captain_dalan

A bit of a necro reply, but i had been experimenting with the gamma settings, but changing geographic, time and weather conditions to match the ones of the sky over my head (or at least trying to) and the problem is much more complex then simple 1.8, 2.2 or anything in between. I took videos, photos and tried to calibrate them all with why i saw with my own eyes. Then i calibrated my screen to standard brightness, contrast and saturation values, or the closest i could get. Right now i use gamma of 2.1 but it's not perfect. It's just what seams to match my observations on most variables (like vegetation, water, tarmac reflections, shadows depth and contrast, haze....), but surely not all. I.E. shadows still look most authentic on 1.8. Sky hues near the zenith on 1.9. But it all changes for other surfaces and textures. Not to mention the time of the day and weather. DCS is still in development so i guess things will keep changing. For the time being i find 2.1 to be he "golden middle" though. Yeah, a bit too bright on a hazy, warm summer noon, but heck, nothing's perfect.

Are the claims of the radar picking up ground traffic over Nevada just exaggerated rumours then?

This largely depends on what in one's opinion defines the fighter generations and is largely a matter of personal choice then a given fact. Similar to what some people perceive was the role of the F-14 actually. Was it maritime air superiority or was it fleet air defense? People who looked for the former would tell you the first answer and people who looked for the latter will tell you the second one. And what do the DoD requirements and fleet manuals say? They actually say both. So IMO, a more accurate classification would be that if we really must classify the F-14 in a generation, but don't wanna spend the next couple of decades what a generation is, then the plane was a 4th generation platform with 3rd generation avionics. Even that wouldn't be an exact answer as in some ways it was before even the 4th gen fighters, I.E. sensor fusion.

Sorry for the late reply, didn't have a chance to log in this week, but @draconus pretty much answered it. Slight rudder in the direction you need to roll, then stick in that direction, then pull and add rudder as needed to keep the ball centered. If performed really well, no rudder will be needed actually, but i seldom do it that precisely.

Add some rudder to keep the turn coordinated and control the descent rate by changing bank angle. Also...... VDI. But i mostly do it by eye.

You can do that through the ground crew? Nice! I didn't know that. Thanks, you saved quite a few minutes spend in restarting the plane!

Here are my tracks. This is essentially a high altitude CAP, both planes start at angels 35. In the last track i tried changing the AI difficulty level, but that didn't matter. The bandit is clean, no external stores, but CM present. Both AI's set to ACE. Observations: 1. the F-14 never used the Phoenix, it went directly for the Sparrow shot. 2. The F-15 and the F-14 used the Sparrow from similar ranges, inside 20 nautical miles. 3. When the F-14 carried ONLY Sparrows, it actually engages some 5 nautical miles further out. This maybe related to the airspeed it can achieve with this load. EDIT: i keep getting unknown server error -200 when i try to upload the tracks!!!! P.S. Sorry, the problem seams to have fixed itself, here are the tracks! f-14 uses sparrow instead of phoenix.trk f-14 armed only with sparrow fires further.trk f-15 armed only with sparrow.trk veteran f-14 uses sparrow instead of phoenix.trk

Do note, pulse STT won't guide your Phoenixes

Weird, mine got stuck on GS Marianas last night after i landed on the carrier and went engines off to reset the crew. Restarted the plane, engines and all, set air source to both and the INS would not budge It's a one occrrance so who knows

It's a topic about the Tomcat crashes, one of the proposed fixes is the reinstall. Not that it works long term though

Good posts guys, i will record some tracks myself as well. I did notice something else this weekend, when i played one of the instant actions. Namely, the AI will engage at longer ranges, but ONLY if ordered to from extreme distance away. In this mission, i actually got the AI to engage when i ordered him to attack from 80 miles away in opposition to the Persian Gulf mission, which starts at 50 miles away, and when ordered the AI closes to Sparrows before it actually engages. I will make some AI VS AI missions and save the tracks later.

I think the difficulty comes from DCS specific reasons. I expect trimming her would be easier IRL. In a sim though, people are often forced to count clicks.....

Check the already existing topics

And HB have stated time and again that they have no control over the missile after it launches. Hence my comments.

I checked and it's definitely the missiles and not the planes. If given Sparrows, they engage just like any other fighter. But something about the AI makes it think the AFM Phoenix should have a 20 mile range. Has anyone ever reported this behavior to ED?

I'll try that. As for the different missiles, is there a way then, to make them engage at longer ranges? Or change the preferred range based on the missile? Right now there is very little use for the AFM AIM-54 in AI use, that is for slots not used by human players.

And how are we expected to fly behind the boat in visual flight conditions?

I've been thinking about asking this question sooner, but work keeps me distracted and by the time i get home i always forget But recently i had a discussion with a fellow DCS player on his attempts to assign certain planes as AI CAP or Intercept craft and how they, depending on platform sometimes fail to engage at desired or expected ranges. This correlates with my own observations. Namely, when i don't have the time to fly in DCS, or i'm too tired to do so, i sometimes watch missions created by myself play out on auto-play, that is with all planes controlled by AI. During these sessions i noticed the same thing my friend noticed with his missions. To investigate this further, i made several missions of very simple nature, just 2 planes, separated by 70-80 miles, set to either CAP or fighter sweep, armed with BVR loads, set to joust one against the other, usually starting at either angels 25 or 35. The results were strange. No matter how i configured the waypoints and conditions for missile employment (max, between max and NEZ, NEZ or so) some planes when controlled by the AI just wouldn't engage, until very close. As i assume all AI's use the same logic, then my question is, what makes the difference? Say, the following example. MiG-31, F-14A old, F-14A HB, F-15C, F-16C. The 31 and the old 14 will launch their missiles from about 50 miles away, as expected. The 15 and the 16 their AMRAAMs from about 40 miles away as expected. But the HB 14 will wait till well inside 30 miles. So, how does the AI decide when to launch? And can we even control that in out missions? I tried in prefab mission, flying the F-14 with AI wingmen, and no matter if order them to engage at 40 or 35 miles, they just flat out refuse to launch till very close.

Bagged to MiG-29's in instant action last night. Radar aspect set to nose, target size set to large, launched at 40NM from angels 30, i forgot the closure. Then slowly dived and cranked to give the guidance most favorable conditions to maintain tracks. Splashed both bandits, even though they were bellow my nose at the time of launch. I never found any problems endemic to the C, not in SP, MP PvE, or MP PvP. The problem is, there doesn't seam to be any difference. In PvP the range disadvantage can be offset by the lack of smoke, thus your shots are stealthier. But in SP? Always take the Mk60's as the AI knows you've launched anyways. I take C's with me at times, for role-playing reasons though and they work just fine, with a bit less range. Now teaching AI wingmen how to use them, that's a neat trick. But i don't think there's anything HG can do about it.

I have to join in on this one. Crossing the wake is one of the main checkpoints during CASE I's. As it exists now, under many weather conditions it's not visible, and when it is, it's usually completely masked by the ripple effect. I too think the foam-y part of the wake needs to be more pronounced, especially behind the boat.

If it has home on jam capability then it will home in on your jammer emissions, like a passively guided missile. Hence, once in a burn-through range of an enemy radar, it's usually a good practice to turn-off your jammers.

1. You are aware that by far the larger, or should i say the largest part of the community is hardly aware of this forum's existence, let alone some tournament, right? 2. How are things not developed by that developer under jurisdiction of the said developer? When your canopy doesn't melt in the F-16, do you come to HB to fix it for you? Or when a Hornet is over-stressed indefinitely without any issue what so ever, do you come to HB to fix that too?

Home-on-jam? Did you have your self protection jammers on?

Only a couple of skips, and both were clearly my fault

Freeze i can only get out of by ctr+alt+delete and terminating the process (DCS not responding), and once even that didn't help and i hat to restart the PC