Bankler

Alright, so I did some more testing and realized there is a workaround, sort of. Still no way to "quick switch" target, but at first I didn't think you could switch at all, which you can. 1) Pick target in TWS 2) Enter raid, make sure you see all four targets on screen 3) Fire 4) TDC cursor over next contact 5) TDC depress (sets secondary tgt) 6) TDC depress again (makes this the primary tgt) 7) Fire 8) Repeat from step 4

Disclaimer, I don't know if you're talking about what can be done irl or in dcs. So I might have misunderstood the point of your post. But in the game, as far as I can tell, I can't change targets in RAID at all. Not manually, and they're not changing automatically when firing 120s at them either (all 4 missiles go for the same target). So unless I'm missing something, there's currently no way you can fire missiles at different targets in RAID. I, assume(?), it's a bug, but I'm not sure.

Frederf>> Thanks, that’s some really interesting input! But are you saying that 4 contacts that are close to each other but clearly separated (say a line abreast 4-ship formation with 0.5 nm separation between each aircraft) formation should not show up in the RAID view, due to the fact that the radar can already distinguish the four echoes through “normal” means? My limited understanding (and how it currently works in DCS) is that they would show up. And it would now be easier to distinguish and count them compared to in the normal view. I guess the use-case I’m after is “you take the two ones on the right, and I take the two left ones”.

ED can you please shed some light over this? Should I report it as a big, or is it intentional that you can’t switch targets in raid?

When engaging multiple target, I've found it useful to just go 1) undesignate, 2) fire, 3) repeat until each of my targets has a 120 coming at them. If my targets are in a tight formation, I guess it makes sense to use the RAID function to zoom in. However, if I press undesignate when in RAID (expecting the target to cycle), it doesn't cycle target, but instead exits RAID. 1) Is this correct? I haven't studied any sources, so it's just pure speculation, but to me it doesn't seem that logical, as you can already enter and exit RAID with the HOTAS (RAID / FLIR FOV button), so why would undesignate suddenly change functionality? 2) Is there another way to (rapidly) cycle targets in RAID, that I've just overlooked? Note: I tried the same thing in EXP. In that mode, cycling with undesignate works, but it also allows the target to change to something that's not on the zoomed in screen.

Thanks Bignewy. Even if it's not fixed anytime soon, it's really appreciated getting to hear the reasons why things like this take some time. Even if it's in broad terms.

Sometimes keystrokes get eaten up by the TrackIR software. You could try closing that if you use it, and then see if there are any conflicting keybinds.

Same here. In MP many times some statics are invisible.

I'm obviously not the original poster. But I think I'd agree with the statement that the lead is not calculated correctly. I've sort gotten used to it, and have a habit to put the pipper in front of the target and spray a lot more bullets than I normally would. I tested it a bit now to see if I see some patterns. One theory is that the distance is not taken into account as it should. At 3000 ft I consistently miss and the bullets go behind the target (as seen in the track, even when I lead a tiny bit). But at 2000 ft it seems to work fine, at least in this aspect. Short trk attached. I have no idea how accurate the real jet is. But if it's supposed to be accurate at 3000 ft, I do believe it needs some tweaking. GunPipperTest.trk

Cool, thanks for the advice!

Any comment from ED about this? Is it possible to solve?

Thanks for the feedback. To be perfectly honest I don't remember why I never did the auto-setup for the Tomcat. It does some stuff (specifically turning down the volume on Jester...). It might be that it wasn't possible (not very likely), but it might also be that it just took too long time to find the IDs for all the knobs and switches, so I gave up and left it for a future update. And then forgot about it. I will definitely consider it for future updates. Not the hook though. As the auto-setup is run even if you take a cold start jet (nothing I can do to change this, afaik), I can't have it lower the hook on deck. So that's why you have to do that yourself, even in the Hornet, where everything else is setup. If you're experienced with the ME and if you want to help out, you can go through the Lua files in the Tomcat addon folder and see if you can find the IDs for the most relevant buttons (like I did with the Hornet, see the screenshot below). If you open my miz in the ME and look in the triggers section you can see how it works.

Hover over it. If it displays the altitude it's a radar contact, otherwise it's a datalink contact. There are other ways, but this is the easiest to explain.

Personally, I'd say you can't really go wrong with a TM Warthog HOTAS. There are better ones and worse ones, but I think it hits the sweetspot when it comes to bang for the buck. The Throttle is really good. You will want to sandpaper the afterburner detent to get a nice push-through-detent, but that's 10-15 minutes work. The TDC ministick is the only part that is bad. There is a modification for around 40-50 bucks that makes it awesome. The stick is also good imho. The grip itself is nice. I'm a big Hornet fanboy myself, but there's really no good reason to buy the Hornet stick to replace the original one, other than for aesthetics. Personally I had my base for years without any problems. People report that they can become worse after time, but if you play that much for so long, you will probably already be looking at upgrading that base to a Virpil one (you can still keep the grip), so I don't think it's a big deal at all. The stick in the T.16000 combo seems good (especially for the price), but the throttle has a lot of problems with stickiness. Also, it doesn't have an afterburner detent, which to me is a BIG deal when flying jets. It seems like the best budget choice atm. My buddy bought it for this reason, but had lots of issues especially with the throttle. He gave up eventually and bought a used Warthog. Good luck!

As I participated on the mission event in question, I investigated this issue after this session. It turned out that random failures was enabled in the mission. It wasn't visible in the ME, since there was no "player" slot. Still, when looking through the mission lua file, it was clearly enabled with several failures happening at different times. I was under the impression that random failures only could happen in SP, but that is not the case. Random failures also happens in MP, and affect all planes with the same failure at the same time. No idea if this is intended or not, but it's how it currently works. Some details: * Nowadays, the failures will be removed from the mission file if you change the Player aircraft to a Client. This was not the case before it seems though, as the mission in question was an old one, had (hidden) random failures, and no "Player" slot. Re-saving the mission did not help, but you could remove them manually in the lua. * With more recently made missions, since you can have a Player slot even in MP, you can still effectively get random failures in MP, as long as you keep that Player slot. The failures will happen on all clients as well.

Very cool! Thanks a lot!

Reproduction steps as tested 2019-11-24 (build 2.5.5.39384): 1) Set time in ME to anything before March 28 1994 (note that it's possible that the exact time changes as if it's a matter of the differance between today's date and that date in question exceeding the capacity of the datatype measuring this time span. So when testing, please use an even earlier date). 2) Spawn cold on an airfield or the boat. 3) Startup. Notice that the HSI map remains grayscale instead of going full color (in the .trk it's black though). 4) Set WP steering, select WP1 and box SEQ1. 5) Take off. 6) Notice that the distance to the waypoint doesn't update in the HUD. Comment: It's extremely easy to work around the problem by just setting the time to a later date. However, it's plausible that this bug is a symptom of some more serious underlying problem, so it makes sense that your engineers take a look at it. Track and miz included. Cheers! BrokenNav1993.trk Hornet.miz

I'm investigating if I can see some patterns. Trying to force the TCN to die by doing this, but I can't get it to "work". Have tried quit to desktop with both Hornet and Tomcat, cold started and airborne, local server and dedicated server, but TCN on the boat doesn't die. Do you have a solid way of reproducing the bug through Quit To Desktop? If so, it would be very cool if you could describe the steps. This bug is very frustrating. TCN dies for us in around 60% of our multiplayer missions, and it completely screws up all case 3 scenarios. Bignewy, please do what you can to up the priority on it if possible.

When the aircraft start spawning on the cats, they will continue to do that. You can't do anything about it. At some point, the spawning slots will reset and be available again, but (to my knowledge) this isn't something you can control. It typically happens when the deck is empty. I.e definetely not when you have 10 other aircraft spawned on deck. So, as described in the OT, all the guys spawning on the cats will need to taxi away to make room for the next guys spawning. The first lucky few that spawned on the elevators may stand still where they are. Their slots will not open up anyway. Peaches>> Thanks, glad you enjoy it!

VERSION 5.0.0 AUTUMN UPDATE!! :clap: PATTERN MODE, LINEUP CHECKS AND MORE! You can now download version 5.0.0 in the Original Post! This is a major update with new features. It's highly recommended that you update to this new version. The most obvious change is that the script is now checking your lineup in the groove. If you're angling or overshooting, you will get score deductions for it. I found myself sloppy with this, and the checks have now made me pay closer attention to lineup. Thanks a lot to G-B for the endless patience checking my plat cam screenshots, feedbacking and helping me settle on a reasonable difficulty level for this. As always, I don't claim this to work flawlessly or even remotely mimic the quality of a real human LSO. But it's in the ball park, and I don't believe it will give you any false negatives (i.e saying you were off, where a real LSO wouldn't have cared). I rather have it that way than having the script being overly picky. The other, long awaited addition is PATTERN MODE. You can now use the F10 radio menu to setup "pattern mode" (global setting for everyone in your server). When this is enabled, you don't have to go to the initial to restart every pass, but can takeoff (or bolter) and go straight into the pattern by turning downwind at 600 feet. Hopefully this will make it easier for you to practice faster itterations in the pattern if that's where you are struggling. There are some other things as well, please check them out in the patch notes below. Btw, I love hearing from you guys, seeing your score charts and Youtube videos. It's really inspiring to see people having fun with it. Have a wonderful autumn and keep practicing! :thumbup: Cheers, Bankler CHANGE LOG 5.0.0 * You can now use the F10 radio menu to enable "Pattern Mode" where you don't need to go back to initial for every pass, but can turn straight to downwind after takeoff. In this mode 63 is max score. * You can now use the F10 radio menu to enable Public Feedback. This print all aircraft feedback steps to all players. This is useful when instructing another player. * Added lineup checks. You can now get score deductions for flying too far from centerline. 75/75 (in break mode) is still max score. * Implemented settle-checks. If you have a very high sink rate crossing the ramp, you will get -10 points for settling. * Changed order of flights and gave them unique flight numbers (Chevy1, Colt2 etc). Enjoy!

Happy that you enjoy it. Thanks for the feedback! As for self-aborting the pattern, the easiest way is to quickly climb to 1300 feet or so, and it will abort right away. As for the going around part (as well as the "ruthless" part), I got some stuff in the oven for next version. Stay tuned! :)

There is a little hack if you're a little computer savvy. If you unzip the .miz file and open the mission-file in there, you'll see it's simple a lua configuration file. You can carefully copy-paste the contents of the radio section from a Tomcat you have modified to the ones that still have the default presets. Not optimal but at least it's much faster than manually doing it in the ME. Just make sure you do not have the mission open in the ME while hacking away in its contents. Weird stuff will happen. :) That sounds cool. Thanks a lot for the friendly and humble response. Much appreciated! :)

Hi, Thanks for an excellent module! I'm wondering if there is a certain reason why the radios in the F-14 have different presets than the Hornet? Is it based on some IRL source that you wanted to stay true to or something like that? Imho, it would have been great if it just matched the Hornet list since the two types often fly together and it's such a hassle to change it everytime. (I realize one can make their own template .miz with this prepared and so on, just not sure if there's any value to the lists being different rather than having the defaults similar.) Keep up the good work!

TL;DR version For Hornets (and maybe now even working with Tomcats?), spawn the first 5-6 aircraft normally. For the following ones, select a slot and go back and forth between that slot and “back to spectators” until you spawn cold on a cat. If you started on a cat, startup and move from the spawn point to the sixpack to allow additional Hornets to spawn. In the end of the article, there are funky tricks on how to avoid deck sliding. Background The carrier spawning is very limited, especially in multiplayer, only allowing you to spawn 5-6 aircraft. There is a fallback system that lets you spawn additional cold aircraft on the catapults. Unfortunately it’s bugged, making it unintuitive how to use it. Why would you like to spawn cold? Well, it’s bad ass to see a whole package of 16-ish jets getting ready on the deck, hearing the engines starting etc. It’s simply a great way to kick off the squadron mission night. Detailed instruction Let’s say we are 12 Hornets in three flights (Alpha11-14, Bravo21-24 and Charlie31-34) that want to start cold. Follow this procedure: Assign a spawn coordinator. In this example, you are the coordinator. Keep everyone in the same voice channel for now. You will need to tell them what to do and when. Unpause the server. Tell Alpha11 to spawn. He’ll spawn on elevator 2 (starboard side). When Alpha 11 is in, tell Alpha12 to spawn, then 13 and 14. Elevator 2 (starboard side) and 4 (port side) are now filled. Spawn in Bravo21. He’ll come in on elevator 3 (starboard side, behind the tower). Spawn in Bravo22. Now things are getting interesting... Sometimes he’ll end up on elevator 3. Sometimes he gets “Your flight is delayed”. If he’s okay, the next aircraft (Bravo23) will most definitely get “delayed” though. It doesn’t matter much. From now on, all players will always get “Your flight is delayed”. They should then press Back to spectators, then try the same exact slot again (do not attempt switching to another flight). Usually they spawn in on attempt 2, sometimes a few more attempts are needed. Continue spawning one aircraft at a time until all four cats are occupied. The guys spawning on the cats should not do the full startup. Just have them start the engines, and then asap in an orderly fashion taxi from the cat and park on the “sixpack” (that’s the parking slots behind Cat 2) and complete their setups over there. After the cats have been vacated, spawn in four more aircraft. Same thing here, “Flight is delayed”, always, but just keep go Back to spectators and pick the same slot again. It will work. Taxi them to the sixpack. Rinse and repeat. Notes Why taxi to the sixpack? To be honest, technically it doesn’t matter where you go, as long as you get out of the way. For us, it’s a convenient way of doing it, because that way people always know where to go without having to be directed. It’s relatively easy to communicate this procedure to new players in your group. If you prefer, feel free to use all the other cool places on the deck. Tomcats Maybe this is fixed by now (see below). But last time I tried this in an actual multiplayer mission, Tomcats required special care. A bug caused a CTD if you pressed Back to spectator, which obviously is not good in this scenario. Another issue is the size of the aircraft. Many times, I have seen the Tomcats spawn in only 1 bird on each elevator. These two problems together means you can only count on spawning in 3 Tomcats. The only way of getting more in there was to add an extra carrier for the extra ones. This is what we did (don’t forget to disable TCN on the extra carrier if you go this route). When writing this, I quickly tested again (but not on a crowded deck), and the F-14 did not CTD when pressing Back to spectators after Flight Delayed. So maybe, just maybe, the above method now works equally well for both Hornets and Tomcats. I know that Heatblur has been made aware of the problem, so maybe they’ve solved it? Great news in that case! Deck sliding, what is it? Is it bad? Deck sliding is caused by network lag and how the aircraft inherits (or not inherits) the movement of the carrier they are standing on. Even with minimal lag, the sliding can be very noticable. It’s common that aircraft suddenly slide into each other, cutting a wing off and being put on fire. It seems to get worse when the carrier is moving fast. But, it’s not a good solution to simply have a slow moving boat. You want ~25 knots or so over the deck, and if there’s no wind, you need the carrier to move at this speed to create that wind. Maybe you’ll be okay with having 15 kts speed and 10 kts headwind, but in the end, as long as the carrier is moving at all, you will risk deck sliding. With 20 people spawning, you might not want to risk this. How to avoid deck sliding (.miz included, yay!) The solution we came up with (kudos to Mauritz, who managed to figure out how to accomplish this technically) was to have the carrier standing still when the mission starts, and then tell it to start moving through a radio menu F10 command. You simply press this when everyone has launched and the boat starts moving. Best of both worlds really. No deck sliding, but correct wind over deck when time comes for recovery. And no, there’s no problem cat launching the aircraft without headwind. The only downside really is that it requires some mission editor setup. You’ll need to use the Mist lua file, call a script function, and setup some trigger stuff in the ME. I have attached an example miz of how to do it. Basically, it works like this: The carrier has no route, so it’s standing still. Instead, a deactivated speedboat unit has the carrier’s route waypoints. When you activate the trigger through the radio menu, the route is copied to the carrier, so it starts moving. Maybe there’s an easier solution, but so far, I haven’t found any. In the attached mission you have a main carrier setup like this. You also have a stationary backup carrier that you can despawn with F10 radio, Hornet and Tomcat flights (with synched preset lists), and a rescue helo using the same trick to start moving on command as the carrier. Feel free to use it as a template for your own carrier ops missions. Just don't forget to add tankers and AWACS. Final notes ED, I know you aren’t going to look into improving the current carrier before you have released the super carrier. Fair enough. I realize you need to prioritize certain stuff (the stuff that brings food to the table). If however, you perform any steps towards improving it, unless you have a fully working solution for a package-size multiplayer group, please at least don’t make this workaround impossible. We have spent countless evenings working out how to get this working, and it would feel horrible having to start from square 0 again. Currently, with this workaround, we are finally enjoying large-scale carrier ops and are having a blast with it! :) DCSCarrierTrick.miz mist_4_3_74.lua

+1 Having the exact same problem with my MFD exports.