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Biggus

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Everything posted by Biggus

  1. The closest we have in DCS today is the Mirage 2000's TAF datalink, which is a bit more informative to the crew due to the TID-like presentation. It's still steering information on a single contact to plot an intercept. You'll only gain SA on that single contact. The real place that SA was gained with the Link 4A system was in the E-2, especially when visual ID was required for IFF. And in the days of early AWG-10s where they'd often break during the sortie, being able to steer a fighter into a firing solution with their fox-2s was probably well worth the effort. The utility of the system within DCS is questionable without a better AI controller scheme and without player controller tools, though. The datalink in the F-14 was capable of steering the aircraft remotely just like the Phantom. It's not modelled within DCS. I'm hopeful that at some point all this will be worth adding to the sim.
  2. Yeah, I'm seeing the same. It's been pretty common to have a short blackout for a long time for me, but it was never every single launch, and now it seems to last longer during the cat shot.
  3. @BaronVonVaderham I'd second contacting their support. I've heard of their system having some difficulties with some addresses before and it's generally been fixed pretty quickly.
  4. Fair point of view. I'd argue that it was a relatively tiny space of time that took us from the Bullpup to the Maverick, though. If it's in that manual and has any amount of space devoted to it, it was probably pretty useful.
  5. I suspect that there would be a surprisingly large demand for this, given how much demand there seems to be for logistics modules. So long as, as everyone has said, there's some depth (lol) to the simulation. I've always wanted a high fidelity P-2 and P-3.
  6. As per this post, the 'show pilot body' selection may have some issues worth investigating. I have never particularly liked having the pilot body in the cockpit, so I've left that option unchecked since it first appeared. Yet every time I spawned in the Tomcat, my pilot body was there. I fixed this by checking the box, loading an instant action mission and then quitting, and then unchecking the box. After this, my body no longer spawns in SP games. I suspect that because I have never interacted with that check box in the time since the check box was implemented, the game failed to write the "show_pilot_body" line in options.lua. By checking the box, it enabled the line to be written and thereafter disabled. Note that this workaround does not seem to work in multiplayer. Hope this isn't a hard one to squash!
  7. Thank you, @Temetre and @draconus for pointing that out to me. I noticed something interesting @IronMike and I'm not sure if you'd like me to file a bug report relating to this that might explain why some people still get the body showing when the 'show pilot body' box is unchecked. I had the box unchecked but was still having the body appear each time I loaded in. I was able to fix this behavior by checking the box so that 'show pilot body' was enabled. I then loaded into an instant action mission and immediately quit. I then unchecked the 'show pilot body' box, loaded an instant action mission and there was no pilot body. I think that if you never interact with that option, the ["show_pilot_body"] = false line is never written to options.lua. So when I enabled it, it added the 'show pilot body' line and then disabling it set it to false.
  8. Is there a way to permanently hide the body. I'm one of those weirdos that hates seeing a body in the cockpit and finding the right key combo in VR can be a bit of a pain.
  9. I disagree that the Navy had "very little concept" about the purpose of datalinks. SAGE was already quite successful for the USAF, I suspect the Navy knew exactly what they were doing when they began developing their own systems. Technology-wise, I'm not sure what you're expecting. You're focusing on one campaign with severe operational, geographic and meteorological constraints, discussing one platform that is not going to be usefully relevant to control of shipboard fighters, criticizing a different system for not being able to detect and identify contacts and then concluding that the datalink isn't useful. Vietnam is an interesting conflict to study when it comes to air warfare, but it's not the whole picture. The AN/ASW-25A was a one-way datalink. By definition, data was only transmitted one way. Either a ship or an E-1 or E-2 transmitted data to the fighter. The fighter could not transmit data. The fighter could be maneuvered by the datalink, or it could be maneuvered by the crew according to directions transmitted to the fighter by the controller in the Tracer/Tracker/ship. It was battle-tested and was found to be useful enough to be incorporated in future USN Phantom production, and retrofitted to existing USN Phantoms. The tactical manual I referenced was written after Topgun was established and it devotes an entire chapter to it's usage. The purpose was to make fighter control more efficient. You mentioned detection and IFF: Getting human eyeballs into a position to visually identify contacts is your IFF. That's just one element.
  10. US Navy Phantoms did. A squadron's worth of F-4Bs were modified with a two way pre-Link 4 system in the early 60s. These were eventually redesignated F-4G and served in the Vietnam war. Eventually these aircraft were returned to standard F-4B configuration (and as we all know, the G designation was later used again for the USAF Wild Weasels). The F-4J used Link 4A with their AN/ASW-25A receivers. These were retrofitted into F-4Bs and were therefore present in both F-4Ns and F-4Ss. These were coupled with the AFCS so that the aircraft could be remotely steered by a controller. If the crew was maintaining control themselves, there would be a steering dot for a single contact inserted in alternating video frames with the radar. There was also a unit in the cockpit that displayed a limited number of possible commands to the crew. This datalink also provided for ACLS when coupled with the approach power compensator. However this was the only mode where throttle control was not directly controlled by the crew. There was no offboard throttle control in that regard. It was a very controller-centered capability. The Phantom could not send information to other aircraft via Link 4. It's a very limited boost to situational awareness overall. Very reliant on a controller to provide both data and voice command. The Tomcat had a slightly different datalink system using Link 4C, which was two-way. That and the TID are real situational awareness enhancements that the Phantom didn't ever have. There's a great section about Link 4 in the F-4J/N/S Tactical Manual from 1972, it's well worth a read. USAF variants, I don't believe they used any form of datalink.
  11. The only high end thing about the Warthog is the price for what you get. The throttle is a pretty decent product. The stick is of reasonable quality. The gimbal is not good. If you truly want something that is representative of something from a fourth generation US fighter, Winwing is the answer. I've got an original Orion and it has been excellent. My main stick right now is the Warthog on a WarBRD only because I use the Viper more often, but the Orion stick is truly great quality. Anyone buying TM products today should be aware of how poor their support is. My last experience was two weeks between emails. That's two weeks to get an initial response, then another two weeks for their next response. All told, it was around six weeks before the replacement switch was finally posted. If my issue had been less straightforward, I shudder to think about how long it might have taken.
  12. I don't think I would use the Viper nearly as much without your DTC mod, @SFJackBauer. I'm neutral on a Discord, I can see pluses and minuses, but if you were to set it up, I'd certainly join.
  13. Thank you for putting up a roadmap and being so good at engaging with the community - not just in this thread but in the forums in general. It's great to see so many questions answered so quickly, and it really is one of my favourite modules in the sim. Is there a rough time-frame for being able to configure the laser codes for the LGBs? I absolutely love lofting them at great distance thanks to the Mirage's great low altitude performance and I'd love to be able to do it more online.
  14. Is there any news on how far off the tool is for OpenXR? I can barely use my G2 at the moment with the cross-eye effect.
  15. Bumping this, because it's becoming more important with the modules available now and in the near future lacking datalink. I'd be enormously grateful if bogey dope calls were more informative purely because we don't have an AI controller. "Hot/cold/flanking" is fine for general awareness and seems to be fairly correct to real life, but without having a controller to talk to, I often find that it isn't informative enough to run an intercept with my radar on standby unless I'm in something with a situational awareness display and a datalink. Adding a "track" callout with direction would be a massive upgrade with what I believe would be a fairly small amount of effort. Something like "Bandit, 230 for 50, angels 18, track north-east". But even better would be the ability to tell the AWACS that you are committing to a group called out via the F10 menu, and then to get greater detail. If more than one possible group exists to target, then select it via F10.
  16. The A-4 is certainly pretty good to get an idea of the sort of environment you'd be employing it in. It's a very narrow azimuth window, certainly. Doubly so if you're trying to kill a rotating search radar. How it behaves will come down to the way the ground AI uses the radar in large part. If you're enjoying success with it now, I'd imagine that you'll be a little bit better with it in the Phantom. I lowkey hope that someone does an F-4G mod, and some AGM-78s.
  17. Shrike was available on the E, four could be carried. There is a mode dedicated to AGM-45 employment in the weapons system, for lofting or direct delivery. An aural tone is transmitted to the crew over the ICS when the seeker detects an emission, and steering information is presented on the ADI. I'm under the impression that setting up a loft delivery requires prior knowledge of the emitter location. I vaguely recall something about a ten degree nose-down attitude required for direct delivery, too. It's definitely an interesting missile with a somewhat poor reputation, again for reasons that aren't entirely within the scope of DCS.
  18. 35 is the barest minimum I'd consider launching at. The missile is largely fine, within the limitations of the current DCS implementation. The all-knowing AI, not so much.
  19. Not sure that 'override' is the right word, but as a front seater with HCU thumbwheel control, I can certainly confuse and/or annoy a human backseater if I move the control without warning them.
  20. I've stumbled upon something I haven't yet seen shared here. The Cockpit360 Project, who I believe were the ones to create the 3D scans of the F-4C, G and RF-4C at the National Museum of the USAF have also managed to scan an F-4E at the Wings Over the Rockies museum. Unfortunately I've only found it on Facebook, but I'll take what I can get. I'm not an expert on the USAF variants at all but it looks like a DSCG bird to me.
  21. Many years ago, the 104 was going to be the first third party module. There was a subforum for it. But for now, I'm glad it was posted as it's quite interesting to see the evolution of avionics that was the state of the art during the development of the Phantom. It gives a bit of context for just how revolutionary the Phantom really was.
  22. On Tuesday, I posted that I was going to play with it a bit more, but at first glance it was an improvement. After spending a few more hours, I'm going to say that as a 3440x1440 user, "improvement" is an understatement. I'm now no longer spotting tiny black specks at 30nm against the sky. But I'm not losing track of things I'm merged with quite as easily. There's enough definition to draw my eye to the movement of a plane against the background when I'm in close. It's still not easy to keep track of things if I take my eye off them, but I feel as though I've got a chance now of finding them again if I lose them. I don't doubt there's still some tweaking to be done. But this is a massive step forward.
  23. @Kalasnkova74, that was an excellent example of what I was trying to get across. Anybody interested in this sort of thing would probably find the Ault report and the Red Baron reports quite fascinating.
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