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The only part where I do think that there is a slightly more specific answer is when you mention "versatility". That aspect is most directly addressed by the more modern multi-role aircraft like the F-16, F/A-18, JF-17, and (after it has had some time to get further into early access) the F-15E. Those aircraft are going to give you a true modern multi-role experience and will let you take part in a lot of different mission types without severe limitations getting imposed.
this has to be the worst, vague, and inarticulate trope in this community.
Nah. It's the best piece of advice. There's nothing worse trying to learn the F-5 when you'd rather being flying the F/A-18 or whatever.
You just missed the Summer Sale, and a lot of modules are 30 - 50% off during sales. I don't know if that brings it down to not-a-fortune for you, but it helps. If you buy on the ED site you get 50% off your first purchase (but you can't use those modules on the Steam version of DCS). You also get 2 week trials of most of the modules so you can try before you buy on their site.
https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/
It also isn't really wrong. What is wrong is pretending that my personal taste somehow applies to others. Everyone is going to have their own personal favorites and some are going to have a hard time advising new players to get anything else due to that bias.
Secondly. I don't really believe there is a correct "good first aircraft" in DCS. Any aircraft module can be a good first module. What is important is that the new player picks one that holds their own personal interest.
If you don't have a preferred aircraft, I would suggest just not worrying about the steam version in the slightest and instead just going to the standalone version via the Eagle Dynamics website. As was already said above, they have a really good discount system for new players and even a trial period for many of the modules. It might be a good idea to just spend some time with the trial period and then buy whatever modules you are interested in using the 50% off the first purchase offer (since that applies to the entire first purchase even if it includes multiple items if desired).
And this answer is exactly why I tell people to pick what they like. The F-5 is an outdated module with limited capability. There is nothing you can learn in it that you can't learn in any other module. Some DCS players just tend to gravitate towards it and obsess over it because there isn't much to learn and they get to pretend that it is a "real aircraft" without all those "complicated gadgets" or some such.
I love the Tiger II, it's fun, but I also love it for what it is. I love its history and development. But, to appreciate it fully is to acknowledge its shortcomings of which the Tiger has several.
And that's just the aircraft itself. As a module, it's pretty old. It's due an update, but who knows when that'll happen. Its limitations mean certain mission sets are out of its capability and, what it can do, can be done better by other platforms. So, as someone who isn't in love with 3rd gen fighters and the limits that imposes, what does someone get out of the F-5E in an ecosystem where the F/A-18 exists? A new player is going to be studying, anyways.
The reality is that the Hornet, Viper, anything we deem to be "complex" is not at all that complex in operation. The Hornet and Jeff are especially intuitive. The actual worst trope in this community is that flying the aircraft represented is, some how, difficult. Or that the Air Quake servers are the end-all-be-all of determining what is good and what isn't.
All that said, for about $4 USD more, you could get the Mirage F.1. That will end up with 4 different variants of the aircraft featuring different specifications and capabilities. Both the Mirage F.1 and the Tiger can carry laser guided bombs, but they can't designate the targets for them. That can be done via AI aircraft/ground team or player with a TGP capable aircraft. Both carry rockets and dumb bombs for ground attack, but the Mirage F.1 can do air to air a bit better in regards to the weapons it carries. It's a neat fighter:
https://youtu.be/up6KB95abHQ
That said, have you played around with the Su-25T much?
Yes it sucks to spend money on a plane only to discover you don't really like it.
I bought the F18 but I hate it. I love the F16. Both are very similar, but there are many small irritations that amount to a lot of annoyances in the F18 for me. That I don't have in the F16.
And yes you are more likely to stick with a aircraft you really like and are interested in.
However some planes are objectively "better" more versatile than others.
F18 is the only plane that can do absolutely everything. It might not be the best at everything. But it an do everything. BVR, dogfighting, strike missions. SEAD, CAS and unlike the F16 can do anti shipping and carrier landing. The F16 is a better Dogfighter, and better SEAD plane. In BVR they average each other out. The F18 can carry a lot more missiles than the F16, but F16 is much better kinematically. So can throw out more dangerous missiles and can dodge incoming missiles better to.
So if you want a true multirole aircraft that can do everything/almost everything the F18 and F16 are the only choices. But planes like F5 are still objectively easier planes to learn. They can do basics air to air and basic air to ground. But it's also an older modual and is showing its age in both graphics, sounds and realism. It is getting a major update. But it's ED so that update might be 5 years away as ED prioritises the big sellers like F16, F18.
So I wanna kinda expand a bit on the notion that the F-5 is easier to learn because this is something that comes up a lot in the community when it comes to the F-5, MiG-21, and other similarly less advanced aircraft in the sim.
The F-5 gives the impression of being easier to learn because of two major factors. The first is that there is simply less to learn. Even in a scenario where one really digs into navigation and weapon employment, there is still just not a lot of system level stuff to mess with. The smaller number of systems to learn provides a sort of illusion of being easier to learn. It isn't that more advanced planes are necessarily harder, they just have a higher quantity of systems and thus take longer to learn.
The second really comes down to a strange assumption that having various displays with various pages to manipulate means that the systems are harder to learn. This is understandable but it is important to note that even when you start really digging into controlling the various screens, MFD's, UFC's, and the like, they are still designed to be pretty convenient to use and thus fairly straightforward to learn. It helps that once you learn one plane, you can often apply what you have learned to others.
One more thing to talk about. When I used to teach a lot of folks how to play DCS, I found that the players who learned bits and pieces via Youtube or the tiny bits of help they might have gotten on a public server tended to view the whole process as a lot harder than the ones who focused more on a "step by step" approach via the manual and Chuck's guide. When you learn via Youtube, the very format itself makes the process less convenient and very difficult to reference quickly while playing. It is no small wonder that those who opt to exclusively learn that way tend to view the overall learning process as more of a unpleasant slog than anything else.
My larger point here is that even the more advanced jets in DCS are not really harder to learn, they just take more time because there is more to learn. No one system is really all that complicated. They are all designed to be used under stress and during combat. Even the most complicated system in a DCS module isn't really all that complicated in general. Of course, it helps that you don't really need to memorize anything. The manuals and Chuck's guides often contain very easily referenced checklists and procedures that you can simply have open next to you when playing that you can use as required.