Dragon1-1

Just to specify, I didn't mean not using PDF as a final product, I meant not compiling directly to PDF, so manual adjustments (or scripted ones) can be done before creating the (effectively uneditable) PDF. The intermediate format can be whatever this website export crock can handle with the fewest issues. Now that I think of it, I'd like to disable the external site loading altogether. It seems like there's no place where it's explained what tech this in-sim browser is based on (Chromium, probably? Would explain the performance issues...), what has been done to make it secure, or what privacy controls are there. If it can load YouTube videos, it can load a whole lot of things, some of which I might not want loaded. Another reason to ask for a proper offline PDF manual.

Do you have any references for that? A quick search for "vulture turn" didn't reveal anything of note.

How about doing that and putting it on the store? I'm pretty sure it'd sell quite well.

HARM can keep heading to the general area where it last saw the target radar. I think this feature is modeled as way too accurate, though.

The missions work fine. The Hornet was pretty much correct from the start, so the fundamentals didn't change. Things had been added, not all have training missions, but some do, and they're actually pretty new.

The way I see it, the F-14 manual format is much superior. For one, it has more than 30 lines of text per page. The F-4 one looks like it was made to be read on mobile. I suppose it could be useful for those who use knee-mounted tablets, but for me, it just makes it annoying to read. Even the actual dash-1 is better on that account. The website isn't great, either. Let's just say that it takes about a third of my screen space... the left third. On very wide screens, there are ergonomic arguments for leaving big margins on the sides (like this forum does). For that configuration, there are none. The fundamental problem with the website, though, is that it's heavy. All those fancy "user-friendly" features pull away performance on an already heavyweight module. Vintage radars that show ground returns are expensive in DCS, and the Phantom really doesn't need another resource hog, especially given its detailed systems simulation. While I suppose the whole HBUI idea was needed for Jester and bombing calculator anyway, there's a reason why in gaming, such things are usually written in C++. Somehow, PDFs are perfectly adequate for the glass cockpit jets, and yet here we ended up with an in-sim web browser seemingly for the sole purpose of explaining a pretty straightforward steam gauge jet from the 70s. Maybe some people like it, but to me, it seems that the sheer complexity of the system and its performance demands are disproportionate to the gains it provides. Usually, the point at which you say "what this thing needs is an integrated web browser" tends to be the point at which feature creep had well and truly gotten out of hand. How about exporting to a format that allows you to do basic postprocessing, and then exporting to PDF? It's fairly obvious that the current solution has issues, and they are caused by the automated PDF converter being dumb. The obvious solution is, use the dumb converter to generate something that's close enough, and then fix the things it can't do by hand, or even by a script that would, for instance, fix the chapter links and add page numbers in a section-subsection-page format. Yes, it's more work, but that could be the only way to fix the issues. One more thing. To me, it seems that the technical part of the Phantom is very complete, with only a few missing features. The manual has massive sections on mission planning, training missions, modding, liveries, etc., which are of no concern to a pilot trying to find an AAR checklist before he burns his last 700lbs of gas. The vast majority of the part of the manual most useful in flight will not change. So why not put that part into a nifty, F-14 style PDF manual, spend a few hours formatting it right, and leave it alone until something is actually added to the jet itself that merits modifying it. Sure, it's more work, but it's not going to happen often, and always come with a DCS update, anyway. The remainder, no doubt subject to many more changes, corrections and updates than the "what does this button do" part, might stay on the website for all I care, since I'm unlikely to be reading a livery making tutorial mid-flight.

Just something that I found rather immersion-breaking about the IFF system. Jester will run an IFF check on a bogey, and will immediately, with full confidence, announce it's a bandit, should the check fail. An IRL WSO would never do that without additional information such as an AWACS "declare" call, positive Combat Tree return or a VID (on later aircraft, NCTR print or datalink info would also work). A positive IFF check confirms its a friendly, but lack thereof might be from a friendly with no IFF (busted, forgot to turn it on, never had it in first place due to being a single engine Cessna...), a civilian who blundered into the wrong place, a large enough bird, or, just perhaps, an actual bandit. Sure enough, the check sometimes does fail on friendlies in DCS, underlining the point, it's not just a realism gripe. A bogey that doesn't respond to a Model 4 interrogation is still a bogey. In any case, I'd request Jester be a little less trusting with the Phantom's IFF.

What does the Chrome API have to do with a PDF document? Can't you just do this the old fashioned way, instead of faffing about with Chrome? I've made nice looking documents in Microsoft Word (admittedly, without hyperlinks, but with tables), and every other module has a manual with tables that are not cut off and internal links that work. The real problem seems to be that you wanted to be really fancy with the documentation, and ended up with a lot of extra bugs for no added value. Looking at Github, you built a whole project, with IDEs, elaborate hierarchy, a Github repo for that matter, all for an... instruction manual. While I'm aware writing docs is a big job, and it is useful to organize it in some manner, I think at least some of the dev time that went into this Rube Goldberg contraption could have been spent elsewhere. Especially since looking at how the document is structured, its formatting looks less complex than that of the original 70s era Dash-1 (which, admittedly, features some fancy things that work well in print but are a PITA on a computer). I'm not especially fond of Google Docs, but if you want to make this a collaborative project, that looks like a more appropriate tool. 1000 pages seem like a lot until you realize the formatting gives it only about 30 lines of text per page, and that's without pictures.

It has to be a '69 vintage J. Otherwise, Reflected wouldn't have an accurate Navy Phantom to put into MiG Killers, and then where would we be?

That's what I'd expect, given that noise jamming is rather simple to implement. However, we'd need to verify whether earlier pods in the series had it. ALQ-101 was the predecessor of the -119 that we have, so I'd expect the later version to have a broadly similar functionality.

The PDF manual appears to be trying to open some kind of HTML files instead, which are nowhere to be found: file:///home/runner/work/f-4e-manual/f-4e-manual/book/html/intro/introduction.html It seems instead of linking to different parts of the PDF, it links to HTML files used to create it, or it would, if I was on the creator's PC. I'm not, so the links go nowhere. They should link to other pages of the PDF manual instead. Also, the table of contents and page numbers of the PDF manual could use improvement. Right now, between the link issue and the fact TOC only has section numbers and not page numbers (and inline references use section-subsection-page format not present anywhere...), the only way to find something is CTRL-F. The PDF is not unusable, but it's definitely not up to par even with the F-14. It might be easier to update a webpage, but for the users, it's easier to read a PDF.

The good news is, HB is supposedly working on Jester controlling the TGP, so even if it's not in on release, you'll probably be able to add the Pave Spike commands soon.

"Nails" is the word for an RWR indication. "Contact" is the one for radar.

There's some sort of handle under there, those positions are probably detents. That said, I haven't seen actual pics of the mechanism. Judging from the fact nothing is jutting out in any position, it's probably a slider.

Implementing MV into the library would solve the problem with DRM, but honestly, it's all getting decrypted and loaded into RAM at the end of the day. No way around it, and there's no way of securing the RAM other than running the graphics on a remote server and streaming the image. That is not really feasible for DCS. Given that, how about, instead of trying to do the impossible, doing just enough due diligence to satisfy the lawyers, while minimizing the impact on the community? Nobody's going to care if the lock on the door is crap if there's a massive, permanently open loading ramp right beside it. Nobody here is out to steal the models, people just want to make quality liveries.

They are a "super thing" IRL, too. Hunting helos in a fast jet is hard. If you're flying a lower tech fighter like the Phantom, it's super-hard. Helos fly low, slow, are hard to see, and don't produce much heat. At J-CATCH, Cobras routinely took out (with guns!) F-15s before Eaglejets even saw them. If you have a good radar, Sparrows or AMRAAMs are your best bet, but if you don't, the helo will most likely disappear into ground clutter. Helo hunting combines the worst parts of ground pounding and air to air, especially if the terrain is rough and they can terrain mask. Yeah, in a campaign, you better hope the creator remembered this, and wasn't going with the old "helos are easy, helpless targets" thing from old games. In the Tomcat, I always ended up nailing them with the gun, which due to it being mounted at an upwards angle, led to me flying under the Hind I just shot the tail off of. However, if the crew knows you're coming (and AI usually does), this is extremely risky.

Helos are difficult targets for heaters. Their turbine exhaust is colder, and they tend to have IR suppressors specifically to reduce it further. A heater can see a helo, but if it starts dumping flares, they're much brighter than the fuselage and even the exhaust.

Well, a realistic mission would take that into account. In fact, in such situation, without point of origin criteria (which is to say, AWACS saying "that guy just took off from a hostile airfield"), VID could become the only reliable form of IFF, and even then, you'd have to get close enough to make out the roundels. Poland didn't send its MiG-29s to at least one of the Balkan conflicts (IIRC, Allied Force), because they were also used by OPFOR, and it would probably lead to some cowboy shooting them down. Relying solely on Mode 4 IFF would be a huge gamble, one switch in wrong position at the wrong time (specifically, A/B code selector when flying at night), and may suddenly find yourself tagged as a bandit. Also note that Soviet doctrine of strict GCI control would have had advantages in such situation, since the GCI likely knows which contacts are its own fighters. At night especially, it could even force NATO to adopt a similar doctrine at least with regards to any hardware shared with the enemy.

Was it ever allowed on our Phantom? And if so, it is planned? Just felt like dropping 3000lbs of Freedom in one convenient package. GBU-9 was the HOBOS version, and the GBU-11 had the Paveway I LGB kit. Not sure if they were ever deployed, but if the Phantom could carry them, that'd make them the biggest guided munitions in DCS (at least in absence of the GBU-28).

I think it's just a bug. Most DCS warbird engines are modeled correctly, like in the 190, the Mossie, or the Spit. As long as you don't blow the temp limits, you can stay in WEP however long you want. In the end, engine temperature should be the primary limiting factor for WEP, the engine can handle the mechanical stresses just fine (in fact, all WWII engines were overbuilt by modern standards, no simulations to shave off every "unnecessary" bit of metal back then), but the cooling system can't necessarily dissipate the heat generated when operating that way. Overheating should be the primary reason for engine failures in WEP, and it won't happen at all in some conditions. That said, we should remember one thing: to use water injection, the P-47 has a water tank. When the tank no longer has any water in it, the engine will knock in WEP. Same with MW50 in the 109. In both cases, this should wreck the motor in short order. Realistically, those aircraft should be able to run WEP as long as the relevant fluid tank lasts.

Well, the RWR in Western aircraft, including the Viper and Hornet, very much can tell they're locked onto by a Mirage 2000. So can another Mirage. This is only a problem when both the enemy and friendlies have the same kind of fighters, which isn't the case very often IRL. Radar can be used to saddle up on your flight leader or to fly a loose trail formation, but hearing the RWR wail all the time could be annoying, so it's probably better not to do this too much.

With the Durendal, a high speed, low alt pass with CCIP can be an option. You can also try a high angle popup attack with CCIP. One nice thing about this technique is that you don't have to worry about interval, just figure out how many pairs you want to drop (unless you have very few bombs, it's more reliable to drop in pairs for this), then place each pair "by hand" during the pass. By dragging the pipper across the runway you can hit multiple points in one pass and poke a nice pattern of holes in it.

One small bit of feedback: could you change the wording of the F-10 option for advancing the mission, based on whether it'll move to the next task or RTB? I've had this problem with 2vUnk, the messages got me thinking selecting "move on" would activate another variation on the problem, but it went to RTB instead. If this was indicated in the radio menu, it'd be an easier call.

That is not how it works. The people you're talking about are greedy. There's no such thing as "don't need to collect another dollar anymore" for them. If one of them got all the money in the universe, he'd still want more. That's the sort of people we're talking about. There's no secret, malevolent cabal running the world, just a bunch of shysters who got lucky with the stock market lottery, and with ruthlessly exploiting people more intellectually capable (but more scrupulous and introverted) than them. They're also the ones they have power over in first place. They're the ones who make their money have value (we're on fiat currencies, remember?). With no people, power and money cease to exist. Fun fact: many of those ultra-rich are actually pronatalists (more people, bigger labor supply, labor gets cheaper, more money). Your conclusion makes no sense. You probably arrived at it because your sources are poorly chosen. The media, particularly news stories, are designed to make you read them and keep reading others, because it makes them money. If you are not trained to separate the real information from attempts to manipulate you, your conclusions will be wrong. So maybe stop doing your own research, if you don't have the training, scientific rigor and access to journals required to do this properly. In truth, the super-rich are hostages to poor masses, and they pour incredible amount of resources into convincing them that it isn't so. The only ones pushing for rapid reduction of humanity are the bleeding hearts who had humanized Earth so much they think it's "suffering" because of humanity's exploitation of it. While such eco-extremists are gaining traction in some circles, they're actually opposed to the elites (although to be fair, they're opposed to most people).

ED mentioned they want to improve on that at some point, but I guess just having different visuals for the older pods would be fine for now. All the pods I mentioned were used in Vietnam, except the newer variants of ALQ-101, so it'd be great if you could get them all modeled at least visually. It'll be good to have for later, especially when ED decides to improve jamming. The way jammers worked in Vietnam is pretty well documented, since it was mostly simple noise jamming, either to disrupt radar or missile guidance signals specifically for the SA-2. Of course, there's also the problem that we don't have the right SA-2 (or an appropriate Fan Song to go with it).