captain_dalan

PM-d you

I'm trying to replay again, something must have went wrong the first time. It looks like for some reason you are flying at a slightly higher angle of attack. Are you adding enough rudder to your turns? If so, then something else must wrong with your technique. This are my results (i just flew them) and how i got them: Mach 0.463 or 306 knots, 4.96g. That's practically right on the money

It's not just the FM that makes the AI do what it does though. It just seems to fight according to one set of rules and that alone. The higher the difficulty setting, the harder the adherence to those principle. As different planes operate better in different regimes, this most often results in suboptimal use of the aircraft. MiG-15, MiG-21, F-5, F-86 benefit from this. F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18, Su-27, MiG-29 do not. Or do so less. As mentioned above, the F-18 is in the least favorable situation here.

Please people, no need to draw daggers over this... Now i dream of a day when DCS will provide a platform that will allow for fatigue simulation and cumulative hours, a day of variation in AC of the same type performance that will make some of them so called "hangar queens" and other "hotrods". But it is not this day..... In the meantime, just to increase the sample size...... things AREN'T that bad. I mean, i wasn't gonna do more test until the next months patch, but if we want to be that pedantic... mach 0.461 or 305 knots, 4.91 g mach 0.47 or 311 knots, 5.10 g So 0.1g or less difference at 304 knots or the plane doesn't sustain 5g at 304 knots, but at 307-308..... a 4 knot difference. If you want to fight over it ok, but i think we should let the update take place first and test the flight model later. EDIT: not to mention the A seems right on the money, well bellow 0.1g variance up to mach 0.8.

The AI in DCS is by necessity using very different rules when flying and obeying laws of physics. The Hornet is one of the best dogfighters in DCS right now and very hard to beat when no pylons are present on the wings AND bellow 10000ft, however when in the hands of an AI, it just rolls over and dies. Seriously, out of all the 4th gens in the game, it's by far the easiest to gun down. Also, on the topic of AI fighting, more pilot skill doesn't always equate to better. Especially for the modern planes. I don't have the free time to fly during the working week, so to deal with my DCS fix i setup small AI VS AI fights and just watch what is going to happen. A couple of nights ago, i setup an F-14 VS F-16 AI VS AI duel. Both planes timed to have almost the same time in burner. Set both AI's to ace. Then i let them fight. Outcome - draw. They ran out of fuel. Actually the Viper ran out of fuel a bit faster, but not by much. Changed skill level to veteran. Again -draw. Changed Viper to Ace, Turkey to Veteran, Turkey wins. And the other way around. It seems that, for modern planes, a Veteran skill level will give you better performance out of the AI. Contrast this with the F-86 and the MiG-15, which actually fight better at ACE.

Very close to my own tests so far, at least for the two altitudes i have tested.

Awesome! Thanks for the info

PM-d you

What do you mean by locking up contacts? How he responds to orders to manually lock targets or how he "bugs" them in TWS?

Well, the D flight manual states mach 2.0 for a clean bird at 36000ft and the SAC data posted above seem to agree with that. Did you use the scripted mission?

These replaced the old ones in the user files, right? I.E. if i filter skins by Reflected now, i won't get the old ones as well? Great work as always BTW!

AI pilots do a lot of silly stuff or don't do a lot of stuff they should. Unfortunately HB doesn't control AI behavior.

Those estimates are spot on with what the manuals say, at least for the configurations available. Well, it should be able to get up to mach 2 at 35000 when clean at least.

Ah, that makes sense! Glad you found the issue!

What plane? I hit mach 2.2 in the A at 36000ft with 2X2X2

Seconded!

Yep, it's been a while, though not that great a while

I don't think there are, unless someone has done some heavy moding. Most of the direct controls for radar behavior are just not available in the front seat.

Last night as i was CAP-ing over Beirut on Through the Inferno, i was fiddling with the NAV grid from the front seat, and as i was in MP, dragging the thing around from the Jester POV was not possible. Now i know a direct drag and drop from the front seat isn't quite worth the fuss, but a Jester command to center the Grid on the TID as we can center the plane or the ground already, would be a nice feature. Especially for us that like to you bullseye calls for building SA. What say you?

Strange, last night on Through the Inferno servers TWS worked all right for me. Also, i flew a few home made training missions again a MiG-31 in SP, and again, the radar worked no worse then it ever did.

Weird. I flew the F-14 last night, both in SP and MP (but not this campaign) and they worked just fine. I flew the campaign before the patch and they also worked as intended. Could it be a binding issue? The latest patch did mess up some bindings in many users, including me.

Got it. I just did some quick runs at low altitude and I'll keep testing for my own personal tactical use only, but there are some minor improvements in the areas that were most off before. All in all, it seems the transonic area is the most contentious one. The top speed for the A in 4x4 appears to be only slightly above the published figures. 10 to 15 knots or there about. Will be waiting for your posts! Keep up the great work and thanks for all the efforts!

Copy that. Best to wait for the update then

Roger that! When is the next hotfix scheduled for?

Or perhaps not enough people know about them?