IronMike

Dear all, as always we would like to ask for your kind feedback regarding the last patch. Our apologies that Reforger II. is not included today yet, some minor issues are currently holding back release which we hope to iron out over the weekend, and bring it to you next week, in time before the Holidays. A new addition to the F-14 - finally! - comes in the form of wheel chocks, which will primarily help holding the Tomcat in place during turns by the carrier. They are set to be on by default for all cold starts, so do not forget to remove them, or taxiing will be difficult. Taxiing over them is not possible. Please also note: when requested to be set by the player, they appear instantly. This is on purpose, to provide immediate fixation on air craft carriers, should a player get surprised by the carrier turning. The ground crew call will follow a bit later and somewhat desynced, unfortunately this is a small, but necessary trade off. All other fixes please take from the changelog below. Thank you for your great feedback thus far, we are always looking forward to more! The Heatblur Team DCS F-14 Tomcat by Heatblur Simulations NEW: Added wheel chocks. By default on for cold starts. Fixed aircraft in place when chocks are active, avoiding deck sliding on carriers. Fixed LANTIRN CTD with 2.8. Added FPS-117 to the RWR threat library. Fixed not all masses contributing correctly to the total mass and balance on each respawn; causing discrepancies in aircraft performance on subsequent flights. Fixed shader definition for far LoD - aircraft will now sample a small part of main aircraft textures for the right colour. Fixed Op Reforger Mission 5 TALDs not working for Pontiac. Updated Quickstart F-14A_IA_NTTR_Zone5 by Reflected Simulations. Added VX-9 XF240 White Whale livery by Isaac. (Thank you!) EDIT: Our apologies, the mission fixes have not been pulled in time anymore (like the wheelchocks fix), please download them here. F-14B_Campaign_Mission5.miz F-14B_Campaign_Mission5_SC.miz

Thank you very much for your kind words! We're very happy that you like it.

Dear all, we are happy to deliver a substantial patch for the Viggen to you before the Holidays. The biggest and most noteworthy addition are ofc the new PBR textures, which come with a simplified and revamped paint kit as well, including all newest additions and refinements. Dynamic tactical tail numbers can now be triggered. And of course: wing vapour and LERX effects. Another big change is the overhaul of the AGM-65, which now uses the standard seeker and includes many fixes and changes to make Mavericks great again. A launch tone detection for the RWR has been added, which now will detect launch radiation patterns and help your defensive game. There are many more fixes included, like a fix for the flight model damage states desyncing with visuals, plenty of visual fixes and more, which is best taken from the changelog below. Last, but not least, we would like to mention a significant overhaul of the FM performance, mainly drag at high altitudes and mach numbers, full afterburner thrust at high mach number and the overall acceleration at high altitudes. We hope you all enjoy the changes, and as always, we would like to thank you for your kind patience and great feedback! The Heatblur Team DCS AJS-37 Viggen by Heatblur Simulations NEW: Standard AGM-65 Maverick seeker implemented Able to lock buildings and map structures. Fixed AGM-65’s being unusable after jettison then Re-Arm. Display polarity is now correctly calculated. Default EP-13 sight brightness and contrast adjusted for better visibility Default EP-13 brightness at night or dusk adjusted to avoid melting eyes. NEW: Added “launch” tone detection in RWR: RWR will now detect launch radiation patterns if defined for a given system NEW: Added native PBR textures for almost all exterior textures, improving fidelity and detail and enabling more advanced livery creation. NEW: Simplified and revamped paint kit with newest additions and refinements NEW: Added dynamic tail tactical numbers, can be triggered by setting Argument 850 to 1.0 NEW: Added overwing vapour and LERX effects. Adjusted FM performance, chiefly: Adjusted drag at high mach numbers (>~1.2) and altitudes. Full afterburner thrust at high Mach numbers (>~1.2) and altitudes adjusted Overall acceleration slower at high altitudes Corrected afterburner fuel consumption Fixed instances of flight model damage states desyncing with visuals. Default standby altimeter now set to 1013 Fixed Radar elevation not being 0 degrees relative to horizon in Terrain Avoidance mode. Fixed Standby KURS indicator being frozen at 180 degrees Changed RB24 guidance time to 0.5s from 2s. Increased RB24 proximity fuse to 9m per SwAF documentation Fixed target points being labelled as navigation points when added on the F10 map. Fixed the afterburner effect clipping and becoming oversized when the engine was stalling. Changed colours for LYSBOMB candles RB-24/74 FM’s now match ED AIM-9. Implemented major corrective pass on exterior artwork, including: Added missing hatches and details on right side of aircraft Smoothed out sharp edge on leading edge of intake Removed some clipping surfaces between interior and exterior of airbrakes Fixed some clipping of objects at wing-root between fuselage and wing-root Centre fuselage fin is now properly centred Fixed shading errors near vertical tail on exterior model Fixed several items clipping through from cockpit to exterior. Removed gap between exhaust vents and fuselage Increased canopy glass specular tiling Adjusted AoA probe locations Corrected mirrored "don't step here" decal on intake "strengthener" arm Removed erroneous decals on right side of aircraft Added additional detail to tail RWR area and revamped RWR receiver texture (Thanks Magnus S!) Corrected broken normal map artefacts on inside of aircraft intake Corrected broken polygons and gap just forward of vertical stabiliser Corrected errant tangent basis on all pylon normalmaps Fixed gaps between fuselage and inside of exhaust elements Dithered _T normal to avoid shadow banding Compressed various textures left in .png Removed normal map rendering from LoD2+ for improved performance Rebuilt LoD1 & LoD 2 and adjusted rendering ranges Remastered and revamped bare metal liveries to use PBR textures Temporarily made the “SE-DXN v3” livery simply match the bare metal base livery until re-exported using new Paintkit. PS: Check out also this very cool livery by @Mach3DS - which unfortunately could not be included in time, but will be in the next patch. In the meantime you can download it here: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/314918-the-show-must-go-on-livery/

Glad to hear!

I think you misremember a bit. The burble is turned off for the F14 on ED side, we're still trying to get them to turn off wake turbulence. And yes, apologies, special options was wrong, Gameplay is the one.

Don't select any, then it is client side.

When you fly the Tomcat, wake turbulence should always be turned off, as it else doubles with ED's wake turbulence. It does not affect anyone else if you do it in your special options.

Could potentially also be netcode shenanigans. Generally it does not do that anymore. But would be good to make a report in the general weapon section to ED.

Yeah, as @DD_Fenrir points out above. Specific tests with very specific conditions are often proof of concept, an exploration into what could be if needed, etc. - but not necessarily representative of the in service normal use. Like the NASA Mach 5 test. It proved that it could potentially go mach 5. But in service ofc trading the warhead for speed makes little sense. NASA is naturally less interested in the "killing your target" part and more interested in the "how do things fly, how fast could they fly" etc part. Then ofc these kind of tests are often a bit abused in congress reports, like the mach 4.3 proof of concept, to satisfy committees, to secure funds, etc etc... And lastly, if you achieve a high number of something, it's not unwise to not recall or disprove the claim, because if your enemy thinks "oh wow it does mach 5" that in itself is like a small win. Those are just some reasons, why different testnumbers are being tossed around, which then get a life of their own on the internet. And it is completely normal to fall for them, I did, too, when I first heard about the phoenix. "A mach 5 missile - wow sounds cool." That's very natural and human to go for that.

In the BVR menu in the STT section jamming targets will be listed. Simply select one and tell him to lock it.

Tacview telemetry can be super unreliable. It's nothing to either go by or worry about.

if you mean lock, simply hook the strobe and transition to PDSTT like with a normal target.

My pleasure. There are certainly folks who can give better advice on BFM than me, but I hope it helps at least a little bit. Happy shooting!

The thing is, yes the AI right now is sometimes weirdly unrealistic, the worst offender is the F16, pulling 8-9Gs indefinitely, above 500 kts, indefinitely... The rest however is not so bad. But either way, it should not discourage you from kicking their ass nonetheless, it only has a positive upside of learning something, of being forced to think out of the box, etc. See the video below (sorry I recorded it earlier today before your input display request, but it would not add much anyway, because you have the right idea already, the nose coming up and down is exactly what I described with "fapping for speed".) The AI F16, in all my, dunno around 5 tries, never ever managed to fire a single shot. You win every single time against the F16, by it either running out of gas, or running into the ground. That 9 G and 500+ kts cannot be transformed into a shot, unless you screw up. Is that a satisfying win? No. But it is a win. You laugh at it in Tomcat fuel tanks lol. What I did in the video though was one step further, step outside of the box, I found you do get a gun kill, if you force an overshoot with its tremendous superhuman pulls and speeds, hehe. May not work always, but it does quite often, and as mentioned, even if it doesn't, all you need to do is hang in there until it runs out of fuel. That to me is really bugged BFM behavior by the AI F-16 (not all AI is that bad), and some things got better, some got worse across the bord ... as usually is. I can only imagine how difficult it is to program a very realistic AI BFM behavior, and the GFM will likely be another step forward, step by step. The big takeaway however is: do not ever use AI, bugs, etc as an excuse, but as an incentive to develop your skills further. For example snapshots. Why I hit those snapshot hits? Years of training exactly that, sniping in other games where sniping is realistic (Arma ACE) etc, in short: developing a feel to lead a bullet with or without a scope, and now I can cash it in. Gun pipper? Overrated. Additionally years of flying controlled precision flight, trying to be within +/-5 feet when flying level, as well as trying to keep bank attitudes within +/-5°, pitch, G pulls, speeds in turns, etc etc etc... religously. Even so you can very well see that I cannot hit all snapshots, that I cannot turn the nose precisely in all wobbly buffety creeky situations - but that does not discourage me from trying. But in the end all that comes together. All that said: I am by far not a BFM pro compared to others, but I can hold my own and best even guys like Stugey, when I put my head to it. But it's not that important to me. Most and foremost I just try to enjoy my time in the pit, and the new AI is a new challenge, which I find refreshing, hence I started to explore a bit again now - thanks to your thread. Such changes are always an incentive to cheer up, sleeves up, and crack a nut. The reward is obvious. PS: If you notice, when the F16 overhsoots, it does so with a sonic boom - which actually let me cheer out loud there a bit I have to admit, and this goes also to all the "performance complaints" I keep hearing so often. In an F-14A, of all things, I was completely able to catch up to it more or less in an instant, out of 360 ish kts. Eat that, pesky little Vipers. F-14A vs Ace F-16 AI.zip.acmi

Difficult to say, depending on what you want to achieve. Usually I like to keep it very steady, very calm, avoid roll input during the loop, and pull through, because if you ease off too early, before being through the turn, you can easily end up in a very unfavorable position, having to roll out, losing sight of the bandit below you, etc. Then ofc it depends if you want to really pull through, or level and stay up. (See the vid I posted above against the F18). It also depends a bit on how you entered the loop. Which is almost more important, because if you are not bringing enough energy, you may also end up in a very unfavorable position, no matter how you handle your stick. So this deserves the most consideration imo, then you need to know what kind of loop you want (how wide, how narrow, if vertical or a bit diagonal etc), and try to lock that in. That comes with practice ofc, it is not like I give these things a lot of active thought. Usually I think about what kind of separation from the bandit I want to achieve (if I know he has not the energy to follow, or else that kind of stunt can be very deadly - very different for example doing something like that against an F18 or an F16). But holding it steady until you are either through, or level, whichever you want, is important, and ofc, if you notice it is too wide and you have excess energy, pull a bit more, and vice versa, but gently, and on the pitch line. If you add roll, that can very much screw up what you set out to do. Even if you set out to do like an octagonal roll, or say a diagonal loop if you like, keep on the pitch axis you setup at the start, and try to avoid roll input until you are done with your maneuver. If I have enough separation at the end, and the bandit not enough energy to follow, then I am also much less concerned with what speed I end up on top, because I can get it back fairly quickly both either by levelling or pulling inverted. If the bandit has enough energy, a loop as mentioned can be a very bad idea in the first place. Then half circle climbing and half circle descending may be more favorable, bleeding (in the climbing half) and gaining (in the descending half) energy as needed (by both adjusting your climb and descend rate).

Here's another one for you @bonesvf103 - in an F-14A against F-18 AI, set to Ace. I'll leave that uncommented, and you tell me what you see what I did and what I used against it.

The Su-27 very much can be beaten by geometry and also the MiG etc can lose their energy if you are patient enough. By the book, means what book exactly? 30 seconds is your ideal window, which means your main goal is to win the merge and shoot them right there and then. After the 30 seconds your chances to win decrease dramatically. Especially with human opponents. I forgot the calculus, but it is quite dramatic. In the end, your job is to shoot the guy, not to display some geometry. And, ofc, knowing how to do this or that, especially in PvP, helps a ton to get into a favorable position, flip a position, etc etc. But you're still not there to display an airshow, but to shoot the guy. However you can. The AI now just pulls too hard too consistently for long periods of time, inhumanly so, hence insisting on some geometry is pointless. I leave the fight with a) enough fuel and b) almost 2/3rds of gun ammo left, despite snapshots. Snapshots are super important, especially when flying against humans. The big difference with Ai and humans is that a human will always try to pull the nose on you, when you come head to head again, even if he sacrifices for that, but on a nose to nose you will have ammo flying your way. The AI, when shot at first, will just not do that, which can be exploited. The 1nm pole: Imagine the aircraft is set on a 1nm stick. In most cases you need to fly around that stick first to get into a good shooting position. A lot of folks want to just get nose on and force it, getting in a non favorable position. That's just a mental/visual aid, which a Gripen pilot told me who got that from his BFM instructor, an oldschool Viggen guy. Just imagine that stick, and try to fly around it first. But sometimes, like with the AI pulling a constant 9Gs or similar shenanigans, that is not really possible. Hence you need to be able to do snapshots well. Snapshots are not luck, it is something you need to practice. Flying geometry is nice, being able to hold your turnrate is something one needs to know anyway, but if it doesn't serve you to kill the guy, it is worthless, too. And btw, if you want to fly BFM PvP, practicing against the AI is a very bad thing. All my advice here is predominantly meant for how to beat the AI as is, not on how to develop a skillset in human vs human BFM. But in parts, it applies there, too, ofc. Do what works, not what someone told you one should do. Finally, explain a bit more what regime you mean, cause I showed you 4 different ones. (I would also carefully suggest, if it takes you 8 minutes to kill the flanker from the IA mission, it is not the same regime, it should never take you that long.) Which is the whole point, to be flexible to go from a sustained turn to instantenious to forcing the angles to creating separation, etc.. as needed. The bottom line of this remains: the AI is still extremely easy to kill, because it isn't as flexible as you can be, while a human opponent can be exactly that and turn it on your head. EDIT: One more thing that slipped my mind: going from slow to fast and vice versa: it can be done very quickly, but you need to manage your pull. There is a technique, which I call simply "fapping" the stick, lol, and it works basically both ways: if I want to gain speed, I go from pull -> release -> pull -> release, which works also if you want to pull more G without bleeding off speed, which goes a bit like pull -> increase -> ease off to (initial) pull -> increase -> ease off to a bit more pull -> increase -> ease of to yet a bit more pull than before -> increase ... gently. Try to practice that quickly going from 150 to 250 to 350 to 450 at a constant between 4 and 6 G (choose one and hold it) for the first, and for the second train holding around corner speed while going 3G to 4G to 5G to 6G to 7G while not losing corner speed. For me both these skills do much more than geometry. Also against humans.

Did you get a start delayed or your flight has been delayed to start message? Definitely sounds like the weight bug. If it is not reproducible for you, it may also just be a one off initialization issue (aka something went wrong during loading), and nothing to further worry about. Let us please know if it happens again.

Thank you, Aqil, in fact we already found someone. Thanks a ton anyways though! I will close the thread and unpin. Thank you all!

Dear friends from Turkey, I would need help with the voice acting in Reforger II. It is a small part (+1 even smaller part, bascially just replying with "copy"), just a couple lines, but ideally would be played by a Turkish Native Speaker. As a small thank you, you will receive 2 HB modules, present or future, your choice. So 2 guys in total. What you need: 1. Speak Turkish as your native tongue. 2. Speak English well. 3. A good mic to record yourself. 4. Discord - recording will be done live with me. 5. The ability to save your recording as a .wav file in high quality. 6. A fairly deep or mature voice. If you are interested, please let me know. The recording would have to happen this week still, if in any way possible. Please leave a comment here, and I will send you a PM. Teşekkürler!

Here's another little demonstration. Mind you, I haven't practiced in well over a year, but few points to get across: Part 1: Gunzo vs SU27. Always, always try to end the fight within 30 seconds. The sooner the better. It won't always work (q.e.d.), but always try. (Caucasus Quickstart Dogfight) Part 2: Gunzo vs MiG29. If you cannot fly around the 1nm pole out of the bandit's ass, force him to cross your nose for snapshots. Forget about "the perfect shooting position". Just get into any shooting position, however you can. Use everything to your advantage, including terrain. (NTTR Quickstart Constant Peg Gen IV) Part 3: Heaters vs MiG28. Separation vs no separation: you need to fly around the 1nm pole out of the bandit's ass (or basically the part that is looking at you) to get a good shot, both gunzo or heaters, but especially with heaters. Don't force the turn, if it puts you in a bad shooting position: compare 1st shot (no bueno) vs 2nd shot (bueno). (NTTR Quickstart Fox 2) Part 4: Heaters vs MiG28. setup for a good separation from the merge, kill within 30 seconds, aka how it is done proper. (NTTR Quickstart Fox 2) Corner speed is not always the best speed. But know how to get from slow to fast to slow quickly, when needed. Don't corner yourself in a speed range. A lot of folks seem to care about looking good or achieving this ideal kind of BFM, perfect turns, scissors this, yoyos that, yada. All I care is about shooting the guy as quick as I can, how it looks does not matter. Do what you have to, full stop. One thing however is very important, always important: try to keep your vector on the bandit, always, as best as you can. That's what that line in the canopy helps you with tremendously. Many don't do that. And so many folks I watch forget the most important thing: Squeeze. That. Trigger. Practice snapshots, don't wait for that perfect firing solution. Practice shooting blind, without lock, leading blind, without lock. Put pressure on your adversary, not on yourself.

Would be good to report this in the SC section of the forums. In the meantime I suggest using the SC version for SC owners, until the new hybrid Stennis is more fleshed out. We're leaving it in for a while to come.

Glad to hear, and apologies again for the inconvenience! Happy flying!

Attached a fix to original post for OP Reforger Mission 5 "The F18AI TALD fix broke some tasking logic, so for anyone trying to fly Op Reforger Mission 5, here is a fix attached, simply download and drop into your mods/aircraft/f14/missions/campaigns/op reforger folder and overwrite the existing missions." The fixed missions can be downloaded from the original post above.

Here is a fix, simply drop into the campaign folder and override existing missions: F-14B_Campaign_Mission5_SC.miz F-14B_Campaign_Mission5.miz