lunaticfringe

...while you ignore the Apache liveries nearing 500 MB... And that number is now going up as they've raised their own production standard to include the roughmets, helmets, and substantially higher levels of detail. The F-16s new liveries going forward will now all scale in disk/VRAM at a level in accordance to the physical size of the Viper to the Tomcat because they'll all be at high resolution with the added texture mapping functions. All of the aircraft are moving into 2+k or higher texturing. I look forward to seeing your complaints regarding VRAM usage in every subforum where they are added.

The 27 liveries for the F-14B are 3.71 GB. The 14 liveries for the Mirage F1EQ are 3.4 GB. Then check out the single livery size for the F-16 of the 36th FS out of Osan; 220 MB- right in line for relative size with the larger F-14 liveries. Now pull them up in DCS. And then look at the cookie cutter F-16 liveries in comparison; the lack of detail, the roughs, the whole 9 yards. There's a reason liveries go up as detail goes up. And it's clearly observable that the F-14's liveries aren't just some of the most detailed, but that they're optimized right in line with all of the other schemes that try to work at their level. Life goes on.

For better or worse, Hollywood looks to have quit on VAICOM. Life, however, goes on.

No, because neither the missile nor the AWG-9 have a lock. The AIM-54 is simply being told to listen to the jamming strobe and not transmit. The "lock" is against the jamming signal, not a radiated emission by your own aircraft or the missile. The only way for the target to "break" it is to turn off the jamming, or pass burn-through range, at which point the AWG-9 will convert to an STT track (thus giving a launch warning). The missile in flight will then revert to standard STT guidance, or go active if it's within active range.

And the current model actually does this.

If they're set to Always On ECM, HOJ. If they're set to When Locked ECM, party on like always.

Conversely, the player or mission designer can also set it as "only on lock", thus retaining TWS versus STT (or when a missile goes active). Or even use a mix across aircraft to roughly function as barrage versus self-defense. There's options. Certainly not as elegant as most would like, but they exist.

Same here, even when we bump heads.

Correct.

There are three jammer values, which are based on respective aircraft type; (strategic) bomber, fighter, and attack. This breakdown dictates the respective ranges of detection- 12, 23, and 29 nautical miles, respectively. Every radar in the game is subject to these ranges currently. They didn't bury the F-14 or destroy the AIM-54; the "over the shoulder" loft fix instituted by ED placed an unnecessary cap on the maximum altitude achievable by the weapon, thus reducing it's overall energy state on the flyout. And nobody else honoring ED's jamming code can track fighters over 23 nautical miles, either; that, unfortunately, is the nature of the environment. And for what it's worth- the F-14 is the only aircraft in the game capable of taking a HOJ shot knowing what the target is it's shooting at without god's eye AWACS.

Heatblur doesn't control anything to do with track recording.

The F-4Es sight provides radar based lead compensation when a lock is had, or reverts to a default 1000' range if not. Should the pilot wish to have the 1000' lead presented instead of that from the radar, push the Cage button on the right engine throttle. If the pilot presses the Cage button without a lock, the pipper will stabilize at the Radar Boresight Line (RBL) position.

You're taking 30 mile shots; as has been repeatedly mentioned, there's a "hold" region from the mid-30s down to 20 miles as expressed by RL pilots previously. This range is forcing the missile to take a loft in a region that is too short for it to maintain valid acquisition at the top of its arc. Compounding matters is the relative "floor" three of those MiG-23s descend to; net 15,000' elevation at 30 miles range and closing is too wide an elevation band for the AWG-9 to maintain all of these targets in TWS Auto. And as these are AIM-54As, there's no recovery of the shot if the track is dropped- because the missile doesn't know when to go active independently. Again, ~30 mile shots. Only two out of six missiles had enough time and space to just get above Mach 3 because the range is too short; they're all respectively arriving at 5 miles range below Mach 2, and two of them were negated prior to going active at ten miles (your shots on Aerial 3-2 and 4-1) because they were turned behind the AWG-9 gimbal in your turn away. Those two Floggers don't even so much as have to flinch because you've let their respective rounds arrive DOA. Throw in the magic AI half loop on the other four to cut bait and run, and it's a geometry kill on all six shots. The simulation has resemblance to real life; that's why employment technique is critical. You don't want to use it in accordance with real life terms, you're going to get similar results to real life with regards to out of parameter shots.

The current DCS camera model installs limitations on the AN/AAX-1, such that objects simply pop in between 40-45 miles, when large aircraft should be visible, even identifiable, at much further ranges- up to double the distance. Should jamming be pushed back for that as well, since it's the only method in all of DCS to independently identify a target prior to burn through? No- there's only so much that can be held back given the fashion by which work has to progress on modules in a sometimes piecemeal fashion; perfect is the enemy of good, and you're still always getting first look, with AWACS confirmation or otherwise. Having discussed some of the methodology and employment of the TCS in combination with the AWG-9s angle jamming functions with former RIOs in advance of the system becoming available, the AIM-54 as currently performing can make what has been described as a valid shot profile (ie, range at altitude without loft) in the HOJ situation. So there's legitimately no reason to hold up for it- because the missile isn't being limited in said regime and use case, artificially or otherwise. Further, the AIM-54 isn't the only weapon in the F-14s arsenal that can fire HOJ; Sparrow does just fine with knots on shooting at a jammer, and will fall back to a lock once burned through if you keep your nose on. At the end of the day, it's time for the AWG-9 to show jamming, lock jamming, and permit RIOs to use the TCS to confirm what they're looking at. There's nothing weapon wise holding it back.

Jamming doesn't have any bearing on the loft situation, and has no factor on the AIM-54 when used in a HOJ situation as the AIM-54 doesn't loft against jamming targets (as it lacks a known range to reference).

The conversation is being had with someone who can't yet follow the basic procedures of the aircraft in question. Context: it's a part of reading comprehension. You should try picking up on it sometime.

In real airplanes, you are expected to be able to follow the procedures, and prove capable of flying them before ever having the responsibility of making it up as you go along. You have to walk before you can run.

So basically your contention is that because learning another aircraft is difficult, you need corrective guidance on how to land the airplane in the wrong configuration with an airframe that lands at roughly 30 knots slower than the one you're used to. Airbrake is engaged at the crosswind turn entry. DLC is engaged once flaps are down and employed as required. You're flying in contravention to the profile, so YMMV on how much you have to use DLC on the decent to 600'. If your parameters match at the base turn, you'll use DLC based on glideslope from there. There's not much else to say.

To be clear, with the understanding you admit to having trouble slowing the aircraft down, and skipping the now twice mentioned need for aft sweep at the start of the crosswind leg- you do realize by starting at 1500' on the downwind rather than 800' your net altitude loss required to be at 600' in the base turn is 4.5 times higher (900' v. 200'), thus incurring (roughly) four times as much speed gained in the descent? The higher altitude increases your speed gain proportionally, meaning you now have to dump even more speed over the downwind leg to get to "on speed", which in a standard circuit reduces the amount of time to get the airplane trimmed up properly. That is to say, because you're choosing not to honor the numbers, you're making the process substantially harder on yourself. You may not think it, and you may not want to beleive it, but you are.

And? I took off in the correct profile for a Tomcat with TF30s with the same stores configuration and 20,000 lbs of gas. As others have described above, F-14As use AB for land based takeoff. Observe. You can even see actuation of the nozzles as they back out of burner post-rotation in those instances the burner plume isn't captured.

<3000' takeoff roll on described loadout using maneuver flaps. With a barrier at the 3000' mark. It does what it's supposed to do.

Sir, this is a Wendy's. But seriously- in that ramble you touch on a number of factors, complaining about what may in fact be the key, but not effectively identifying it: Those guys from upstairs- the suits. You know why they're the suits? Because they answer to the board, and to the shareholder. The answering and decision making takes place because if the shareholders aren't placated in seeing the value in the firm, valuation is lost, access to financing evaporates, and nobody gets paid- which means nobody has games to play, all because nobody works from the ground up for free. The mention of Hollis isn't as compelling an argument as you think, frankly, because he came up in the era when one or two kids fresh out of college could produce content that could make a massive return in the early and mid-80s. Sid Meier wrote Hellcat Ace alone in 10 weeks and MicroProse turned its first profit two months later. Three years after Hollis signed on they broke $10 million in annual sales. That doesn't scale to today, and not remotely in this genre. Sorry, but I'm not interested in 320x200 pixel resolution sprite-based graphics and paper thin gameplay and modeling, zero connectivity to anyone that isn't at the same desktop and no interoperability between titles. That might work for somebody's nostalgia-laden Steam upload for $3.99, but that doesn't (literally or figuratively) fly here. So what happens to the guys in the middle? Who have the skills and specialization to break through, but can't secure the financing (and no, nobody is venture financing the serious flight sim genre)? Software licenses cost money. If you want a shot at seriously producing a product, you need a core who maintain it as their day to day, who bring the talents and experience required to have the drive and best chances of getting it out the door- that means they need to get paid as their 9-5. And that's just the core 3 to 5 people. The bigger the scope, the more rapid the expectations to complete (and thus survive), the greater the need for capital. At some point in the process they have to get an influx to keep the lights on and the project moving forward. But if the bank won't back them, and venture capital laughs them off- who is left? The people that want it. You don't have to invest or assume the risk if you don't want to. By the same token, life is short, and the costs invested at the user are tiny in the larger scheme. $50 to $90 bucks invested in a title, a thousand hours invested, and still people come back raging for the idiosyncrasies and their pet points that are still in the development cycle and being done- all while things are getting concurrently fixed in real time should they break. Unless, of course, you've hit for Poweball and have a nice $1-5 million capital infusion you'd like to toss at a third party studio to help them jump start the process for a module. You'll still be 3+ years out to competition from jump, but at least you won't seemingly have your heart strings pulled during the normal EA period since the man-hours can all now be paid for up front.

"Phoenix can't hit fighters!" *KS-1 Komet has entered the chat* All a missile cares about is that it can see the target, doesn't have it exceed LOS rate, and has enough energy to make the intercept. Everything else is immaterial.

Loft tweaks are going to require eventual shift to the new guidance API when ED makes it available for Phoenix. The issue is that the loft gain only has one option, and needs to be set in relation to making actual long range performance shots possible. There is no ability to "bucket" a set of loft gain responses based on altitude, speed, or range, and there is no moderation of the value once set. Thus, to make certain the 54 can function effectively at its signature ranges comes the expense of mid-range (25-45 mile) shots folks *think* it should easily make. But as crews have expressed- there are reasons that particular region had cutouts and shot holds, not simply including the Phoenix performance itself. And, to be frank, even if loft bucketing or gain moderation comes after a guidance API change, there's still going to be a reduction in comparative performance in the noted ranges. It's Big Chungus, missile body and impulse designed to carry initial velocity and inertia out to the 60-100 mile region to intercept all targets- large, small, and maneuvering. That design requirement implies limitations that pure impulse and maneuvering authority can't overcome as it works in higher (relative) density air when it has to come back down too early in the profile. Use Phoenix like a Phoenix. The implications of controlling the fight are unavailable to any other weapon in DCS, just as it was unavailable to any other weapon prior to Meteor. While the target is deciding if he wants to live and surrendering all their SA to do so, you're setting up the followup- all while they're not getting to use the envelope where they're superior. And be warned: jamming is soon going to reinforce this, with the Tomcat having the only method of positive target ID prior to burn through when operating without AWACS. An F-14 that didn't used to jam because of the resulting becon effect can now do so- and unlike you: he can still tell what you are at valid HOJ range.

When you command half action on the HCU, the target field of the scan area and the beam width collapses as the radar goes into "supersearch". This makes it necessary to use the HCU elevation vernier control to get the radar exactly onto the target aircraft prior to commanding full action to get the lock. Consider it the difference between a flashlight and a laser pointer; the elevation command in the bar area is the same, but because the beam is smaller, the likelihood is that target is above or below the *exact* plane of the bar scan. It's simply thar the larger beam width captures this disparity naturally in standard search, whereas the focused energy going for the STT needs fine tuning to put it on the opposing aircraft.