Mr_Tayto

What about a minimum registered time for downloads? Nothing too onerous, say 3 months? Or maybe you have to be a contributor to discussions? Hell you could even make each user fill in a form, or ask you in person @Erik

Very late to this one, but I started a new "dead is dead" A-4 pilot last year; Ens. Ted Gonzalez, VA-12. His first deployment was in Dhimar, during the 1959 emergency, and was ashore with his squadron when Parani tanks crossed the Eastern Border. First mission was an airfield interdict, where he destroyed the POL farm on the base. Took some 23mm AA fire over the target which chewed up the tail, but home fine. Next up was a runway, again went OK, no fire taken this time but the return course was exactly on the bearing of a large strike, Canberras escorted by F-100s. I realised with just seconds before impact that we were egressing at the same altitude as the inbound strike, dove and missed them by maybe 100ft. Phew The third mission was a straight visual recon, unarmed, passing over one of the south-eastern towns looking for anything out of order. Expecting there to be quite a bit of AAA, I decided to take the 2-ship to treetop level at full power and just burn past. Big mistake. As we approached what looked like a very large tank formation, low caliber AA started up (12.7s on the turrets I think) and quite a lot of it. Jinking like mad, we passed over the top of them and I heard that now familiar "clunk". Handling got a bit twitchy straight away, but the engine instruments were normal, although fuel state was startlingly low. I looked out over both wings and saw some damage on the left one, although it was hard to discern how much, so I got my wingman to do visual check [i.e. went into external view] and discovered a roughly 10cm hold right in the middle of the wing, clean through. I made it back to base and confirmed in the debrief what I'd expected; one of the Parani T-54s had scored a one in a million main gun hit on me as I flew over. The last mission Ted flew in Dhimar was a CAS mission supporting friendly armour against enemy tanks. This one didn't end well, but my astonishing streak of good fortune wasn't yet over. While pulling off a rocket run on a line of Parani tanks, I took 12.7mm fire which jammed the controls and put the engine out. At maybe 100ft AGL, all I could do was watch in horror as my A-4 stalled, augered in and the screen went black. The debrief revealed I wasn't dead, but hospitalised. The Dhimar emergency was over, I was in traction but I was out and flight qualified ready for our next operational sailing, to Yankee Station... What I didn't mention at the start, was that I hate thinking up callsigns for my pilots. Real pilots have sometimes very silly names, or plays on their names. I couldn't think of one for Ted. But when I got out of hospital, I had a new name: Lucky!

Thanks, @lastcartridge

I don't know that it's even a PC problem now; I've read discussion in here and elsewhere that suggest the software doesn't even acknowledge hardware. For example, while my PC is not "NASA", it runs DCS smoothly and without frame drops happily, and also current gen games in general just fine. Take a flight over NVN as part of a strike package and it's like watching a flickbook in places. That's the game, not the PC.

Oops, yes

she may be old, but she has frankly an even bigger third party support crew than DCS with over 5000 various mods to add to the stock games Yeah, this. It might seem like a lot for one game, but in reality it's 4 or 5 "stock" games, along with the potential of hundreds of other full conversions; I'm not talking about just the odd modded plane, I'm talking about stuff like ODS, Falklands etc. Also, the fact that the game is so old, I've always considered the 2012 update the "final" version.

I planned to do that but just bought a new HDD and copied my C drive onto it

Do you mean stuff like canopies lifting?

Lucky Gonzalez egresses the Laotian border area, having just destroyed a VC transit and supply camp (pictured) on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Sadly, his wingman was lost before the strike when he attacked an anti-air position, without order, as they crossed Route Pack 1 north of the DMZ.

Well done Dels, it looks very comprehensive. Would you happen to have some images of cockpits etc.? The Spooky models, are they armed, have gunsights and such? And a general question for the thread/forum. How would one utilise aircraft such as the C-130 in campaigns, is it possible? Or would you have to create your own missions for this. I would like to see some Vietnam infantry support missions using the AC-130

Thanks, and yes I have it. I'm playing Steel Tiger first to ease back into SEA, after having spent a bit of time in Dhimar, hence the skins haven't loaded yet, but looking forward to seeing them soon when I transition to RP targets.

Oops, that seems enormous! That's my christmas present, wioth the patches I acquired, to honor my Scooter campaign jockey Ted "Lucky" Gonzalez

Nuclear option is cool and all, but the sci-fi fake map aspect of it make it feel hollow to me, even if I do like the look of (most of) the aircraft. Some people even made throwback 60's skins for some of the planes which look incredible. The biggest aspect stopping me playing it is the missile spamminess of it; being able to lock up 5 targets and pressing a button just isn't in the same ballpark as using a high yo-yo to get bead on a MiG-17 who's been out-turning you for 5 minutes, only to find the AIM-9B misses the perfect shot anyway

I LOVE these alt-history Dhimar/Paran posts, please keep them coming. I'd love a mod that allowed me to play as Dhimar (or Paran) through the ages. The base game does a great job but I wish there was more.

I'm sure I had a book in the 90's which had colour plates of Tomcats "dressed" up in this way. I recognise the three bottom schemes in @RavenClaw's post.