AngelAtTheTomb

I don't think it's derailing the thread to discuss the topic of the thread. Paying your team is obvious. Nobody is suggesting you don't do that. As a consumer, however, I believe it behooves ED to take stock of the attitudes of their customers. Many on this forum seem eager to support paid asset packs; that's fine. Many others find it distasteful at best, and dishonest at worst, when such assets were advertised for years as being part of core sim updates, withheld at the last minute, and suddenly there are expanded plans to split content across multiple asset packs. We are not naive to the costs of software development. But I, for one, am very disappointed that the core sim is being monetized in this fashion.

4000 lbs is a lot, and will requires 4000 more lbs of lift. This means you need more AoA for that lift, and you get more induced drag. Top speed - at least in the real word - is not just a factor of drag, but of weight. This whole thread highlights some of the problems of parametric simulation, especially with a paucity of data like military aircraft. I would assume ED has drag index factors for all available stores, but that's mostly an estimation for fuel planning purposes and the rest is going to involve some guestimation.

So...does this mean we can tone down the wing breaking some more? Because it's still very much possible.

What exactly is the issue?

Yeah, I played the mission four times (don't ask). Three times Olive worked fine. One time she didn't. Who knows.

It also seems like the model update priorities are pretty illogical. B-1, a unit most players are never going to see, except maybe taxiing past on the tarmac? High priority, internal weapons modeling, 110% effort. SH-60, a unit that every carrier mission will have several of, right next to the player? Nope, the Minecraft model from 1993 is fine. The pace of full-fidelity pilotable models is faster than AI aircraft. What? If I could wave a magic wand, the priority would be: 1. AI "adversary" aircraft. Su-17/22, MiG-23/27 (RAZBAM's won't be out for another five years at this pace), MiG-25. JH-7, J-11. 2. Realistic 2000s/2010s NATO AI and carrier models. AI SH/MH-60, Viking, Super Hornet, EA-6B, CH-53, V-22. We would see these up-close all the time and their inclusions would allow much more realistic missions. 3. AI Cold War. No shortage of choices. With F-4 and Vietnam coming, it's going to need a ton of AI models to make it remotely realistic. So will Kfir/Sinai. 4. Ground equipment. Always more ground equipment. 5. Airlift. C-17, A-400M, C-5, C-141. 6. Bombers.

They're beautiful models, sure. Making them work properly is a lot of work, sure. But it's also fair to be frustrated with the pace of development. ED has got to find a way to direct more resources to the core sim OR to make acceptable compromises on quality. A pretty good B-52 five years ago would have been better than a beautiful B-52...someday? A thriving sim ecosystem requires an ecosystem. The AI part of the game has been neglected for a very, very long time, after being the source of some sketchy business decisions (WW2 Unit Pack anyone?), and that memory is going to take more than three (again, very pretty) models to overcome.

Same issue. I was flying this last night and when Olive was detached (when Clementine goes feet dry), she just peaced out, flew straight back to the boat, and landed. The radio calls still worked, but needless to say she did not attack and the mission got gummed up. Trying again tonight.

FWIW, I tried editing M06 myself, by switching the Tomcats to use Mk-84s and switching the Bombing task to use "Bombs" instead of "Guided Bombs." No joy. They still just bug out after hitting their IP. Near as I can tell they don't even fly over the airport, they just head out to sea and fly around in circles.

Damn. Any chance of uploading updated M06 and M12 versions here for the time being? I know it's janky, but with this month's OB already out....

It was reported years ago and has yet to be fixed. There's a mod somewhere in user files, one of the cockpit texture mods, that includes some very nice textures for these canopy rockets, complete with detailed warning stickers. I can't remember what it's called, but there are only a few F18 cockpit mods, so you should be able to find it.

Fantastic news, ChillNG. Cerberus North is up there at the apex of campaign quality for me. It's the closest I've come in DCS to feeling like part of a larger war, instead of each side having five aircraft in total. That the politics were so nuanced and well-written, the missions so thrillingly designed, and the details so finely honed - very impressive stuff. Can't wait for your new campaign.

Man. I had gotten all the way through M12 right after release...waited a couple months and started from the beginning, after glancing at patch notes and seeing this campaign mentioned. M06 still no comms after warning about civ traffic. M12 apparently still broken. ED, come on. Either fix the attendant AI issues or tell BD they won't be fixed so he can make changes. This is your flagship campaign maker for one of your flagship modules. This is the kind of thing that gets people burned out on DCS altogether.

Yaga, as an academic (and a nerd) I certainly appreciate the sources you're finding. Alas, I suspect BN is referring to something more precise - a document showing "F/A-18C Lot 20 FCR detects helicopters at X range". ED doesn't seem to have the appetite or the budget for a full radar simulation, so they'd need something they can build a radar script around, instead of "this is how radar works". You're right that the radars are becoming a bit scattershot across all the modules. Some - M2000C, making everyone else look bad - are approaching a quasi-simulation. Some - F15C - are magic. The F/A-18's radar is a troublesome animal, and in my experience it performs well 90% of the time. I don't know enough about the real aircraft to know whether the other 10% is a simulator shortcoming or a real-world shortcoming. I do find it hard to believe that helicopters would be essentially invisible to a modern FCR.

Might also want to check in settings (I think Sound settings) and make sure "Hear like in helmet" isn't the culprit. That option makes a huge difference to the soundscape.

IIRC the external view is IAS and the HUD is actually CAS, IAS corrected for temp and altitude. Or it's the other way around, I can never remember.

It's very noticeable in one of the Cerberus North missions that has you hauling two assymetric rocket pods a few hundred miles. You have to lean on the trim switch for a good thirty seconds.

Short answer: no. The only thing the D/L seems to do is automagic Link 16, and automagic Link 4. As long as the frequencies are correct and the D/Ls are on, I don't think any of the other options do anything.

The current AWACS is missing even basic functionality, like asking for a declaration. I don't think it's been touched since FC3. Most of it seems to be inherited straight from LOMAC 1, which is...nineteen years old.

If what you're asking for is gore, that's never going to happen. If what you're asking for is the ground units not to stand there like cardboard cutouts, I agree that it's essential if the sim wants to actually model helicopter air-to-ground combat.

Somewhat minor issue, but I've noticed that the fuze in the Mk 20 Rockeye II model is wrong for how the weapon functions in DCS. It appears to have a Mk 339 timed fuze. This is a very distinctive fuze with the pinwheel arming vanes. It's a time release fuze, with two cockpit-selectable timers (the delay of each is set on the ground). IRL, the Mk 20 can use this fuze, but so equipped, it opens after a time delay, not at a given height. As modeled in DCS, the Mk 20 should have either an FZU-39 or FMU-140 fuze, which look very different - they're both cylinders with a plastic radome. These are the radar altimeter fuze for cluster munitions; without that, there's no way for a Mk 20 to know its height for the "height of function" to work. The Mk 339 is (I believe) correct for the GATOR mine, which IIRC is on the planned features list for the Hornet. Of course, the height of function should also be adjustable in the ME or at least the rearm window, but that's a different issue and I believe already reported. Source: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/nrtc/14313_ch1.pdf FZU-39 picture: https://cat-uxo.com/explosive-hazards/fuzes/fzu-39-fuze FMU-140 picture: https://cat-uxo.com/explosive-hazards/fuzes/fmu-140-fuze Mk 339 picture: https://cat-uxo.com/explosive-hazards/fuzes/mk-339-fuze

I certainly understand the sentiment from a marketing standpoint, but it seems BD knows his audience - you can't complete any of his F-18 campaigns without really, really knowing the jet. Dominant Fury takes that even further, and so M01 seems like a fitting opener to me. It just sets the tone and atmosphere so perfectly.

Interesting. All my real-world experience is civil aviation, where keeping altimeters consistent between different aircraft is probably more important than knowing you are EXACTLY this many feet from the ground. Civil airliners have fancy CADCs/ADIRUs/etc., but they still display the "old school" altitude value so you don't have one aircraft thinking it's at 5,000 feet because it uses an old pneumatic altimeter and another wandering into it because its advanced, computed, corrected altimeter at 6,000 feet uses different corrections. The 300 foot difference I noted in the F18 is not nothing, especially with RVSM over the oceans. It makes me question again how exactly military aircraft ensure they're on a Flight Level. Follow the HUD or the standby?

Between this thread, previous discussions about just where the aircraft is getting its altitude reference for SA/RDR ATTK pages, and the editor still giving all aircraft a magically autoadjusted ISA atmosphere altimeter so they're all flying at different altitudes than you, it's clear that DCS needs to get some altimeter issues sorted. Here's another one. I've been noticing a difference between my HUD altitude and my standy altimeter indication (with HUD altitude set to BARO, obviously). I was up at 42,000 feet on the HUD yesterday and the standby altimeter was showing 41,700. Why would these two be different? Doesn't the HUD get its altitude information from the CADC, which gets it FROM the altimeter? Is this a bug, or a feature?

Hey BD, I've been messing around with the F/A-18 radios in one of my own missions, and discovered that the Maritime channels on the ARC-210 actually work properly on the correct Maritime frequencies, including the Maritime Emergency frequency (Channel 16, or 156.8 MHz). If you set the F-18 radio to S16, and place a beacon or audio transmission on 156.8, you'll hear it properly if within range. This got me thinking about M02 in your campaign. This is a pretty fine-grained suggestion, but it is odd that the woman in the boat would be broadcasting on UHF aviation guard (I don't think most maritime radios can even broadcast UHF), especially since the dialogue makes a point she doesn't know the radios. It makes more sense for her to be using Maritime Distress. How to get the player to use S16? Maybe a directive from Akrotiri or the carrier that they've heard garbled transmission on S16 and are hoping you can pick it up? Not sure. It's probably too late in the game to be rewriting dialogue, but it would add just one more layer of realism to an already impressive campaign.