RAZBAM AV-8B Harrier II

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…nooooooooo!!! What have we done!!! :rofl:

…Made money! :sunglasses:

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EA has entered the thread.

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This was my first thought as well. Eagle must be around the corner.

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this isnt 1999 anymore, there’s no such thing as Gold and Done Releases anymore.

Everything that wants to have longevity will evolve in cycles, as DCSW Does, it’s going to always be in an evolving state, always adding features, always expanding and upgrading elements.

Same for DCS Modules.

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ā€œSurprise Mechanics!ā€

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Whether you agree with the EA tactics or not, the DCS harrier is still the best and most realistic depiction of the Harrier ever created for public use.

Now if it was the F16, and ED had said welp, feature complete, I could understand a lot more pitch forking and burning. You could argue it’s the prettiest F16 sim available, but not the most in depth available at this point.

Bottom line for me is that the only thing constant in the flight sim community is manufactured drama. It’s always something/someone. Hell that’s half the fun of being an enthusiast is reading about what I’m supposed to be pissed at today.

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Not ideal but I can’t see any other way in this age. In the ā€œGolden Era Of Flight Simulationā€ (1990’s ?), when you bought the thing it was, usually, mostly, complete. The expectations from the consumer wasn’t as high I think - cuzz we didn’t know any better. It was all somewhat new. Then 1998 and Falcon 4 came along. What a mess. But it was the Best Mess we’d ever seen to that point.

DCS feels the same; we want so much and they (ED, RB, HB, etc) try to deliver it, but it’s way too complicated for the budget of the average team. Heat Blur seems to be at the top of the class yet even they have issues.

These sims (modules) almost feel like work to me they are so much more complex. But that’s a big part the appeal (I’m sure I’m not alone here). And why I don’t fly most of the platforms in my stable very often.

The DCS AV8 is one of my favorites though I have little time in it. It’s a warm & fuzzy feeling knowing it’s there, in my hangar, when I get the itch. Wish it were perfect. As you say though it’s the best I’ve seen. The AV8’s features & complexity exceed my abilities so I don’t notice all the issues. I’m ignorant, yes.

Good one. And amazingly apropos in many contexts.

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My definition is clear, but I’m not sure which devs adhere to it.

To me, Early Access means ā€œstuff is missing and possibly broken.ā€

Final means ā€œnothing is missing, but what is there may still have bugs with a rare-but-big one or twoā€.
So you can’t be out of EA if you’re still missing jamming, or a TPOD, or radar modes, or things like that.

You can be out of EA if you have scenarios where the targeting won’t work right in particular scenarios, or a particular non-core weapon is useless or not currently operational (a type of bomb, maybe, but not like an AIM-120 or AGM-65), or things like that.

In other words, feature-complete but not necessarily bug-free…just very few game-breaking bugs and they should be rarely encountered. So by my definition, the Harrier may well be eligible for that, but I’ve flown it so infrequently I don’t claim to be qualified to judge.

Whether or not any of the devs follow this definition, or say they will but don’t, or have done it sometimes and not others…I really haven’t cared enough to track.

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That is disconcerting for sure. I never looked at the FSX version.

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To their credit, the Mirage in DCS is waaaay ahead of the Mirage they did for FSX.

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Interesting Video about the ARBS system

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Good find!

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No doubt. And their DCS Harrier is similarly in a different league from their FSX offering.

The issue with the FSX bird is that they sort of left it behind after a no doubt well-intentioned but perhaps too ambitious launch.

I will say however, having read their most recent statement, that they seem to be committed to continue the bug hunt. I do wish they would address some of the more evident ones that remain from launch.

Having put a little more time in it these last few days, I gotta say that it is still a great little jet to fly.

And the VSTOL model, if perhaps a little optimistic, still gives me a little nostalgia for my youth. It’s very well done.

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That’s great news. Perfect being the enemy of good is often our downfall in the sim world. Generally, I’d agree that if a feature is advertised, which is sort of a pseudo-promise, that it should be included in the final product. I think developers should set realistic ā€œgoalsā€, and then make ā€œstretch goalsā€ the more ambitious stuff. I think there is too much advertising with ā€œand the kitchen sinkā€ instead of…these are what WILL be done, and these are the things we’d like to do. I’ve had fun with the Harrier, but really need to get back into it (and the F-16, and the Hornet, and the Gazelle…oh dear…)

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Disco!

Ain’t it great! I took a break from the coding (of the mission tool I mentioned elsewhere) to get some stick time again. In the A4E. Whole time the tiny voice in the back of my head was whispering, ā€œya know, you can manual bomb in the Hornet too - and you still haven’t mastered that platform yetā€¦ā€.

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PS - I know, I know, thread de-railment butā€¦ā€˜Mover’ mentioned in a recent YT that the Folds of Honor, Fight For Honor competition might some day include ā€œBombing for Quartersā€ - Air-To-Ground competition. I liked that idea…in a Harrier (so there, it is thread-related :slight_smile: )

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I remember years ago that Bunyap ran a little precision bombing competition on his Youtube channel, that was good fun!

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Statement from the new Razbam Community Manager:

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I took part but never won :thinking:

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