JayTSX

I just got flashbacks of the pre-release times when the naval variant was mentioned... I'd say relax and let them go their own pace (usually technology develops over time, which means longer wait = more advanced naval variant) Enthusiasm is good and all but it got a bit out of hand back in the day. (Imagine you're making something you're proud of and when you show it to someone they go: "ahh no I wanted the different variant of that thing..." Wouldn't feel great would it?) Note to HB: I love my Phantom (and Jester unless he decides that locking the thing in front of us was not part of his job description) you guys did Phantomenal work and I'm looking forward to any updates it will get. Stay great

To be completely fair there are still some publishers (for example EA or Ubisoft) who will sell you a stupidly expensive version promising like 2 or 3 days of access before the "poor" people... Mostly on consoles I think... And I'd say we can be glad that Heatblur isn't offering something like a 150$ packet only for that

With this thread I want to invite everyone to share their experiences and memories with or around the phabulous Phantom in celebration of the upcoming release in 13 days. I'll start: Relatively close to the village my grandparents live in was an Airbase flying F4-Fs. On of my very first memories regarding planes is, when I was walking my grans dog around the lake and heard the thundering sounds of a Phantom closing in. I stood in awe as the magnificent plane passed overhead and since that day I never lost my interest in aviation. Thank you Heatblur for giving us the Phantom.

So ehm Steam Preorder soon? Because that would be a shame if there's none... But I'm sure Heatblur won't disappoint here either

So this month? (If I'm allowed to lean out of a window I'd say they will announce the specific date in the next 2 weeks (not tm) because of the Steam Preorder period, which is hopefully still planned)

I think there was an entire thread about that and the short answer was "nope". The long answer was something along the lines of we couldn't redo all voiceovers for the sake of having a different name for the WSO... Also if you think about it Jester is quite yellable, which is a good thing if you need to vent some anger because someone is constantly locking friendlies or the missile go after the moon or something like that.

IIrc their definition of winter was up until march? If I'm able to finally preorder it on Steam I'll be happy even if it's end of march.

Hmm after trying the multithreaded preview I had no problems in either sp or mp (or rather none that were caused by a CPU bottleneck) I used a Ryzen 5 2600x ( which is not a bad processor but compared to even the lower end 7xxx ryzen 5 it's like racing a snail) I found the biggest impact on performance being Ram (Speed and Capacity) and Graphics Memory. On my new PC I run a 7800x3d with 32 Gb of 6000mhz DDR5 paired with the 3060 12GB from my previous PC. I don't hit any bottlenecks on mostly highest settings flying the Tomcat exclusively... Only thing I noticed is a drop to 56 FPS (from 75 capped) while on ground with some weather conditions. Flying close to ground is fine again. I'd guess that in worst case I would lower shadow and terrain quality as I usually don't care to much about them.

In a matter of we don't want to share, what cost us money to develop... But that's just a guess and I'd be happy to be wrong in that regard

Written a bit weird tbh but anyways... If I remember correctly the UH-1 has this "functionality" as starting from Battery is much harder, if you set the environment to the-day-after-tomorrow-cold, so coming from that it should be possible and I'd guess, that HB will implement it at some point. Regarding the birds: I always have the setting on max but never encountered anything like a bird strike so either the engine is not really implementing it or every module so far didn't care, would be an awesome feature though... I think the Warbirds have leaking (?) So maybe? Unless ED decided it's too advanced to give it to 3rd parties... Also a great feature, which I'd love to see and also think should be doable to some extent.

It depends heavily on the depth of the simulation. If you have two virtual marbles and the first hits the second at speed x transferring the kinetic energy completely to the second that's also a simulation but a really shallow one. On the other hand you could model all the properties of the marbles and take all of them into account (if necessary or not) getting some possibly non deterministic function for the resulting speed of the second marble. This is also a simulation but will have significantly more computational complexity. The key is deciding which properties are really necessary for a good (enough) simulation without turning your PC into an oven. I trust HB will be able to balance this accordingly. Just saw it answered here

Sooo could I potentially break my exterior lights for behaving like the average BMW-Driver, flashing everyone until they're either blind or out of my way? (Let's try not to get other BMW traits in this plane pls wouldn't want a check engine light on powerup) (This post is in no means intended to be offensive)

Well to be fair pre orders didn't start on steam... but I get your pain every day I check the store page in hope it's available.

Try this approach: through all the other modules DCS was able to grow a foundation worthy of the Phantom. If we had it earlier it might not have been as phabulous as it will be in 2 weeks (TM)

Hm I get what you mean, but keep in mind, that most languages are actually gender neutral unless a gender is specifically mentioned. That's also the case if a gender pronoun is implied by the sound of a word. I think crewman is fine in this case. I guess "man" comes from mankind meaning the entirety of all humans? Also English is a bit more relaxed in that regard as with something like German you'd have stuff like gendered articles (der, die, das) implying a gender where there is none. Hope we can come to an agreement in that regard

Apparently there was an update on discord and it was later clarified in another thread on this forum, that they aim for winter (until march) this year so it's not too far (Sorry relatively new to the forum would have linked the corresponding posts but don't know how... Thread is called "Phantom F-4E released?") Edit: This is the post I meant

Not to throw oil on this fiery discussion (seems like a deja Vu as if we had this discussion in multiple threads again and again...) I guess there decision was based on what has been said: they have an SME in their ranks so it's easier to get in development feedback or fill in knowledge gaps and the E variant is the one most commonly depicted in media. Take arcade games (yes yes all arcade games are bad I know but bear with it for a sec) before falling into the sinkhole, that we call DCS I was primarily playing arcade air combat games and I can't recall a single one where there was no F4-E... Given some "bend" the model to launch from carriers but it's easily the most depicted Version of the F4. To add to the entire "people outside of the US or GB only know the F4-E" thing: when I was young there was a airbase operating F4-Fs not far from my Grandparents so I've seen (mostly heard first) them everytime I visited them as a child, so yes I'm from outside the US and the F4-E/F became the definition of a Military Jet aircraft for me. Not to be confused with "The naval variant is bad" I think no one has really said (and meant it) because it's untrue. There is no good or bad in DCS some prefer the flashy 18 and 16 some the 15 I for one prefer the 14 over everything until the F4 comes around. Launching and landing on a ship is something I've never done in anything other than DCS and it's a great challenge. My point is: Don't get too angry over the (for you) wrong version of a plane especially not if the "better" one is around the corner (DCS corner so more like the labyrinth of the minotaur worth of corners). And until then you could do some pretending to make it work for you. (Don't want a gun then don't use it something like that)

Dammit! For a second I was all hyped like "oh my god it's finally happening! Where's my card? Forget it here take my kidney... or my future firstborn just give me Phantom..." and then I saw it's just a thread about that today would be a good launch day... But thanks, newer been awake this quickly my whole life ^^

It would be a fun mod sure... But I think you just summoned everyone, whos currently on a "modern technology is no dogfighting" spree so I guess good luck? Joke aside I think people will mod the module to resemble more modern versions of the F-4 it's just currently not a really popular opinion in this forum...

Wouldn't the easy implementation be to just shoot the bridle away? I heard they did it at the end of the Phantoms lifespan so it wouldn't be unrealistic either. Main problem would be modeling a bridle instead of a launchbar. Question is: Would heatblur be fine with this solution?

Ok so arguing with you clearly has no point. Therefore I suggest you focus your efforts on the respective thread and state your opinions against HBs decisions there, if that's what you want. Also I'm pretty sure HB already stated something along the lines of "we plan to produce other separate moduls with different versions of the phantom" so maybe your complains aren't necessary since it's already something they are planning for. We don't know the exact reasons for their decision and probably will never know them. We all can agree, that we want some variant of the phantom. Why isn't that enough for you? Your statements are always totalitarian and are therefore presumably mistaken for being negative so maybe try altering your phrasing too?

I think no one really got a problem with you stating your opinion as long as you stay within topic of the thread. Every single thread you appeared in was transformed into something like "only -profanity- people like land based phantoms" which is your opinion but don't try forcing it upon us. That said there was a thread about why a naval phantom is objectively better, so maybe stay there? You wouldn't face so many opinions against yours and could freely discuss any shortcomings of landbased phantoms. I don't think you're necessarily wrong but like with most things people have subjective feelings about certain things and don't like it when you call them dumb. I think most of us get that most navy variants where objectively better than any landbased ones. But we still love the E or atleast we are fine with getting the E as long as we get any phantom. Maybe try understanding others? But that one goes in both directions. I really hope that it's possible to set our differences aside for atleast one thing. (Yeah I know wishful thinking but given the state of society in general hope is most we have I guess)

Funny enough I'm really excited for the E model. Maybe it's about me growing up in Germany where my grandparents lived not far from an air base and therefore sharing alot of memories with both my grandparents and Phantoms in the sky. Sure I'd love to see them making an F model especially the ICE upgrade but it wouldn't be a good choice to implement such a niche product, if the literal model the F is based on would cover most export variants to a certain degree. Maybe you should stay in the "only the naval Phantoms are any good" thread and leave the rest alone. Which would be a bit of a loss because between all the complaining about non naval variants your technological insights where really interesting. It's not about whose opinion is better but to accept each others opinion. Is the J/S objectively better suited for most? Sure, yeah. But I for one am thrilled to deal with pulse radar quirks and a draggy frame because that's what I learned to love. Also I need my gun. Maybe as a side note: If you want an absolute capable naval multirole jet just stick to the cat for now and wait for whatever naval variant you want.

Probably a bit off topic but: Can the Hud show a target diamond? Because it kinda sounds like it'll have just a gun piper like the F-5 and no further functionality. I expected something alike an F-14s hud with some information about selected weapon and atleast a target marker for easier intercept. Given that the F-4 is more suited for intercepting compared to the F-5 it seems logical to add this functionality.

Yes buuut still no word about the labeling so technically it doesn't need to mean anything