In the spotlight for this week are a couple of cool core updates for DCS World centered around the updater system and the mission builder as well as a reminder that Reflected Simulations and Baltic Dragon’s joint campaign project is coming before end of the year.

Updater and mission builder select tool

Two core updates are talked about this week and the first of them is a new update system for DCS World. This is timely because the last couple of updates were both large and very difficult to install if you were like me with a somewhat constrained storage capacity. For the record, DCS has its own SSD and that was still not enough. I was starting to write an editorial about it… but apparently ED is on the job with this issue.

The new updater will download and unpack files before deleting the old files. It can also be used in a special mode that deletes files ahead of the update. The first mode will let you run DCS even midway through an update, pausing and restarting as needed. The second will not.

This will be all part of the integration of the updater with the DCS launcher.

The other core update is a new ability within the mission editor to click and drag to select multiple units, objects, trigger zones and drawings into a group that can then be moved around collectively. They can also be copied, pasted, and rotated as a group.

Arctic Thunder

Baltic Dragon and Reflected Simulations Arctic Thunder campaign is in the spotlight this week. The two campaign developers are nearly ready to release their joint campaign project for the DCS: F/A-18C and DCS: F-16C paired with the new DCS: Kola map.

Features include 10 immersive missions with a variety of mission types, operations from road bases in Finland, 2,200 lines of dialogue with voice overs, custom ATC interaction, optional air-to-air refuelling, and detailed documentation for each mission.

The F/A-18C campaign is in the spotlight here but Reflected’s F-16C campaign will be a close companion with overlapping missions and storylines. The campaigns are due out before the end of the year.

Earlier in the year, I did an interview with Baltic Dragon about campaign making in DCS World and we talked a fair bit about this campaign. Check that out!

Read the complete DCS World newsletter here.