DCS Future - F22 & F35

So before you start thinking that this is yet another post about the F22 & F35 let me tell you that I’m aware of ED unwillingness to produce and release modules that it can’t enough and reliable information. The F22 and F35 will remain highly classified for several decades and that makes a full fidelity module of both these birds quite difficult or simply impossible.

That being said and acknowledging the success (commercial) of "modernish" fighters in DCS like the F18 and F16 my question is what lays in the future for DCS in regard of modern fighters? With developers unable to get the necessary information to create modern planes are we fated to see WWII warbirds and cold war stuff for the next maybe 10 or 20 years to come? I'm not saying WWII and cold war planes are bad but I think you get the point.

What’s your take on this ?

At least as AI, yes.

Flyable I highly doubt it

I feel aircraft like the F14 F16 and F18 are more than sophisticated enough for us mere mortals for many many years to come, in the case of the tomcat it's a unique blend of pure flying mixed with some sophisticated systems and sensors, in some ways far more enjoyable for us, i would perhaps describe it as having the golden age of modernish combat aircraft, if the F35 is as advanced as you read it is, its hyper smart and does a lot of the pilot work load for you.

There are plenty of contemporaries of the current fleet of aircraft to keep ED/3rd Party Devs and consumers busy for decades I'd say. Where is the F111, Tornado, Phantom, A6, A7, F105, F104, F100, Hunter, Lightning? etc. etc. So much material out there and so many potentially great modules I don't think we need to worry too much about DCS running out of ideas in the future. That is without even considering PACT/Eastern aircraft, heavies, transports and more helicopters.

There no info except that US government says on how this planes goes. None of f22 and/or f35 flew over Russian or Chinese radars as I know, me think autopilot will be similar to F/A-18, but what about weaponry? Can it shot supersonic? What roll rate they have?

There is only theoretical knowledge of performance.

One can get them in arcade games - DCS is about simulation of systems and some flying, not only make a beautiful model.

If ED will start do arcade planes - next we'll see experience bar and loot boxes.

I support F-22 AI atleast. That could be same time frame as our Hornets and Vipers, with only AIM-9M for heat seekers! Why not B-2 AI. I think those already make sense for 21st century DCS.

No thanks.

Once a couple of the flagships are complete I would hope ED would step back from aircraft and spend more time on the world based items. Dynamic campaign, AI for tower, CV's, enemy aircraft, weather, etc. Thats more than enough in my opinion. Look at the work Heat Blur is doing and Razbam, both are excellent developers that can continue to feed us with fighters from the 80's and earlier. To me, that would be more than enough to keep me happy and busy for decades.

Yes there are more than enough planes and helios for developers and the fan base to be happy for years to come, there is no question about that.

But imagine this has collecting cars, people in there prime earning years will tend to buy very expensive cars that desired when growing up, nostalgia is a very strong thing.

So new players coming in might not be as excited about flying a planes that they never seen or heard before, and as mention above the likelihood of planes like the F22 ; EF2000 ; F35 etc becoming available to us is zero in the near future.

I like the idea of FC3 or MAC style game, a simpler version, something that would server as first steep into flying sim and hopefully help keep this community growing and strong! After all Ace Combat 7 broke the franchise sales record.

Future of dcs I think looks bright. They are very smartly updating their older modules. As hardware improves, they will likely continue to update all of their existing modules to keep them current. When there's no good jets, choppers, or warbirds left to produce they will have a lot of time in refinement, core updates, maps, campaigns, etc etc.

Besides, there's still lots of western non stealth aircraft they can make money off of. As the USN shifts more and more squadrons to the f35 I imagine the super hornet variants become increasingly likely to be modeled.

Further, the future is unknown. New tech could be created that would make this era's stealth tech less usable, so it could be declassified and modeled.

Leaving the F-22, the F-35 and equivalent jets out of the picture, I can see a lot of options for modern jets in the next decade. Certain blocks of the Super Hornet, the Eurofighter, maybe the Rafale, updated variants of existing aircraft, such as a 2015 USN Hornet or a Blk 52+ F-16 (these could be updates to the existing modules, similar to the A-10C 2 and BS3 model). It's likely that information will be declassified to allow the above.

And I didn't even touch non-Western designs. It's likely we'll see a lot coming from that side too.

Leaving the F-22, the F-35 and equivalent jets out of the picture, I can see a lot of options for modern jets in the next decade. Certain blocks of the Super Hornet, the Eurofighter, maybe the Rafale, updated variants of existing aircraft, such as a 2015 USN Hornet or a Blk 52+ F-16 (these could be updates to the existing modules, similar to the A-10C 2 and BS3 model). It's likely that information will be declassified to allow the above.

 

And I didn't even touch non-Western designs. It's likely we'll see a lot coming from that side too.

yeah, although in the legacy Hornets case, there is not the sort of disparity in progress between a 2005 model and a 2015 model. Its mostly incremental stuff pertaining to software updates newer blocks of certain weapons etc. The navy just stopped updated thier legacies due to the Super Hornets being a solid interim replacement, and due to adopting the JSF. Where the navy retired the last of the Hornets in 2018, the Viper is expected to operate up until the 2040's, ( at least for ANG). The USAF's Vipers have seen more notable upgrades, but such upgrades are even more apparent for the F16's for ANG like introducing for the CPD for Block 30/32's in 2013 and currently in the process of upgrading to APG83 AESA radars.

Three years ago nobody could have forseen that we would have not one, not even two but three full fidelity 4th generation American fighters in DCS with a fourth on the way.

Who can say what the future really holds anymore.

For my part though, there is a lot of low hanging fruit left to pick for DCS and we'll likely be picking it for years to come.

Also, don't forget that there was a (failed) kickstarter attempt to get the DCS F-35 off the ground. Nobody remembers that? :)

Leaving the F-22, the F-35 and equivalent jets out of the picture, I can see a lot of options for modern jets in the next decade. Certain blocks of the Super Hornet, the Eurofighter, maybe the Rafale, updated variants of existing aircraft, such as a 2015 USN Hornet or a Blk 52+ F-16 (these could be updates to the existing modules, similar to the A-10C 2 and BS3 model). It's likely that information will be declassified to allow the above.

 

And I didn't even touch non-Western designs. It's likely we'll see a lot coming from that side too.

Now, a Eurofighter is one I definitely would like to see in the (near?) future. Brings back old memories of EF2000 from DiD. :smartass:

With developers unable to get the necessary information to create modern planes are we fated to see WWII warbirds and cold war stuff for the next maybe 10 or 20 years to come?

Pretty much, yeah. Of course at some point enough data will be unclassified/available to make the F-22/F-35 possible for DCS, but if DCS is still around by then is another question.

There was a 3rd party dev company (I think there name was Kinney Interactive or something like that) who wanted to do the F-22 for DCS and even had a contract and its own forum section, but eventually they had to give up.

I don't mind this situation, because there are more than enough Gen 1-4 jets out there that have not yet found there way into DCS.

Edit: Just checked, it was actually the F-35 that was in development by Kinney Interactive for DCS: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=108370