Jayhawk1971

I find the Hornet more annoying to AAR in than the Tomcat and the Viper. I have to concentrate more. The Hornet - at least with my controls setup - has a rather sensitive pitch axis. So don't even look at the stick wrong. Don't breathe on it. And certainly don't sneeze. The Mudhen also requires more concentration on the task of AAR-ing. Generally, I find that in the F-15E I really have to work more during formation flying (especially with the erratic AI) than in any other module I own (throttle management). Especially a decently loaded Mudhen (full tanks, two bags, 4 MK-84) going M 0.85 at 25K requires almost full military power, so it tends to jump in and out of burner. So, station keeping requires more work. In the Tomcat and Viper it's a breeze. I will check out what WinWing has in stock once the summer is over. I certainly could do with a better throttle setup.

What do you mean...you people?!

That is probably the problem. Seems like all bombs dropped in auto will fall long when flying straight and level. Maybe try again while in a shallow dive. Edit: on my first playthrough I encountered the same issue as you. Bomb went somewhere else entirely. Dropping while in a dive worked every time. Why it would even matter with an LGB, I don't know. Normally it absolutely shouldn't. But code is code and bugs are bugs. From the Patch Notes thread, June 22:

How do you drop? Do you fly straight and level?

I agree, switching to VR was like night and day. For pretty much every aspect.

Does Katie Sackhoff know?

Funny, for me it's the other way round. I find the Hornet to be a little too pitch-sensitive for my taste, making it a little bit harder to refuel in than the "chilled" Tomcat. The F-14 is very stable for me, but I have to admit, having a FFB stick makes trimming a lot (!) easier. So refueling in the Hornet for me is a more perishable skill than in the Tomcat or Viper. For me. from easiest to hardest: F-14 --> F-16 --> A-10C --> Hornet -> F-15E Strike Eagle. In the F-15E it's a little annoying to keep maintaining forward/aft position. You get a disconnect even if you creep just a little bit too far forward (second, but still "green", bar on the tanker's indicator). And if you drift too far back, it's harder/ takes longer to catch up than, say, in a Viper.

F-15 Strike Eagle on the C64. 1984-ish.

Yep, I've found that to be quite helpful, because my butterfingers are too slow to enter coordinates in real-time. Easting always get's me!

Finished the mission yesterday. Great experience, and taught me a lot about the module! My approach is "learning by doing" rather than memorizing manuals, so in this mission whenever I came across something I didn't know yet, I looked it up and went back to the mission. One thing I was unclear about, which I will put in spoiler tags: If I'm imagining things, please disregard. Do you have plans to flesh this out into a campaign or mini-campaign? IMO you certainly should think about releasing a payware 3rd-party campaign. The quality and attention to detail is absolutely there!

I ran into the same problem earlier this week. In my case it was the F-14, the F-15C (not FC3, the "standalone"), Nevada and Persian Gulf. Turned out these are modules that I had bought via Steam and "transferred" over to DCS standalone. Presumably, the Steam server must have had a hiccup. I fixed the issue by reimporting the serial numbers via my profile on the DCS website. Hope that helps.

I find the F-15E to be very easy to land and to handle once on the ground. Maybe a controller input issue? Axis spiking? Something like that?

No, that is not the case. It's like you ordered a "tuna" sandwich (wasn't there a scandal that when tested they didn't find any tuna DNA on that sandwich? But I digress.), but there's too much oil in it for your taste. Subway says their SME (sandwich matter experts) confirmed that this is absolutely the right amount of oil. You want your tuna to be less oily, so you ask for an optional "downgrade" on the oil front. Subway is a fast-food chain with strictly defined processes, so it's not that easy to implement. Most of the other customers are either fine with or indifferent to the amount of oil, and even though some TSP's (tuna sandwich purists) demand that none shall tinker with it, most would agree that if Subway offered an optional TLO (tuna, less oily), they would be fine with it. As long as it doesn't affect the original sandwich. And there's the rub: the original sandwich is still in early eating access, and needs a lot of work as it is. Once the sandwich is (close to) feature complete (tomatoes have been added), no one would have a problem with an option. (first draft had "pepper", but I remembered that salt and pepper are being treated like optional condiments at Subway. I haven't been to any fast-food chain in a very long time ) If it were truly unbearable, everyone would complain. From what I've seen here and on discord, that is not the case. I'll give you inconvenient, annoying, distracting (objectively speaking). I personally don't mind, as I've been desensitized by the Tomcat's ECS.

Thanks Sedlo! Looking forward to playing the mission tomorrow!

If you "crash" in a military grade simulator, you also can "hop into the next jet and take off again" (after a very lengthy and thorough debrief). Yet those things still try to simulate the aircraft to the best of their technical and budgetary capabilities. And I bet "alleviating pilot inconvenience" is rather low on the priority list. Hyperbole. If RAZBAM's SME's deem the in-cockpit sound to be realistic, so be it. It's not unbearable in any way, shape or form. OTOH, if RAZBAM is willing and able to allocate resources and dev time to implement a volume slider under the "special" tab - without interfering with more immediate and pressing issues (like fixing bugs and implementing promised features) - I don't see why they shouldn't add it as an option. Options are good. It's all about priorities, though, and IMO, "quality of life" features that don't add to the module (actually take away from authenticity in this case) should have a lower priority than, for example, game-breaking bugs.

Thank you, Sedlo! Much appreciated! I very much enjoyed your previous Red Flag missions.

Cue Tropic Thunder.

Maybe one day, whenever I have (a lot!) more free time on my hands. Or, once someone finds a way to create an interface between the DCS ME and some "image-generator" like AI, where I can describe what I want a mission/ campaign to be like, and the AI creates it in the mission editor for me. That would be perfect, and probably a lot less "futuristic" than one would assume (or would have assumed even a year ago).

I meant payware 3rd party campaigns. I do like story-driven content. Sandboxes, not so much. I don't have enough free time for DCS as it is, never mind spending additional time learning the mission editor, then even more time building missions that I know how they'll play out because I've built them. At the moment I can get in two or three hours a week if I'm lucky. I'd rather spend that time in a cockpit. Instead of spending time with an activity that I'm not good at, and which will cause a lot of frustration, pulling of hair, shaking of fists, and smashing of keyboards, I'll instead purchase the excellent work of the ever growing lineup of content creators whose skill with the editor I will never, ever be able to match. The Sinai map doesn't go anywhere, so I'll purchase it whenever I feel the time is right. I did that with every other map I own, and so far haven't had any regrets. YMMV. Edit: Please nobody get hung up on the term "decent". I did not mean to say that non-payware missions/ campaigns are not decent. I was trying to express - apparently in a too hasty way - "decent amount of content that is entertaining to me". For example, I did enjoy Sedlo's freeware Red Flag campaigns very much!

Until there's some decent SP-content for Sinai, I will hold off on purchasing that map. No reason clogging up my SSD while at the same time needlessly freeing up space on my bank account. (should be the other way round!). Once there's quality content for some/ any of the modules I own, I certainly will pull the trigger, as the map does look great.