I’m a couple days late on this (busy weekend for me) but there’s been at least a little news in the DCS community and they revolve around Heatblur’s DCS: F-14 project and a few extra details from the DCS: Persian Gulf map.
F-14 cockpit teaser
HeatBlur released a whole series of teaser images on their Facebook page late last week to showcase the work their texturing team was busy doing on the F-14 cockpit. Will they be in the runnings for one of the most visually beautiful cockpits in the DCS series? Yes, I think they will be given what we’ve seen so far from their team.
These images don’t show the whole cockpit just yet but they are intensely detailed images of what will eventually be a reveal of the whole cockpit.
HeatBlur is using the full talents of their texture artists and the physical based rendering system provided by DCS World 2.5. Its unclear to me if these are rendered in-engine but if not I fully expect that DCS will be able to pull off something very close to this look.
The latest on DCS: Persian Gulf
Eagle Dynamics was light on releasing news this week as the team is clearly mourning the loss of Igor Tishin, Eagle Dynamics’ founder. The Persian Gulf live stream scheduled for Sunday morning was cancelled as a result of this.
Still, a few updates have trickled out and we got three new screenshots showing off the map at different altitudes. Although DCS: Persian Gulf is a desert map like DCS: Nevada, it has some different appearances and sports what appears to be SpeedTree technology for its trees and shrubs (and grass?).
DCS: F/A-18C Hornet liveries
Eagle Dynamics has also been trickling out some new liveries to go with the Hornet for early access including schemes from VFA-83 and VFA-87. I’ve been looking to see what other schemes
According to a post made by Wags on the forum in June of last year, these are the schemes planned for the F/A-18C Hornet module:
US Navy
- VFA-34 “Blue Blasters”
- VFA-37 “Ragin’ Bulls”
- VFA-83 “Rampagers”
- VFA-87 “Golden Warriors”
- VFA-131 “Wildcats”
- VFA-113 “Stingers”
US Marine Corps
- VMFA-232 “Red Devils”
- VMFA-323 “Death Rattlers”
Finland
- Fighter Squadron 11
- Fighter Squadron 21
- Fighter Squadron 31
Kuwait
- 9th Squadron2
- 5th Squadron
Switzerland
- Fliegerstaffel 11, Air Wing 13
- Fliegerstaffel 17, Air Wing 11
- Fliegerstaffel 18, Air Wing 14
Its unclear to me if plans have changed since then but we’ve had what amounts of tactic confirmation of a Blue Angels skin and I’m still rooting for a CF-18 skin (Canada was the first export customer for the F/A-18 and upgrades completed in 2010 bring it close to the same standard as the F/A-18C Lot 20 we’re getting).
In personal news, I’m going to try and take the plunge this weekend and do the DCS World 2.5 beta so expect more details from me on that soon.
Stormbirds 
I look forward to your thoughts on 2.5. I haven’t downloaded it yet as I’ve been having a blast with il2. I figure I’ll wait for the f18 and f14 but that said, I have been curious..
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I’ll be sure to write about it once I’ve had a chance to check it out.
I’m getting more excited about the Hornet. I’m hopeful we’ll see it “soon”.
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