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SlipHavoc

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Everything posted by SlipHavoc

  1. It does not sound like that to me. And if this is a major concern for you, and you anticipate flying a lot of missions outside the high-detail area of one of the smaller portions, then buy the whole map.
  2. Amazing how people can be so confused by something so simple... If you want the whole map, buy the whole map. If you only care about one part of Afghanistan, just buy that part. If you just buy one part, you can still fly missions elsewhere, but the map will be in lower detail. If you don't want them to be in lower detail, buy the whole map. It used to be that you could only buy the whole map, and now you can still buy the whole map, but now since Afghanistan is huge and some people only care about some smaller part of it, they have the option to buy that smaller part, and yet are not completely locked out of playing on other parts. This isn't exactly rocket science here.
  3. For the record, I was never confused about why people would want access to the other part of Afghanistan, and particularly Bagram. My confusion was only about why people think the EA portion of the map is "small", when in fact it's essentially the same size as the high-detail area of the other maps.
  4. The reality of what? Any NATO battles around the Strait of Hormuz are completely fictional (unless you're making an Operation Praying Mantis scenario or something I guess). So if you're happy to pretend that US forces operated out of certain bases in the region, I'm not sure why you couldn't be happy to pretend that US forces couldn't operate out of Kandahar, which is in the EA map area for Afghanistan. Granted that Bagram was the biggest base, but that should be coming later, and Kandahar is big enough to operate any kind of plane. Camp Bastion also has an 11k ft runway and operated at least USMC Harriers as well. That said, operating fixed-wing planes over Afghanistan in a "mostly realistic context" is going to mainly be orbiting for hours waiting for coordinates to drop a JDAM, with periodic trips to the tanker to top up. In which case I welcome the helicopters. On the other hand, in either case, about 90% of the fancy avionics, weapons, and capabilities of all the planes during those operations were completely unused. You don't need terrain following radar, ECM pods, AMRAAMs, MMW Hellfires, JSOWs, SLAMs, or a bunch of other stuff to fight goat herders. All of this is why I'm personally looking forward to Kola Peninsula more, or better yet, Central Germany, but that's another topic... Since the US did operate out of at least Kandahar and Camp Bastion, it seems like it should be extremely easy to make a plausible mission that isn't entirely devoted to helicopters. The Caucasus map is hard to make a plausible mission with US planes because it's right in Russia's back yard, and Georgia wasn't exactly a US ally at the time either.
  5. It is possible to start flights over low detail, I've just never seen it actually done in any of the MP servers I'm in, and I never do it myself in SP. And when it comes to carrier operations, Afghanistan is going to be a miserable map even if it included ocean, which it doesn't. The closest water to Afghanistan is about 250 nmi, and that's just to the shoreline. Carrier flights during the early GWOT were on the order of 700 nmi and up to 10 hours in the air, with who knows how many trips to the tanker. I'm personally here to blow stuff up and have fun, not numb my butt for a full shift while I fly over yet another brown desert (and I bet that goes for most of their customers), but either way, this map is not small. As for Syria, you don't have to take my word for it, just open it up in the mission editor. The western-most point of Cyprus all the way to Deir ez-Zor in the far wastes of eastern Syria is 390 nmi. And Incirlik to King Abdullah II is 305 nmi. That's a hell of a lot of space to play around in, even when 1/3rd of it is ocean, which it won't be in Afghanistan.
  6. I love comparing apples and oranges. They're both fruit, they both grow on trees, they are both sold in grocery stores, you can squeeze them both for juice, etc.... The highly detailed area is the only area I ever fly in, and the only area I've ever seen missions online set in. If all the area outside the high-detail area on the PG map went away, I'm not sure I would even notice, although it's good for flavor. Same goes with Syria and Caucasus maps. I agree that Strait of Hormuz would have been a better name for the PG map.
  7. Sorry, the yellow box. And that covers basically everything of interest in the PG map: all the airfields, and all the detailed terrain. And people are talking about only being able to fly helicopters on the Afghanistan map... I bet they don't only fly helicopters on PG.
  8. Small? The yellow area shown in the Afghanistan Map screenshot is about 300 nmi by 400 nmi. That's almost exactly the same as the high-detail area in the Persian Gulf map, and the high-detail area of the Syria map is "only" about 420 nmi by 360 nmi, and a good portion of both of those is ocean. The high-detail area in the Caucasus map is smaller than that, and also about half ocean.
  9. Also be sure to set the "Res. of Cockpit Displays" setting in the config menu to either 1024 or 1024 Every Frame. That can greatly affect the quality of what you see on MFDs and other screens in the game, as well as cockpit mirrors.
  10. As far as I know, you cannot manually set the trajectory for the radar Hellfires (AGM-114L). It should use a relatively high trajectory that arcs to the left or right if the target is far enough away, otherwise it should use a direct trajectory. I'm not sure what the range cutoff is for that. Either way though, there isn't an equivalent to something like the LOAL-HI trajectory with the laser Hellfires, where they climb way up immediately after launch to clear obstacles in front.
  11. Are you shooting in LOAL or LOBL? The DIR/LO/HI trajectory setting only affects LOAL shots, not LOBL. If the missile can see the laser at the time of launch, it will be a LOBL shot. The missile constraints box will be large, instead of small like it is in LOAL mode.
  12. I can't check at the moment, but I believe the HUD should show some dashed lines along the bottom representing the pylons, and should have a number above the dash for every pylon that will be released on the next pickle. In Salvo mode, it should show multiple numbers. IIRC the numbers only show up when the release conditions are met (e.g. CCIP pipper is hot, or trigger is held and waiting for CCRP). You can also toggle the Launch Permission Override to force those numbers to appear so you can check the salvo setting, and then turn Launch Permission Override back off. AFAIK the Su-27/Su-33/J-11 doesn't have a way to set the ripple or interval.
  13. An important factor in the startup that is not explicitly mentioned anywhere is that with a cold start, you need to wait 2.5 minutes from the time you turn on electrical power to the time you start moving in order for the navigation system to align. You can rearm and start engines during that time, but don't start taxiing until 2.5 minutes after turning on electrical power. I bound a HOTAS key to start the stopwatch in the cockpit, which I hit just after turning on the power. This 2.5 minute alignment time is also needed in the Su-25A, but AFAIK is not needed in any of the other FC3 planes. If you don't wait the full 2.5 minutes before starting to taxi, you'll notice that your compass (and HUD in the Su-25T) will start showing the wrong heading after doing some hard maneuvering.
  14. I'm always puzzled when people say the F-18 feels like it's "on rails" but don't level the same criticism at the F-16, which to me feels even more stable. In my experience the F-18 is also significantly faster than the F-16 when carrying any kind of useful A/G load, and it can fly at higher altitudes. The exception is when you light the afterburner, which in the F-16 is very powerful, but the F-18 has about twice as much time on afterburner just with internal fuel, and can carry more externally. I personally much prefer the F-18 over the F-16, as I like being able to carry more A/G weapons, I have longer range, 3 MFDs, can fiy higher, have a better HMD, and it fits my dogfighting style very well (put the lift vector on the bandit and pull, which the F-18 is excellent at, while the F-16 requires more discipline in keeping your speed up). But if it bores you there's nothing wrong with that, just find some other plane that you like more. You aren't required to like the same planes that other people like, or for the same reasons.
  15. Did you try that? Because when I tried it, it didn't help.
  16. Interesting... I also verified this. AUTO (CCRP) mode works fine from an air start and drops on target, or at least very close. But from a cold ground start, it's way off, usually dropping very short. I tried Mk-82, Mk-82 AIR, Mk-82 Snakeye, Mk-83, Mk-84, and GBU-12, most had the same problem. The exceptions were the Mk-82 AIR and Snakeye, which dropped extremely long even though I had the DRAG setting at FF (not RET). The GBU-12s dropped short, but if they picked up the laser they would still hit. I also tried designating the target with WPDSG, visually through the HUD, with the A/G radar in EXP3 mode, and with an ATFLIR pod, and all seemed to show the same inaccuracy, so it doesn't seem to be a designation issue. And I tried setting the HSI to POS/GPS instead of POS/AINS, but that didn't seem to have an effect either. I have often done toss bombing attacks with the F-18 with both laser and dumb bombs, although haven't for probably a couple months or so since I've mostly been using the F-15E for those attacks since it came out. However the toss attacks were always very accurate. In the past, CCIP accuracy has been a major problem (it used to be good until a patch a couple years ago, but the October 19th 2023 patch seemed to fix it and CCIP has been accurate since then. The November 16th patch also mentions changes to the AUTO bomb mode. I wonder if something in one of those two patches got messed up.
  17. The MiG-15bis does have hydraulically boosted ailerons. The system is described in the manual starting on page 115, "5.5. Lateral control hydraulic system".
  18. Yes, but if you're looking for a specific moon phase it's a lot easier to just pick a date from a list rather than have to go through one date at a time in the ME and see which one has the moon phase you want. It's great having the visualizer built into the editor, but it's also great to have a list of dates that have a full moon.
  19. I'm necroing this thread because I've been curious about this for a while and finally did some testing, and was looking to see if anyone else had done some, so this seems like a good place to post my results. The short answer is: Yes, your exterior lights make you visible to the AI, if they can see them! Brighter lights make you more visible. Moonlight also makes you visible to the AI. But flares and gunfire do not make you visible. I tested with the AH-64D Apache on the Caucasus map, default conditions, mostly against a DShK technical and AK-74 infantry. I first tried a moonless night (setting the year to 2017 and then just changing the time of day is an easy way to get a moonless night). If all exterior lights are off, I was able to fly directly over the infantry at head height, and land right next to the technical, without being spotted or fired on at all. Popping flares and shooting the cannon also didn't cause the AI to see me. However as soon as I turned on any exterior lights, they were able to spot me and opened fire immediately. However, it's not just a binary thing... When the lights are on "dim", they would shoot at me at around 500 m, but couldn't see me at around 900 m. With the lights on "bright", they were able to shoot at me at 900 m. I didn't exhaustively test every range because it's a pain to do, but the important lesson is that the brightness of the lights does matter. Also, the Apache's formation lights are not visible from the forward hemisphere. If the formation lights are on and you're facing the enemy, they can't see you, but as soon as you turn around and they see the lights, they start shooting. Then, I tried a full moon (leave the year on 2016 and change the time of day to get a full moon). With all exterior lights off, they started shooting at around 900 m, but couldn't see me beyond that. Turning on "dim" exterior lights didn't make a difference in that case. However with "bright" exterior lights they were able to shoot from at least 1.1 km. I also tried adding an overcast (Overcast 5 is a very dense 3-layer overcast), but kept the full moon. Although it was visibly darker with the overcast layer, the AI was still able to spot me at the same distances as without the overcast. So I guess that's part of the current AI-ignores-clouds issue that's been a thing since the new cloud graphics were added. Finally, just to confirm, I had been doing all this testing with the default dark green US Army livery for the Apache, so I tried once with the very light gray desert livery, and the AI saw me at the same range as before, so it doesn't look like the livery you pick makes a difference to the AI, at least under these conditions. This was all pretty surprising to me somehow; I hadn't expected that the exterior lighting made such a difference, although realistically it certainly should. I'll definitely have "Exterior lights: OFF" in my fence check from now on... Some ideas to try in future experiments: Do enemy units with night vision capability spot you from farther away? If so, does type of night vision (thermal vs image intensifier) make a difference? Can enemy units with heat seeking weapons (e.g. MANPADs) spot you? (They shouldn't be able to, since AFAIK the seeker cone on most MANPADs is very small and they have to be aimed visually to get their initial lockon, and their coolant is limited so they can't reasonably be used to scan for a target anyway, but would be good to make sure.) Is spotting affected by your physical size? Like, a Gazelle should be much harder to see than a Hip or Hind. Also, does aspect matter (e.g. you should be easier to see if you're turned sideways vs head on)? Does exact time of day matter? Or is spotting just based on a binary day/night flag? Does moon phase matter? Or the height above the horizon? What if the moon is behind a hill and you're in its shadow? I tested the Apache's gun and countermeasures flares, but do any other weapons make you visible? What about the colored signal flares that the Hip and Hind can shoot off? Does interior cockpit lighting make you visible? The Hip in particular has some bright white interior lights that theoretically should make it a lot easier to see from the outside.
  20. You might find this video useful: I haven't personally verified what's shown in here, but it looks like it covers most of the yaw stuff.
  21. As I said, not really an extremely high priority. But what can I say, I like saving time. Also, the CFTs are used up first as far as I know, so unless you're running deep into the internal tanks, most of the time you're refueling, it's at the slower 1,900 lbs/min rate.
  22. Thanks! Not really an extremely high priority IMO, but just something that I've been curious about for a while, so it was interesting to run it down. That said, it *would* be cool if the F-15E refueled at the same overall rate as everything else...
  23. Hm. And yet, it definitely takes almost 10 minutes to refuel 22,588 lbs, and not 8m41s. So I took a screenshot every minute and here's the results: Time - Fuel - Amount filled during last minute 0m - 200 - 0 1m - 2,800 - 2,600 2m - 5,400 - 2,600 3m - 8,000 - 2,600 4m - 10,600 - 2,600 5m - 13,100 - 2,500 6m - 15,000 - 1,900 7m - 16,900 - 1,900 8m - 18,700 - 1,800 9m - 20,600 - 1,900 10m - 22,400 - 1,800 Internal fuel is about 13,100 lbs, so it looks like it fills the internal fuel at 2,600 lbs/min, same as other airplanes, but it only fills the CFTs at 1,900 lbs/min. So the average refueling rate ends up at around 2,300 lbs/min. So the question is, should the CFTs fill that slow? Or is that correct?
  24. Several types of bombs look like they're tilted too far down when they're on the rear CFT pylons. The rear shackle and the aft part of the pylon is actually clipped into the bomb, and in some cases the bomb fins are clipped into the CFT as well. Affected bombs: All Mk-84s and variants: -84 slick, -84 AIR, GBU-10 Mk-84 AIR GBU-10 Mk-20 Rockeye CBU-87/97 Bombs that appear to be correct: All Mk-82s and variants: -82 slick, -82 AIR, -82 Snakeye, GBU-12, and training variants Some pictures attached. Pic 1 shows the Mk-84 AIR and GBU-10 fins clipping into the CFT, pic 2 shows the shackle and pylon clipping into the bomb. The rear pylons are tilted in real life, which gives everything mounted on those pylons a kind of odd-looking downward orientation, but not this much.
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