Lionheartwolf

At what point did you think placing a cursor over a knob in an F-14 screamed realism for you? Personally, I think the word "cursor" was the first red flag that we stepped outside the boundaries of realism. I am all for more visibility options especially for VR users. What harm could it possibly be? We have an entire F-menu for communications, a Jester menu, and you can literally hover over any switch, knob, or button and the game will tell you what they are. None of that is realistic, and exist purely to help the user. Why would hovering over something with a mouse pointer but now tell you what channel you are in finally break the immersive world we have? I think some rules for realism can be bent for a better user end experience. No need to shoot every idea down. You have nothing to gain.

I call it what DCS called it. Talk to ED about that one. When you click on Instant Action it's clearly labeled "Dogfight." If you are talking about something specific to Zone V's campaign I can't comment too much, my commentary was mostly in response to AI behavior.

I don't have Zone 5 DLC but it sounds an awful like the Caucasus Dogfight against the Flanker. I've found the best strategy that worked for me (at least initially while you learn more) is to take the AI head on instead of staying at their six. In a real dogfight, or against real players I'd imagine it's insanely risky, (so don't get in the habit) but the AI is just plain bad at it. After enough practice you can snapshot them head on, and they will never get a shot off. I'd say they only even try 10% of the time, and I might have only been hit by it once or twice at most, if you miss they are more than happy to let you try again. After awhile being at their six isn't too bad, sometimes I find it easier to just uncage and let them fly into my guns instead of trying to wrestle with the piper at .3nm. I think my least favorite part about gunfighting AI in the F14 is when the AI just wants to take off. Listening to Jester tell me how much I suck for going too fast while I'm at a negative closure rate is pretty annoying. If the AI is universal it should work for you too, but out of all the Instant Action dogfights I've played across various maps that Flanker was the only one I've seen that cares to dodge similar to how you describe. Even the F-5 in Nevada during the Fox-2 fight can be hit with guns pretty easily. Heck, the 2x F-16s from Syria are pretty easy comparatively as well. They just don't try to dodge nearly as much. Maybe none of this advice will work, but at the very least, if it were me that would be the first thing I'd do with my combined knowledge from similar annoying fights.

I don't want to get too far down this rabbit hole. This has become a bit of a toxic discussion as of late, and I'm aware this can contribute to it, but I think its a fair criticism. First and foremost, personally, I like the worn look. I'm in that camp, but I'm also willing to admit that it's not always readable, and some veteran players like yourself might be taking a lot of muscle memory, and previous knowledge for granted. I don't want to get into a cherry-picking argument, but it doesn't take long looking through Chuck's guide, or the HB manual for the F-14A/B to see some buttons that are worn away either entirely or close to. It's fairly common in the RIO cockpit specifically. Maybe it's a little more fresh for me since I am currently in the process of learning the RIO and I'm currently playing on a Reverb G2 (which admittingly has decent resolution, not perfect but I can read what I need to and use context clues, or previous knowledge for the rest) but it can be difficult to locate a button if somebody is using readable labels next to or on the buttons to do it, and since my head is in a headset and not always looking at a separate monitor to cross reference with a guide I can see how reading labels can be important to some users. Some notable examples are: Keep in mind these are high quality images from the manual, and only look worse in VR, or at varying graphical settings. You can zoom in as much as you would like, but you will just not be able to argue that the IR/TV mode button in photo 1, or JAM STROBE from photo 2 are readable. Depending on the quality of your image in game it only gets more difficult to read the different labels along the Pilot/RIO cockpit. Again, this isn't about cherry-picking, but these examples show how difficult it can be to read some labels in the best case scenario. Now, I'm 100% sure you know what all four buttons shown as #12 in photo 1 are, or all eight labeled #8 in photo 2, but you didn't read all of them, and if you did it certainly wasn't in this game, in that cockpit as you were flying. I'm also 100% sure we are not all you, and we don't know as much as you, we might need to read them. Heck, I'm sure no real F-14 crew had this issue, after all they were probably the person that wore the button out, but some of us are not that guy. There is a reason why the F-14 engineers decided to label the buttons after all. It is a legitimate criticism to say that it is not always readable. You can argue that people should just memorize the cockpit from studying manuals first, you can argue that you can figure it out just by pushing it and seeing what it does, you can even argue that it's realistic. I agree with all of those things because that's exactly how I have to do it, but what you cannot argue is that it's always readable. I don't see the harm in offering more readable buttons if the main reason for them being less readable is for realism. I do see some harm in trying to invalidate other's opinions because they would like to be able to read the labels on the buttons though. Form follows function: how you use the space should prioritize over how it looks. Some buttons could be more readable because quite frankly, they are not. It doesn't need to start a war between the community. Not every criticism needs the veteran players coming out of the woodworks to discredit it because they dont have that issue. This isn't a complex conflict with a NATOPS or a game engine, if it's possible to add dynamic bits of tape and string to the ACM for more realism, it's possible to make slightly more readable labels to the buttons that are already there.

Is it possible to fix the menu pointer behavior for the Jester menu (in VR)? The radial menu always assumes you are looking front and center when you bring the menu up which makes it difficult to use if you are not. For example: If I am looking to my 3 o'clock position when I bring up the radial menu in VR I have a difficult time selecting anything on right side of the menu because my head cannot turn even more right to guide the pointer to what I need since the menu pointer is guided through head tracking. It would be nice if no matter where I was looking when I bring up the radial menu the center of the radial menu was always in a universalized point. Yes, I would still have to move my head probably front and center to use the menu effectively, but the key difference is I would never need to close and reopen the radial menu just to reset the pointer to something less unwieldy.

I also like the FORGE, I think I will like it more when it's less random though. I can also see why the developers are hesitant to give us a brand new looking cockpit. What is their point of reference? There hasn't been a new F-14 in decades let alone a new F-14 A/B. They built this entire thing on some photos, unclassified documents and service manuals, and the feedback of people trying to remember something from about 40 years ago. These are not classic cars, these are military technologies that were highly guarded when they were new, and still closely guarded to this day, thats why we will probably never see a new looking F-14, and might never see an F-14D. They can probably do it but it wont be real, it will be an artistic interpretation of, and if that is all you are after then there are mods for that.

Well Im glad I came here to check out the patch notes, I haven't played for a few days and I spent the better part of this morning thinking my Tomcat was trying to gaslight me. At first I thought I was in the F-14A and I just forgot what that cockpit looked like. Can't wait until we have more control over that.

Has anybody had any issues connecting during the training day instant mission since the last major update? It seems like a whole lot of things broke for me somewhere around August. Wingsweep is all wonky, and I have to manually reset wingsweep at the start of every mission. I can usually connect with the basket pretty well when I set up my own mission but for some reason I just pass right through the basket everytime in that darn mission. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the basket always being out in that scenario vs. having to make the call under regular circumstances, or if something else went wrong since the patch. I can't complete that mission anymore.

I've taken off from Nellis more than a few times and these things never existed. After the update now they do. This is a thread involving feedback for the patch and its an applicable place to mention it. I cannot explain why you don't have an issue but I do. I run a vanilla steam version, with no mods. I came here trying to find more information. I know how to contact ATC and ground crew. I'm saying when I click on them nothing happens, not they do nothing, but I literally cannot click on them. These are my issues, I feel like I was clear. What I don't need is hostile responses from immature posters that say things like "so what?" Thank you for attempting to help, but you are not helping.

Has anybody else noticed a problem with taking off from Nellis in the Instant Mission. Im glad to see that Wingsweep issues are at least being discussed but since the update the F-14 spawns on the runway with Electric, and Air still attached, the wingsweep set to oversweep, and you cannot communicate with ATC or ground control via menu (I could still bring up rearm/refuel using hotkey)

Has anybody else noticed issues with manual wingsweep since the update? I took about a week or two off so I'm a tiny bit rusty, but I swear that the F14 doesn't start in emergency oversweep mode on the runway in the Nellis take off instant mission. In addition to that I'm also hooked up to electric and air supply and for some reason I can't contact ground crew or ATC. I can bring up the menu but clicking on either does nothing. I have also on a few occasions now accidentally gone into oversweep while in flight when I go to full sweep in manual mode. When I say manual mode I mean manual mode, not emergency mode. The F14 is just really buggy for me now and I haven't done anything since the update. It was working fine just a few weeks ago.