DSplayer

The same thing might've happened to the P series since they basically took improvements from the AIM-9L/M and plopped it into the P and that might also be beneficial for reducing the amount of unique parts between the two SW series. Of course I can't be certain that happened tho.

The improved maneuverability can be down to how the gas system for the fins changed in between the J and P with the solid state stuff. A similar thing happened when the AIM-9H was introduced and compared to the AIM-9G, it had better pull due to the gas system being changed and a byproduct of that was increased maneuverability iirc.

I’d assume the spotlight feature is similar to what modern jets like the F-18 and F-16 have. It’s basically a super narrow search pattern so you can try to get a track on something. When compared to the Tomcat, I think it’s similar to the super search function that we have already. All of this could be wrong however since I’m not too knowledgeable on the Phantom’s systems.

Around 37k ft or so.

I would have to look at the code regarding the ALQ-99 but if I were to implement it, I wouldn't have used HB's shoulder_a2g function. To add a pylon to an existing loadout sort of deal, look at my HARM nested loadout stuff in one of the DSplayerWeapons.lua files.

Tbh I've only seen this behavior with AIM-54s and I had thought this was solved months ago and I guess reappeared now. Do you have tracks for this btw? I would like to recreate the test but change some values on my end to see if I can make the missile not move upwards after losing track.

Yeah that’s also super important as well (and also would require another wishlist post lol) and I hope we would get those soon. I just know that IR modeling for IR missiles in this game is super simplified to levels that even WT has more complexity and that would also require both different flare types and the IR modeling redo.

Currently we have 2 types of flares and 1 type of chaff that aircraft can use. I would personally like a more complex system for chaff (i.e. differing effectiveness depending on the weight of cartridges, etc.) and flare (I.e. burn time, IR spectrum, etc.) which could bring a more accurate simulation for countermeasures. At the moment, in the situation for flares, we do not have anything similar to the flare cartridge that BOL IR uses (which deploys in more of a streak instead of a single flare round: video). The current LAU-138/BOL chaff rounds currently have to fire basically 4 at a time and limit you to a max of 40 discharges even though the rails can carry 160 pouches of chaff because of the fixed effectiveness of chaff. This is because the BOL chaff cartridges is roughly 1/4 of a typical chaff round that could be fired from a normal CM dispenser but it had to be balanced in a way for it to be fair.

I would say that the Magic I is the best non-JULI missile at the moment that you can mount onto the F1. It currently still has all aspect capability even though it shouldn't. The 9J comes 2nd since it turns pretty well and a lot better than the 9Ps.

Yep. You just have to use the Ground Crew menu and then "Select ALE-39 Loadout" and then choose 60 flares / 0 chaffs (Karon's article does pretty well explaining the process behind loading the ALE-39 in DCS). I think the all flares in the ALE-39 and then the 40 chaff in the LAU-138 is a stock option that most server's F-14s are set to however.

The LAU-138, currently, is purely chaff and is always there unless unchecked within the mission editor. You cannot change the amount of chaff in the LAU-138s. Changing the CMs with the sliders in rearm menu didn't really do much and just caused issues for everything. Also HB pls give me the MJU-52/B flare cartridges and ability to mount LAU-138s on the B stations.

I actually did some tests by trying to time the time in between trigger pull and weapon release and it seems like it's just the heat of the battle making the time last a lot longer than it actually is. SW do have a delay of around 0.2 seconds while AMRAAMs and Sparrows have a delay of around 1.2 seconds. SWs on other jets seem to basically be instant however so take that as you will.

Well the reason why only the AIM-54Cs are affected and not the AIM-54As is because the 54Cs go active on their own utilizing the go_active_by_default value (which is set to 1 on the 54Cs and 0 on the 54As). This causes the 54Cs to default to the active_radar_lock_dist value (which is 10nm). This is a limitation of the current API/schema that the AIM-54s currently use. I would also like to point out that ED hasn't been able to do a similar target active distance thing with their AIM-120s yet even though Deka's SD-10 was able to do so when they were on the same API/schema.

My background in making liveries/skins for this game allows me to understand the complexity between skins. Like I can tell the difference between a completely unique skin compared to a minor modifications like what a portion of those 51 or so F-16 liveries are comprised of. Also it looks like you're counting both the files within CoreMods and Mods so if we're going by that metric, the Mirage F1 and the AH-64D take up over 7 GBs of space on your DCS installation disk. Within the F-14 Mods folder, you get Campaigns, Instant Action Missions, Training Missions, Singleplayer Missions, the F-14 Soundtrack, unencrypted sounds (which is super nice compared to what ED did), cockpit textures (both RIO and Pilot), the F-14 Manual, and other stuff to make the plane actually work in-game. This can be directly compared to the F-16 which has less campaigns, less missions overall (including Instant Action and Singleplayer Missions), smaller manual, and less smaller cockpit (you don't have 2 people and basically 2 different cockpits). Going back to liveries, there is no doubt that 11.7 GB of storage is larger than what other aircrafts' livery folders but the Tomcat liveries have legit more files, generally more higher quality images (4096x4096 pixels), and more complex color work with results in a higher storage usage. Compared to largest F-16 skin in the CoreMods folder (the 36th Fighter Squadron skin), 37 files that make up the livery's 529 MBs uncompressed file size which is an average of ~14.297 MBs per file with 24 of those files being 4096x4096 pixels with the rest being smaller. Compared to the largest F-14 skin (the VF-211 Fighting Checkmates 100 (2001) skin), it has 41 files that total to 597 MBs uncompressed with an average of ~14.561 MBs per file with ~25 of those files being 4096x4096 pixels with the rest being smaller. The smallest F-16 skin (any of the HAF skins) has 1 file that is 10.6 MBs uncompressed in size that is 4096x4096. The smallest F-14 skin (the Santa skin for the F-14B) has 6 files for a total of 118 MBs uncompressed with an average of ~19.66 MBs per file with 5 of those files being 4096x4096. If you were to calculate based on files alone for all the F-16 liveries, there are 521 livery files (not including the luas only stuff like DDS or TGA files) for the F-16 with an uncompressed size of 7.86 GBs while there are 1354 files for the F-14 liveries totaling in an uncompressed size of 18.9 GBs. That's an average of ~10.21 files per F-16 livery and ~22.20 files per F-14 livery.

My brothers in christ, the majority of the preinstalled skins for the F-14s are extremely detailed. And like what other people have pointed out, the more modern modules and modern skins are also larger. If you compare the Mirage 2000C's stock "AdA Chasse 2-5" skin to the new "MISSION ACCOMPLIE" skin, you'll see that it's 22.1 MBs compared to 247 MBs respectively. This is down to, of course, more files in the "MISSION ACCOMPLIE" skin since it has more detail. This can be directly compared to F-14 recent stock skins where they have a lot of files due to custom roughmets, normal maps, pilot models textures, etc. A lot of the F-14 skins that we have now are incredibly detailed and its completely understandable why the liveries folder for both the A and B, from at least from an amateur liveries maker's POV, total up to ~12 GBs. Also if you compare the newer F-14 skins that have all those custom roughmets, etc. with the stock F-14B skins that basically came out on the EA release a couple years ago, you can also see that those are smaller while also not having those custom roughmets and stuff. Idk I felt that this argument is rather pedantic and rather unnecessary since more detail and more skins = more storage usage. I'm honestly grateful that HB was able to give us a pretty great paint kit with loads of customizability.

Probably down to the old radar code. Gotta remember that the MiG-21bis was basically one of the first 3rd party module out there and was released a long ways back before aircraft like the F-18 were added.

From what I read in the patch notes for the OB 2.8.0.32066, firing the AIM-120 was missing a delay which has now been added. The problem is that AIM-9s also have this delay. Is this intentional? Its problematic when trying to release a SW in a hurry and trying to leave as soon as possible.

Looks like the mod is now broke with the new IC check requirements.

If I'm reading today's 2.8 patch changelog correctly, this mod will no longer be compliant with IC.

The only shot I think that the DCS 2.8 F-14 cannot accomplish anymore is this and its due to the fidelity of DCS jamming unfortunately.

Oh btw, will there be altitude difference ranging when in angle-tracked with radar and when with the TCS or is this coming in the future?

I’ve had this happen a lot when I used to use SSLC for the gunsight. Never was able to find out why it ever did that and I kinda just accepted that it did. I suspect it was the “snake” getting too long and basically just merging with itself infinitely until the/a target got within range. Video from months ago: https://imgur.com/a/ciEV0uv

Nice first patch for the new update! Any news on the ALR-45/50 for the early F-14A-135-GR?

Pretty interesting considering you definitely can have good contrast while not being able to point track something even though you're pretty close.