Cobra847

@TOViper; the RB-05 has been fixed and will be available in the September patch. :)

Dear All, The team is currently focused and very busy with completing some of the biggest features we’ve ever shipped; the F-14A, Forrestal, A-6 and Campaigns. The F-14A will release with an undetermined list of additional features in the October DCS patch. The latest changelogs for the F-14 have been anemic due to our insistence and prioritization of new feature branches, and we look forward to showing you more about what kinds of upgrades we’ve done to various aircraft systems along the way! Since those updates will focus more on new features, we figured we’d just drop a quick, non-exhaustive list of major, priority issues that we’re working on. We know that several of these are frustrating and common annoyances (especially in Multiplayer!) and since we’ll be speaking almost exclusively about new features, we want to make sure that you all know that these issues are not, nor will they be forgotten. Some of our priority issues as of today include: Aim-54 Phoenix API changes and guidance behavior This is a big one; and requires more support from ED to fully solve. Bear with us a while longer as we continue the conversation with Eagle on making sure this gets done appropriately. Jester getting stuck in TWS-A Jester unable to return to RWS Jester getting stuck in RWS after TWS-Auto General TWS-Auto issues (desync, track loss, etc., where actual bugs exist) Adding Radar mode selection options for Jester Jester IFF improvements Jester STT Target selection and prioritization Wind heading/speed calculation issues when dropping bombs under very specific circumstances (investigation in progress!) TCS slave to radar for human RIO Missing Mak-79 racks LAU-138 on outboard station & missing textures on lower station Right Engine not starting after damage and respawn (this one is incredibly difficult to fix - we will continue investigating!) Hook animation changes and damage model (as well as associated physics, hook skip bolter, etc.) Continued damage model refinement (unkillable pilot, more visual changes) Repair not working correctly for certain items (like collapsed gear) Ground and Taxi behaviour issues Hundreds of small(er) issues! With the launch of the -A and thus taking a giant leap towards feature complete status, we will turn our attention to improving existing systems as we continue to refine and complete the aircraft. Stay tuned as we begin discussing the sweeping changes to the F-14 coming in October next week! Thanks as always for your support, we're cognizant of our gaps and where we must work harder, and we hope we will reward your patience through the continued release of quality work. Sincerely, HB

The F-14's lights are already set as gigantic glowing orbs in distant LoDs, not sure they should be even bigger. It's a tough balance to get right.

2.2 is physically correct gamma space for the engine with the current tonemapper, default, and is what we use as baseline.

I don't want to go into detail here as it is not my story to tell, but to summarize what our SME's have said on this topic is that the visibility of these lights could be so poor that it had a measurable effect on a real-life mishap at one point. We'll strengthen the light a bit, however.

It is not. However, DCS splash damage applies damage to a very big area, so when you get hit by missiles, most of the damage cells take damage.

We can only render one mirror. Otherwise performance would suffer immensely. The front mirrors are treated as RIO mirrors thus in the rear cockpit.

Your DCS Audio options define this, IIRC.

Who stated that? :) That was the goal of DCS as a whole for this patch - which is different to what we are doing. It's easy to say that small bugs are quick and easy to fix; but inevitably something else gets nuked in the queue (frequently, also small things!). This patch was an interim version of the F-14 that does not include many fixes, unfortunately, but it's simply because the August and September patches are slated to be very major releases. (F-14A, Campaigns, other stuff) That said, I'll move this up the queue and if there's a hotfix, we'll ship it.

We'll make another pass to try and tweak the balance between eye-blinding light intensities at night vis-a-vis visibility at day for the next patch (in August). :)

Yes.

This lights look like this in reality. There are no glossy reflections built into those textures. The milky haziness to the glass is authentic per our SMEs. I can look at increasing the lighting intensity, however per our SMEs, both of those lights were practically totally unreadable in sunlight.

Next patch is not necessarily major, the one after is planned to be.

This will be a settable livery option once we ship it.

Thanks for the great and constructive post Bearfoot! We know the shifting menu items are not ideal in all situations, but there are some development reasons why it was implemented as-is, and we have to deploy development resources elsewhere, at least for now. This is one of those "easy to fix, hard to implement" issues that we will need to look at in the future (e.g. preferred rose slot per command, greyed out, other solution?) - without making any guarantees on exact changes today. We are and we do consider the current implementation acceptable. I am aware of how that sounds (I don't intend to be dismissive) - but I can't agree that this is any kind of EA showstopper functionality issue at all.

It's not easy to cover 4 years of development in the manual without missing something. ;)

The only major exterior improvement in the pipeline is a PBR overhaul - and that was never promised - just our personal wish to implement. It's a bonus, if anything. :) Sorry you feel that way about the pilot, but there are changes coming- harness and leg movement in particular.

Keep in mind; the biggest (worst) part of the F-14 cockpit visibility is actually the canopy itself. The sides are very tall, and the front is extremely thick (about 2x as thick as the frame itself).

Do you have a screenshot on hand? Thanks!

FWIW, the Viggen has a strong blue UV coating on the gauge glass. However, it is still slightly too strong.

They got nuked with one of the lighting changes unfortunately. It's definitely very high on my to do list!

Will take a look at this :)

Major items include the exterior sound overhaul and PBR overhaul. There are not many changes beyond that planned except for bugfixing. We'll be feature complete, stable and mostly bug-free. That's what we consider release status. We think the Viggen, even in it's present state fulfills that status. Ground radar overhaul with the new API is not planned.

Hi Everyone! Just an extremely quick status update from us to keep you in the loop- Unfortunately, as many of you have heard, there were some personal difficulties which impacted our deliverable goals and planned roadmap in Q1 and through a pretty good chunk of Q2. Even something reasonably quickly resolved (3 weeks) can have a significant impact on timelines on certain parts of a project with small teams. We don't see this as an excusable situation and continued failure to execute is very inappropriate, however we feel obligated to be as transparent as possible and hope to be able to plan for contingencies better in the future. On a positive note, despite some of these difficulties, we've shipped a substantial amount of changes and features! Here's a partial list if anyone has been out of the loop: Primary goals for the next several major patches through early to mid summer (now through end of July~) are: F-14 interior lighting fixes & overhaul (for new lighting system) Digital engine instruments Exterior sound overhaul for F-14 Exterior sound overhaul for AJS37 F-14B Campaign JESTER LANTIRN (Finally!) AJS37 PBR Overhaul Initial F-14A Release (Beta, with some -B-isms remaining!) Primary medium term release items (~late Summer) are the Forrestal class, full completion of the F-14A and new in-cockpit pilots. We decided to push the Forrestal class release and prioritize the F-14A, as this will allow us to correct remaining SC carrier issues, and to tweak the Forrestal to be better compatible with changing carrier code in the DCS platform. With the launch of the F-14A and Forrestal class and campaigns, we will be close to feature complete on the F-14, with the exception of the A-6. Our goal, as stated previously, is to be done and dusted by the 2y anniversary of the F-14 launch (Mar, 2021). Hope that helps to shed some light on our current focus areas. You'll see the list above start to ship in the coming major patches until full completion and will be detailed in deeper updates through June and July. Thanks for the support and patience - we look forward to sharing and shipping the above on the next 2.5.6 updates. Sincerely, Team HB

This is unintentional. It happens because alpha texture sampling has changed substantially. It will be fixed.