Stackup

Thanks for the correction, of course now I see the slats too.

The F-4K is the FG.1, British designations are different from the US. Same as how the F-4M is the FGR.2 and the F-4J(UK) is the F.3. The FG.1 and FGR.2 had RR Speys while the F.3 kept the P&W J-79s. You are correct about the Naval F-4's using the bridle system to launch however you have confused the nose gear systems in your words if not your mind. All carrier operated F-4's used extendable nose struts, this is most visible on the UK Phantoms as theirs was more exagerated. The system you are describing for the A-7 is called a launch bar. Very big difference as even the F-5 has an extendable nose strut and that was never a carrier aircraft. USN F-4S extended nose strut British FGR.2 extended nose strut A-7 launch bar

I would expect the experience to be pretty much identical to how the all the other twin seat aircraft in DCS operate. The B/N (the A-6 has a Bombardier/Navigator not a WSO hence the reason they stared at the radar and map strips for large portions of the flight) will be just another seat with the radar display, armament controls, etc. in front of you that you can look at using either VR, headtracking, or mouse/keyboard camera controls. The only difference between what we have currently is that the A-6 is side-by-side seating like the Huey and Mosquito instead of tandem seating like all the two-seat jets we currently have in game. The pilot sits on the left and the B/N sits on the right. As for how Jester will be in the A-6, I expect it will be very similar to how it works doing air to ground in the Tomcat. Jester sets weapon type and release parameters to what you tell him and then the Pilot hits the release to drop the bombs or designate for computer release. Of course all this with the added functionality of the 2.0 version of Jester. Since Heatblur is one for detail and we can already see the cockpit bodies moving from the other seat in the F-14, I expect the A-6 will be the same although it is very possible by the time it releases Heatblur will have come up with a way to animate the body entirely, allowing you to watch as Jester moves his arms to flip switches or move the radar/TRAM control stick. I believe we are getting the cockpit without the MFD but Heatblur has not confirmed which exact variant of the A-6E will be delivered although it will be at least a TRAM upgrade because all the images of the AI that have been released show it with the TRAM turret under the nose.

Yes, they confirmed last month in the Discord we will get cartridge starts.

From the Mag3 Facebook page. "Some news coming soon(tm)!"

Interesting, my drop down list was never empty... After a repair the default skin listing seems to have disappeared but the custom liveries still show up in the drop down list as options but of course the textures don't change. The livery naming lua lines are the same for every single skin in the game and mine worked. Just no altered textures without an overwrite.

Well you see, the thing is I didn't. I simply overwrote the fin and stabs texture files in the S-3's heavymetalcore texture zip file. I tried the same lua structure you did because I saw that's what had worked for the B-52. When that didn't work, I tried multiple variations such as "S3BViking_FusFront", "low_S-3B_Viking_FusFront", etc. and none of the ones I tried worked. I only decided to work on it because I didn't like how the default paint wrote VS-32 on the side and then failed in the tail art department. So I fixed the rudder to my liking and decided to add the proper CVW-1 tail code to it despite not having either the USS America or the USS Enterprise aircraft carriers in the game and I left the carrier name off. If somebody figures out the lua, I will be refining the skin a bit more and maybe doing the VS-32 CAG bird from 2007 as I like the blue and yellow scheme. Until then there's really no point spending the time and effort to make multiple skins when I can only use one and the textures and model are at a lower quality than the ones shown off in all the trailers and newsletters. So if you want to use your VS-33 skin in game, simply overwrite the necessary files in the texture zip and it should be visible as the default skin. Keep in mind that the tanker variant uses the same files as the normal S-3 except it has a different RearFus file. So if you don't alter the tanker's RearFus as well it won't look right.

You missed a MER rack, F-4 should be able to carry 24 Mk-82s in total. Can't aim as well as newer stuff sure, but you'll easily be able to obliterate the target's general area.

You can land on a carrier once, but you won't be able to take back off and will probably damage the landing gear. All F-4's retained the tailhook, but this is the USAF version not the USN version which is coming later as a completely separate module purchase.

There's no SEA map in production yet if that's what you mean. A lot can be done to make the Marianas look like that though. Bits of Syria too.

I guess today is spookier than Friday. Can't wait to be blown away!!

For the record, I am well aware of this and had previously speculated/hoped that ED would be combining the S-3B and S-3B tanker into one unit during the rework as this would unlock buddy pods for other aircraft such as the upcoming A-6E and A-7E. However, ED decided not to give us a proper buddy tank refueling system and instead kept the S-3B as two seperate units instead of one. As such, while we have a tanker only unit, as in that's the only thing it can ever do without a complete overhaul of the refueling system in DCS, it should be labeled with a K.

They've said there will be a short preorder but a preorder nonetheless. Guarantee it won't release Halloween but we could see the start of the preorder and possibly a trailer. After all, Cobra did say that today "wasn't spooky enough" when asked why there wasn't any Phantom in the newsletter.

And we've got an image of the new Shrike model! Cobra also confirmed that the AIM-7E already has a new model completed as well.

For those who haven't seen, Heatblur updated their Facebook cover photo. A sign of something to happen within the next week perhaps...?

Here's an AGM-65F equipped S-3. And here's a couple with what appear to be AGM-84D-1 but the one we have in game has a white nose cone. The RGM-84s the ships get has the red nose though. Does anyone know if there's a difference or were some just painted red?

An interesting thing I noticed when watching AI refuel was that the AI Hornet pushed the basket all the way back to the pod and I even saw the basket begin the collapse animation as it was pushe almost fully back into the pod by the F-18. This is the first time I have ever seen the AI fail at aerial refueling. I started the F-18's at 50% fuel and they fell off the basket twice by pushing it all the way to the pod before they finally finished tanking. In addition, I believe the lights on the pod are wrong. Everything I have read and seen about Aerial refueling is that the pod shows a red light when fuel is not flowing and a green when it is. To achieve the green light, you push the hose in a couple of feet using markings on the hose(markings not modeled yet in DCS) and fuel should start flowing. When the AI was tanking, all the pod lights(red and green) were flashing and when the aircraft hooked up they kept flashing until the hose had been pushed in someways and then the green light went out while the red light stayed on but stopped flashing. This is incorrect and not the way it works on the KC-135 or the KC-130 either. Hornet pushes basket all the way back to the pod.trk

The S-3 tanker is here!

Thanks so much for adding the new model to the S-3 Tanker! I noticed in the Mission editor/F10 map that its label is showing a B instead of the K every other refueling aircraft gets. Not really a big deal but a break from the normal way tankers are labelled in game.

Well, I haven't been able to guess the lua for the S-3 yet, but I started work on bringing the default skin more into line with how VS-32 Vikings were painted, starting with the tail markings. The majority of lo-vis VS-32 images place the squadron on the USS America and it appears the squadron was part of CVW-1 (AB) for most, if not all, of their time in the S-3. Also wondering why the new Aero-1D fuel tank models were held back since they aren't exclusive to the tanker variant.

+1 If a weapon is already in game that an aircraft should have access to, then that weapon should be added to that aircraft as soon as possible. There's absolutely no reason not to.

Pretty sure there was only 1 stock B-17 skin before the competition, that being the bare metal, yellow tailed D-Day Doll. It would be really nice to have more than one skin for the new AI in the core game and assuming it takes a livery competition to do it then I see no problem with that. However, that shouldn't prevent us from being able to make our own custom liveries that could be used privately or put up on user files for everyone to use. Whether it's a full template or just a basic description.lua, ED needs to do something to restore this basic functionality to the new AI models.

Well I think this conversation has about run it's course. If not maybe a new thread needs to be started since this one was supposed to be about whether the F-4E can perform AAR not how hard it is irl vs on a screen in a completely different jet. Since it obviously can and the OP already has an answer I think it's about time this argument ended given nobody appears to be changing their minds and become less likely to do so the more this drags on. In other actual F-4E refueling news, Cobra said on the Discord a while back that we will also be getting an optional refueling probe to simulate Israeli F-4's as well as other customization features to make the -E appear more like the foreign operator versions.

That's the same thing it did for all the old skins, and the new one I attempted to make. The livery name line and country assignments are the same across all skins so it sees those but ignores the bad callouts and just uses the default livery because you didn't change anything it was looking for. All it would take is for the ED artist that made the skins to release a default descrition.lua for all the models. That way they don't have to unencrypt the model if they really don't want to and we can still make skins. Releasing a high quality template would be much better but people made higher quality skins for the previous old AI models, I see no reason they can't up the quality themselves for these except for the fact that they shouldn't have to.