DCS Sortie Starter — Roadmap

July 2026 · release notes in CHANGELOG.md · open source (MIT)

North star: "Select, don't search." A living, period-accurate DCS mission in under a minute — no editor, no Lua. We set the stage, you write the play. Never player waypoints.

Shipped — highlights through v1.19.x

Mission Library + two paths

Pick a curated scenario — role-coded cards, era & threat filters, preview → generate or open-in-builder — or build from scratch in the full wizard.

F-14B(U) day-one support

Verified type id, real footprint, radio presets, carrier ops, DTM cartridge auto-loaded (bullseye, fix points, threat plot lines — never your route), Jester/Iceman crew-ops scenarios.

Theater Identity

Each airbase dresses as its real owning nation — country, aircraft types, liveries — with per-nation ramp rosters.

Historical Airspace (first slices)

Berlin Air Corridors and the Syria Euphrates deconfliction line, drawn to a MIL-STD-2525-based chart standard.

Sortie Starter Brief

Pre-flight pack: cartographic theater chart, comms/nav, forces (PDF + MD), plus in-jet kneeboards.

The foundation

11 era-gated theaters, dressing on real stands with measured parking headings, doctrinal SAMs + Threat Dial, carrier groups with measured decks, real comms plans, deterministic share links — a link is the mission.

Now

In-game validation pass

Corridors, nation ramps, Tomcat spacing, and the DTM cartridge verified in the sim.

Scenery keep-out + final surveys

Falklands and The Channel parking surveys; building keep-outs so statics never touch scenery.

DTC v3

Historical-airspace corridors as PTID plot lines; kneeboard "cartridge contents" page.

Next

Pillars

Theater Identity

Every map gets its real geopolitical and historical character with zero configuration. Next slice: Theater IADS — nation- and era-correct integrated air-defense laydowns at real sites.

v2.0 — Live Mission Scripting

BRAA calls, in-mission scoring, corridor discipline. Opt-in, never intrusive.

v3.0 — Community

Accounts via Patreon: save missions to a private library (recipes — tiny and permanent, never stale files), stable share permalinks, upload-a-mission → dissect → reusable recipe, and your owned-modules profile stored on the account. The generator itself stays free.

💡 Idea board — unprioritized

A DCS-player wishlist, not commitments — anything here can be promoted when it earns it. Everything respects the north star: reference and stage-setting, never player waypoints.

COIN / Afghanistan-era ops

Convoy overwatch, FOB resupply, ridge-line CAS, CSAR with a survivor radio.

COMAO packages

Fly as one element of a timed strike package — AI SEAD ahead, escort flanking — without routing you.

Naval strike scenarios

Shadow, ID and strike a surface group; era-correct from Styx boats to modern SAGs.

Campaign-lite chains

One mission's outcome seeds the next recipe — kill a SAM site today, it's gone tomorrow.

Seeded wildcards

Opt-in surprises: SAM ambush, unknown contact, diverted tanker, start-abort drill.

Helicopter-first templates

Petrovich/George crew-ops, sling-load logistics, medevac under SHORAD.

Training syllabus track

A qual ladder — nav, BFM, BVR, SEAD, package lead — each rung a Library card.

Historical-date weather

Pick a real date: archived weather, correct moon phase and sun times.

Weather fronts & winds aloft

Layered wind profiles and moving cells instead of one static preset.

Era-correct night ops

Airfield lighting states, NVG-era gating, dark-ramp cold starts.

Doctrine-true red air

Soviet GCI-grid CAP vs Western sweep behavior per era, not just skill sliders.

Period callsign packs

Nation- and era-correct callsigns end to end — no 'Texaco' over the GDR in 1975.

Tail-code sequencing

Squadron blocks numbered like a real flight line.

Auto approach plates

TACAN/ILS plates for home + divert fields, drawn to our chart standard, in the kneeboard.

Divert card

Nearest suitable fields with headings, distances and fuel estimates.

SRS export

The comms plan as a SimpleRadio channel preset file next to the .miz.

QR brief handoff

QR on the PDF brief opens the mission data card on your tablet kneeboard.

TacView debrief pack

Auto-enable the right flags; ship a debrief checklist keyed to the mission.

Cyclic carrier ops

Event-driven deck: launch cycle, recovery window, Case III stack times on the kneeboard.

Recovery tanker + LSO picture

Hawking tanker overhead; era-correct CV NATOPS numbers on the brief.

Reactive escort stations

Plane-guard helo and shotgun destroyer repositioning with deck state.

Loadout presets (opt-in)

Era-authentic stores presets for the player flight — never forced, never a route.

MP server pack

One click: mission set + rotation manifest ready for a dedicated server.

Mission date picker

A full date (not just era) driving weather, daylight, moon and roster gating.

Range scoring lite

Strafe/bomb scoring triggers on the practice range — a v2.0 appetizer that works today.

In-app release notes

A 'what changed' card in the UI fed from the CHANGELOG.

🗺 New maps

Afghanistan — shipped (v1.21)

25 airports authored from a real install export; projection probe-calibrated to 0 m error.