Very well said. I like that a lot.
Surely some missing features were to be expected. Some minor, some glaring omissions that will be fixed in due course. A Bit of time and a bit of patience and it will all come together. Your purchase of the early access module will be used to improve that purchase.
Positive thinking 
TBH i think 90% of EDās PR issues fall back on them not managing peopleās expectations. I donāt think it is fair to retort āWhat did you expect from EA?ā to people that know how things went with the Hornet that are now surprised to see that the Viper project follows a different path. In the absence of information, it is perfectly natural for people to take the Hornet as an example for how things will be with the Viper. If things are different, due diligence on early access does include for me to state what will be different. I appreciate that things were probably moving very quickly ahead of the Viper release, but due diligence is the mark of a truly professional company, and i have no doubt that managing customer expectations and being upfront about these things pays off in the long run.
Thereās no formal definition of minimal viable features for an early access aircraft. Not from ED and certainly not from the industry.
There are individual expectations and I can understand the disappointment on an individual level.
But there are also people like me who are perfectly fine with the current state. I prefer to have a sneak peek over waiting another 12 months to have the finished product.
If you feel something is missing from the Viper I recommend putting it aside and wait for a few patches.
The state the Viper is in may even have been a conscious decision to shift focus from aircraft systems fidelity to wepons and TGP. I just wonder why that shift in focus wasnāt actively communicated. It could have been employed to accentuate why features that the Hornet had at EA were omitted to give it something else that the Hornet was missing.
Giving things a positive āspinā is much harder after the fact.
@Sobek, I really canāt see the problem here. People need to manage their own expectations, if thatās the case.
I quote, again, the fine print (Link clarifying EA):
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.
What will be different from the Hornet?
Itās a Viper! 
Sorry if being a bit asinine, but it is a totally different module after all.
Basically ED sells a product, saying it will be broken and its state of completion wonāt necessarily match other products, upon their release.
And yetā¦
I did a little Viper last night and I had a great fun time and I am carrying a big grin just thinking about it.
I must admit that I am not really a Study Simmer, so Iām not into deeper aspects of a module, so my needs are not so great.
My take on Early access. is as follows.
You buy an unfinished product with bits and pieces missing, to be completed later.
What have we gotten?
A bird that is easy to fly around in with different weapons, we can unload on both air and ground targets.
Yes there are a lot of systems missing and there are bugs. What should you expect? It is early access after all, not the finished product.
Happy simming
I havent had the time to game much lately, but I did fire up DCS on the viper release day just to check it out.
This is definitely the most raw product ED has released in my experience. The Hornet, tomcat, even Harrier were released in a state that felt more complete. When the guy that literally wrote the book on early access modules is upset with it, I think Iāll side with him. If you didnāt pre-order it, I would wait for the next sale. Will be a disappointment at $80 in its current state.
I agree with you 100%. I picked up the Viper knowing that it will be in a āgood enoughā state sometime in the next year, before it sees any discounts again. And though I planned to leave it on the shelf, I do admit itās fun to zoom around in right now. But potential buyers need to be aware that at the moment it suffers not so much from a lack of features, but from some very serious bugs. Iām giving ED benefit of the doubt here that the lack of a damage model is a bug, and not a planned omission. The good news, is itās the type of stuff that would have been likely fixed if theyād just waited a month before releasing, which means that it will probably be rectified in the near future.
Donāt get me wrong, I donāt have an issue with the state the Viper is in. Thereās enough content to tide me over. Iām just saying that i can empathise with people that are confused by the state of the Viper.
The reason is simply because as others have stated, it is a departure from how modules were released in the past. You are essentially saying that people are unreasonable for expecting the Viper to be in the same state that the last several modules were released in. I disagree completely, because that would mean you expect them to act contrary to human nature.
Are ED within their legal rights to do so? Of course they are. But let me return your question, what is the problem with suggesting they try to get ahead of the curve next time? ED have no power over how people react when they are given information after the fact. They have control over the information though, so why not use it to their advantage?
Anyways, i think iāve derailed this thread enough.
A bit more after building a mission with the F-16:
The F-16 can be destroyed/killed by missile hits. A MANPADS hit me and killed my pilot instantly. Checking the post-mission log showed that the hit also disabled my ALE-47 and some other systems, so the damage hooks are apparently present.
Thereās plenty to do with it, especially if you treat it like a pseudo F-16A. It slings iron bombs quite well, better than clusters in my book, so Iāve focused on that. I miss not having a centerline tank for a number of scenarios, but thatās a drop in the bucket compared to other problems (tanking with complex radio). If youāre looking for ideas, an āOperation Operaā mission on the Gulf is a very fun test of your skills. If you havenāt embraced the Harrier as the ultimate aircraft in DCS, then the F-16ās a close second with bombing accuracy and capability.
Lukewarm feeling toward it so far; itās not terrible, but it is below expectations. From a development standpoint, Iām curious to see how quickly pieces of it come together ā it almost seems as if it was a trial run to see how quickly a new development model could work. I canāt say this was the right state or time to release in, however. Itās more interesting than I thought it would be, yet has a very real incomplete feel to it. I think if you missed the discount, better to wait and invest in the Bug instead if you want a multirole jet.
For a point of reference, I played with this F-16 from 2007 to 2017. And no, it never got any textures.
I am with Chuck on this one. I have bought just about every module as it entered early access so it is not like I donāt really get what early access is about. Likewise, I understand that different developers within DCS (third parties, ED, etc) will have different definitions of what a early access product is.
That being said, I spent a little bit of time with the Viper and was rather shocked by just how incomplete the basic, underlying aircraft functionality is in comparison to EDās other early access releases. I get why they made the decision to release at this time but I very much hope that they have a plan already in place to add features at a meaningful, steady pace that doesnāt involve waiting more than a year.
I donāt write this as a way to bash ED or anything. I think it is just that when you add the Viperās incredibly rough release with the fact that the Hornet is still not really mission capable (at least realistic missions flown in realistic ways), it does tend to leave something of a bad taste in my mouth that I canāt ignore. I like EDās work but as I said before, I hope they have a plan in place that will get both the Hornet and the Viper up to snuff quick enough to avoid community backlash some months from now. They really need to make sure they get this stuff done because for many players, a 50% complete aircraft is not even worth taking out of the virtual hanger since it canāt really do realistic missions in realistic ways.
Welcome to Mudspike startrekmike!
I sure hope those folks didnāt buy these birds then, unless they are treating this like a Star Citizen type kickstarter (please no!). I think you can practically guarantee it will take more than a year to āfinishā them. Hornets been how long already?
I donāt want to encourage people away from buying anything. People need to make those kinds of choices based on their own preferences. Heck, I will continue to buy EDās stuff because I know that in the end, it will get finished.
That being said, I do hope that the pace will pick up a bit now that both the Hornet and Viper are getting developed largely together.
So I finally got some stick time in the Viper. I have to say my feelings are mixed. I fly BMS regularly with a group of mates so expectations were always going to be high. Some things are familiar, while others are a little different. Kind of like coming back to your hometown after 10 years and most everything is still there, but the buildings have a new coat of paint.
A lot of times I just felt like I was hitting a wall in terms of capability. I was flying VR with a CV1, so I expected things to seem a little blurrier, but the FCR page was harder to read than anticipated. DED and MFD pages are probably only 25% there. Most of them arenāt critical, but it was quite jarring to try flipping through my usual routine (CRUS, INS, DLINK, DTE, etc.) and find a lot of āPlaceholders.ā The TGP page looks a little sparse too. Not being able to change countermeasure programs or have program 5 (slap switch) or program 6 (CMS left) was a bit of a shock. I know a lot of things arenāt in yet like TWS, HARMs, etc. etc., but even with that in mind it seemed a little rushed.
Flight model feels a little different to BMS. Not sure which is right or wrong, just different. Could only get into the āfalling leafā phase once (I was really trying), but couldnāt recover. Thatās an edge case anyways, so no big deal.
Overall, mixed feelings. My hope now is that ED will continue to develop the Viper and a good pace and all this EA release angst can be put behind us while we all enjoy a great plane.
My exact position. Wait for a sale, because by then? Itāll be a lot slicker.
No.
Iām saying that there has got to be a limit as to how you let yourself react to these things.
You canāt be telling me that I and others, who are not disappointed with the DCS F-16, are acting against our very human nature.
You think ED shouldāve told everybody to expect less than the Hornet. Fair point. Some people apparently could use the heads up.
To me thatās like writing āContents may be hotā on a coffe cup. 
Look. There are people saying ED shouldāve waited and released a more polished product. Thatās also a fair point. They could have.
But why donāt the same people say that they can wait, until the product is polished?
It goes both ways.
The only problem here is that users have Access to a piece of software in Early development. All anybody have to do is wait. Isnāt it better to wait with they keys to the Viper in handā¦?
My advice still applies. If youāre not having fun, youāre not doing it right. 
I couldnāt agree more. Iām starting to wonder if ED should stop selling modules as EA, and start charging for āBeta Testerā licenses - it might help people with their expectations.
Given the complexity and depth of modern aircraft, some of us simply enjoy playing with features such as rockets and dumb bombs, that tend to get overshadowed by smart weapons on a fully-functional module. I recently picked up Hornet, and have used navigation methods such as ADF and manually waypoint creation with lat/long that Iāve never touched in 10 years of DCS aircraft.
I flew the tomcat all night last night. Now my system is running a lot better I am devoting all my flying time to that particular bird for a while. Did some training and pattern work and just got to know her a little better.
I also went on one of the aerobatics servers which I frequent with it and it was completely rammed with pilots flying the viper
Now these servers tend not to be full of the most serious flightsimmers and I go there for a little chuckle at peopleās flying and the chat logs occasionally while setting myself complicated navigation exercises and little fun tasks to complete to keep things interesting.
One thing I noticed was as the server was weapons disabled (smoke trails only) everyone was having a really good time last night. No complaints about the lack of features or early access problems. Just a lot of people having a lot of fun with the new toy. It was nice to see. Iām not saying that people are wrong to be disappointed with the release state but Iām just pointing out that there are people who are taking this as a fun new toy to play with and are taking the lack of features as a chance to really get to know the flight model and learn to fly it really well before learning to fight in it (this is what I tend to do as well, I enjoy it this way round)
I had 2 vipers chasing me on my nav exercise for miles and miles and we ended up in a mock dogfight of which I really didnāt come out well but afterwards I climbed away and extended the distance and blew them away leaving then exclaiming how quick the f14 is. I also saw a guy actually land on the stennis. If he had of been ten knots slower on final I am sure he could of stopped it before his nose wheel dropped over the endā¦
Sorry for rambling on but I just wanted to point out how much fun people are having without all the systems and stuff not implemented. I know we call ourselves hardcore simmers and we demand excellence from our hobby but I watched a group of people (who were definitely better virtual pilots then me) having an absolute blast with the viper last night with just the stick and rudder. There is still great fun to be had. It will improve over time. You just have to enjoy what you have now
Sorry for dragging this along, i really think we should rather discuss this in the ruminations thread.