Jayhawk1971

I just tried the "Dragon Tooth" (I think it's called) instant action mission again (2xF-14A with 4xMk60 vs. 4 J-11). None of my Phoenix hit.....because I ordered the AI wingman to engage bandits, which he did, with gusto, splashing all the J-11's with his 4 Phoenix before mine even got there. Good to see the friendly AI apparently being useful again.

Yep, most likely you won't remember each and every command available. However, I was mainly referring to the common Jester commands: just like remembering which button combination to press on the Hornet's or Warthog's HOTAS for certain tasks, the same will apply to memorizing the voice commands. Do it a couple of times, and you'll have it down pretty quick. For the more obscure commands that are mission specific, like for example JTAC interaction, I just look up the relevant commands as part of my pre-mission planning. Besides the occasional revisit of the Viper and Hornet, my absolute main focus in DCS is the Tomcat, so my voice command needs are mostly with Jester, and within Jester functionality mostly navigation and DL ("navigate steerpoint x", "TACAN tune Roosevelt", "Link host magic"), Jester radar micromanagement ("track single bogey ahead"), countermeasures and ordinance settings ("countermeasures manual", "flares mode pilot"; "select markeightythrees", "set fuse nosetail", "set ripple time 990") and the whole LANTIRN thing. Outside of Jester I use the respective PTT buttons to interact with ground crew, marshal, tanker, flight, land-based ATC, and very rarely, JTAC. In some SP missions you need to interact using the F-10 menu, which you can also do verbally ("take 10, take 1"). The VAICOM kneeboard plugin is also pretty neat, and very helpful. For example, it automatically notes Case III marshal instructions, so you don't have to remember them or write them down yourself. Edit 2: I forgot to mention that you can also make use of various AIRIO root commands, which then display additional options, so you don't have to memorize so many commands. For example, you can simply say "navigate", and a dialog window on the top right corner will give you all available command options related to navigation. Or TACAN tune will give you a list with available units that you can order Jester to directly tune to, or an example how to make Jester manually tune a specific frequency.

Not that hard, as most of the voice commands are pretty straightforward and logical. For example, after about two missions I had the most common LANTIRN commands down cold. There's a PDF with a list of all voice commands in the manual, grouped in their respective categories (JTAC, ATC, Tanker, Flight, AIRIO). If you've trained your Windows voice recognition well and trained (some of) the VAICOM commands within the VAICOM plugin once, you're good to go. Many commands have one or more aliases, so if you can't get a specific command or recipient recognized, you often have alternative commands. I also copy/pasted that list to the Tomcat kneeboard for quick reference You also get additional, "hidden" commands in VAICOM Pro that are not accessible via the DCS menu structure in game. Edit: I fully agree with @Lt_Jaeger: VAICOM - and especially the AIRIO extension - is a huge immersion boost, and very helpful for keeping one's SA up (not having to fiddle with the Jester wheel in the middle of something important frees up vital synapses, aka "brain RAM". )

Circling over a crash site where a certain SEAL team needed to be rescued and had to intercept incoming low-flying Flankers? Turning to intercept incoming medium-altitude Flankers after successfully destroying a certain runway?

I was even more impressed that IRST apparently could track and help engage targets with AIM-54's from apparently a long-ish distance. Which seriously begs the question why the US military seemingly abandoned that technology until very recently (maybe possibly perchance the Raptor might be equipped with one, or so I've read). A headscratcher, for sure, considering that Russia and China didn't just start messing around with reduced RCS on their 5th gen fighters, but for a couple of years now. If the D's IRST from 15+ years ago was good enough to launch a Phoenix with more precision than merely the "general direction", I don't even want to imagine what current-tech IRST could do. Edit: Forgot the F-35. Not sure if it is equipped with one. Which leads me to wondering if anyone ever try to lock up Proxima Centauri with a Sidewinder seeker head?

Thanks. Well, that's too bad. As soon as I heard them tell the story about old A-models being retrofitted with PTID's, something made "click". Wouldn't that just present the uniqueness and ingenuity of the Tomcat community perfectly (like Han and Chewy endlessly tinkering with the Millenium Falcon...before the dark times, before *ratch* Disney) Probably moot anyway, because I doubt that Heatblur would currently consider adding a PTID in even if they had access to the necessary docs, because I assume they have so much on their plate with finishing current modules and working on the upcoming ones, that adding something as relatively work-intensive as modeling a whole new display without some reasonable financial compensation would not be feasible. Although, maybe a significant number of module owners might pay extra for such an addon (along the lines of that GPS addon ED is selling)? (as in: keep hope alive )

And the PTID (or significant parts of its functionality) is still classified/ ITAR restricted, correct?

@IronMikeHigh altitude being 30k+? Or closer to 40k+? Regarding Mooch's video. When he references "5th generation" fighters, does he actually talk about what the "Wikipedia-informed" public would call 4th/4.5th gen (Hornet/Super Hornet, F-15c to EX, C-model Viper, Su-27 through 35)? Because when I hear "5th gen", I think F-22, F-35, Su-57 etc. And I may very well be wrong, but I would be very surprised if an AWG-9 equipped F-14B could detect, let alone lock on to a, say, front-aspect F-22 at such ranges as to be able to launch at 40nm.

Same. I keep going in circles at waypoint 4, preset 3 on prime. After Smoke cuts away, nothing happens. Maybe the trigger is broken, or DCS's "Forrest Gump" AI keeps wandering off. Edit: thinking about it some more, I assume that ED's ongoing tuning of AI behavior is messing up some of the triggers in this campaign (and many other campaigns as well).

I heard the pilot body hooked up with Jessica Rabbit in a seedy bar in Tijuana and they ran off to Acapulco.

Thanks, that's what we need: practical (interim) solutions instead of complaining about issues that have already been pre-emptively acknowledged by Heatblur as being known and worked on. And while I completely understand the frustration, probably with DCS as a whole (I'm certainly not immune to that myself, at times), I firmly believe that the devs themselves are the first ones that want everything to work as is should, as soon as possible. Sticking to the Marianas mission example, I might try to use wingy to force the J-11's defensive first and close in a little more before launching myself. Sadly, there are, to my knowledge, no SP early 80's scenarios to play. The closest I could get is Zone 5, and I've played that so often that I can almost recite Bio's training rules brief from the top of my head. I don't play MP, not only because I don't like people (kidding) , but mainly because my system can't handle VR and multiplayer simultaneously.

Before the patch, actually for a long time, my - subjective and deliberately highly unscientific - impression was that I had a better PK the farther away the target was when I launched. I don't know why: maybe due to the AI starting to defend the instant I launch a Phoenix in TWS, it simply runs out of chaff when the Phoenix finally reaches it?. Anyway, yesterday I tried the Marianas instant action mission against the J-11s, and while on a positive note the AI actually launched all of his AIM-54s, our combined 7 Phoenix-volley managed to down 1 (one!) J-11, whereas on previous attempts I (I alone, no help from the AI wingman) managed to at least take out 50% of the J-11s with Phoenix missiles. So maybe some of you more knowledgeable gents could be so kind as to compile an interim set of optimal launch parameters for the current implementation, which I fear will be with us for quite some time (given ED's full plate and patching policy to "sit" on individual fixes until they can release a more cumulative patch monthly). I can not provide a Tacview track, because I've disabled Tacview as it steals valuable FPS, and I need every single additional frame in VR. So much so that I might even consider giving each additional frame a name and invite it for tea and biscuits.

Can confirm this worked for me.

No, judging from the context it was presented, I'm pretty certain it was meant as good-natured ribbing, and I'm certain no disrespect was indented. Neither was my post, I assume that's (hopefully) crystal clear to everyone here! I merely thought that, as far as good-natured mockery goes, it was a funny term. Nothing but mad respect for the workload those WSO's have, operating all those systems and sensors while also having to maintain SA and hold the pilot's hand at the same time. RIO's are definitely getting proper representation on YouTube, though, in the form of "Bio" Baranek and "Mooch" Carroll. So if anyone ever had any doubts concerning the quality and necessity of backseaters, they definitely put things in perspective (Bio even more so with his excellent books)

Mover often refers to any backseater as "Trunk Monkey". As good a name as any.

Obviously the...err...Phorrestal.

Phantastic news. Now hopefully someone will make (or is already secretly in the process of making) a Vietnam map, or (and!) a Cold War Central Europe map!

But on the plus side, we could have a D model F-4 I guess it's spelled "Eph Phour".

I have to say, I didn't think there were too many Hollywoodisms in Fear the Bones, anyway. Sure it captures the late 80's feeling, and 80's movies, but it's certainly not "Over the Top" (see what I did there? ). Anyway, apart from the final two missions, the campaign is still pretty much anchored in plausible scenarios. Sure, the ready room banter has been transferred to the cockpit (and where else would you put it with the absence of a Ready Room?!), but it's not at all overdone. I did enjoy it very much, as it struck a good balance between simulation and entertainment. DCS in general is way too sterile anyway, and campaigns such as Fear the Bones IMO capture some of the good old days of combat simulation gaming, titles from Microprose, Jane's Combat simulations and others. The icing on the already delicious cake would have been a "campaign branching" for replayability, where the second to last mission could have had a different outcome (maybe when you play it a second time, you don't get the scripted ending) that would lead to a different final mission, but I don't know if that's currently even possible in DCS, and of course it would change the story arc you've crafted. Looking very much forward to your RAG campaign.

Would it have been possible to replace the propellant after a certain time period, or were those things sealed tight? I mean one would assume that the guidance package was the expensive stuff on the missile, and too valuable to waste simply because some chemicals decide to diffuse. BTW, my comment was referring to this, hence I was wondering if the propellant was what may have caused the "temperamental" part.

It's pretty obvious that the AI spent either too much - or too little - time at Anderson AFB's "Disney Land".

I think I've read - many moons ago, so I don't recall where, or what the specifics were - that degradation of the propellant became a problem over time, which decreased reliability of the Phoenix. Whether that's true or a "sea story", I have no way of knowing.

There's a master light switch on the throttle. No need to "fiddle" with anything. So no "World of Warcraft" automatic light switch necessary.

A couple of updates ago, ED changed the way you play campaigns: you can skip missions, and you can refly missions that you've already completed. So you don't have to fly the whole Zone 5 campaign again in order to fly that new mission. I could be mistaken, but I believe that's not possible with purchased 3rd-party campaigns due to copyright restrictions.