Jayhawk1971

The wording in the patch update post didn't exactly sound like the new release date of the postponed patch was imminent. My gut reaction was that the team seems to be somewhat behind schedule (probably something unexpected turned up during testing?), significantly enough for me to not expect the patch before March 15. Prove me wrong, ED.

@IronMike Would it be possible to add operable kneeboards to future iterations of the pilot body? That would be a major improvement for the VR environment. The current "legacy" pilot body of ED's Hornet actually features one (albeit too small). I am aware that there are 3rd party kneeboard plugins, but I would very much prefer a "native" solution. Less programs running in the background, and, apparently, mods can potentially really mess up the DCS core.

I agree, that is the one major downside of scripting. Highly immersive as long as you stay within the confines of the script. Stray but a little -as Galadriel would say - and it would fail, to the ruin of all.* Then again, I assume it should be possible for Heatblur to add a "spot ground target" function to Jester's capabilities. After all, he can do it with air targets (just not very accurately ). I suppose adding a function for mission designers to designate a mission target that Jester could track should be within the realm of the possible? He could give steering commands like he does with LANTIRN. I hope that, before wiping out humanity completely, the recent advances in AI can at least provide us with flexible, life-like wingmen and RIOs. And a reasonable amount of time to enjoy it before Judgement Day would be nice. Although, the prospect of sitting in some Wall-e esque floating chair (full fidelity motion range) and state of the art VR headset, virtually flying a Tomcat (or Viper, or Mud Hen, or Phantom, or Apache, or.....) all day, doesn't fill me with as much horror as one not afflicted by the simming bug would think. *although, Reflected built in a nice "fail safe" for the event of JDAM missing, it seems. And "press spacebar to call bingo" is a nice option to sneak off while saving face (not finding the target, or dumping two-thirds of the mag into the Pacific)

Yeah, from what I saw you were on parameters. Jester completely stopped talking after he called "pickle": no TTI calls, nothing. So I assume some Jester AI glitch. Did you opt to strafe those fast boats on your first playthrough? If so, how did it go for you? That bonus task really gave me a hard time, as I felt something was way off with the gun sight. Probably also INS related?

What happened on that second drop? Did Jester somehow freeze or something? On my playthrough, both drops went fine (= destroyed both targets) , and Paco did not come in to "clean up". Have you tried the mission one more time after recording?

Not that unrealistic, or should I say, not without precedent: https://apnews.com/article/198ff59494edc8c2c68ed479de265845

Always hope for the best, expect the worst. So, I'm hoping for: infinitely better VR performance on mid-range systems, brilliant AI, the most beautiful whole world map ever created, captivating dynamic campaign, full-fidelity real time weather and dynamic atmosphere simulation.... I'm expecting : "exciting new font for the GUI".

I'm sure it does, and let me again stress that I do appreciate the helpful sentiment, that you were willing to take the time to explain something.

LOL, thanks for the well-meant explanation, but you kinda missed the joke. Have you played the BVR missions yet, as that would make the context more clear? Maybe it was too much of an "inside" joke. I know what the "T" is for, it's that Paco orders the flight to "center the T", when there is no "T" due to the lock having been dropped. Hence my "what T?" joke.

12:06 in your video: I also had Chip drop the lock after turning from 310 to 320 (as ordered by Paco). "Center the 'T'". "What 'T' ?!?" ( I assume that the targeted enemy element went into the notch? That's how I interpret Paco's "Spaghetti" in the briefing). I was a little confused though whether the mission script expected me to shoot at that point (Paco addressed the whole flight, not the second element specifically), but I assumed since he didn't shoot, I wasn't supposed to, either, so I just ignored the dropped lock. That's also how I interpreted the tactical situation: second element Han Solos (= shoots first ), lead element shoots later in the timeline when our assigned targets recommit. Interestingly, I defended in the same direction as Paco does (to the right), but you notching left actually gave you much better angles on your bandit. I'll keep that in mind for my inevitable second play-through.

I believe next Wednesday (March 1st), but, of course, that may be "subject to change".

I'm still debating on whether I'll wait for the patch next week, with the reshuffled AI, for part A of mission 16, or skip directly to part B. But I'll probably wait, as I won't want to miss out on the immersion. I'm big on immersion, hence why I was crazy enough to fly all the way to where San Bernardino would be if we'd have a hi-rez part of Southern California, before moving ahead to the second part of the Case I carrier qual mission.

Finally! I broke the cycle! I've completed the mission! And it took only two more tries, because of course (!) I accidentally clicked the emergency gear thingy while checking the refueling probe and had to start over. But then I made it. The second Fishcan is still somewhat of a challenge with all the bombs hanging on my jet, but I yo-yo'd behind it and got it with Fox-2. After that, the mission went well, did my A2G thing well, and made it back to the boat, albeit a little low on fuel (I chose "B - hell yeah" from the F10 menu). The only "downside" was the still really bad framerates over Guam, at least in VR, but that is an optimization issue. Of course, had the Admiral considered my plan, to Napalm the whole island ahead of the strike, there wouldn't have been any trees left that cause low frames. But noooo, he lectured me about the "ecological footprint" or something. Pffft.

This was my first "flight sim", 1984, on the C64: Followed by:

Ok, I'll try again.

Yep, this mission would have been less stressful (especially the first part) if it had been "in the pale moonlight" (little Deep Space 9 reference ). Edit: I managed AAR by increasing the gamma, and dimming the HUD all the way down when using NVG's to eliminate the "backlighting". I use the 30-degree mark on the "A2A HUD" as a reference point for AAR, so I didn't want turn off the HUD completely. I could AAR without NVG's in the previous night formation training mission. Goes to show that a little illumination goes a long way in DCS. I hope ED will get the nights right one day (soon).

Despite being a very immersive and fun mission in general, for me this mission has been really, really unlucky so far. I had to restart it so often I feel like Phil Connors by now. First restart due to the still not fixed Tomcat AI glitch that damages the player aircraft on spawn, restarted to see whether that was just a one-time glitch (AI listened to that Queen song too often - Spread your Wings) Next one is a spoiler: Once more unto the breach, result: see above (again, spoiler warning) Another try, and just when our flight was pushing (after 15 minutes of doing what Dos Gringos sang about in their "Thunderbirds" song), a higher entity required me to do a last-minute supermarket run, because said higher entity forgot to buy milk and couldn't be arsed to go again itself. This time, the crew of Cat 3 either was on their cigarette break, or on strike. In any case, they were hanging around behind Cat 4 and refused to hook up Paco. That turned out to apparently have been a one-time glitch, cause it didn't happen again (so far!) Finally, I made it to Guam, but missed the text message to trigger the "5 mile warning" (), which I only noticed after I popped, which seemed to mess up the script (well....duh! ). Also, on my coal-powered, ancient PC in VR, Andersen was a slideshow, which makes it hard to do anything requiring precision. Can someone please provide some motivation for me to try....again. Again means: doing a repair after AI smashes its wing against me, do the startup, fly to RP, go around in a steep fingertip formation bank for 10 minutes (by now I deliberately take my time to join up, to reduce circling time), then passing the first "barrier" (will not mention because spoilers). And does developing a slight twitch around my left eye mean anything? [/rant]

VISA (the company) also offers debit cards, not credit cards only.

"Fix Point" and "Surface Target". Those are Tomcat specific navigation reference points that can be stored additionally to waypoints 1-3.

IIRC, you'll get the briefing in the air on that mission.

You accidentally bought the Christen Eagle?

No, but considering that BD is still in the process of writing the manual, I suppose you'll have at least until Monday to benefit from the pre-purchase discount. (my point being: there is absolutely no rational reason for rushing the e-store to the extent of causing the server to crash) Edit: But seriously: no one not affiliated with Razbam or ED knows for sure, but I suppose 3 months would be a reasonable guess. Once you see Razbam videos with startup procedures pop up, early access release is getting close.

Little bump for this thread, since this is still a thing, as I was affected by the bug in a 3rd party SP campaign mission yesterday.