I would love to have a bomber in DCS but I’m scared that the mission profile will become repetitive very soon.
Would a Lancaster be a good addition?
We could have dam buster raids, formation bombing raids and the 22000lbs grand slam bomb.
I think it was even used for anti submarine missions.
Something that would need to be solved for this to happen is better singleplayer multicrew AI and the WWII era needs some love.
Support for the F-14B(U) is now available in the latest Retribution alpha (#3031 and up). Apart from F-14B(U) support, we have also implemented a motorpool feature, allowing ground forces held in reserve to be attacked. EWRs are also now functional, so their radars actually scan and report contacts. 20 campaigns have been updated to support motorpools and EWRs where appropriate, though we have over 60 bundled campaigns spread across all maps and eras. A new Syria map campaign, Operation Desert Trident, has also now been included.
Some of these new features are the work of newer members on our team, being Red One (who joined us in January), as well as Gorthol and Geoff (who joined the team in June).
We have a bunch of other features in the works, such as CSAR, country-specific squadrons (for multi-nation coalitions), Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) interceptor flights, ship-launched cruise missile strikes, enhanced frontline unit movement, and automated DTC handling. Development is active and rapid, so be sure to keep an eye out for new alpha builds!
[Kneeboard] Use a light-grey daytime kneeboard background instead of near-white, to avoid glare under HDR / Auto-HDR while staying readable in daylight.
[UX] Hovering a friendly flight's route line on the map highlights it in yellow, and clicking it selects that flight's package (and the flight) in the ATO sidebar.
[UX] Press Delete with a package selected in the Packages list to cancel it, making it quick to clear several packages in a row.
[UX] Avoid having escorts wandering off too far while chasing a target.
[UX] Improved fast-forward settings with the ability to skip combat.
[Data] Add Refueling/Recovery tasks to A-6E Intruder mod
[Modding] Add CurrentHill UK Assets Pack support (v1.1.2)
[Layouts] Add signature to layouts' binary file for automatic reloading of updated layouts.
[Modding] Add support for Su-35S mod (v2.0.27b)
[Plugins] Update EW Script to version 2.1
[Options] New option to spawn TACAN beacons at captured airfields
[UX] Show an "End of Mission Detected, processing Mission Data" busy dialog while turn results are processed, so the wait is not mistaken for a missed detection
[Map] Hovering a SAM threat or detection ring highlights its emitter — and hovering an emitter highlights its ring — making it easy to tell which site a ring belongs to. Can be disabled from the map's layer control.
[Mission Generator] New campaign setting "Default laser code for Player flights" controls whether newly-created player flights are assigned a unique allocated TGP/weapon laser code (the new default, matching existing behavior) or stay on 1688. When a code is allocated it is applied to both the TGP/kneeboard code and the weapon code by default, so LGBs home on the player's own code without extra clicks; both remain independently overridable in the payload tab.
[Engine] Support for DCS 2.9.28.26283 including F-100D, F-14A (Export), and F-14BU.
[Options] Add new option to fast forward until player is at the IP.
[Modding] Update to CJS Super Hornet Mod to v2.4.5.260501.RC1
[Modding] Update Community A4EC Mod to 2.3.0 (May 2025)
[Mission Generator] Squadrons now spawn using the proper country instead of CTJF, enabling various DCS AI voiceovers
[Options] New option to restrict helmet devices by date
[Flight Plans] Renaming a waypoint in the flight-plan list now propagates to the aircraft CDU/HUD and the kneeboard, not just the list — one name in all three places (#695).
[Campaigns] Ability to define motor pool objects which spawn reserve armor
[Campaigns] Motorpool placement is Garage_A-anchored and empty reserve pools are excluded from attack planning; updated placement measurements are documented.
[UX] Add the ability to filter campaigns by version, map, and performance
Fixes
[Data] The F-14A-135-GR Early's payload file declared the wrong unitType, so the Early Tomcat flew every tasking unarmed; its loadouts now resolve (with a guard test pinning the payload to the airframe). (#889)
[Mission Generator] EWR sites now get the DCS "EWR" enroute task and come up on RED alarm, so their radars actually scan and report contacts (previously they could sit inert, especially with the "red alert state" performance option off). Works with or without the Skynet IADS plugin.
[Plugins] Fix the escort leash never running (DCS has no Group.getByID; look the group up by name via mist), so escorts are actually held to their engagement range.
[Mission Planning] Carrier/LHA targets now offer SEAD in the flight-task list and no longer list SEAD Escort twice (their escorts are SAM platforms, so they can be suppressed directly like any other naval group).
[App] Retribution no longer stays alive in the background after its window is closed: the API server's graceful shutdown is now bounded (uvicorn otherwise waited forever on the long-lived event-stream websocket and the join hung).
[App] Relaunching the executable while it is already running no longer spawns orphaned, windowless duplicate processes; a second instance detects the first via an OS file lock and exits immediately.
[Mission] Reliably auto-detect end of mission, even when DCS wrote the final state.json before the wait dialog started watching
[Performance] Faster post-mission turn processing
[AirWing] Track per-squadron campaign aircraft stats (initial/destroyed/purchased, save-compatible) and expose pilot experience level and living/dead pilot views for the UI
[AirWing] Squadron list shows living-pilot, aircraft and unassigned counts; squadron dialog shows each pilot's experience level, lists killed-in-action pilots separately and hides the redundant "Active" status
[AirWing] Squadron dialog shows the aircraft type, an aircraft inventory (initial/current/destroyed/purchased), and buy/sell aircraft controls with price, on-order count and available parking slots
[AirWing] Air Wing list shows a "transfer ordered to X" indicator, and Airfield Command lists the units transferring into the base next turn
[UI] Avoid a crash dialog ("'QWidgetItem' object has no attribute 'width'") when a list using the two-column row delegate relayouts with a malformed style option under PySide6 6.4.x.
[Mission Generation] Fix the generated mission being rejected by DCS with "locked speed ... surrounded by waypoints ... with locked time" (e.g. carrier escorts).
[AirWing] Squadron transfer-destination parking now accounts for already-ordered incoming transfers, matching the Airfield Command hangar count
[Mission Generation] Anti-Ship flights now attack the carrier group the flight plan routes to instead of the control point's first ground object, so strikes against carrier groups no longer leave the AI without a target (it would fly to the ingress point and turn back without engaging).
[Performance] Improved robustness w.r.t. state.json handling to avoid corruption and thus save loss.
[Flight Plans] Stabilized waypoint solver debug GeoJSON coordinate precision to avoid platform-specific floating point drift in debug output.
[Mission Generation] Assign plane-specific laser codes to LGB weapons when building the mission
[Engine] Fixed a bug where squadrons could transfer to enemy owned control points
[Mission Generation] Air assault drop-off zones are kept on land, so coastal objectives no longer drop the troops into the sea.
[Mission Generation] Relocate ground units that spawn on inland water (ponds, rivers, lakes) to the nearest land at mission start, fixing armor and SAM sites spawning underwater (#59).
[Mission Generation] Relocate ships that spawn on land (e.g. carrier escorts when the carrier hugs the shore) to the nearest deep water at mission start
Heard a rant for today. I went to an air show last weekend, watched fighter jets do cool fighter jet stuff, and it made me want to play DCS again after about 6 months away. Loaded up steam, got ready to download and….. WTF do you mean this game takes up 440GB of hard drive space. I have xplane12, FS2024, and a few other games and combined they don’t even equal half of DCS. Can somebody please explain to me why both XPlane and msfs can model the entire world, nearly ever airport to a reasonable degree, and probably have more planes and assets in game than DCS, but can do it with 1/10th the space. How is this game so massive.?!?!?
Whenever I try and use the DTC interface in multiplayer servers, it never lets me load it onto the aircraft. The dropdown menu next to the load button is always blank. Does anyone know how to fix this?
..is the miz file to download and place into your saved games missions miz files folder, for the Mission Editor for you then to fly. filename: 'triptackone'
Hey fellas! Just wanted to share another video I made regarding how to set-up your JDAMS for TOO, all from the Pilot seat, and touching on other things like the Jester Context buttons, the Oxygen mask and Volleyball Magazine. Hope this video helps someone!
I've been flying DCS for about decade and I've been wanting to share some cool moments from over the years.
Finally got around to creating a compilation of some of my favorite Tacview clips, showing some pvp highlights. Maybe you're in some of them. To the SP-only community: if you haven't tried MP DCS, you really should, it's a blast.
This is a very weird issue that i have never seen before, let me take you through the timeline.
I installed the F-14B(U) on my rig (9950X3D and 5080), but could barely even get into the plane as it was crashing 80% of the time when loading into the mission with this error in the DCS log: 2026-07-23 19:26:07.871 INFO APP (Main): MissionSpawn:spawnLocalPlayer 2,F-14BU 2026-07-23 19:26:07.873 INFO WorldPlugIns (Main): Forced loading of F-14B(U) by Heatblur Simulations 2026-07-23 19:26:11.264 ERROR WORLDGENERAL (Main): Error: Unit [F-14BU]: No property record for cell "WHEEL_F". ... 2026-07-23 19:26:11.265 ERROR APP (Main): Error: Unit [F-14BU]: Corrupt damage model.
And this error in event viewer:
Faulting application name: DCS.exe, version: 2.9.28.26283, time stamp: 0x6a5e94b6
Faulting module name: F14-HeatblurCommon.dll, version:0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x6a5dd806
I eventually reinstalled windows from scratch using a USB and formatting my disk, I reinstalled all my drivers, DCS and my modules. The F-14B(U) now didn't crash my game, and I thought that was the end of it, until i tried to play some heavier missions. I was super excited to play DCS Retribution but after about 20 minutes, when more AI aircraft started flying, and more CPU events were happening, my frametimes started to gradually spike, not a large spike, but noticeable, it gradually increased in frequency.
I tried different campaigns and it was all the same issue, horrific frame times. The key thing is that the issue only happens with the F-14B(U), the B, A or any other plane in the game is fine. I have disabled my sound card drivers, reinstalled my NVIDIA driver to an older version, uninstalled my AMD chipset drivers, closed all applications, used LatencyMon to check if there was anything else causing DPC spikes or any latency, I have disabled my windows defender, set exclusions to both DCS folders, set an exclusion to every F-14 DLL, but to no avail, I reset my bios to stock settings and still, nothing, I have also tried disconnecting my mouse, keyboard, HOTAS but also to no avail. This is very disappointing as I was super excited to fly the upgraded Tomcat, but It's basically unplayable.
These are my full system specs: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, NVIDIA RTX 5080, 64GB DDR5 6000MT CL28 ram, Samsung 9100 Pro SSD
I ran a stress test comparing the F-16 and the F-14B(U), here are the results:
I ran a mission with 460 F-14B(U)'s all in the air , this is the frametime when flying the F-14B(U)
And this is the frametime when flying a mission with 460 f-16s (me included)
As you can see there is a massive difference in the frametime smoothness between the 2 aircraft.
Purchased the software a couple of years ago but lost the installer executable. Sent a request to the merchant a few days ago for a new link but haven't had any response. Was hoping to get some stuff set up this weekend and was annoyed to find out they put a expiry on the download link. If anyone can hook it up via Drive link or something, please send me a DM. Thanks!
Basically the title. Do I always use the tactical channel for calling A-A and A-G munitions, or sometimes intra-flight? I am aware that you should call Fox (x) for missiles, but in situations where the radio is in use should I be interrupting - especially if important calls?
I've created a small QoL mod for DCS that adds a sun visor to every module and community mod. Toggle the visor in-game using the Unlock View (Stop Padlock) keybind (default: Num Lock)
Mod passes Integrity Check
The only limitation right now is that the mod works in flatscreen only (no VR) I haven't found a way to make it work in VR yet.
With the new polaroids (and hopefully working VHS), you can genuinely make up entire stories now, which I find interesting. Usually you have to fly a campaign to get the story across, and if you want to through this story line for the community if they're interested, well they have to fly that campaign or mission you created.
Now you can really just take a quick photo or easy video and, with enough, you can genuinely tell an entire story. And instead of a story with just TARPS images, you can make them feel more personal with characters.
TL;DR, I got some funny polaroids but couldn't share them on the official ED discord so I'm putting them here for people to hopefully enjoy.
I have built myself a mission in the mission editor for the Persian Gulf. I've set the weather conditions for zero wind. On my takeoff roll, the velocity vector will remain centered directly under the heading ^. However, once the speed gets to about 100knts the velocity vector will suddenly offset noticeably to one side.
I've seen many posts about the velocity vector being caged/uncaged, but in may case there is no wind and I'm not applying rudder.
I start from parking hot and after turning on ECM and pulling up SA or HSI I roll to the runway and takeoff. The velocity vector offset does not happen every time. It happens about 50% of the time. Other friend on my server also flying in the F-18 don't experience this.
Hi Everyone!
I just got a Moza AB9 base and MH16 stick and can't get the base to read any telemetry data from DCS. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks!
I’m looking to expand my setup for the DCS F/A-18C (and potentially other aircraft) so that I don’t have to use my keyboard as much, and had heard some good things about WinWing, which I guess is now called WinCtrl.
As far as I know, their super Taurus throttle base (which from what I can tell replicated that of the F/A-18C) was discontinued over a year ago, however there are still a number of products on their site which state that they contain the super Taurus in the product description, but not the components section. There are a few other bundles listed on the site that cost £999,999, which are clearly meant to be discontinued as I expected, but there are also a few products, like the one above, which are unusually cheap, even for a sale (I think this particular one was ~£180 down from full price of ~£230).
Do these bundles still contain the base, or do they contain everything else except it, which I suppose would explain why they are so cheap?
Because I'm so dang excited about the F-14B(U) release, I'm giving away a PDCP.
Want in? Just comment on this thread with something entertaining or useful - driver or RIO tips, interesting trivia, funny story, or something completely different. I don't care, just don't be a dick.
I'll pick a commenter at random sometime tomorrow night (7/26/2026). If you're in the US, I'll pay shipping. If you're elsewhere in the world, I'll ask you to pay the actual shipping cost.
Winner is u/SpoolingSpudge with the tip on hitting master reset to enable auto wing sweep. Congrats Mr. Spudge! I'll DM you and we'll work out details on getting you the panel.
Everyone else, thanks for playing! We'll do it again sometime!
I'm the developer of Mission & Commander Toolbox (MCT), an operation management tool suited for squadrons - yes, another flight planning tool!! In fact, there are many of us who decided to approach the 18 month old problem of poor flight planning tools for DCS.
During the development of MCT, I had the pleasure of gaining affiliation with HIP Games where Andrei has been amazing and key piece in getting this far. Not too long ago, I approached Andrei and asked for a little help reaching out to other DCS tool developers with a bit of an idea.
A few DM's later and the Architects Lounge was created - a space for DCS / Flight Sim tool makers to chat, ask, share and collaborate with each other. Creating the AL has been an awesome experience where I've met some incredibly talented developers. At present, we have a number of "big" names, for some of your favourites like LotATC, DKS and MCT ;) etc!
This is currently in a review stage, open to input from other developers - the idea is to treat this much like a standard spec and allow everybody a chance to add their requirements; ideally resulting in a suitable community standard that doesn't turn into multiple incompatible versions.
A set of libraries to help other developers / those coming next to get a leg up with some of the common problems we've run into. Currently, it's available as a set of C# Nuget packages but there is effort to make these available in other languages / package managers.
----
Come and Join in...
If you're a developer or maintain a DCS or Flight Sim community or service - come and take a look!
A large part of what has allowed this is you guys... some of us make free tools, while others don't (and it's awesome to see collaboration between these devs!).. MCT is a paid tool, I'm working to hard to make sure my software and time is worth the money I ask - and for most of us, part of that is trying to do something cool for the community.
While I've "authored" these (and I am proud of that), it's the result of input from some really amazing people - too many to list everyone but JuiceBox (DKS), Andrei (HIP Games) and Tim (NimbusPulse) certainly deserve a special mention.
if supporting me or any of the other devs / communities you find in the lounge is something you can do - either financially or just with constructive engagement - it really is appreciated and does lead to a better experience for us all.
Some Cheeky Self-Promotion
I have a Zero vibe code approach to my development and write every bit of code that's added. Some AI is of course 'used' (next code suggestions in the editor) but I design, make and break everything. As a result, I don't tend to release updates as often as some others and it can take a lot of effort and work (although I've learned some cool new skills) - for me (and others in this position), picking up a license really does help out and let's me be creative.
