YMMV / Digital Combat Simulator

• Fandom Rivalry: Multiple cases:
  • There's a bit with the Ace Combat series, since both are nominally flight simulators and the DCS players occasionally complain about Ace Combat's lack of realism. Overlaps with Friendly Fandoms.
  • With the (buggy) release of the work-in-progress F-16C, DCS Viper fans have turned to the F-16C-dedicated Falcon BMS (a heavily modified version of Falcon 4.0) as a way to get their F-16 fix. Although F-16C has received several updates, there is still a contention from fans of the aforementioned games, with the most prominent point being Dynamic Campaign.
  • This even occurs within the game community itself. If a new aircraft is announced, you can expect every comment praising the new addition to be countered by just as many comments asking "why not [different plane]?". This is especially bad when it comes to World War II-era aircraft, where you have people demanding that the developers stick to current generation jets, while others see the value of having them.
  • Just like in real life, there's a rivalry among F/A-18C Hornet and F-14 Tomcat users, with latter often poking fun at the former for flying "a computer" instead of a "real plane".
• Fan Nickname:
  • SPAMRAAM, or the tendency for PVP players to load up BLUFOR jets with as many AIM-120Cs as they can carry and unload into the next REDFOR jet they see. Often a cause of friendly fire incidents when they don't bother confirming a target before unloading at them.
  • "Jeff" for JF-17 Thunder, due to how its designation has a similar sound to the name.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Stemming from the same roots as the aforementioned Fandom Rivalry, there's a fair bit of overlap in players. A few enterprising modders have even created plane skins based on Ace Combat aircraft, such as the infamous Yellow Squadron's livery◊
  • Likewise, there's also an overlap with the Falcon BMS playerbase, mostly with players who wanted to fly the F-16 but didn't want to wait for it to be fixed.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Gib [insert a desired plane/feature]"
  • "Two Weeks"^ExplanationAn existing meme among active-development flight simulators, DCS has a habit of claiming something to be coming within a short period of time, most commonly two weeks, and then taking much longer than that.
  • "Soon"
  • "DCS is a horror game." There are multiple clips in YouTube titled variations of this emphasizing how scary it is to suddenly be chased/shot down by missiles. Some even show the missiles essentially pulling a Jump Scare thanks to the players turning around just in time to see a momentary flash of the missile being very close to them before it explodes.
• Obvious Beta: All of the more modern aircraft are constantly being fixed and improved, some more than others. The F-16C Fighting Falcon in particular is notorious for launching without many features that other early access planes, like the F-14, had - such as IFF, external lights, a damage model, and several weapons systems - and even as it's been updated with these and more later on, that plane in particular still gets a lot of updates that break other planes.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The fandom usually ignores the ground-based Combined Arms module due to its very limited simulation compared to aircraft.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Constant updates have made the game look quite stellar. Especially since the 2.7 update, when the clouds received a new make-up.