Fri13

The datalink with the GCI is not the main problem as that is updated only every 10 seconds. The problem is that the group of 4 fighters can not have fast datalink capability (and four groups can connect to each others) where target data is shared, so you see where each flight member is aiming, located and what targets each is suppose to have. This as well allows visually to triangulate ECM targets as each knows the vector to them but not the range, and you would see the missile ranges in display so you would know when to launch. So you say that SU-27S shouldn't have a RWR at all? Are you saying that IRST shouldn't have range information? The sight reticle is trace of the limitation of FC3. It should be fixed to your view like in a KA-50 with similar symbols and only direct your sensors or missile on that direction. It is annoying that it stays "locked on" like a JHMCS on F/A-18C, but ED doesn't make even a simple fix by removing that "lock-on" capability and make it stay fixed in camera.

IMHO each cockpit should be separated bindings group that you can't operate from the another. So example to use the master arm switch in the operator cockpit you need to be in that one, you can't be sitting in the pilot cockpit and just press button. The sight has already a automatic switching when the cyclic is stoved away, and you enter to the sight. So you can have sight controls as in your joystick X and Y axis when looking through sight, and when you pull cyclic out you would be flying with it. Then when you swap to pilot cockpit your joystick X and Y is controlling pilot cyclic.

There is possibility that the stabilization system is not as effective as it should. Because various documentation talks about 0.92 hit probability when pilot is free to turn up to 60 degrees. At the moment you can't really make any maneuvers as sight will collide and be thrown away.

I think that depends from module and the runway. I feel that Yak-52 has tendency to almost do in pieces on take-off. While some others or is like sliding on ice hockey ring. I think that is reason as well why people love their jetseats as it gives them that rumble and shaking.

I think those open up some of the generic parts.

Nitehawk was primary targeting pod in 2006 for hornet. In 2005 the fleet admiral in whatever combat sit front of the congress telling how badly things were. Super Hornets had the ATFLIR, the whole F/A-18C fleet had only two ATFLIR for testing purposes. The USMC F/A-18D Hornets had Litening but C models and Spanish ones had none. It was just two ATFLIR for all C hornets, and rest used Nitehawk. What we should have is the old setup, requiring two pods for operation. And then leave the ATFLIR and LITENING to future 2007-2008 missions. If someone has problem with that, they could stick their mission to dated 2005 and fly with terrible Nitehawk that requires another pod for self designation and isn't allowed to even do that because it is so inaccurate that you can't make out do you target enemy or friendly, and do you even get bomb in that location.

While in VR #1 rule is not to move the head as it cause nausea. But you could move the plane, keep the head stationary for the terrain for a slight lag and then start to follow the plane. That could work. And add proper G forces, blurring edges, losing colors, and then start dimming edges and you can move virtual head alot because you just created blinders that help against nausea.

So we do get A-G mode. I already got worried...

There is still the incorrect behavior for DMT and attack symbology. As in previous @Schmidtfire thread about DMT/TV look: When the TV mode is activated without lock and there is a Target Designation (for waypoint, for slewing first time or re-attack) the TV mode should be in the "open crosshair mode". The DMT would be just floating around the target designation and be used for Visual ID the area, without round stabilization. The pilot task is to press SSS Aft to either switch to DMT/TV mode (if not already, like if designation done in INS mode in IFOV area, DMT/LST mode, Waypoint or TOO etc) or press and release TDC Down to initiate lock-on process. After 180 ms the TV crosshair would jump to strongest contrast (the brightest) that is inside the open crosshair area and lock on it. If there is a contrast lock on target, the boxed crosshair can move to nearby similar contrast as the system is considering it as a moving target. This cause problems where the TV tracker can jump to unwanted bright objects in frame when tracking example moving target. The real manual as well states the DMT logic where after reaching a gimbal limit, the DMT display should be replaced by the compass rose to guide pilot for re-attack and attack mode switch from DMT -> INS . When the pilot turns back toward the target area and target is inside the DMT gimbal, the system should be in INS mode but the DMT/TV would be in Open Crosshair mode pointing at the designated target, waiting the pilot to switch from INS -> DMT/LST -> DMT/TV to re-lock the target if required, as otherwise system is guiding pilot using just INS mode for re-attack.

As long it is technically possible it should be made possible. But it as well need to have properly simulated drawbacks. That is correct. What they should do is to allow the APKWS II rockets to be usable, hit it with the 2016 timestamp for the proper time filter in the Mission Editor and this way you make proper timeline possible as well for those who want to follow it. Those who want to go for strictly for one specific year with real history can build their missions as they can and be repeating them time after time. Those who want realistic capabilities but make a own missions and scenarios could do so as well. Only if technically possible. I don't know about that, so I leave it to those who actually knows is the AIM-7 technically possible be carried and launched in the F-16 we have. Leave the real world politics and religion out of the DCS World, that is mission designers decision to either follow or ignore in the sandbox. Those who want to restrict their missions to real history can do so with all its limitations it brings. Those who are willing to go for creativity can make missions or campaigns like "Museum Relic" and such. If a six fuel tanks is possible in F-16CM, then so be it. Just model properly the drag, weight and all other parts so those who want to use it can enjoy it.

Light reading for bed.... I remember seeing that in the past, didn't leave a happy imagery.

It shouldn't be required be so, but possible be done so if wanted. It should be in control of the AI so that normal players don't need to even think about it in mission editing. Too many things in DCS is behind scripts, waypoints etc. It is time to let go of those requirements for players to get functional and living combat experience from take-off to landing. The scripting is critical part of almost any game, don't take it wrong. But it should never be requirement for basic and advanced features. Example the Super Carrier, it shouldn't require any scripting to have it living and functioning properly. It should be default that you spawn on deck, you have deck filled properly from planes, it is populated by crew and you have all guidance and everything from start to finish by the default. You would even see planes take-off and fly randomly as in RAT etc. So be it example a flight take-off and fly a 50 nm circus and then return. Have the rescue helicopters in station and everything. Then if player does not want those things, they can in editor click them off one by one "no extra planes", "No deck crew", "No random traffic", "No automatic ship positioning" etc.

It is question do you get hit by fragment or not. Standing a 20 meters from a Mk.82 explosion with nose fuze on hard ground doesn't leave much changes that none of the fragments would hit you, and the noise, shock wave and all does their own thing. Standing 800 meters from a Mk.82 explosion will eliminate all the shock waves and heat, but that noise will be severe for such distance. But you can be hit by a fragment if you are unlucky. I think that for sake of simulation, those 800 m fragmentation could be left out from any calculations toward ground units. It could be performed against a air vehicles like helicopters or jets that dropped it etc, as it could be reasonable sometimes get hit by such. by some odd reason. But if we start to talk about distances like 50 meters and 150 meters, then we are in the radius of actually required to calculate effects. We could easily make off most of them if we have three stances for infantry, standing, crouched, and prone. If the soldier is standing, then perform calculation. If the soldier is crouched, you lower the probability and if the soldier is prone, then you don't do anything for damage, but you can distract and disturb, cause shock, fear etc. Then if the soldier is inside a 50 meters and is prone, you start to do some calculations for damage. I have seen IRL enough Mk.82's to go off, that I wouldn't want to be anywhere near those things. Seeing 80 mm mortars effects or 155 mm artillery impacts and then the target area doesn't leave much to guessing that what would happen to 100+ men in the area. Even if you would stay alive dug in the foxhole, you would be so frighten that fighting is likely last thing you are thinking at that moment. Please, no "healing" in the field. We need actual operation instead these game functions. Meaning you need to evacuate the personnel = transport them away. You need to move your troops away, recover the vehicles and if not possible then possibly destroy them etc. It is already enough arcade that we have 3 minute repair and refueling in the base for aircraft and infinite amount of planes, fuel, weapons etc. It would be far nicer to have the proper turn-around times for fighters, and then just have few of them on roadbases etc. So you need to then jump to another if you want to take-off from there - or wait the whole time. In SP it is possible to speed up the time, but in multiplayer it means you are out of luck. Having limited amount of planes in the airbase means that you do not want to crash or destroy them. As you are left with none. The ground commanders should be there to protect their soldiers and vehicles, so they don't get damaged and injured - or worse, killed and destroyed. If those tasks would in RTS mode require micro management and get the medical rescue helicopter and recover vehicles etc for proper places, then be it. You learn to avoid them getting damaged. Rockets would alone become more effective when you could stress the enemy, cause them moral pressure, weaken their will and cause fear etc. Suppress them from fighting. As then you could utilize them far more as should when you don't need to kill targets. Coordinated attack with the ground forces would help to capture areas, get enemy withdraw and move them away is as effective method as trying to kill them. Now when every AI is like complete idiot that doesn't know what "death" means, they are causing all weapons too to become ineffective.

Unless you have a gprs connection and upload 4096px 48 bit texture files all over, then you are problem free from that. Seriously, the programmers has already been doing these things for decades. The problem has not been that where you are located as person, or the internet connection (as long you have one) but two major parts. 1) You can't just turn around and ask from someone near you that what was what and where etc. You can't turn to look other monitor and help to solve some problem etc. 2) If you don't use a proper distributed version control system, then you are in trouble. Programmers has been in advantage before writers, who has been in problems when writing together some scripts or plays. On computer era it is already basic thing to use a comparison features in editors to find the differences. But that is common thing among normal users who just don't know all the tools there has been for decades. If one would add today a IRC (discord) or if internet connection supports a group video with webcams, then it would be closest to what one can have on office, except you can mute all and be in silence if so wanted. This is as well reason why Microsoft is so heavily pushing the Teams in Windows 11. That you can just quickly open a video connection to co-worker and have the video call. Apple has been on this for over decade with their Facetime but majority of people have personal problems to be on video calls. Even when Nokia had them possible at the 90's, people didn't want to use them. Since the 70's the video calls were presented to be possible made from everywhere, first at the board level and then with more and more company workers and eventually even from a phonebooth in street corner. That everywhere would be done with video calls. Even when every laptop sold comes with webcam, it is one of the least used features in whole device. So welcome just the VoIP. Have a nice bluetooth headset for one ear and just call someone and talk about it, or if not time sensitive then leave a email. I remember how in 90's we had all computers connected so that you could just see is the user online and drop a message to them directly. And if the person was not online, message was delivered when user logged in. One of the major problems with the technology adaptation has been this idiotic "cloud" marketing speech. There is a Intranet and there is Internet. You can connect multiple Intranets through Internet and everyone has access like in same LAN. The whole world has been slowed down by Microsoft and Apple, and excellent ideas were killed because few didn't have vision... But this all is off-topic, as this is not a wishlist thread but more of a chit-chat....

Would be good to have some sense like enemy proximity, or being under attack (detection of explosion proximities etc). As a smart ATC would be at that moment issuing command to just get out of there in proper order so planes don't collide on runway.

Those radius values are fairly heavily understated to improve the capabilities. If you tell someone that lethal radius is 20 meters, then they expect everyone to die inside 20 meters, even if there is then only a 10% change to happen so. Why you give them the average aiming and hit probability and considering the cover and all, you give them a values that are closer to 80-90% than 30-50%. This cause the common problem in all kind games and such that values are taken as mathematical proof and middle finger is given for physics. We can take the normal inverse square law and have a very good understanding of the fragmentation spread in hypothetically perfect scenario (lets give a specific density of specific fragments sizes and velocity) and get a good estimation of the spread for various distances like 2-4-8-16-32 meters. We could implemented that with a mathematical value for target size that makes it probability based instead just "inside" or "outside" of specific simple mathematical ring.

"I am sorry that the engineers and workers built this airbase such way that only the paved areas are hardened and compacted, everything else is just a swap where your wheel will sink like after a heavy rainy week..."

I don't care about Blk 30, Blk 10 or who ever wants to draw the strawman arguments where ever wanted. The topic is about F-16CM Blk 50 and 3x fuel tanks to be carried. Question being "is it a good idea?" And what comes to any weapons loadouts, if some loadout is technically impossible - then it shouldn't be possible be loaded in the DCS, regardless of politics, religion or anything else. If the weapon is technically possible to be loaded in the station, pylon, adapter etc and launched functionally, then it should be possible in DCS, regardless of politics, religion or anything else. Leave the politics out as technical facts, as history doesn't tell anything that what is technically possible or not, the technical manuals does so. Not even pilot handbook tell the true things, you need to actually have the engineering manual that is something technically possible.

I think that ED has protection for infantry as they only stand, can't get in cover. So they simulate soldiers being crawling on ground by the low damage values across weapons. Those grenades are like hand grenades. Lethal from 5-15 meters and nicely wounds for 30-50 meters if hit. You can have fragments to fly far further but are they wounding or would they hit anyone is questionable. Because fragments ain't simulated, it is more like 3-5 meters effective radius. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGS-30 If I remeber correctly, those same grenades are used in it.

Exactly about the missiles. But the ECM, IFF and such are cases that ED should really go for educated guesses. There is so much public domain and classified as unclassified information about both that ED could make 100 times better simulation for those two. They don't get the encryption keys and such never, ever. But that is just situation for those who have ultimatum "if you can't do it perfectly, don't do it at all" opinion and doesn't accept educated guesses at all. Simulating a various different radars is not difficult (done that, been there). Simulating the interference for them is neither difficult. Making a IFF system that would actually be usable and realistic is not impossible task either. But when it comes to missiles, the whole thing drops to some odd circular status. "No information = No changes" and yet all was based to just some random decisions from some public sources. Now we have at least a calculation for the missile drag and such, but that is really the only part they can now at least do, but it needs to as well support various other evidences. How much data one really does need for a targeting pod? Many want to see proper OSD (On Screen Display) elements (labels, graphical lines etc), but even far more want to be successful with the pod. They want unrealistic ranges, they want their laser is perfection, they want that the pod is perfect. There are only few of us who want realistic very limited resolutions, blurry imagery, limited laser ranges, severely low gimbal turn rates, tracking capabilities etc. All kind things that makes targeting pods more of a "nice to have" than "amazing feature". In one another platform I read that one guy told that he approached the ED about Litening in back in the days when Hornet was out. He said that he was engineer working with the targeting pods and could explain the parts that are public information in them, like gimbal rates, stabilization errors and such by official route. Said that ED responded that they are not interested. A person is ready to invite someone from ED to have a access to official public information and they decline? Well, the guy was like "forget then, do what ever fantasy you want!" as current targeting pods are 100 times better than they should be. I think too many is giving too hard time for all those. Maybe the F-16 audience is just too demanding considering the alternative, that they couldn't just jump right away to "almost ready" module and ditch the alternative simulator, but for most parts F-16 has been good. Sure its not fast as could, it is no where excellent, but it is not so awful than people make it to be for Early Access. If it would have been pushed out from Early Access as such (a la Razbam AV-8B N/A Harrier.... That still is missing like 60% of the proper features and functions) then I could understand. But these small things like a targeting pod and their functionality etc has a lot of weight for summary. Have a thousand small cuts and everything looks bad. But so does the actions that something is declined clearly to be implemented or done simply because "We don't have the public data" and then you can't get that public data revealed to you to show that it is so. So users are required to provide the evidence, but ED can just say "Not based our sources". Well, if someone else here say "based to my sources this and that is so" then it is not enough and he gets attacked. When ED does that, it is just "ED said so, that is the word of authority so STFU". The question always remains that if someone would be able simulate Sniper XR by 80% of its features, is it always a reason not to do it because missing 20% or not directly just do educated guess with rest of it? It is better to try, than not try at all. Usually it is better to implement, than leave it completely out. And then be open and honest about what are the educated guessed parts, and if in future someone can give some evidence for changes then it can be always altered. Like if educated guess is that FOV is 2.25 degrees and it is shown with evidence that it should be 2.4 degrees, then no harm done, just change it. But not to implement it at all because unknown exact value means you never get things done. This is reason why we have those missiles, radars, targeting systems etc as well because otherwise we wouldn't have them at all.

As ED has stated clearly that they will never add gore to the cockpit for pilot wounded or dead status (too violant, increases the game year limit. Like it is fine to kill others will bombs, guns etc, but to see own body blood get all over the place etc is too much...) then at least that red screen effect would be proper. Render everything in red and blur the vision. At least previously you knew this by getting thrown out of the cockpit to outside view.

Well, ED is as well targeting to average gamers. Now they just do MAC for them and still want to provide DCS for them. It is good thing, but that should be opt-out and feature that those who want easier needs to enable those modes. So by default go for realism, hard, punishing mode. Did you crash and burn in any mission? Now your career pilot is dead! Did you forget to tick "Training" mode on before dying? Bad luck that your time invested pilot died. It is difficult to say what ED really wants, as in one hand they offer highest quality for accuracy in simulation, and then they allow some stupid simplified things for no reason! Like a IFF system. Well known how it works, what is it purpose. Yet the multiplayer is full of scenarios where players don't IFF and those who do get magical real information. Like how about implementing a proper IFF system that requires players to input proper codes to system and then simulate the IFF querying with proper accuracy and process. Just like M2000C seems to be now doing (or upcoming) where IFF is untrustworthy for resolution, but you do know that there is a friendly in the area, just don't know who or where exactly. Or another, how about realistic G force effects? Now the hypoxia is modeled more accurately and nicer effects even, but G forces is just same old. But if ED would limit example TrackIR camera movement based G forces, people would cry kerosine from not being able swing head around freely while pulling 9 G and having a perfect vision to keep tracking that enemy around them. The F-16 must be a challenge for the demand as it has such a dedicated user group. So you have so many claiming "it should be able do this and that!" and then need to explain why this specific model can't perform the X degree turn or carry Y weapon or fly at Z speed. It is interesting what the gaming setup really does. When I started with LOMAC it was desktop and TrackIR and all. Totally different mentality than today to fly with VR. Back then the realistic part not same, as now it is more about praising real world limitations than capabilities. So if something is not technically possible, so be it. The square doesn't fit through a circle when same surface area.

The TPM 2.0 requirement is interesting. Considering it should mainly be in Windows only for a Bitlocker drive encryption purpose as required feature, and if you don't use it then Windows 11 should work right. But as lot of new applications has been added to Windows like Teams (doesn't seem to come pre-installed although) that is communication element for it, it might be reason why TPM 2.0 is required so they can do encryption for it connection. As each application is responsible to have TPM support by itself, it would be sensible to just drop the application/feature and leave rest working. Good thing is that TPM earlier was possible be emulated, so you could just install a TPM authenticator for services/applications to connect to. Not the secure one but made possible get TPM everywhere. Something like this: https://sourceforge.net/projects/ibmswtpm2/ There was a good one as TPM 1.2 but I don't know for 2.0. So that might be one solution for someone, if one can get Winsows 11 installed (Win 10 -> Win 11 upgrade) as first and then get that kind running after that. But good thing is that Windows 10 will be supported long for DCS so...

Add the feature to the HC mode so system would detect the improper behaviors and corresponding penalty would be issued to the player. Be it first a warning for the player on server and later just more serious penalties, eventually leading to kick/ban if server owner so wants.

The Hornet should use the AN/AAS-38 Nite Hawk pod, that would require to carry two pods. One that offers FLIR and Laser Designator itself and other AN/ASQ-173 that offers Laser Spot Tracker. http://cmano-db.com/pdf/weapon/63/ Because lack of better photos: It would make far more interesting missions as well when you would have proper awful FLIR quality and challenges and problems with self-designation etc as in reality. Yes, ED could keep the incorrect pods that has already developed for Hornet and Viper with time and money, but at least they should spend little more time to add the proper targeting pods and their characteristics in to them and make them default ones. What ever the F-16 should really carry should be for the same, a proper ones for the year that were available and primarily what was the most used one.