Jayhawk1971

I don't know what exactly you mean by "official", but at least two and a half 3rd-party pay ware DLC campaigns are confirmed to be worked on: - @ChillNG (Ground Pounder Sims) is working on a Wild Weasel campaign for the Syria map, aiming for a release date in the second half of 2023 (Q3/Q4) - @baltic_dragon is working on an F-16 campaign (also set on the Syria map) with John "Rain" Waters (The Afterburn Podcast). - @Reflected and @baltic_dragon are providing a campaign for the announced Kola map in collaboration, where Reflected is making the F-16 part of the campaign, and Baltic the F-18 part.

Actually I didn't, since I didn't know how much fuel I would need to go "there and back again (not a Hobbit's tale)". Incidentally, right after the dogfight, Jester jettisoned the tanks anyway (without any comment; I just hear the jettison noise), without me ordering him to do so. That might be related to VAICOM though, because it has become so sensitive that it started to register me breathing (microphones on my VR Headset are apparently very close to my nose) as I keep hearing a random "confirmation beep" once in a while.

"If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'" - Hamlet (probably) (and, to be fair, I did it the hard way the first time around. And that was quite the experience, thankyouverymuch )

Good effort! Regarding the Fishcans and fuel situation: When I was re-flying this mission a couple of days ago as part of my second campaign playthrough, I remembered that the Air Wing's Air Intelligence Officer was my mentor at the Academy, so I paid him a visit, and pointed out to him that , given that we saw aggressive Chinese defensive counter air operations on every sortie, bringing only two heaters (also given their disappointing performance head-on) each would be rather risky, even against Fishcans. And getting into a WVR engagement with a full load of bombs (that inexplicably weren't loaded in the tunnel, where they would cause less drag, but on the glove stations for some reason) would not make the mission go any smoother. He said that replenishment was difficult under strict EMCON and so close to Guam, and therefore the Air Wing's ammunition stock was rather depleted. He also explained that the Wing's Weapons Officer wasn't quite the same ever since he smashed his head against the bulkhead during last week's storm and now insisted that the tunnel was somehow "jinxed", and no A2G ordinance should be put there, at least that's what the voices keep telling him. But he also somewhat conceded to my point. As it turned out, one AIM-7MH came back from maintenance just in time for the mission, so he grudgingly permitted the red shirts to mount it on my number 4 station. Just as I began heading for the deck, he mumbled "a Sparrow a day keeps the flameout away". Don't know what he meant by that. [starting the missions individually allows for access to the mission editor] TL;DR I couldn't be arsed to go through the whole ordeal again (!!) and asked myself "what would Snort have done?!". My answer was to add one Sparrow, which conveniently exploded in the first Fishcan's face with a comfortable pre-merge margin, so I had enough energy, turning room and two heaters for the second bandit.

The J-11 is notching your AIM-7, as the AI can do so easily ATM. Try to get a lot closer before you fire your Sparrow. Right now you launch at around 13 miles. Try 6 or so. Another thing is that currently, the AIM-9M's don't seem to like head-on shots very much. Try to get into better parameters before you launch, preferably a rear quarter aspect.

Get your speed up before turning back in for your Fox 1 shot, and wait until you're well within 10 nm (6-7-ish miles should be about right). The Flanker will probably launch at you at around 5, so be prepared for that. It's good practice to constantly drop a flare or two every 2 seconds while WVR. With the AI's perfect notch, give him as little time as possible; a fast missile at close range makes it harder for the AI to dodge. In that situation, I'd rather crank to the left after the Fox 1 shot, because the Flanker seems to prefer cranking to his left (your right). Contrary to the player, the AI has perfect SA and notches just enough to spoof your missile, then immediately turns hot again. So cranking left gives you more turning room, in case your Sparrow gets trashed. Aim to fly to his six (lag pursuit), that should get you behind the Flanker, where your Fox 2 have a much better chance to hit. At least that's how it worked for me. Interestingly, my subjective observation is that AI behavior might have changed since the last patch; before the patch, the A2A parts of all missions seemed to be easier, as the AI ate the Sparrows more often than not. Post-patch, either Sparrows got easier to spoof, or the AI got even better at notching them. Again, subjective observation, no hard data to back it up (and no desire to test that hypothesis, because, well, life and stuff ).

Would it be technically and economically (cost-benefit ratio) possible to not only tie a combo to a livery, but also have that livery change/degrade over time? So for example, for a couple of missions the ACM panel is clean, then next mission you get the tape, then for the next 3 an enterprising maintainer does the wire job, and lastly the plate? Until the "cruise" is over and back at the shore a new ACM panel gets installed.

Combination of new GFX card and MT, re-flew this mission. Result: Hardware does make a difference! Now if I could only decide on a new CPU-MoBo combo. Totally out of the loop, so lots of prior research necessary. For some reason I still keep fudging up the initial combined climb and break turn in the LANTIRN set. One of the metrics (altitude, speed, distance to target) is always somewhat off, incidentally not always the same one.

I believe it. I can easily imagine 6 to 12 months of heavy duty can render even the most techy tech tech stuff into a bucket of improvised patch jobs. Especially considering meager defense budgets (even after the recent "surge" in defense spending). I'm really curious how much leeway ground crews get with regards to fixing/ modifying their jets (apart from obvious safety regulations, of course).

I think this whole thing probably needs some time to sink in for many people. I think most grew up with the notion of US military aircraft being these high-techy, pristine, clean affairs with lots of shiny, blinking lights and cool displays (thanks in part to US military glossy PR material enforcing this belief). When in reality, the harsh conditions on a Carrier on deployment, with spare parts being a rare commodity, those Tomcats resembled more Han and Chewy patching up the Millennium Falcon. Give it time, people will get used to it once the realism of it all sinks in. In my opinion.

That's fine too (or, even better actually), as long as it doesn't happen "in the air"..... ....unless: you include one set where the pilot has put some chewing gum over those covers. With more and more maps coming out, I foresee that some campaigns will feature missions that span over two maps (Syria and Sinai, for example). I suppose that's where a consistent transition would be necessary.

How it is implemented right now, it doesn't work well with "Speed and Angels", and I imagine other missions that, for example, use multiple maps. Due to the structure of this campaign, every set is being loaded individually, which coupled with the randomness of FORGE, the player finds himself in a different cockpit despite being in the same jet (for example, "203"), every time a new set loads. Which is weird and does not really help with immersion. I hope in the future there will be the possibility to "assign" certain FORGE elements to a specific airframe for the duration of, say, a campaign. Otherwise, it's a great idea to have the ability to reflect the reality of such patch jobs and the fact that no two Tomcats were ever quite the same.

@KageseigiI highly recommend the "Speed & Angels" campaign by Reflected. You'll learn about slow-speed-high AOA-maneuvering in the first mission, from none other than "Paco" Chierici. And a lot more about handling the F-14 correctly. And tactics!

Could you elaborate? As a stand-alone DCS but SteamVR user (because Vive Pro), do I have to manually add "force_enable_VR" to the exe?

Judging by that picture of "Penny Benjamin", the-air control tower to Admiral's daughter high-speed-pass ratio should have been reversed.

Considering the story progression, that option may not even be relevant for part 2 of this campaign.

Aw crap. Hopefully ED will fix those bugs with the next patch (if they take almost two months between patches, hopefully it's a big one!). Yeah, better to wait with the campaign until the worst bugs have been fixed. Fingers crossed it'll happen soon.

Let me guess: AI doesn't want to detach when flying in formation with other AI (for example AI tanker)?

Something tells me you didn't read my post 5 posts further up.

I'm guessing "Large F-14A flight model performance tuning pass, first few initial dynamic cockpit elements, adjustable mirrors, removable fuel pylons and plenty more coming shortly!" [quote taken from HB's Facebook page. Go check it out]

And you didn't even have to fight off wolves and bears!? Pfft! Hope you didn't choke on your silver spoon....

Glove vane compartments? To store snacks?

Yes, exactly that. Thanks!

Probably a flock of migrating Sparrows. A huge problem in Carrier aviation.

No, unfortunately that's not entirely true. Many payware 3rd-party-campaigns are currently not playable in their entirety due to bugs (= some missions are partially, some even completely, broken). Some creators of said campaigns already have workarounds in the pipeline, but those won't be available to their customers until the next patch release. IMO, it would be a nice gesture by ED to at least release those workarounds as "hotfixes" until the next major update is ready to go.