Stearmandriver

But... they can launch all the AI and other client aircraft while continuing to ignore me (the player that's running the server) until I'm the only one left on deck. *Then* they can launch me. No recoveries involved.

Have to agree here. Even before 2.7, I was really surprised with how much DCS captured my attention, how immersive it was etc. But with this update, as others have said it's a completely new sim, and absolutely fascinating. Well freaking done, guys.

Yes, please. Those need to go.

The carrier has been really fun in this respect, as the weather doesn't move but the boat steams through it. I launched the other day in a hole in the rain with peeks of blue sky overhead, and trapped an hour later on a case III right down to minimums in heavy rain and low ceilings. It was fun! But yes, it'll be even better when the weather moves!

This is much closer to reality. That shot above of the dark water and shoreline... that could be reality in much of the world. The water in 2.5 looked like a cartoon. I get that people like bright and pretty water... but most of the world's seas don't look like that. We don't have a map in DCS today where the water should look like that. Now that'll be a different story for some areas of the Marianas map... but even on that one, not everywhere's Fiji. The new water looks pretty darn good to me. Only criticism I have is that it's a little too glassy in light winds - there's almost always SOME riffling in open water. But even with that, it's less distracting to me than what we used to have.

Real world sea state is always dependent on swell and wind waves. Those pics above are with no swell, and obviously in low winds. It would be cool to have a separate swell setting in the mission editor, but higher wind speed has always made higher wind waves in DCS. I haven't tried high winds since 2.7, but 15kts made a decent-looking choppy sea. I agree that in low winds, the DCS sea is too glassy now.

Er... what? https://images.app.goo.gl/zeSZAwbX5VrRQrVg9

It's more of a water sheeting effect, at jet speeds. I mean I've never been in a fighter, but in airline and corporate jets, moderate or heavy rain just results in continuous water sheeting over the windshield. Wipers or forced air are necessary to clear the windshield in most of these aircraft. Obviously fighters don't have wipers; does the Hornet use bleed air? I'll have to look in the manual. I know for certain the A-6 used bleed air. It's also just possible that the shape of the airflow around the nose and windscreen directs the rain away on its own though...

This seems to be 100% repeatable. Every time it's happened to me, I've been hosting the server, and have been the last plane allowed to launch. My buddies, and all AI, have to be off the deck first.

This is the exact purpose of those autopilot modes that some people like to ridicule. My guess is that none of them have ever flown a complex aircraft single-pilot.

... until it eventually comes back again, which is what happened to me. Kind of a surprise; you never know when it'll pop back up! I just edited the .lua again lol.

Nice!

Excellent, thanks.

Deselecting the option in the "Special" menu worked intermittently for me tonight. The pop-up FLOLS would be gone for a few passes... then it would suddenly appear again. When re-checking the menu, it would still be deselected. Gonna try the .lua edit again tomorrow night.

Same thing happened to a friend and I tonight. Several AI flights launched without issue, then my friend (leading one section) launched, and then neither I nor my AI wingman or his AI wingman could get marshaled onto a cat.

Good thought; I was just wondering about map differences too. Runways in PG are definitely harder to kill than Caucuses... but man, you'd expect ground friction values to be global? Dunno.

True, but unless for some reason ground idle thrust was significantly higher, I can't see a reason for engines within the same family to affect ground roll very much. I'd expect greater impact to things like climb perf. Regardless, since we're all using the -200 charts here, the question still remains: how was the figure posted earlier of 4,500ft arrived at?

Ok, let's work this problem together... because I'm still getting a 3,000ft ground roll. Check my work here, guys: CONDITIONS: 32,000lbs Standard Atmosphere No wind Full anti-skid braking A1-F18AC-NFM-200 (Entitled "NATOPS FLIGHT MANUAL PERFORMANCE CHARTS NAVY MODEL F/A-18A/B/C/D", so I'm guessing it's the correct data) offers these instructions on using the provided tables to calculate a ground roll: "Enter the chart with the prevailing density ratio and project horizontally right to intersect the appropriate gross weight curve. From this point, project vertically down to the wind baseline. Parallel the nearest guideline down to the effective headwind or tailwind. From this point project vertically down to read flap setting (half or full). Then project horizontally to read the landing ground roll for dry or wet runway." Pretty straightforward. They even offer this sample graphic showing what we're about to do: With that in mind, here's my workflow: 1. Enter the density ratio chart at 1.0 (standard atmosphere). Translate horizontally to the 32k lbs curve. 2. Translate vertically down to the top of the Wind chart. 3. No wind, so translate vertically down through the wind chart to the Flaps chart. 4. Translate vertically down to the Full Flaps line. 5. Translate horizontally right into the Ground Roll chart. 6. Translate horizontally right until intersecting the Dry Runway line. 7. Translate vertically down to read the ground roll. Here's the chart, red tracing showing the problem worked: I arrive at almost exactly 3,000ft. This is comparable to other jets of similar weight. For more reference, this manual also includes a sample problem using similar conditions to ours. They use a slightly lower density ratio, but 10kts of effective headwind. Their solution is a full flap, dry runway ground roll of 2,700ft. Now, I've never been able to stop the DCS Hornet any shorter than about 5,500ft. Some of this is definitely attributable to my being unaware that the throttles had to be jiggled to attain ground idle after touchdown. But I don't think that trick would get me down to 3,000ft, and it sounds like Nighthawk's test confirms that. Have I gone wrong somewhere?

Sissy nav modes? Like INS and GPS? I mean if you wanna do it right, where's your plotting board and bubble octant? Personally, I was annoyed when I first came to DCS that something as basic as coupled steering wasn't implemented. I am glad we finally got there lol. As for the Navy "not knowing" about coupled steering until last year... man, I don't know where he got that idea, but I hope they didn't go on to sell him on anything ;). Even setting aside the ridiculousness of the notion that after the whole clean-sheet design process, and the test flight and acceptance testing, anything about the jet would remain mysterious to the Navy... have you ever met pilots? They're simultaneously lazy, and incorrigible button-pushers. Any fleet pilot would have played "hey, what's this do?" and discovered that mode within 10 minutes of becoming airborne.

Yup, I took it the same way. The end of civilization as we know it would likely not see you playing video games. And if he meant the EMP scenario? Sure, military systems are hardened against that, but is your gaming rig? As others have stated, even a small tactical nuke cannot be employed in a bubble. If NATO or Soviet forces had employed one nuke, tactical or otherwise, what's the only likely ending? A global nuclear exchange. Why do you suppose they were never used in a proxy conflict? I mean, a "cold war gone hot" scenario isn't some fantasy conflict; it actually happened several times. Neither side was willing to employee a nuclear weapon. It would just be completely wasted effort on the part of the devs, and clearly from the feedback you've received here and on Hoggit, would actually alienate a meaningful percentage of potential customers (regardless of whether you think it should). Why would a business do that?

This is the same data (standard atmosphere, 32k) I was using, but using the instructions on page 11 - 259, I get a ground roll of 3,000ft. Adding a little headwind drops it to around 2,500ft. Can I ask how you arrived at your ground roll of 4500ft? I get something closer to that if I don't make the density ratio correction in table 1 on page 11 - 261, but a 32k standard atmosphere ground roll seems to come out at exactly 3,000ft for me... and that seems reasonable. Am I calculating something incorrectly though? That's always likely lol...

It's a bug. Currently, almost every Case 3 and occasional Case 1s are critiqued [BC], no matter when you call the ball. It was introduced on one of the last few patches.

It would seem to me that any braking system is designed around "max stopping power"... that is, after all, their sole job in most aircraft. Certainly there are limits imposed by the size and design of wheel and brake systems, but if you look at something like a CL601 (comparable landing weight) with its tiny tires (and brakes), and find that it can perform a max effort stop in a couple thousand feet... it makes ya wonder ;). It appears this was discussed before, and the thread was marked "correct as is" with no explanation of the obvious disparity. There seemed to be some confusion between normal landing length and a max effort stop; in videos you can find of Hornet landings, the pilot is not usually standing on the brakes. It appears the Hornet perf data shows a max effort stop IS possible in a distance comparable to the Challenger in my example, but clearly in DCS it's impossible to stop in 2500ft. This would be with anti-skid on, just standing on max brake deflection.

That I did not know; thanks for pointing it out. If the engines don't automatically reduce to ground idle, that could definitely account for some of it. I was comparing it to similar-weight business jets, but yeah, even a 737 can stop much more aggressively than the DCS Hornet. ... Like I said though, I don't think it's airplane-specific. Even in the WWII taildraggers, the ground is far too slippery. They'll actually slide sideways on a dry runway. In reality, those big soft tires bite into dry pavement with no give; which is why groundloop behavior is so much more aggressively nasty on pavement than grass. Again though, pointing this out isn't intended to ridicule DCS or anything; I've yet to see any sim - even the certified level D boxes - get ground friction correct (their ground roll distances must be correct for certification, but their sideload and taxi / stopping behavior is always a little funny).

Around them? Yes, quite a bit. In them, no... but a landing rollout isn't exactly a tactical maneuver. It's a small, light jet with an average approach speed... so why would it have such an exaggerated landing rollout? And why wouldn't it just stop immediately, when you stomp the brakes to the floor at taxi speed? If much heavier jets do that, why not the little one?