Jane's USAF missions can be re-created with DCS 2.5 NTTR

[+streakeagle 864]

I have been waiting a long time for DCS 2.5 to become the standard release branch. With development ceased on all other branches, I finally committed to the DCS 2.5 beta. I finally have access to the NTTR terrain. Flying out of Nellis over Nevada reminds me of when I got my first Windows PC in August of 2000 and Jane's USAF immediately became my primary sim because it was the best option for flying F-4 Phantoms against MiG-21s at that time. Having played Jane's Fighters Anthology on my work laptop, the graphics in USAF absolutely amazed me. In particular, the Las Vegas terrain looked great. There was a training mission called "Step Down" that taught you to fly low under radar (<300 feet) while navigating to waypoints. I flew it many times. I have briefly looked at the scripting for Jane's USAF missions and it seems to me that the DCS mission editor can replicate most if not all USAF missions. If the voice files can be accessed and converted, the experience would be almost identical beyond the updated graphics engine and differences in the flyable plane set. The problem is that it takes patience to extract the necessary information from the USAF missions and insert it into the DCS World mission editor by hand.

I installed Jane's USAF and patched it up to support Windows 7 64-bit. The annoying flight models with stability issues are even more annoying on a modern PC with the patch installed. The inability to map more than one usb controller is almost as annoying. But the Las Vegas terrain still looks surprisingly good after all these years aside from the static low-resolution water. You can really appreciate the jump in technology when you compare USAF's early 3d cockpits with typical DCS World aircraft, but you can also appreciate that the foundations for the current level of graphics/realism were established with Jane's USAF.

[SkyStrike 15]

Well, I wish someone would kind of make a spiritual successor to Jane's USAF... Say like rebooting it as a DCS module similar to FC3 standards, as most if not all the jets (except the F-105 & F-22) exist as ( either flyable or non-flyable) models in DCS...

Unfortunately Jane's combat simulations closed down long ago...And IRIS shelved their DCS F-22 module permanently... terrible

But on a more positive note at least we'll get a spiritual successor to Jane's  WWII Fighters; IL2: Battle of Bodenplatte..  It's got all the aircraft of Jane's WWII fighters plus  three more, A similar theater of war like the Battle of the Bulge/ Ardennes offensive..

Edited February 27, 2018 by SkyStrike
spelling mistakes

[ironroad 218]

Might be worthwhile. Most of the audio files (even from Janes ATF and Fighters Anthology) can easily be ported over.

Unfortunately the immersion is what has always been what is missing from the Flanker/Lock-On/DCS universe, particularly in regards to radio chatter and comms.