PhantomHans

Just curious here, am I supposed to be waiting for the INS Alignment? I'll admit, as much as I love the F-14, and all of the other aircraft in DCS, I can't actually be bothered to do the start ups myself. I always just use the assisted start up hotkey. That leaves me waiting for quite a while for the INS alignment, which can...Take some time...

For some reason, I want to say, in a prior patch version I think he would allow you to progress all the way through it sitting in parking.

What kind of range are you talking? At longer range the bandit could be beaming you, which I think I have seen the AI do. That will, if you maintain lock, make your Rmax suddenly drop due to the loss of closure and your ASE will collapse. At shorter range it's possible he has gotten inside of Rmin but I think you should also be getting the Break X if that happens?

Glad to hear that. My machine is doing okay with FPS, it's just randomly choking and crashing lol.

I'd love to get that, but somehow I feel like getting a 9.12S or 9.13S is going to be a lot more difficult. In the meantime offering some of the capabilities of the FC3 9.12S in the otherwise 9.12A module might at least mean people can fly the full featured one with newer missiles. Provided that it's a totally separate AC so it can be excluded where desired. Would also be a good home for things like AGM-88 or GPS bombs on MiG-29s like we've seen recently. Stuff that you can't really model accurately right now. Make it a bonus module, heck maybe even make it available offline only. Perhaps it's too 'fudgy' for all the purists who don't want their AirQuake infected by anything less than 100% realism, like making educated guesses about how an R-27EP or AGM-88 on a MiG works.

That's perhaps the most maddening part about this whole thing, the way the missiles guide. I tried loading 4x and making my F4 invulnerable so I could keep a good radar signal and watch them home in. Watching them randomly wander off and hit trucks and launchers is kinda...Yhea...

Invulnerable and unlimited ammo, coming in straight from 20,000 ft so I don't stop getting a good lock on me, 26 Shrikes to kill the SA-3 track radar. These are worthless trash right now. They'll guide towards the general direction of the radar but them actually hitting it seems like a matter of luck.

Heatblur UI starting to look like the cause of my problems. If my firewall blocks it as malicious and kills the task I have a crash instantly every mission immediately at the start. If I allow it then I just crash randomly.

You're getting hits? I'm having a harder time dodging SA-3s than SA-6/8/10 lol. Probably going to just abandon this and use MK82s or Mavericks. I'm getting close enough to use bombs but if I try getting a Shrike to do it's thing I get wasted.

If this exists I'm an idiot and don't know it. I'd like a way to create and activate a Jester config file for both F-14 and F-4. A file to tell him, in one command, for example: "I want TWS Auto, chaff on program 1, flares on program 2, bombs single, ripple quantity 4, ripple timer 100ms, fuse nose and tail, CCIP mode." Basically a way to tell him to "Set it up how I usually like it."

Are those logs still useful/valid if opening them causes Winrar to throw an unexpected end of archive message? I think I have a ton in there but all are .rar files.

I thought I noticed better performance in narrow scan than wide. I was gonna say something but...I wasn't sure. Makes me want to ask a few things... First, can we get an even lower tickrate or can we get a "Low CPU" model that's DRASTICALLY simpler and lower demand. Second, as another separate option can we get a configuration file to limit the jet to narrow scan or make it default to narrow scan and prevent Jester from going wide unless told?

I'm on an OC'd FX8350, so, yhea...Could be something else. Other than my random crashes, so far I'm reasonably happy. Reduced Tickrates seemed to improve my stability and fps slightly. I'm not familiar with OC on that chip... On air I would, after making sure something else isn't the problem, if you can OC it, do so very carefully and very mild.

What's your current CPU cooler? Air or liquid? I wouldn't expect miracles, but, for now, if you're OK with overclocking it a little bit you may get it atleast playable.

So, I'm playing on an older setup, I have HEAVILY slashed graphics settings, but find I'm able to keep 30+ FPS quite easily and often enough to get to my 60 fps limit. That said I am having very frequent random crashes. I'll be flying along with no problems or stutters, and suddenly DCS freezes. Only happens with the F-4 module. I'm noticing large numbers of HeatblurUI running at these crashes. DCS rarely offers me the chance to do a bug report. And the weirdest thing is that when it's the DCS "DCS has crashed" report instead of the Windows "program not responding" one, about 1/2 the time I can alt-tab back to DCS and keep playing. I'm hoping there's going to be a fix for this in the future even if it's going to come at the cost of sim details or something.

They did lots of other weird stuff but didn't they also "slant load" the inboard pylons at some point? 750s on the bottom and inboard TER mounts leaving room for one AIM-9 rail and missile each side?

I've had this same issue as well but I'm also just getting poor radar performance out of Jester. Flying at 13,000ft looking for targets at 15,000 to 20,000 he can't seem to find them until WVR.

Way back in rue days of LOMAC, EM was an ER with more range. EA was an ER wirh R77 seeker head. IMHO while the regular 29 shouldn't get things that are rumors or it can't actually use (As a 9.12A, I think somebody said only 10 got the R-77 launching upgrade), I think perhaps having a separate aircraft that can use them would be good for balance on some servers against modern NATO aircraft even if nothing else is changed. This may also include guided AG weapons not normally carried by a 9.12 model.

I remember reading a thread somewhere in here about R-27ER/ET/P/EP/EA/EM and R-77 for the full feature MiG-29 and the general consensus being that it wouldn't get them. That's accurate and that's fine. But at least for the time being, can we perhaps get a second one labeled as "Experimental" or something like that to allow access to those type of inaccurate or questionable weapons? That way servers can simply exclude the entire A/C that may have inappropriate features, but in SP we'll have the option to include hypothetical upgrade models of the 29 in missions.

That's all I had ever seen it carry in photos. I was hoping people in here would know for sure. I wondered if any of its 3rd world users had ever been forced to bolt on older weapons though.

They're very similar missiles. The 9J was the improved version of the 9E. Entered production in 1972. AIM-9N was originally the J-1, has some redesigned circuit boards for better seeker performance. Dates to 1973. The 9P is an improvement over the 9N, but was sponsored by the USAF mainly for export sale. It seems that some found their way into USAF service anyway. The 9P base model is a 9N with a bit more range, deliveries starting 1978. (I previously called it a 9J with more range but I suppose it's actually a J-1 aka N derivative) P-1 had a new fuze, P-2 a lower smoke motor, P-3 improved lots of small things like construction, strength, reliability, etc. P-4 added the 9L's all aspect seeker technology and P-5 added improved countermeasures resistance. No idea when each came into service. TLDR: 9E -> 9J -> 9N -> 9P -> 9P-3 -> 9P-5, P-5 is all aspect. P-1,P-2,P-4 not yet in game AFAIK. Each is better than the last but a 9L or 9M is better than a P-5.

From what I understand: During the Vietnam Era the USAF preferred using the pair of wing tanks. The USN preferred using a single centerline tank, despite the risk of a bridle slap puncturing the tank during launch. It seems this was a trim/balance/handling thing. The centerline tank would obstruct the forward AIM-7s but you can always jettison it in order to fire them. It would not have prevented them being loaded. Later on the preference among most or all users switched to the centerline tank. During the later part of the Phantoms career, the use of F-15 centerline tanks became common as they were rated for more Gs. You'll find that the F-4G used the center tank almost exclusively to keep the wings open for missiles.

Is he on an old school HDD instead of an SSD, and if so, could that be his issue? My vintage POS box is an FX8350 I've OC'd to 4.6ghz, 32gb of 1600mhz DDR3 pushed close to 1700, no paging file, and a 6gb RTX 2060 which isn't really great, but OS and game installed on SSD... The F-4E module is causing me random crashes and I had to drop my detail settings for it to get acceptable FPS. I get FPS in the 30-60 (my FPS cap) range in simple missions with the F-4E. For example, 2v2 F-4E vs MiG-21 on the Nevada map. My problem with the F-4E module so far is the random crashes rather than FPS although I admit my system is DEFINITELY struggling with it. I can't tell if my crashes are CPU or GPU related, but I REALLY hope that somebody from Heatblur (Maybe I should @IronMike?) will see if they can make another option, at least for a while, to heavily chop away at some of the F-4E's level of detail in systems modeling and help out those of us with sucky systems. Even if it's a single-player only feature, at least for now, it would be great to be able to simplify it's modeling while it's teething and being improved. Obviously, I am due for a new motherboard, RAM, and processor...But...Look it's what I've got...Tax return time...Or maybe my next quarterly bonus check... My usual DCS settings: Where I've turned it all down to get the F-4E flying so far in simple 2v2 type missions:null

OK I want to ask about the radar. Why can't Jester break out radar contacts beyond visual range? I've been flying 1v1 against MiG-21, MiG-23, etc, and I have yet to see radar lock before I had the little dot of the enemy aircraft in sight. I understand that the F-4E radar wasn't long range, but I was expecting to get contacts at ranges of something like 20 miles, not ranges of 5-10 miles. @IronMike I wonder if someone from HeatBlur can weight in on this. I thought I heard the radar was based on "true raycasting" which I thought was a graphics thing. Is it possible that my low end graphics settings are screwing something up for the implementation of this system?

I don't think the one Heatblur has modeled would have been able to do so. There were at least two variants in service in numbers that could do so. The Luftwaffe F-4F ICE could carry the AIM-120, but among other upgrades featured the APG-65 radar. The F-4E AUP used by the Greek air force had a similar upgrade package. IIRC, Japan had some F-4EJ upgraded to "EJ Kai" standard that included a more modern radar, can't remember if it was APG-65, 66, or 68 or something like that, but their upgrade did not include the AIM-120. So, yes, but not the ones we have in game. Although I'd really love to see an F-4F ICE some day for DCS.