Dudikoff

Yeah, but I hope there'll be a digital option as well (e.g. up, down commands and perhaps even reset to center) to be mapped to a hat.

Good illustration, thanks. Now I know how this clutter closely in front of the airplane is called, but apparently it's quite strong, as well. I stand corrected. But, looking at the image, it shows the altitude return blind spot area to be much more narrow than the main lobe clutter. And Jabbers illustrated in the video that the speeds in the range of 100 knots above and below the airplane speed would be filtered out, which is almost as much as the MLC filter range, no? And a further question would be if any of the high-PRF issues are simulated then?

Nikodemuz only said that the doppler sum would be zero for co-speed targets, but didn't say that these are dropped since the ground still has a relative velocity to the airplane. Besides, from the video you can clearly see that there's a significant range around the co-speed that is filtered out, not just the co-speed value and these would not have a zero sum, so the zero doppler sum is not the issue here. Naquii mentioned that it's due to the side-lobe ground clutter (which would be somewhere slightly in front of the aircraft and that would explain having to have a range of speeds cut). But, if that's really that significant for the AWG-9 and this co-speed blind-spot implementation is related to that, then the question is if the high-PRF issues with tracking receding targets are simulated at all? Later radars added medium-PRF (and interleaved) modes so they have an alternative in these pursuit cases.

Yeah, but you just took that explanation for granted, but the airplane still moves compared to the ground and thus which ground would appear as having zero relative velocity to the receiver then? It's not only relative zero speed, but like a hundred knots under and over that (it's mentioned and shown in the video, don't remember the exact values anymore). There might be some ground clutter from slightly in front of the airplane that fits the criteria, but is such extreme side-lobe clutter really that significant? Since the AWG-9 lacks medium PRF mode and thus uses only high-PRF mode for which the tracking of the receding targets is its known weakness, I'd rather put my eggs in that basket. Of course, I'm no radar expert, so I could be wrong, but I've only seen mention of AWG-9 side-lobe clutter mentioned mainly as a problem in countering ECM (hence the AN/APG-71 program).

Ah, awesome. So, each seat has its own controls and they're switched even in SP, I presume?

I'm not really sure I follow why would the co-speed target be filtered out by the MLC-filter. I'd expect it to be a high-PRF mode limitation as IIRC the AWG-9 lacks a medium-PRF mode (which is normally used against receding targets).

I don't have a handy place for the mouse with the HOTAS in front of me (plus, it's rather fiddly to use during the flight, IMHO), so I normally make custom profiles to put most of the controls I need during the flight on the HOTAS and Cougar MFD's. I'll start with the pilot ones, but later on I'd add some layers to support the RIO controls as well, so I can switch between the seats and do the fun stuff myself sometimes (like in the good old F-14 FD days). Speaking of, is it possible to assign the joystick axes to both the flight control axes and the RIO stick axes at the same time (thus, hopefully, using the flight stick for both, depending on the player seat position)? Is it even possible in DCS to assign the same device axis to two different controls (can't check now)? I kind of expect it's not, but perhaps there are some TARGET tricks that could be used for this.

I'm surprised he mentions that he doesn't expect the ECM controls did anything in RL. Didn't all the F-14's have the AN/ALQ-100 jammer (FCS track breaking), complemented with AN/ALQ-167 later on (CW jammer)? The latter is not in the F-14B we're getting, though, as it had distinctive (a nicer word for rather ugly) ECM antennas on intake sides. But, the AN/ALQ-100 antenna is there under the TCS pod.

I see most (if not all) cockpit switches don't have any default keyboard controls assigned yet. Assigning all those will take some time..

"Hey guys, while we are making sure Corsair will shine in all its glory, the other team prepares to give wings to yet another amazing bird... You've heard the saying: 'When you're out of F-8's - you’re out of fighters.'" I guess that's an announcement, then. Cool.

That looks great, nice weathering, too.

You can't as these are not TM Target profiles. You could add stuff in DCS directly, though.

Thanks for the video, but I have some questions if you don't mind. First, I presume the VSL High mode is from +15 to +55 like shown on the diagram during VSL Low demonstration? In the video, it's said +25 which is the upper limit for VSL Low if I understood the diagram correctly. I also thought the use of the ACM switch/cover (the red cover at the top left corner of the front panel) would be mentioned. I can see that at some points in the video it's down and up at the others. I kind of expected that its purpose is to override the RIO set modes and enable the use of the close combat modes by the pilot, but the PAL mode lock on is engaged with it down in the video so I guess that's not the case. Since there are no weapon employment procedures in the manual yet IIRC, what is the ACM cover used for then, exactly? Yeah, same here. I asked about this before and IIRC forward means it's depressed or pushed-in I guess (given that the arrows show up and down I guess, although at that angle the switch is set to, they could be mistaken for left and right which is what confused me initially). But, I might be wrong.

Thanks, same here. It takes quite a while to study, organize and arrange all these commands and shifted states/modifiers to something which is intuitive to me before trying it out in the real airplane and I'd rather do it ahead of the module release instead of not being to try out the plane comfortably for days after. For instance, currently, I have no idea if cockpit switches will be made as toggles or there will be separate keys for each position or both.

That depends if we're talking about the CPU load only or combined CPU+GPU. It should handle this speed for the fully loaded CPU, while if combined with the GPU also fully loaded, it would throttle down, naturally, as the GPU TDP is huge. IIRC, the notebookcheck test showed 2.8 GHz average on a full CPU/GPU load for 60 minutes, but those numbers may vary as not all the heatsinks are mounted ideally (as technicians install them manually, unfortunately, plus there are some manufacturing variations in the heatsinks themselves). Also, they don't repaste the heatsinks nor use undervolting which would improve those results noticeably, I guess. But, what's the point you're trying to make? DCS (or any other game, for that matter) doesn't provide a constant max CPU load, it's probably closer to 30-40% on average on my laptop, IIRC.

What are you on about? i7 8750h is a standard high end hexa-core CPU on laptops which goes up to 4.1 GHz on a single core and 3.9 GHz on all six cores which even a cursory Internet search would corroborate. The only stronger laptop CPU in that generation is the i7 8950HK, but it's *much* more expensive with negligible gains in higher-res gaming, plus produces way more heat and is more often throttled than not, unless you're willing to repaste the heatsink (not an easy procedure) and undervolt it. The only other option are DTR's with desktop CPU's, but that usually means much fatter laptop cases (except the Area 51m), more weight and dual power supplies which kind of kills the point of having a laptop, IMHO. Plus, the only slight gains in gaming performance are not really worth the extra price and portability loss.

Same here. Again, it would be great if ED would offer different variants of a module as DLC's. Backdating a C to an A should definitely be much easier than doing it the other way around.

Yeah, I wouldn't expect that to be a problem, but.. I need all the keyboard commands as I want to make a custom Target profile including both the HOTAS and the Cougar MFDs. I don't use default profiles.

Oh, BTW, there's also the thing called external graphics card for laptops. For that, you'd need a laptop with a Thunderbolt 3 port (full speed, ideally, as some laptops implement a half speed one) and a separate external graphics card case (which doesn't come cheaply) and then of course a separate desktop graphics card (and these new Nvidia cards cost a premium). And even then, you'd get a performance hit over TB3 usually which can vary from about 15-25% (compared to the performance of the same card in a desktop), depending on the game and resolution. The problem might be that commonly used TB3 controllers show a bandwidth problem in more demanding games and higher resolutions (as IIRC, there was a test with a Macbook Pro where the losses were much smaller, presumably due to a better TB3 controller or something, but that's just a non-educated guess). Alienware has a clear advantage here as they implement a proprietary connection for these (a direct PCI-E 3.0 x4 bus connection which takes a smaller performance hit, about 5% from what I've gathered) and they have their own external GPU case (which actually costs less than the competing TB3 options at around 200 USD or under). This way, you could still use your laptop later on (rather than selling it for scrap) as a desktop of sorts (upgrading to a stronger graphics card), especially with an Alienware laptop. I got a used external graphics case for my AW 17 R4, but only the 2080Ti would be a worthy upgrade on the 1080 and it's exorbitantly expensive so I haven't tried that external GPU option yet.

Hour or so? Yeah, right. It would take more just to type in all the commands assigned in DCS, let alone how many hours to program the script file to use them. I forgot to mention that I'm programming the Cougar MFD's as well, hence why there's a bunch of commands needed and why it will take me a lot of time. So, I'd rather do it this week and be ready for release. But, why would this be unlikely or require a precedent? There's a bunch of people flying out there and these commands are not classified and won't change till release. It takes only a few clicks to export an html profile for the keyboard category.

Would it be possible for someone (dev team, beta testers, etc.) to export and share the keyboard assignments assigned in DCS for the F-14 module? And perhaps a screenshot of all of the possible axis assignments? Those are needed so we could have the custom HOTAS profiles (e.g. for TM Target) ready before the module is released. Thanks.

The point I'm trying to make is not to throw money at them without any critique, but just to lower the expectations realistically as the thread started going towards asking ED to forbid the 3rd party devs from releasing an early access module until the previous one is 100% feature complete which I don't think is a viable option to say the least. And by lowering expectations, I mean, don't hold every developer comment and estimate as something set in stone and then feel cheated if things don't pan out as expected. If they're silent, they get hit at, if they give a current best estimate, they also live to regret it. E.g. HB at one point practically sweared that the F-14 will be out in 2017. In development, things change rather quickly, unexpected problems pop-up, not to mention constant changes or limitations present in the base DCS engine. So, 3rd parties being rather small teams, have to manage and shift their priorities constantly and for many I'd presume this is their side-job so there's only so many work hours available.

Or perhaps they realized that they lack some data on how some of these radar modes work and are waiting to visit France and re-do the whole system once they get more info rather than waste time on fixing this feature now incorrectly? I think some of you guys need a reality check on all the things developing these modules entails. First, releasing one complex module every three years (or more) at the current prices is obviously not a sustainable business model. Likewise, finishing the last e.g. 10% of the features and ironing out all the bugs is going to take a while as these are naturally lower in priority. Even HB is still releasing large patches to their Viggen module. Second, there are things that have to be done in parallel. E.g. once the 3D/cockpit modeler work is done on one module, what should he do? Wait for two years until the systems and the FM is finished, the module is released and all the subsequent bugs are ironed out so the module is declared as finished and he can start working on the next one? Sure, you can be unhappy about how they run their modules and you can voice that opinion and decide not to buy any further modules until the first two are feature complete. But, you shouldn't presume that the current issues with the modules bother all the customers the same way or that the current release model can be made much stricter without significantly boosting the module price. At some point, you have to ask yourself whether you're better off to have these modules in DCS as they are or not at all. As last time I've checked, I didn't see any new 3rd parties queuing up to bother with these DCS flight sim modules, so that might give you a hint or two, as well.

They're not marked with "m" anymore as that used to mean gimped versions of the desktop chips (with lower GPU core unit numbers, etc). They're just marked as e.g. 1080 (Notebook) now as the chips are the same now, it's just that the laptop versions have lower clock rates to reduce the TDP to something more manageable by the laptop's cooling system. In slim & light laptops you normally get a Max-Q version of the same card which has its TDP limited even further in vBIOS. So, the performance also takes a hit and it's more often than not not worth the premium (e.g. 2070 Max-Q is only slightly faster than full 2060, but you pay the premium as for the full 2070 GPU which it essentially is, but you won't get the full performance out of it without modding the vBIOS or undervolting it). Regarding your laptop query, the first thing you need to decide is whether you need something closer to a desktop replacement 17" laptop (which means 3.5 kg or more) or you want something more portable (i.e. these newer slimmer and lighter models at roughly 2.5 kg or less with Max-Q GPU's and normally higher CPU/GPU temps and louder fans). If you want to save some money, it might be a good chance to score one of these older systems now being on clearance sales (with 10XX GPU's now since they are being replaced by 20XX GPU's which are not much faster, e.g. 10-20% between 1080 and 2080 on laptops IIRC) before they're sold out. E.g. Alienware 17 R5 or Aorus X9. You could even aim at those older models with a quad-core CPU's like the unlocked 7820HK (as hexa core doesn't really bring anything to games except noticeably more heat to an already stretched laptop cooling system) since some of the better desktop replacement laptops with them haven't been refreshed yet (like e.g. HP Omen 17X or even Razer Blade Pro which has a 1080 Max-Q) as thin & light seem to be more popular these days. There are also proper desktop replacement systems with upgradeable GPU's and sometimes even desktop CPU's, but those are much thicker and heavier usually (unless you opt for professional workstations with Quadro GPU cards like Dell 77XX or Lenovo P7X) that I personally don't see the point (like some Clevo or MSI models, e.g. P751 or GT75 variants). The exception might be the new Alienware Area 51m which is a newer case design than what MSI and Clevo use (which means thinner case and with smaller display bezels), but since they reduced the bezel size, they only have the FHD screen option currently. These large DTR's with desktop CPU's normally also require two power bricks for full performance which reduces the portability even further. If you want some of these newer thinner and lighter laptops (with Max-Q GPU's), the 17" options are more limited compared to 15", but there's the new Alienware m17, Asus GX701 or MSI GS75 (with 20XX Max-Q GPU's), etc. but expect more noise with these. Having mentioned these thin & lights, my favorite would be the Asus GX701 design and cooling-wise, though it's rather expensive and doesn't have a TB3 port nor a camera (there's a clip-on one included, though), plus the keyboard is pushed to the bottom edge to improve cooling and the touchpad is pushed to the right side, which could be off-putting to many, I guess. I'd love to get one, but I already have gotten a used Alienware 17 R4 with a 1080 card that I use for DCS on a 4K external monitor.

Yes, it works now, thanks.