Stackup

You're right, I don't like opinions that don't agree with mine. Given your posts here I can also say that I'm sorry you don't like opinions that don't agree with yours. That's the point of having your own opinion. I can accept that you have yours and I have mine and that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but others are NOT required to agree with it. The only person who seems to be loudly opposed to the F-4E is you. Are there others that agree with you? Who are these people that the F-4E is the last thing they want? Also, where are they? I've seen a lot of people excited about the F-4E and not many people besides you against it. Also, on your point about being prolific, the F-4E is also very prolific as you just stated in your own post. Lots of countries made modifications to their F-4E's meaning it has resulted in many many more different and unique sub-versions, or offspring if you will, than the F-4J. And sluggish? In what way, because the Agile Eagle slats certainly make it more maneuverable and others have posted charts that prove just that. It does have a worse radar, I'll grant you that, and I don't think anybody here would contest or argue that point. At the end of the day, you will never convince people that like the F-4E to agree with you because of your habit of aggressively belittling the plane they are excited about. You're just making them mad and honestly it's tiresome watching everyone go back and forth with the exact same arguments that go nowhere.

Uninteresting history is literally your own opinion stated countless times before by you. We get it you don't like the E model. So what? More countries used variants of the E model than any of the other Phantoms so it makes sense that to attract the widest possible range of Phantom enthusiasts, the one operated by the most countries makes perfect sense. You also appear to be refusing to acknowledge or accept that Heatblur has clearly stated that the F-4E is only the first Phantom they are releasing and it is different enough from the Navy/MC variants to warrant them being a fully separate module. Not a follow-on or whatever you want to call it. A full module in its own right. That to me is much better than the extended development time that just 3-4 versions of the F-14 has taken which also happens to be one of the other reasons given by Heatblur for the two being completely separate modules. The development time is shorter for the smaller module package. Sure we aren't getting a Navy Phantom first, but one is coming nonetheless. Like you, I would actually prefer to be getting a Navy model like the F-4J first, before an Air Force version, but we aren't. Accept that. Stop complaining and telling everyone else that they are wrong and the F-4E is the worse choice. That isn't up to you since you aren't the one spending the time and money making the module. By all means, make your own if you want. Alternatively, the VSN team is currently working on a custom clickable cockpit for their F-4 Phantom mod which includes the B and J models. Worth a look since there's clearly not going to be a Navy Phantom for a while but I expect that it will come after the A-6. I'm sure it will be worth the wait when it comes out, but in the meantime, stop deriding fans of the F-4E for liking and appreciating an "inferior version".

The crew of the USS Forrestal gathered on the flight deck to wish a snooping Badger a Merry Christmas before the uninvited party-crasher was escorted away by a pair of VF-11 Tomcats. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to Heatblur and the DCS community!

Is the average layperson is buying DCS modules though? I don't have any data on who is buying, but the steep learning curve on most modules and the almost necessity of a HOTAS and head tracking(yes I am aware some do without either of those) means that DCS, and flightsims in general anyways, are a niche market. There will always be some people who are disappointed in a module due to not understanding its role, capabilities, or the timeframe in which it was used. I do not think these are the majority of players.

Everything that I've heard tells me that Combined Arms is significantly lacking in some areas so it would need an overhaul to be able to properly simulate the radar sites that the Ewar systems would be countering. All that stuff is on ED's end though as that would be an addition to one of their modules and the base game itself.

Whether they are consoled by that would be irrelevant since they knowingly bought a plane that had relatively ineffective weapons that were generally deployed outside of the weapons envelope. So imo it's on them for making that decision so long as the module was advertised as being from that period with those weapons. Having said that, I would like to see the J variant to get the tail end of Vietnam and the later weapon systems. It would also be cool to have the option to use the early weapons like the AIM-4 on the E model and the early AIM-9 and AIM-7 variants while still having access to the later versions(assuming the variant chosen had the ability to carry them all). That would put the available loadouts into the hands of the mission planners and allow both early and late conflicts to have era appropriate weapons even if the specific plane variant did not serve in the conflict. The MiG-21 and F-5 we have for example have early missile variants available to simulate a more Vietnam era mission even though the specific plane variant never served in the war. In any case, with the amount of variants needed to model a specific year of a specific operation or war, we will never be able to proper simulate everything that we could think of entirely accurately and will generally have to be satisfied with at least some level of historical inaccuracies due to the limitations of the DCS map and plane sets as well as the availability( or lack thereof) of the proper AI ground and naval assets.

Maybe they'll revisit the E model later on to do a hard wing. After the Eurofighter, A-6, and Navy Phantom of course though.

Afaik both versions of the F-4E we are getting will be equipped with the Agile Eagle upgrade package which included leading edge slats.

Whoa there, this isn't Star Citizen. The goalpost is the same as it always was, to create the most accurate simulation of the F-14 Tomcat possible. What changed was the information the developers had and how they implemented it into DCS. DCS is designed to be realistic, not balanced. If new information comes to light, then things change, that's the nature of DCS and early access. You clearly disagree and that's okay, but few people seem to think the same as you. If you really think in this paranoid mindset, why you are still responding? If everyone is against you, why not remove yourself from that situation? Seems to me like it would be a lot less stressful...

This is exactly why I like DCS. Whether their planes are fully accurate or not will only really be known to those who flew them. I will never be able to fly a Tomcat in real life so this is what I have and I choose to make the best of it. Never argued that fact. The key is comparable skill and the Tomcat takes a lot of skill to fly correctly. The pilot is important as if one pilot knows an exploit to win the match against a specific plane that pilot will generally win against a less skilled opponent. That doesn't mean that the "man in the box" is the only thing that matters but skill is also an important factor and by that same token, the habits that let him win in the past might one day no longer work. Like an ace Zero pilot thinking he's facing a Wildcat and going vertical when in reality he is facing a Hellcat. His prior experience got him killed. In a battle of equally skilled pilots the plane and weapons do make the difference, there's no question about that but we have no way of knowing who is the more skilled in the case of this thread. I know I'm not the best at BFM and it's sometimes frustrating, but I don't go around complaining about it on forums when I lose either.

Opinion without evidence is not fact. I can think of countless times that HB devs have reiterated that accuracy is their only concern when making changes to their modules. I don't think there's any advice I could give you tbh. You continually blame the airplane and the devs/FM for your troubles which tells me you think the jet sucks and there's no way it can win. It also makes me think that this situation would happen with any plane you chose to fly if you got beat. It would never be your skills at fault, only excuses like the plane sucks or the devs suck. And then on top of that, you reject every suggestion given by anyone in this thread. You want actionable advice? I suggest beat the AI. I know it isn't the same as PvP but you will stay alive longer and can even set them to hold fire so they can't shoot. This might further increase your ability to predict your opponent's moves and how best to counter them. Alternatively you could read real world documentation on the subject and see what you can learn but you will not get better if you complain on forums instead of spending that time actually flying the plane. You can't get better at something if you never do it.

I'm sure you would. Becoming a better pilot is clearly too much of an inconvenience for you. This really tells me all I need to know, but for the record, your F-14B is exactly the same as everyone else's.

Maybe what will? Practice?

Every change they make is to improve realism. They won't change it back unless you have substantial real world evidence to back it up. Complaining about it will get you nowhere. Practicing with the "new" flight model will help you improve.

I don't know what everyone else does, but a lot of the 1v1 guns I do against AI or players in either Tomcat involves dropping the flaps at some point. This will generally break the airframe if you are going too fast but can increase your turn rate or slow speed handling for just long enough to snag the kill. I tend to only do this below 230kts to avoid having the flaps get stuck out. Nobody can or has altered your flight model in any way besides HeatBlur whenever they make an update. Nor will that specifically target any client. If you feel otherwise about server admins, look for a server that requires pure client, etc. but they can't change the performance of one particular player. In any case, if an aircraft that can out rate you is flown properly, guess what? It will in fact out rate you. At the end of the day, especially in 1v1 guns the outcome will usually come down to who is the better pilot. That's how experienced A-4 and F-5 pilots could beat Tomcat pilots in dogfights during the initial part of Top Gun training. The rookies hadn't fully grasped all the concepts yet and so a superior pilot in an inferior airplane was able to beat the inferior pilot in the superior plane. Learn the plane and its quirks first but also remember to learn about the planes you are fighting against as well. What are they better at than you? What are you better at than them? At the end of the day, you probably just need more practice and to try some new techniques out.

I can see a desert colored .dds file in the skin folder and in model viewer. The skin doesn't load in model viewer or in the game though. Model viewer seems to be loading the summer skin in place of the desert skin even though it clearly opens the .dds file from the desert skin. Any info or help on this would be great, thanks.null

Yeah but GlowingAmraam was only responding to the first question, not the FPS counter post even if that did appear earlier. Still, I question the validity of the aforementioned VR, multithreading, and Vulkan being in the video because in my opinion an FPS counter in the corner and VR footage would be way below the level of quality that ED videos have.

nullThe refueling door removal is the last line of text with the custom arg. This one works for me when I reload the skin with the ground crew on mission start. It also shows as removed in the mission editor last I checked although it would then delete the rest of the refueling doors even on skins that still had it enabled. That's just an ME glitch though.

I do find it odd though that as stated in the FAQ, they announced the F-4 earlier than they wanted to due to "volume of interest and questions about the F-4." This is a similar story to the announcement of the full-fidelity A-6E module announcement from what I remember. If a large number of questions and interest is all it takes to get a full module announcement, why on earth is there no official, "We tried guys but we're still working as hard as possible to get it to you in a ready state next year?" I know it'll be a great module when it comes out and I commend Heatblur for trying to get it done by the end of the year but since that clearly won't happen some official communication of any sort would be nice.

No release, sure, but no news?

Well we got the gunsight in the 2022 and beyond video. It would be nice to see at least some exterior shots of the Phantom like they've been doing with the A-6 to at least tide us over until release.

Technically they haven't released the early F-14 yet. That is still delayed for the same reason as the F-4, the RWR feature as stated in that Facebook comment. The difference between the two F-14's as we have them now is the A model has TF-30 engines and the B model has the newer GE F-110 engines. Since both are 90's Tomcats equipped with LANTIRN capabilities for the A/G role, their systems are basically identical. The differences between the two F-4's is going to be more significant than an engine swap so I expect that either way it would still take a lot of time to develop the first variant no matter which option they chose because apart from the weapons, they can't reuse stuff from other aircraft they did not develop.

Pretty sure they plan to do that the other way around and plan to release the early F-4 first and then add the late/DMAS F-4 later. I don't remember where I saw that though. The FAQ says it will be like the F-14 release so at minimum they are releasing one first and then the other variant sometime after.

Does ED get a commission on 3rd party sales? I have never ever seen 2 major releases or patches happen in one month for DCS. If it happens, I'll be happy to be wrong, but I have yet to see any evidence besides wishful thinking.

Do you really think ED is willing to allow 2 major updates in one month? Especially when they just released BS3? It would be nice if HB would tell us that the Phantom has been delayed but they also said they'd release more info in the weeks before the release. That hasn't happened. Why don't they tell us? Seeing as none of us has paid them money for the F-4 yet, they are under no obligation whatsoever to tell us anything. We're all excited but we need to be realistic here...