Temetre

Small correction, the Mav can actually be controlled by the WSO. So somewhere there is doubling of wires. Not sure if the WSO could theoretically control Bullpups (which wouldnt make much sense ofc). Otherwise I assume youre correct, the TGPs were pretty new and specifically wired for the WSO to be used. It also requires many buttons which are only available at the rear seat, so theres little point for the pilot being able to control the POD.

Youre doing it right, boresight is the most useful and reliable way to lock in ACM. Afaik the intention behind the CAA mode is more to get a quick lock for the gun radar.

Some of those question were answered on the HB discord, eg recently when SA-6/8 launch warnings got removed. The F4s RWRs launch warnings relied on detecting the launchers command guidance, but only in the C/D band. So the SA-6 isnt giving launch warnings anymore, because its command guidance is outside of those bands. Otherwise the F4 does 'rank' the threat of radars based on preprogrammed features, frequency, signal strength, etc. So its quite advanced in that regard. Seems to me like launch warnings itself however were more of a specialized feature of the ALR-46 and dedicated to the more prolific soviet SAMs in NV, specifically the SA-2 guidelines. A lock by fighters produces a change in PRF, which the RWR detects and notices you off, but without any further warning. Generic launch warnings and alerts based on frequency changes, like we see in our Viper or Hornet, dont seem to exist in the F4s RWR. SA-15 probably uses command guidance in the C/D bands, so it can be detected, so thats a happy accident for sure. An active Aim-120 or R-77 apparently is set to automatically create a launch warning whenever they are spotted. Because the RWR can identify the missile by its radar and... well, theres no further info require that you are being engaged.

Thanks! Looks like there mustve been some miscommunication, I thought the 45B was in the works by ED since a while. Hope its not taking too long, the 45B is a pretty relevant weapon to the F4s more unique missions/feature sets!

Yup, to keep up with the rapid development and upgrades of the US 4th gen it wouldve been necessary to treat theirs the same. Additionally its not without precedent that the soviets develope sets of equipment that dont quite go hand in hand or get pushed into service despite substantial flaws.

Interesting discussion. Im surprised there wasnt much consideration that the SPO/radar conflict might just be a design flaw. Even if this version of the SPO was made to work with the radar, there can be unintended issues in the final implementation. And with analogue hardware the fix might be difficult, even if the problem doesnt get burried by politics or concerns over cost. Such a problem might be hard to understand looking at the plane from our perspective. The Mig-29 is obviously not design to have this flaw, nor might it have been fully understood, so its not gonna be an included issue in every manual. Assuming its realistic, Im glad shortcomings like this are modelled, it makes modules feel more real and teaches you something about the technology behind our aircrafts. Love that aspect of the F-4E Phantom, with all its weird quirks. And I do hope other RWRs are improved as well. Its a mistake to frame this as a 'blue vs red' thing; Tomcat pilots are annoyed at the F16/18s uncanny ability to notch all the time, while the F16 RWR is otherwise a lot less capable than the real thing.

All that ship borne 'fire control' stuff is really fascinating imo, thats part of what made those Bofors so nasty. Sometimes DCS' has AA be too accurate, but those Bofors really did put a stop to much of the japanese airbone anti shipping. In DCS I find attacking ships with dumb bombs is really hard. I managed to take out soviet SA-8 equipped corvettes by high altitude drops of HOBOS (MK-24s with optical seeker) at best.

As Aapje said, its quite subjective, and some maps like Marianas have weird performance anomalies that hit different PCs in different ways. You gotta find whats best for yourself, the downside with VR is that it really requires some fiddling around. But I can give you my perspective if you want: Personally I try to go for gameplay and performance over visual quality in VR. You get a unique VR experience even if its not ultra detailed. Gameplay wise I try to make sure I can spot planes and ground targets, so image clarity and smoothness is important. Performance wise I try to stay above 60fps and also look for lag/stutter, or if I get 'black edges' when turning my head quickly. Being landed and FPS being a bit lower isnt that big of a deal, but flying low during bombing runs or A2A knifefights does reward good performance. A lot of it really comes down to 'feel' with VR: Does the way the game run feel good to you? Or does it feel better if you with high performance, or high res?

I dont use FSR, anything but maybe FSR4 is gonna suck. For Nvidia, even the newest DLSS/DLAA apparently causes issues. My resolution is set to ~2000x2000 per eye in my Pico4 software, and DCS is just told to render that 'natively' with PD 1.0, so no upscaling. Make sure you dont got 3000x2000 per eye set in your Quest 3 software, that would kill performance on almost any GPU. Below that, there is 'use DCS system resolution' which is on, that boosts performance. I got 'enable HMD mask' but that doesnt do anything without MSAA afaik.

I get mostly >60fps at ~4000x2000 on a 6800 XT in the F-4E with liberation missions (dynamic campaign), so it should be possible for you to stay above 60. Not quite as stable as Id like, but quite usable. Youll have to lower some graphics settings, but thats always the case with VR, you gotta experiment a bunch. Personally Id recommend you to try to go for higher FPS, at least to me the smoother experience, including better frame-stability and lower lag makes a big difference to VR enjoyment. It is quite subjective tho.

You wanna send me your now useless 9070 XT

Other guy gave you good advice, sadly your PC probably wont cut it. But if you wanna plan for the future, some thoughts that might or might not be helpful: 1. With VR, performance is more important than in 2D, it makes a massive difference as to how good or bad the VR experience feels. Its very subjective, but you want low lag and probably at least 60fps, even in somewhat busy missions. 2. You also want a high, preferably native resolution headset to be able to read gauges and spot+identify targets. From my Pico4, 4000x2000 seems alright. Image gotta be sharp, upscaling from lower res' can make planes cockpits unusable. Even the newest DLSS is a bit of a double edged sword I hear, hurts eg spotting ability. 3. Your CPU is very likely too weak for a good+stable VR experience. Last gen mid end CPUs like my I5 12400 are fine for DCS VR tho; AMD equivalent would be 3600/2600 or so. 4. GPU performance is too weak for a good experience, even a 3080 would be borderline. I got a somewhat stronger 6800 XT for DCS VR, thats not amazing, but about where I can comfortably play real missions at 4200/2100 res. 5. Importantly, you want a GPU with at least 16GB of VRAM for memory intensive games like DCS in VR. Anything below is not really worth. 6. Im playing on 32GB of (CPU) 3ghz DDR4 RAM and its fine. More could be better tho. 7. Dont plan on 'switching to VR'. Virtual reality is really cool, but both VR and 2D DCS can have their benefits. Some prefer VR, others go back to 2D; personally Im using whatever fits my current situation. If you wanna upgrade, you need to replace your entire PCs inside. Biggest point of pain will be, as usual, GPUs. With current gen GPUs, youd want either a 5070 TI or 9070 XT. From what I can tell, everything else either lacks hardware power or video memory for a 'good' DCS VR experience.

From my testing using cable didnt improve anything notable compared to a USB Wifi stick. Lag and stability was basically the same, assuming theres line of sight from stick to headset; Wifi6 is really bad at barrier penetration. I prefer not using cable for comfort and considering it seems like the USB-C port is the easiest bit to break. Additionally you can connect a compact powerbank to remove the battery-limit for sessions.

Thats how I usually see people describe it. The nav system of our F-14 (without B(U)/GPS/PTID upgrades) isnt accurate enough to be the solo source for precise bombing.

Tbh if its useful and realistic, whats speaks against it besides the time+money spent to implement it? I like when the AI WSO/RIO is being helpful, also adds to the immersion, makes you feel like the backseaters isnt just an interface but actually being helpful. Somehow I thought Jester already does the callout, but I mustve imagined that

Seems like generally the F110s werent fitted as well for the Tomcat; most of them stayed on TF30s anyway. A bit ironic that despite all of that, the 30s had more issues with stalling. Guess they really like getting maximum, undisturbed ram air effect. Could be interesting to compare the fuel usage in mach 1.6 - 2 afterburner. Tho im too lazy for that currently.

I was reading a bit of this thread and was thinking 'the F4 does a lot of the F111 thing on a smaller (and less computer assisted) scale' HB has officially F14-early/F4-DMAS, Eurofighter and A6, very likely F-14B(U), probably naval F-4 on their platter. Wouldnt get hopes up about an F111 in any appreciable timeframe, even IF HB would say theyd like to do it. That said... being mostly a solo player two seaters always felt like a drawback to me, but Jester 2 is so easy to use/powerful/even kinda immersive, I think a HB F111 would be quite interesting.

Its probably worth considering that the APQ-120 in 1980 was also just, under any circumstances, hopelessly outdated compared to F-14/15/16. The more advanced multirole concept, like defending yourself in A2G missions without dropping bombs was only really experimented with the F-18. And, as others said, the F-Tens were massive money sinks with lots of incredible advanced features, but also many problems that required fixing. The engines were a mess till the mid 80s after all! Even Germany, who got F4s mainly as a stop gap measure, only upgraded their Phantoms so much because the Eurofighter program had massive delays. Greece and Turkey kept their F4s mainly in active reserve because of Turkey and Greece. The USAF F-4s did get some upgrades, like the DMAS with its digital INS/nav/computer system. But that was specifically a light, low cost upgrade, and reflected its kater role as a strike aircraft with basic self defense capabilties.

You probably want to figure out a very basic intercept course at first, depending on the targets bearing and heading+speed. Doesnt have to be overly precise, but its useful to get there to give Jester the best ability to lock. I wouldnt purely rely on the lock to get an intercept course; sometimes the call is more than enough and you can just use the Boresight mode for a good and easy lock. Against AI I find Jester gets locks reliably enough tho. A lot of people seem to make mistakes not considering altitude; if you dont wanna play with radar elevation, it helps to be slightly lower than your target. Thats best for the default scan volume and the radar likes the lack of clutter anyway. If you are somewhat certain about the targets direction, you can switch radar to 30 degree scan, that can speed up acquisition. Against low flying human players, things can get a lot more complicated. You often cant really guarantee to get a useful lock, especially at ranges where Aim-7s are effective, due to the 4 second delay. Again, getting your own intercept course, having SA and spotting enemies yourself is quite valuable.

I do sometimes have talks with people about where green ends and blue starts. I have no problems with color visions, but at times my brain interpretes those colors differently than many others With reflections and different lighting conditions it only gets more complex. Our brains always try to estimate what a color would look like under 'normal' light conditions before determining what color it actually is. Its messy and can border on religion. So no wonder people struggle with stuff like modelling how light works in model planes. For those who know:

Theres been a lot of talk on the HB forums about the complexity of Aim-54 guidance and its limited simulation in DCS. I dont think there was any talk of there being a big rework of the DCS missile API. And im not sure these limitations have much to do with the topics points, like the missiles acchieved speed or notably affect the tracking capability. Its two issues if I remember correctly: 1. The DCS missile API isnt complex enough to fully replicate the mixture of active/semi-active/guidance-commands over the two missiles and the many different launch modes. So its a bit dumbed down, like the Aim-54C uses coder more akin to a 120, but is generally realistic. 2. In part thanks to overly accurate RWRs in many modules, its too easy to notch the F14/Aim-54. That one is another common talking point. Engines perform very differently over different altitudes/speeds/angle of attacks etc, and apparently the F-14A engines actually can outperform the 14Bs acceleration in this very specific scenario. Probably combined with a slight drag advantage over the Bs engines. The 14B beats it handily in efficiency and being more consistently powerful/efficient over different flight regimes. Also reliability of course.

Tbf in reality pilots apparently lowered the volume to almost minimum as well, because it just gave so many warnings.

Btw is it actually false warning? I thought it was more like the 21s RWR, where it just picks up radar from the entire battlefield but cant seperate them effectively. Outside of the own radar interference, that sounds pretty troubling.

And youre not wrong with that. Maybe im bad at communicating it, but I think the difference isnt quite as big as people sometimes think. For example, is an F4 more suitable for solo operation than a Mig-21 in DCS? Sure! Yet if the Mig-21 gets AWACS support (like EWRS mod), it will immediately dominate the F4 in terms of SA. Give it real soviet style GCI and its not even funny anymore. I would assume the Mig-29 has better SA than the F4 tho, aside from the RWR. Its radar is superior and so is the view out of the cockpit. Aerodynamics/thrust also helps navigating and reacting to dangerous situations. The SPO15 is a weakpoint, but it can see SARH launches I 'think', which the F4 cant.

Why? You can just mute or disable the RWR in situations where it doesnt help.