Temetre

I find this requirement for 2FA for tirlas really disappointing, the Google Authenthicator comes with a ton of issues. From privacy issues, security concerns, to potentially getting locked out of an account (eg if the smartphone breaks). Using GA will actually reduce my general level of security, not enhance it. In the meanwhile, I never ever had a problem with an account (connected to paid content) getting stolen, in my entire life. This also follow a path of ED that just seems disrespectful for its customers and supporters. The lockout of steam/standalone being used at the same time, and now the forced 2FA is creating an ever less pleasant user experience with more restrictions and garbage forced onto me. @BIGNEWY I hope ED is getting some feedback about how their treatment of costumers has been getting more obnoxious. Im willing to deal with the aggressive DRM and high pricing, because they make amazing stuff. But limiting access to this is getting more problematic.

Tbh I think a lot of people here got a quite america- or at least vietnam-centric view. That is DCS though. The plane variants are so exact, you almost never get a perfect matchup for anything. Thats just not possible. The F-4E well get is imo a good choice because its quite versatile, especially if you limit equipment.

According to the manuals ive seen only outboard and center station take brrt pods

Tbf im meming too. But yeh, armchair internet discussions are fun. After all were pretend flying military aircraft in a video game

Oh you too?

First time on the internet?

Tbf its a bit of a guessing game, but my money is on the F-4E being generally more agile and capable than the Mig-21Bis. The Mig has high instantaneous turn, but thats the only thing it got really. And maybe the emergency afterburner, but thats more of a gimmick. I tend to believe that the Mig-21Bis in DCS is unrealistically controllable at high AoA though. Its quite easily flyable up to 30 AoA or so, and only then departs. In reality it probably would be worse than the F-14, with control close to 30 AoA becoming ever harder. Ofc thats all speculation, Im very curious to see where the plane will fall. So the early E would suffer even more? In that case this seems like a strange statement indeed. With the F-15 A-C Id be way more ready to believe it. Thank you for expanding on the Viper bit! While I dont fully disagree, Id be willing to argue just a bit against that: Air supremacy isnt about destroying fighters, its about controlling the air space and limiting the enemy ability to do things with aircraft. The US still managed to drop a huge amount of bombs on Vietnam; the SAM/AA-coverage limited their effectiveness, just like in Kosovo, but it didnt effectively stop the bombing. With more of a direct challenge to american air supremacy, Hanoi wouldve had an easier time Id feel. In Ukraine nobody really has true air supremacy, its a mostly contested airspace. Hence fighters and Helis are very limited in what they can do there.

Idk if Aerges can optimize texture usage, but mind its a quite detailed module, and the BE with two seats naturally takes more memory. Similarly the F-14 or F-15E have more FPS impact because theyre two-seaters.

Mig-21s in Vietnam were more of a minor factor in the war, no matter how interesting that bit of history is historically and especially to americans. Otoh, Mig-21Bis was built in the thousands, it might actually be the most produced variant of the Mig-21, and its interesting for not being an export model. The iranian F-14s saw the most combat, but theyre the odd ones out. Theyre not US-Navy carrier aircraft, which is the purposeful design of the plane, and only make up a fraction of the >700 F-14s built. Neither can you claim an 80/90s F-14 A/B is the most modern one. As for the F-16, they were around for Desert Storm, Afghanistan, Iraq War and make up to this day one of the most used modern fighter jet in the world? Maybe not always in the most recent C-version, but having a modern networked 2000s jet is obviously pretty relevant as well. Still not the most modern version of it btw, those models are almost 20 years old now. Gotta be honest, a lot of the time people say "DCS always has the newest and coolest variant", those people then ask for early and rather unique variants of the planes instead. That just makes no sense, not even as a hyperbole. Even if you ignore the weird implication that earlier variants are somehow inherently more relevant than newer variants.

Just a guess, maybe its connected to video memory usage? You hit 9gb of your 10gb in that one screen, and with continually worsening performance it could be a culprit. Easiest check would be to just lower textures to minimum and see if the issue persists.

Its hard to draw judgement calls from early anecdotes like that tho. Also, are we talking F-14s with TF-30s, and are early F-15Es lighter? In that case it wouldnt be hard to judge why they mightve felt that way. F-14B is quite a different beast Id say.

I think that was more the result of the reformers/fighter mafia pushing low tech fighters. But mind that their conclusions were mostly wrong, and the Viper mainly got good when they put a bunch of tech into it. Afaik the Vietnam results of the F4 wasnt much about the planes dogfighting performance really. More about lack of BFM training, and fighting from a very difficult position. Mind there was a huge number of F-4s carried bombs or escorted strike groups, which mostly got threatened by SAMs and got very rarely ambushed by Migs. So the Migs almost always had the upper hand at the start of the battle. When the Migs got baited into longer dogfights, it seems like the Phantoms often won out. At the end of the war the Phantoms had a 3 to 1 kill ratio against Migs though. So even with those problems they proved superior in A2A combat, which includes dogfights and "no-BVR" rules. Subsonic designs like Mig-15/17 might have inherently good low speed handling tho, compared to supersonic fighters.... not sure

You think the Mig-21 and Mirage F1 will outturn the F4E, that would be the ~75? Im relatively convinced that wont be a thing, probably not even the F-5 with its silly underpowered engine. F-16A introduction is a bit later I think, but yeah, that will beat anything.

I wanna know what aircraft you think is better in the same scenario/year xD Seems pretty realistic by all accounts, I dont think its overmodelled. Compared to, say, the Mig-21 thats perfectly stable till you hit 30 AoA or so where it departs

Tho I suspect the F-4 E might end up being the best dogfighter in 1975, short of an F-14A. Probably better at turning and nose control than most things flying around, and with pretty strong rating-performance to boot. What do you guys think?

Are we playing the same game? Almost no full fidelity module in DCS is the most modern version. Most of them are the most heavily used variants in fact. Also late 60s isnt even close to the best variant of the SA-2, they had like 90s upgrades and stuff. Tbf Id like to know what exactly was ment there. If were talking IR-sams, manpads or the general SA/reaction time of SAMs, then they are kinda OP. Let alone anti air guns. Or my personal nemesis, that nighttime iron sight anti-air T72 turret gunner shooting down my F-14

But the F-16 has a bunch of stuff too. Like, a much more modern wing design, with stuff like vortex generators that should help at low speed/high AoA. Also less draggy design, and FBW should also help with optimizing use of lift+control surfaces. The modern engine is probably also more versatile over different flight regimes, so maybe better at low speed/high AoA than the F4s old turbojets? Id be surprised if the F4 can keep up with that, but Id be very curious to try. The Viper really isnt *that* bad at low speed maneuvering, it just suffers against other 4th gens, which include some of the best 'one turn' dogfighters ever made. I would find it seriously impressive if the Phantom can keep up with that!

People keep saying that, but were flying Mig-21s just fine without tanking. Idk, its still got a ton of thrust and a powerful FBW, even at slow speed. I havent tried it, but feels like it should be able to outturne 3rd gen planes at low speeds.

Id be curious, but not willing to spend money on the module. Im pretty sure the F-4G would require a dedicated human backseater thats willing to learn the Gs backseat operation, and thats something very rare. I feel thats way more niche than eg F-14 or F-4E backseaters. So no, Id probably never get to "really" use the F-4G in the way its supposed to be used. Obviously that might create a bias in me, but IIRC ED once said something like only 10-15% of DCS' players ever step into an online server. Then consider the filters, how many of those: 1. Play reguarly with the same people 2. Wanna be mostly in the backseat 3. Wanna learn the F-4G EW equipment operation, which is apparently extremely theory-heavy and requires you to do stuff like identify radars by ear Obviously theres gonna be some people, and theres nothing wrong with this. If HB can make a 4G for them, cool. But thats gotta be a tiny target audience, compared to something like the F-4E.

It definitively is a main issue, but whatever Heatblur does, they have to do the economic calculation as well. They cant make a module thats not financially viable. Obviously we cant know how the calculation on that would looke on an F-4G, but I suspect it would be a much harder sell than an F-4E or F-4J/S. Yes, Viper/Hornet radars have been improved massively. The biggest issue of DCS is probably that orientation of aircraft has no effect on RCS currently. Even Mirage just does some naive assumptions about detection range depending on aspect, because theres nothing hardcoded or so.

Yup, its apparently realistic, the F-14 is just a bit weird in this regard. Its got less AP-functionality than some older planes like some of the F-4s or A-4s apparently. Or rather, the AP only works in some directed modes, like carrier landing and maybe some datalink control modes (IIRC not implemented or outdated for our F-14).

Mb try to disable sharpening? That can cause artefacts sometimes, when lighting effects are exaggerated by it.

To be fair, Im happy to hear there is something coming either way.^^ From the posts HB is pretty clear that this degradation is mostly apparent in campaigns where wear/tear applies after multiple missions. Otherwise its gonna be more stuff like damaging your craft by overstepping the G-limit of components, for example. I dont think thatll be too extreme. If we talk about absurd situatons where an enemy can over-G like crazy but you cant because of the wear/tear... I dont think thatll feel too bad, considering how much ahead the F-4 is to contemporary planes.

Huh, so they got a better damage model in WW? Thats peculiar that its not available to cold war planes then Or maybe what Zabu on the HB discord mean was specifically missiles, that their AoE damage is too simplistic to allow more localized frag damage. Tbf thats apparently mostly a bug with the first pavespike, and it got improved with a software update^^ I imagine its gonna be rather clunky to use. But hey, LGBs in the 1970s must be crazy! I wouldnt mind that at all, generally it would be nice to have some more universal APIs for stuff like radar or so, that 3rd party devs could build on (if they dont want to make their own). A while ago Razbam announced they are making their own AI for the F-15E backseat, but IIRC they said it might come after release.

Funnily enough, the F-4E should still be one of the best front aspect attack planes in that era. Its got Aim7-E/Fs after all Depending on scenario, the 1977 Aim-9L is also the first all aspect variant. (though not quite the first actively cooled Aim-9 afaik)