[F-4E Phantom II Development Update and Release Delay Announcement]

1 hour ago, speed-of-heat said:

if they don't maintain it who will... it wont magically update itself ?

certificate pinning could be used to limit access to specific sites, but, then we are in a different world of what is the criteria who maintains it and buys the certs etc..., otherwise it becomes quite difficult to limit actual access for example a suborned link  could be used by a motivated attacker, why would they be motivated money typically, ransom ware, vandalisim, the list goes on.  in the example they specifically show it going out to an arbitrary website, yes it happens to have DCS content on it and i actually use that site myself ... but what happens when that site links to another and so on ... who is going to maintain the whitelist, most games do not include a live internet browser for a reason ... this is one of them

I don't think they thought it was dangerous when in one of the first versions of IE they enabled arbitrary code execution remotely via a URL.. everyone thought it was a great idea until the bad guys started using it... even then i remember some of the more frantic calls begging to keep this functionality enabled... 

The problem is the implications for "good use" are easy and clear where as the implications for  "abuse" are not clear and hard to understand, because of 2nd and 3rd order problems... and hard even for security professionals with 4 decades in the field to understand ...  and TBH neither HB or ED are experts in the field of security.. because their exposed threat surface is small ... a browser changes that massively so, hilariously so... 

 

As mentioned; we're cognizant of this and these features will only be available in a manner that is secure.
The intent is not to provide a general browser experience, but rather serve safe, appropriate content - strictly and safely. 

Most importantly, everything needed for the module itself runs locally (manual, UI, etc.) without a single byte of data leaving or entering your computer - and so we can even provide further options to further inhibit any traffic for the users who feel at risk by mistakenly hitting a hotkey.

 

[F-4E Phantom II Development Update and Release Delay Announcement]

Security is of course important and we take it seriously. Note however that the UI is run and stored locally, using only files stored on your hard drive unless using the specific internet related features.

[Wear and Tear questions]

On 2/18/2024 at 4:11 PM, G.J.S said:

Could that be a switchable option?

If there may be performance degradation then could there be a selection that inhibits the movement, thereby not having a performance hit?

Dont know if it indeed would cause a drop in performance, but if so . . . Every little helps.

It's just an example; not something we're noting as being an actual bottleneck right now.
The entire module is a product of the whole; and if there's overall more complexity involved, even small things like a few additional vertex transformations every frame can have an impact.

Performance is important and while we want to push things onward in fun ways, we're not very enticed into creating unplayable, unfun experiences.

[Wear and Tear questions]

6 hours ago, NoodI said:

very relieved 

Just to make an addendum to @Zabuzard. Not that our target is the F-14; however the F-4E is definitely far more detailed (30% more code alone!) and runs a higher fidelity and deeper simulation than we've ever done before. 

I'd also note that the models and art in general are more complex. More things shaking, moving, wobbling means a lot more vertex transformations for your CPU to do. 

We're working really hard to ensure that performance is reasonable on launch. Currently performance is under the F-14 benchmark, but we've not done final profiling and optimization just yet, so we hope to find more headroom.

[Question To Heatblur - Hypothetical Crowd Funding A Module]

what grouchy_creason means

is that generally for now we've got our roadmap full and we're capitalized enough to go ahead and execute on that. But it's always an option for a bigger project in the future if we can't swing it without the community's support!

[Custom pilots ethnicities]

Yes, absolutely! On launch you can use the arg system for this, but later on we will offer all ethnicities- super important for us.

[[DCS ISSUE] TCS and Multithreading]

investigating.

[Small bug in the autothrottle panel]

The label was sourced from photogrammetry, so it was indeed misplaced in the jet we scanned, thus it's at least accurate to _some_ jets

[F-4E Phantom Development Report - DCS Newsletter 31/03/2023]

DCS: F-4E is, as the name implies, an -E.

Our -E is modeled mostly after a specific block and set of T.O., however in general, specimens did change slightly here and there. E.g. our cockpit includes the AVTR recorder, which was a later addition to the cockpit across the fleet. 

[F-4E INS alignment duration + nav system question]

On 4/3/2023 at 9:24 AM, WinterH said:

I'm afraid I'l have to pull off the "you'll have to trust me on that one" here. I do recall HB stating a few times that it will DSCG being first, DMAS being later in various forum posts etc, but can't quite dig them out right now :). But yeah, it isn't stated in that FAQ. Really sure they won't be at the same time at release though.

Perhaps @IronMike or @Cobra847 may clarify the order when/if they are able

DSCG first with DMAS to follow, indeed.

[Can the vertical tail be shaken?]

Soon!

[DCS: F-14A & B - Excessive shimmering in Cockpit]

To help alleviate this, you can try forcing your mip bias in the nvidia / amd control panel to a higher value. This will however affect the mip ranges for all textures.

[F-14A/B Flight Model Tuning - Guided Discussion]

2 hours ago, Maxthrust said:

hb just don’t have the expertise to model it properly. That’s also why they keep “fixing” the same stuff over and over. 

...If you say so.

[Since 2.8 new lighting the hud glass is too green and opaque]

The issue happens when you have shadows off exclusively because the angle of the light to the glass becomes such to make it appear far more opaque than it is. The flipside of this is that if we tweak this to work well with shadows off- the green glass will be almost invisible with shadows on.

[Question about internal lightning]

yes, we're aware of this one and will fix it  

[Jester and iceman]

22 minutes ago, Callsign JoNay said:

After struggling with the Jester interface for a couple years now, I want a cursor for A2A mode. With a human RIO I can tell them verbally to hook a contact to my 2 o'clock 40 miles out, or to hook the hostile contact behind me in my ground stabilized mode. Without a human RIO I'm at the mercy of Jester to hook the right contact, and it's pure luck of the draw, and he never hooks anything useful in ground stabilized.

They gave us a way to slew the LANTIRN in A2G mode as a substitute for being able to tell a human RIO to slew left/right etc, (although it's tied to using a head tracker for some strange reason, they should just allow us to ditch the "put the dot in the circle" method and let us map it to an axis), and they gave us q-eyeballs to simulate being able to tell a human rio to move the LANTIRN to something we see outside the cockpit. My wish is to have a similar substitute for A2A mode. Not direct control of the half action TID cursor itself, but some kind of red dot or something I can slew as a substitute for being able to verbally direct a human RIO.

Also, they should make every Jester function able to be mapped so we can access via Voice Attack without needing Vaicom/AIRIO which is now blocked by pure script integrity check settings.

I'm hoping for major improvements in Jester 2.0.

We have similar ideas.

[E version release order.]

22 hours ago, Czechnology said:

Pretty sure its got the same gun sight, but I could very easily be wrong.

Correct!

[JASDF F-4/RF-4 Phantoms]

Personally I find the F-4EJ to be one of the coolest aspects of DCS: F-4E!

We'll be introducing a Japanese pilot option post-EA release as well

[Think the F-15 Release is/will have an Impact]

2 hours ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

my unscientific guess is we’ll see the F-4E sometime in December 2023 or early 2024. 

This is an exceptionally unrealistic projection at present.  
We're getting close. Soon we'll have poured two years of very hard work into the Phantom and thus we're rapidly approaching completion.
 

On 2/2/2023 at 5:19 PM, Czechnology said:

Like I asked. F-15E is set to pre-order starting Feb 15. Technically speaking I don't think they are required to release with a certain gap in between them, especially given its a non-ED module, but we don't know to what extent ED tries to referee the release schedule, if at all. 

So restating, think the F15E is going to have an impact on when we finally get our hands on our F-4Es?

There will be some gaps between releases as this is something that all parties feel is good, but the development or release schedule on a macro level is not influenced by the 15E. Put simply, and with all due respect, we do our own thing and don't really care much about other third parties. I wouldn't even say we consider other releases quite as competitors, as the rising tide raises all boats in DCS. 

In the end, our release and development schedule is dictated by quality first and fiscal responsibilities second. Exact release day, seasonal timing or other release deconfliction are a distant third.

[Pilot Body?]

7 hours ago, Бойовий Сокіл said:

How come Razbam can do this just fine (even for EA release) but Heatblur can't? Both proper base animations like legs and brake pedals and this exra stuff?

 

The hand is not moving off the stick.

EDIT: Also; pedals is an oversight, but our legs move just fine? Am I missing something?

[The Show Must Go On - LIVERY]

5 hours ago, TOViper said:

@IronMike: Do you intend to add this livery to the standard module?
IMHO this one (besides many others) is absolutely worth the additional disc space requirements.

This and other livery updates will be part of the February Viggen patch, indeed!

[Feedback Thread F-14 Tomcat - Update 24th Jan. 2023]

32 minutes ago, Hammer_251 said:

F-14 A steerpoints are not working. or at least randomly work/ don't work. Bomb modes also don't work, neither does the manual gun ; symbology bombs/gun not working. 

 

Do you have a bugreport for these? We are not aware of any issues with the navigation system, especially just in the -A at present.

Likewise for bombing modes or gun modes. 

Thanks!

[Heatblur 2023 Kickoff and Greetings!]

Thanks everyone!

Quote

Eh, this is probably some marketing jargon as it's still a DCS module, following DCS framework. Potentially just a more streamlined dev. process. Older modules would have to be rewritten from scratch if this was anything more substantial.

A good way to put it is that it's part of a standardization process and a long term investment. Even if we grew by 2x we'd have difficulty executing our roadmap (of which only a part is announced). A holistic approach to being able to juggle the amount of (future) balls is key to maintaining HB quality. It's a bit vague and we'll go into more detail later.
 

Quote

On a different note, will we have an online manual for the F-4E like we did with the Tomcat? 

Yep! We're expecting it to end up very similar to the F-14 manual.

[Heatblur 2023 Kickoff and Greetings!]

 

 

 

 

Dear All,

The Heatblur Simulations team and our wonderful partners at TrueGrit would like to wish you a successful and joyful 2023! Have a great new year, full of joy, great times and awesome sim experiences. 2023 is a big year for Heatblur, and we’re grateful that you’re along for the ride. It’s going to be a great one!

We’ve just wrapped up a very tough 2022. From a personal standpoint for many of our team, with personal tragedies and the invasion of Ukraine taking its toll on us and our timelines. Despite this, we look back at 2022 with pride. We’ve seen tremendous growth in capability and size, forged new partnerships and shipped features and improvements throughout the year. While still playing catch-up; we’re right back on track on finishing the first of our next generation of high fidelity simulation experiences, starting with the F-4E Phantom II and leading towards the Eurofighter Typhoon.

 

 

While we missed our mark on the F-4E Phantom for a 2022 release; we’re now very close to full completion of all major elements: flight model, radar, weapons systems, and other key major systems- and even ancillary content as another full length Meteor album! You’ve seen a sneak-peek in the 2023 and beyond video, and we can’t wait to fully unveil the aircraft that we’ve built over the past two years. For the Phantom- and all of our new products- we’ve invested heavily into building our next generation platform and framework. This enables faster future development, intrinsic multithreading, more dependable multicrew synchronization, far less of a maintenance burden, and new standardized features such as wear & tear, aircraft persistence, mass dynamics, and far more.

In addition to this; we’ve also had our sights on JESTER v2, a complete rewrite of the JESTER AI system which will enable faster AI development and developer ease of use for integration in future aircraft such as the A-6.

On the Eurofighter front, we continue to lay the foundations of this module through application of our next generation framework. Soon, the majority of the work will remain in high level parts: radar, weapons systems, displays and flight control systems- all leaning and benefitting from the completed next generation core. As an incredibly complex aircraft and project, the Eurofighter will be a litmus test for our team to ensure quality and accuracy while avoiding excessive technical debt.

These considerations are key for a project of this scope and size, as we strive to minimize maintenance burden and excessive sustainment resources. You should expect to see much more Eurofighter development progress in 2023 as we begin to approach an early access release and feature completion level.

 

 

 

We also look towards 2023 with continued love for the Viggen and Tomcat. We capped off the year with another major Viggen patch, and now set our sights on another round of additions to both products. We’re working hard to get on target on the early F-14A, which remains the largest piece of the F-14 yet undelivered, among of course other outstanding and promised features, such as TARPS or FORGE. Further Viggen improvements are slated for the early part of this year as we continue product sustainment. It’s time to get rid of those Early Access tags and square these aircraft away.

Quality, consistency and pushing boundaries are our top priorities, and we’re as excited as ever for all that we’ve been cooking.
Stay tuned for the full Phantom unveiling and for other exciting announcements with new partners and beyond. 

Thank you all once again for your dedicated support and passion.
That’s what drives and motivates us, and we’ll make sure your faith is well placed with each upcoming release.

 

Sincerely,
Team Heatblur

 

 

[Why so much negativity? A Phantard Speaks.]

The naval variants are very important to us and not a distant afterthought, FWIW. We had to start with something - in this case we felt the -E was a great representation of the Phantom to begin with. That doesn't in any way diminish the importance of the naval versions though- do keep that in mind. We don't play favourites.