one more month of development and QA would have given us a Viper in much better shape than the hornet was on release. I can only assume ED had a cash flow problem.

That negativity aside, it’s a joy to fly. Formation flying is a breeze and BFM is a hoot. Eventually it will be a fun plane, but for now it’s not really mission capable.

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I’m sure in one month from now, a lot of these things will have been addressed. In the meantime, what we have is flyable. Any of us could be hit by a bus tomorrow and never see what it would be like a week, or month from now.

Today, I flew a virtual F16 in Virtual Reality, and it was awesome. :sunglasses:

Next month I predict it will be ‘awesome-er’ :grin:

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For anyone complaining about the module having bugs, critical or not, might want to consider reading the fine print.
This is the two first sentences of a text link, clarifying “Early Access”, found on the product page of the module, in the DCS store.

What is DCS World Early Access?

Early Access is an option for you to play this module in an early state, but it will be incomplete with bugs. The time a product remains in Early Access can vary widely based on the scope of the project, technical hurdles, and how complete the module is when it enters Early Access.

A kind word of advice, that can be applied to many things in life. If I may…

Enjoy what you have instead of complaining about what you don’t.

We do this for fun, remember?

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I have to agree with Caput. I can’t recommend it in this current form, but I imagine this will be rectified within the very near future.

Still, as busted as it is? Still pretty entertaining.