Thats awesome news! Sorry if this is has already been asked, but do you guys plan to add a first person view pilot model?
The floaters are pretty cool
You can literally land anywhere*. I find myself constantly looking for tight spaces to squeeze in.
*well, almost
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now I am no electrical engineer, but i think there may be a problem with the power line installation here 
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“It’s just a couple numbers, how hard could it possibly be?”
5 hours later…
Can’t fix the starboard side. I know the .dds file, but the number is chopped up into 500 pieces with no alignment, scattered all over the .dds file.
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Ah geez. That must be terribly frustrating to deal with.
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Almost as frustrating as ED encyrpting the S-3 so none of the liveries work anymore and no one can create new ones.
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Well, that’s a silly thing to do.
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So, rant incoming:
I know the F-5E is a frequent pick for someone to get their feet wet in the study sim aspect of DCS, but I honestly kind of disagree. Is it a bad one? Not really, provided you make it clear to the individual in question that the F-5E has very real limitations. Those coming up from Ace Combat will find it appealing since the F-5E is frequent contender in the early game and they’ll definitely find that appealing. However, I feel there’s a better option: The AJS-37 Viggen.
Why is that?
- The Viggen enjoys a good level of sophistication AND simplicity.
It requires a shorter start up than the F-5E and, yet, is more advanced than the F-5E. It can deploy the Maverick missile, Rb-04E, Rb-15, and the friggin’ Bk-90. The F-5E is wonderfully accurate in its manual bombing, but the AJS-37 enjoys the kind of assists that you normally associate with much more modern aircraft. It even has some old gems like the Rb-05E to keep things interesting.
- The Viggen has insane survivability when compared to the F-5E.
In my long folly of a post where I discussed why the F-5E wasn’t, necessarily, the solution to USAF woes over Southeast Asia, I alluded to it being slow and with serious limitations.
The Viggen addresses these two shortcomings beautifully in the realm of ground attack. Not only that, it serves to be a vehicle to teach a new player the value of something very important: the art of the terrain mask. I rarely get downed in the Viggen. I rarely get shot at, even. Sure, the Viggen has a good ECM suite and flare pods even if they do cost you hardpoints. But, honestly? Unless I’m weeding into somewhere lousy with IR SAMs or striking a Soviet fleet, I’m usually not taking the countermeasure pods. I find I rarely need them outside of those situations.
Simply put, the Viggen is a real pain in the ass to catch when its in its element. You have such a small window of opportunity to get a real good lock on the Viggen and that’s when it pops up to attack. Once it’s dropped its payload, the pilot is firewalling that throttle and hauling ass out of there. If he used the high drag bombs? He barely even popped up, if at all, and is dropping those between Mach .85 and .90.
At the speeds and altitude the Viggen is approaching and departing the target area, ground based AAA and SAMs are either going to have a hard time tracking it when it’s in range or even getting a lock on it to begin with. Air threats are going to have to heavily rely on radar with look-down-shoot-down capabilities once its in afterburner. Even if its out of afterburner, finding its exhaust trail can be hard during certain times of year.
This all makes for an experience with lower amounts of confusion and frustration since the Viggen’s mission can be best described as “Get in, sucker punch, get out” with the methodology to do just that being very intuitive.
- You need to lead newbies by the nose and the Viggen is very good at facilitating that.
Ever new player and pilot needs to take baby steps. So, as someone bringing in a new player, you really should learn a thing or two about mission making. You are, quite literally, a D&D Dungeon Master. But, your repetoire of encounters doesn’t include Mind Flayers, Goblins, and Beholders. It’s MiGs, Vipers, and BMP-2s. You craft missions or rather portions of the mission to require the use of aircraft strengths.
After all, unless you’re so facebook-brained as to think the A-10 is the cure to all of our ails, you wouldn’t want to be throwing a Warthog at an S-300 site or into contested airspace.
So, this leaves newbies having to tag along and ask for tips the whole way through. It can feel clumsy and fail to inspire at the best of times. But, not so much with the Viggen. The Viggen is so optimized for its mission, it’s not at all a complex undertaking. Newbies need to be lead by the nose? The Viggen needs to be lead by the nose to get the most out of it. As the CFI, you get your new player acclimated and familiarized with the Viggen’s cockpit and systems. You get him or her to understand the very basics. Once you’ve done that? You can literally take that new player by the hand and guide him right to his targets via waypoints you set as the mission maker.
You are with them every step of the way, without them realizing it and, building their confidence.
- The Viggen’s no Viper or Hornet, but it can do limited air to air.
So, we all know we have the AJS, not the JA. That missing compressor stage can be sorely felt if you find yourself in a furball. Which, can teach a newbie that discretion is the better part of value. The point here is that the F-5E also suffers from its own air to air limitations that don’t make it all that competitive in AirQuake servers, but very little is outside of the usuals.
It’s a good chance to get across to newcomers that DCS World offers a level of freedom that other games don’t even approach.
- Almost every mission is a Death Star trench run.
Much like my beloved 21, the Viggen has a simple reaction flow chart.
Is my navigation off? I’m too high. I need to fly lower to get my radar more detail so it can see where we are.
Am I getting hit? I’m going too slow, I need to be making every babushka from Russia to Georgia complaining about shattered windows.
You’re going down low, using your TFR and excellent responsiveness to weave your way between trees, mountains, buildings, and anything in between. You’re doing it at breakneck speed only to shove the throttle to stage 3, yank the stick into your dinger, and roll over to see your target before making that Russian push regret it dug those T-72s out of a depot before leveling off right above the treetops and firewalling the engine one more time.
The Viggen is fun. It is a LOT of fun.
So, while the F-5E is still going to appeal, the Viggen should definitely be in that race, as well.
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I’m on board with that. The viggen is one of my favourite modules.
I like running away. Let em think you are a coward while you are at about 6 feet, mach one and just laughing your absolute arse off while they try to catch ya
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Sweden literally took the concept of being a 17 year old and weaponized it.
But, instead of running away and giggling as that local farmer screams at you because you egged his windows? You’re screaming away at Mach 1, giggling as the local Soviet Colonel screams at you for blowing up his supply co.
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ED finding ways to hurt the vibrant community? I’m shocked… shocked I tell you.
Well… not that shocked.
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I have a feeling that the number of customers for @Troll 's Styrspak FPL 37 might just have increased 
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I’ve been meaning to get back into the Viggen now that we have Kola but I’m scratching my head on employment. Thinking specifically of actual Viggen bases like Jokmokk or Lulea, we don’t get any Swedish sea-access areas for ASW, EWR and other sites in Russia require a long-haul across Finland which I’m not sure it holds the gas for…
What/where was it designed to strike? Mech infantry and logistics columns that stretched into Finland? With its pre-planned nature, how would they get accurate-enough position data for those mobile columns, considering pre-digital age where recon would require maybe an hour of recce photo developing and analysis after however long it takes for the recon unit to get back to base.
Any ELI5 insight on Viggen doctrine?
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