TLDR
While its commendable and awesome that you play DCS, I feel it wouldn't fit in BF. War Thunder / World of Warplanes have a bit more nuance than BF general aviation but still on the lines of an arcade / fun approach that would fit better for BF's type of play.
A) DCS full on sim type approach requires more time and expense, both in HOTAS, time spent configuring, and also steep learning curve to flying, and having that in BF would complicate things.
B) Brand identity of the game, BF is meant to be a FPS with combined arms aspects, not a full on military sim. Flight sims train ppl to fly X plane or Y helo. BF is meant to be a video game
C) Dev resource allocation, there is a reason why DCS / MS Flight Sim are great, the devs can focus on sim experience. BF devs have to focus on BF vehicle experience as well as FPS aspects and how BF combined arms approach works in BF.
D) Existing Flight sim do all the benefits listed (like civil air patrol etc), and better present themselves for that than an FPS like BF
E) I do agree that BF could use bigger space for aircraft to fly and more ways to see locate targets (team actions, or add recon with JTAC abilities ) or having to change it up for night / weather affect things is good, but have to simplify it (like MW dark, toggle night goggles on, and off when you go out in lighted areas or easy way to have BF pilots use IFR like IR / wire mesh view as flight sim instrumentation would make it too complicated).
Longer answer:
First kudos, b/c DCS is awesome and I love flight sims, Il-2 1946 was one of most fun flight exp I have had, the new on is great, but my gaming friends and less time meant I was in Overwatch and golden era COD private servers. I also fondly remember building a pc of hand me down parts and also it cam with MiG Alley, so much fun (TG they put a time speed up if you went US I so didn't spend IRL flying the distance). My personal fav would be MiG vs Saber (Sabre?) era as missiles just have ez button.
Part of me feels this could be a overly complicated plot driven troll but
That said, No and No. Although the weather and time of day / night would be cool to implement maybe requiring use of night goggles or IR / radar to fly in inclement weather ( but they'd have to make it simple like MW 1 m 2 original where it was put it on in dark, take it off when not, the IFR would have to be simplified like press a button and you have something like thermal view or in Mekwarrior / BattleTech early PC games, the wire / IR type / night vision type view )
My take is War Thunder / World of War Planes. It has more degrees of air combat (attack / fighter / ), but its less set up and more palatable (to BF / FPS audiences) than full on flight sims.
The main reason why, is the average gamer / player will not spend an hour or two assigning 108 keys on their numpad kb, configuring a $200 plus HOTAS, setting up pedals. And that isn't including instrument panels. The days of rugged, somewhat easy to configure, and cheap CH HOTAS (I remember getting whole F-16 set up w/ pedals, and they threw in an extra instrument button panel under $80) are gone.
This is vs getting a game controller (Logitech ones have all sticks n buttons of Xbox controller and run $30, yeah I know some gaming controllers can run $200, but razer tourn wired runs $80 plus you can also play all sorts of games outside of flight sims / tank / mek sims that a HOTAS would etc.
Plus we'd have to see if the Devs will even make BF compatible with those devices.
Then d/l pages of pdfs on flight manuals just to get engine started . . . to actually taxi that jet, more. Then double the manual or triple for helicopter. Yeah once you've spent 200+ flight hours and learning the nuances of X plane or Y helo, it becomes second nature, but we're talking about a FPS game, and ppl are in BF to play BF. If they wanted a more realistic experience they'd turn to something more geared to that, like DCS. War Thunder / World of War Planes and BF aircraft and tanks are much easier to get into, learn the controls and there you go. (Although I remember BF 1 airplanes was a lot easier to pick up than 2042).
I do agree that BF could use bigger space for aircraft to fly and more ways to see locate targets (team actions, or add recon with JTAC abilities )
Have know your audience, and identity of the game, and BF is combined arms, full battlefield experience, and have that miliary identity but it also is meant to fun / a video game with less set up an prep. 2042 out side of its known issues, tries to be a combo of hero shooter and BF. That's part of the reasons is its low ranking.
The goal of a flight sim is to be able to be in a position to train someone to deal with realistic flight scenarios that come with piloting X plane or Y helo. Different identity / approaches and take on video gaming.
Second, is DCS and other flight sims exits and the environments already built in really set things up for a realistic air campaign. Like the side that has doesn't take time to plan, or they don't AWACs tends to win on the other that doesn't, or the other side that send a strike package isn't coordinating with their AA suppression or escorts is going that have a bad time. BF is supposed to be an arcade / fun take on things, not military sim. It's the reason why the gameplay isn't like Rainbow 6 (which is actually the softer end of mil sim)
3rd the benefits like STEM, Training etc, the actual flight sims do cover those areas already (MS flight Sim 2024, yeah it had a 2042 release but it's good now or DCS or warbird they have the new IL-2 ).
4th. Dev resources to please a small niche? This is a huge ask. Yes, the devs should make a good flight experience, making the vehicles as realistic as fun arcade reasonable set ups and go, and offering enough nuance that combined arms done right wins games and that tank do tank work and EBB Wildcat has to take a diff approach as it can't tank but its air D is good to have etc . .. but spending time coding and redoing the game to match DCS would take a lot of time and effort. Dealing with cheats is a huge drain on resources as well as keeping this game going for next few / several years. Good FPS games are hard to keep up, as BF fans know. Also finding the right combination of Devs to make a good FPS . . . COD's last was the remaster of MW original and MW 2's community driven h2M was condemned by Activision, and that was considered one of the best efforts, eclipsing current COD dev's examples. Even one of the original COD devs made a great game but fumbled big on his engine choice.
Why spout on this? BF is going to be huge game, and to keep the stoke going, they have to manage their time and talent to making BF like the golden era of BF's while adding some new awesome stuff. ANd if they are stuck trying to make BF air power into something it's not (full on flight sim), they can't focus on what makes a great BF game.
