Jayhawk1971

Last I've read from the creator was that he was planning (or thinking about) to flesh this out into a fully voice-acted paid DLC-campaign, and add additional missions. Since then he vanished from these forums. Which is a pity, because the campaign is very good, and I certainly would have bought an upgraded version with decent voice-acting.

Well, she's a Cylon, so that doesn't count.

My point was more that it's hard to come back to the Tomcat with the same proficiency as a "FBW-cripple", which I found extensive exposure to the Viper/ Hornet leads to. Especially the Viper basically flies itself, the only real flying challenge seems to be a stiff crosswind on final. Well, that, and the same ground handling characteristics as a Robin Reliant .

I think I'll try that as well. Probably find the switch commands in the RIO controls and bind them to a Voice Attack command?

Late to the party, but IMO pilot body would be great, if arms/legs would move with controller input. Arms and hands need to be animated and correspond with player inputs (reaching for and clicking a switch or pulling a lever). Then it would be an amazing, immersive experience. As it is, the first thing I do when I'm in a Hornet is to disable the pilot body, because his arms get in the way, especially on the left console.

Has the Target Aspect Switch been implemented yet? That was also something that was missing.

That would be fantastic indeed! I've tried that mission, and I loved the atmosphere. Sadly, once I dove below the cloud deck, I could count the individual frames. I'll just have to hope that Santa brings me a new GPU.

Oh, maybe I should have specified that the "lull" is only how I perceive it, due to heavy playing, not in general (there's a ton of great Tomcat content); probably a good illustration of the difference between "relative" and "absolute". So to anyone still on the fence whether to buy this fantastic module: there is a lot of great content available. At least for 20 months of module-exclusive playing. But I do own the Tomcat since March 2020, and have flown it exclusively since then. So I have pretty much played all campaigns, missions, instant actions and training sessions. The only missions I haven't tried yet (but downloaded) are Reflected's "Final Countdown" and "Gulf of Sydra" missions. I've played through Training Day and the other LANTIRN missions as soon as Vaicom Pro was updated with the new Jester LANTIRN commands, and will try the other "branch" of the mission (the - I assume - shorter and less exciting option). I do own Persian Gulf, NTTR and Syria maps as well. Marianas is still a slideshow for me over certain areas (Guam!). If you'll ever find the time to upgrade the other really great single mission (Watching the Devil Dogs) to Forrestal (and/or SC) status, and maybe some of the other single mission, that would really add to their "replayability", IMO. Or some of the interesting quickstart missions such as the Mariana's F-14A/B intercept missions could become really cool "full" missions by adding cold start/ take off features (again, Forrestal or SC) I'd do it myself in the Mission Editor if I only knew how. Probably not a mere two-hour job.

Due to the current "lull" in new Tomcat SP content, I activated my two-week trial license for the Viper (mainly to see how the progress of this model is coming along since the last "trial" period in spring). Again, I found that extensive time in a FBW-aircraft really has a somewhat detrimental effect on my Tomcat handling skills. I also haven't touched the Hornet in over a year (other than to satisfy my curiosity as to how it looks in VR), mostly for the same reason, even though I found the Hornet feels less "digital" than the Viper (which is almost grotesquely easy to handle - which is probably by design, because the pilot needs most of his attention to handle all those weapon systems and avionics: TMS short forward, DMS long right, sacrifice a goat, make coffee maker SOI, yell "Geronimo"....just to mark a steerpoint ). So I made it a point to "end the day" (as in, final flying session of the day) with a flight in the Tomcat to "cleanse my pallet", in the hope of not losing the light touch those Tomcat controls need. And boy is that necessary for me! After doing half of the later Viper training missions (air-to-ground from CCIP to JSOW), I did a Tomcat free flight mission and my muscle memory was already messed up a bit, resulting in somewhat hamfisting the controls into overcorrections. So my question to you folks: how do you juggle with different modules? Or do you also stay module exclusive for a while? Or is switching between the different modules (with or without FBW) as easy as changing your socks?

Allegedly, the term "red light district" goes back the American Civil War, because General Joseph Hooker dedicated a part of the Union camp to that certain trade, and marked it by hanging up red lanterns. His last name also became the colloquial term for practitioners of said trade. Allegedly. And the Tomcat uses a tailhook to land on an aircraft carrier, so the circle is now complete.

I fly in VR, I've played Fear the Bones as dozen times now, so I am one of "those of us". And while it's not ideal, it's manageable, IMO. Instruments at night were never easily readable, but set to "2" I can read altimeter, speed gauge, VVI, engine instruments well enough to operate the plane. Just yesterday I played "Bad Moon RIsing" (from Fear the Bones campaign) and managed to fully complete the mission (without going into spoilers, but you know what I mean if you've played the mission ). Maybe it's because I am relegated to play on dated hardware for the time being (including VR headset) so that I don't have a good comparison to what real high-end hardware could display pre-patch, but for me there's hardly any change in the A. BTW: I never fly with flood lights on, anyway (same when I drive at night, only turn on "flood lights" when entering or exiting the car), because I always found them distracting (the glare on the canopy, and the general brightness in the cockpit). I only use it for startup/ shutdown. Once I'm ready to taxi, I turn both white and red flood lights off.

Flood lights (both red and white) work fine in the F-14A. Just the B is affected. Other lights can be dimmed, so not all that dramatic.

Can't wait! Hopefully by the time the campaign is released performance in general (and some maps in particular) will have been optimized (and/or availability of GPUs will improve).

If the command is not in the game, Voice Attack /Vaicom can not link to it (which is basically what the program does). But apparently not all commands that are available in DCS are accessible via in-game menus. From the Vaicom Pro manual: Nevertheless, if it works in Vaicom, it has to be in DCS.

In Vaicom Pro there is a "Clara" voice command. Never had to use it, because I've never been in that situation. Assuming that it works (might test later if I find the time), it must lead to some command, most likely Supercarrier module related.

I suppose that should be possible with direct key bindings (and by extension, Voice Attack/Vaicom): button 1 = ball, button 2= clara. Another easy interim solution could be to ask the voice actor playing Jester if he could record a couple of Tomcat ball calls and replace the the generic pilot voice with that?

As much as I would like to have a more interactive and "autonomous" Jester, I don't think it's in the cards in the foreseeable future. Sure, you could easily program Jester to automatically call the ball at 3/4, but what if the pilot does not see the ball? Or based on the weather conditions set in the mission editor, Jester automatically calls "Clara", but the player does see the ball anyway? And if the player has to tell Jester to call the ball, he could very well just cut out the middle man and do it directly. Impractical and convoluted. The whole point of the RIO doing all the comms is to reduce the pilot's workload, so he can concentrate on trapping on the boat. Having to micromanage Jester even more - especially in the groove - has the exact opposite effect. Maybe once ED implements the overhauled ATC that they're supposedly working on..... I mean HB probably could create a "landing script" where the AI automatically makes the appropriate calls based on the player's location, speed, altitude, state and so on, triggered by a player command ("call inbound" or something). But for that to work you need players that can (and want to!) fly halfway precisely and know the proper procedures....so not noob friendly, or attractive to those who just want to get on board quickly. However, mission designers could get around AI restrictions with heavy scripting. Reflected already has trigger-based comms implemented in Zone 5 and Fear the Bones (checklists, AAR banter, ATC and range controllers, for example). Very immersive, but not very flexible and I suppose a lot of work.

I played the mission again a couple of minutes ago, first time after the most recent patch. Note to self: tell Caveman to go "echelon left" before joining the airliner's wing. Because I forgot just how slow that Greek plane was going, I misjudged my approach speed, and slightly overshot his 3/9 line.....which caused Caveman to crash right into it! Instead of the Russians, it was us! Of course in debrief I claimed the Soviets shot both the Civilian and my Wingman down. Those bastards! I don't know whether ED did fiddle with the AI recently, but it sure does seem to get dumber with each new version of DCS. I mean how can you not see that airliner in front of your nose?! Just imagine if this game was like Tron and those AI pilots were all "real" digital "persons". The MCP would have disabled itself out of frustration. BTW: Does anyone know how to save track files? I always get an error message when I try.

Hi Heatblur, any update on the status of this (in my case eagerly awaited) campaign? As a SP guy, I am beginning to grow bored, because I've played every available campaign and mission for the Tomcat to death. Can we hope for a release this year (preferably before Christmas)? I guess you may be waiting for the AI Intruder to be finished to include it in the campaign (which would be fitting). So "two weeks (TM)"? Then again, we haven't heard all that much from you for a couple of weeks now, which could be an indication that your team is hard at work behind the scenes. BTW, I'm a total mission-making noob, but would it be possible for said mission-making noob to replace the Stennis with at least the Forrestal, or, even better, the SC in the stock missions? Could anyone point me in the right direction? Would spice up a lot of the missions (I'm thinking "Watching the Devil Dogs").

During night operations (that's what mission 1 is), you need to turn on all your external lights to trigger the cat shot. Ground crew would hardly be able to see your salute in the darkness. During start-up, turn on all external lights (right console), but leave master light switch (on the throttle) off. When you are hooked up to the catapult, under tension and ready to launch, turn on the master light switch, and you will be launched.

Disregard. All is fine.

Yes, sometimes I'll get "roger that" from Jester completely out of the blue. My working hypothesis so far is that the mic either picks up background noise (like from the TV), or random noises such as exasperated exhaling (through the nose; which is pretty close to the built-in mics of the Vive) are being misinterpreted as a voice commands. Checking the Voice Attack log, the most common unintentional commands for me are "south" and "navigate steerpoint 2", for whatever reason.

And miss all the "Benny Hill"-style fun? Sniper 1 and 2 parking under the roofed parking spots was a new one for me, though. I've seen the "return-spawned" Vipers do it, though. My post was supposed to be an observational anecdote about something I found quite entertaining to watch, not a bug report (far from it). I do hope that one day (soon) ED will manage to completely overhaul the AI, which I suppose dates back to LOMAC, if not Flanker.

I know. And I believe I've made it pretty clear that I was talking about AI behavior, not mission scripting. Hence why I started the post with "No complaint, just a fun little observation." That was the whole point. I thought the AI shenanigans were quite funny and entertaining.

No complaint, just a fun little observation. Event 3. I didn't leave the mission right away after parking back at Nellis, and instead watched what the different AI units where doing with the F2 key. Good God, they are weird sometimes. - One of the F5 aggressors (41) must have taken it very hard that he got blasted out of the sky by my humble self, and went straight across downtown Vegas, over the Strip, at low level. He even lit the cans as he was crossing over the Strip. On his way back (reversed the route he came) he instead opted for going super slow at high AOA. - Hammer and Dice (Dice, always Dice; now I understand why Bio keeps ragging on him ), instead of parking next to me, opted to go on a little Nellis sightseeing tour instead. He taxiied all the way down the ramp as if going back to 03. At first I thought he was going to take off again. But no, he kept going straight ahead, to probably the most obscure spot on the whole Air Base. F164. I assume Hammer and Dice have a little moonshining operation going on with some of the ground crew ("Goodbye, Mickey Mouse" reference if anyone noticed. Great book by Len Deighton about a P-51 squadron in WWII, anyone who hasn't should go read it). Watching DCS AI doing AI things can be a lot more entertaining than a lot of the crappy movies and shows these days. Edit: Sniper 1 and 2 were not parked at their usual spots, but further on the right under those with the roof. Never seen that before. Maybe new AI behavior after the recent patch?