Most of us veteran DCS World pilots know that things can change during early access and sometimes resources, ones that are in the open and are not classified, can be hard to come by. The latest challenge for a DCS World module is the DCS: F-16C which, after some challenges with its targeting pod, seems to be coming back together with a new plan.

Sniper first, then the change

Right now, DCS: F-16C Viper has the Litening pod as its only targeting pod. After much community discussion and quite a bit of back and forth between Eagle Dynamics, their subject matter experts, and the community itself, it appears that mistakes have been made and the team are making some changes.

What happened? Don’t we have Litening already? Yes … and no. Several modules in DCS World already have the Litening targeting pod. The DCS: A-10C for example! Every jet has its own implementation of the pods systems and the F-16C’s implementation is apparently not available in the declassified world. So what do we have right now? Apparently a kind of hybrid between the Litening and the symbology of the LANTIRN pod, an earlier pod, for the F-16C.

That’s all just catching things up on the challenges. Now, we have word from Eagle Dynamics on the specifics of what they are planning. Namely, the release order that they intend to go with.

Dear all,

It has been decided that we will release the Sniper TGP before creating an accurate LANTIRN pod to replace the existing Litening TGP. This means that the Litening TGP will remain in its current form until after the delivery of the Sniper TGP. We believe this will be a more popular approach for our customers as no capability will be lost prior to the release of the Sniper TGP. 

As mentioned earlier, we are currently unable to include an accurate Litening TGP given the lack of non-controlled, public reference data. If this changes in the future, we’ll certainly consider adding the Litening back.

Thanks for your patience and understanding and we look forward to continuing to bring you the most accurate F-16C possible.

Nineline on the DCS forums

Overall this seems to be a good news kind of story. We’ll still emerge with two targeting pods and the two pods will have greater differentiation between them with the older LANTIRN and Sniper giving us a wider range of dates. LANTIRN is also a two pod system so hopefully we’ll see both the targeting and the navigation side of that system.

And of course for accuracy sake it’s good to know that we won’t have the mashup that currently exists. I frankly wouldn’t have noticed without it being pointed out but I appreciate Eagle Dynamics attempting to do their best, making a mistake, recognizing it, and coming up with a workable solution. Kudos to the community members who were on top of this as well.

So, Sniper pod is still coming, LANTIRN will come after that, and the F-16 will continue to be a precision weapon slinging machine. Sounds good to me.