Northstar98

VIAF 2023 - Heatblur Interview:

That one is probably more of a minor thing - at least the main item is fixed

Well, there would still be a lot of geometry to do. Another thing is that the Phalanx that they should have (and all of them were lated upgraded to have it) - DCS only has the Block 1B, when the Phalanx that's accurate to the 42s (and also Invincible from September 1982 - 1986, HMS Ark Royal from 1990 - 1999 as well as the current Condell's in their current configuration) is the Block 0 (later upgraded to Block 1A). The difference isn't trivial from either an artwork perspective or a weapons modelling perspective. So, the only things that are really there are Type 909, Sea Dart and the Type 1022 (which also came to Batch 1 ships following refits).

It's the icon that looks like an open switch, just below the button for the weather settings. Once that's open, add a new trigger (leftmost "ADD" button, set the type, name, event and colour as desired), add a condition for the trigger if appropriate (middle "ADD" button) and then add the SET CARRIER LIGHT MODE action (rightmost "ADD" button, set the type to "SET CARRIER LIGHT MODE", set "UNIT" the unit you want the setting to apply to and set "MODE" as desired).

Well, with Mount Pleasant and the larger runway at Stanley is definitely post-war (mid 1980s onwards, there's probably some other stuff that's more recent - such as the wind turbines), the RRHs on Mount Kent, Mount Alice and Byron Heights are also post-war. The only real modern assets we have in the pack so far are the Condell-class and HMS Andromeda, everything else fits the timeframe. Some of the WIP screenshots above do show more modern vessels though - that Invincible/Illustrious shown is early 2000s (no Sea Dart), the 23 looks to be late 2010s (Type 911 deleted, suggesting CAMM(M)/Sea Ceptor and Type 997), this Type 22 is a batch 3 - which is late 1980s at the earliest (first screenshot shows either a batch 1 or 2, the former is accurate to the war).

Yeah, I've been to Dartmoor (and Bodmin Moor) a few times, looking at photos the terrain at least is farly similar.

What's odd about it? The Invincible also represents as it was during the Falklands War (1980 - 1982 fit), the Castle-class also represents an early 1980s to late 1980s/1990 fit (though with completely the wrong gun). Although the latter was used as despatch vessels and guard ships for Ascension Island. The LARC-V also fits the war. The only assets we have that don't fit the war are HMS Achilles, Ariadne (never took part, but would've been around in the fit they're in at the time) and the Condell-class (which are in an upgraded fit (though with the wrong Phalanx Block), not sure when (Almirante Lynch still had Sea Cat circa 1999 so presumably some time later). Andromeda did take part in the war, but not in the fit it's in (which is accurate to 1968 - 1977), from 1977 - 1980 it was substantially upgraded.

I'm assuming they're referring to the lack of surface clutter (which can be quite noticeable).

Yeah, good idea. If it could work, in principle, to some deprecated units (such as the CVN 70 Carl Vinson) where it's still present in the files, but removed from the unit list - allowing existing missions with it to function, then that would be ideal as what I'm describing would be a massive change.

This the main thing for me - if we could have multiple coalitions beyond just 2 belligerents and a non-combative neutral (who is just everybody that’s unassigned) then the insurgent “country” would be fine. The panacea for me is something like C:MO where you can add, edit, rename and delete coalitions/sides completely at will. Instead of having “countries” assigned to a coalition, they’d instead just be an optional way to filter units with a selection to determine the coalition/side.

In the trigger menu (open switch symbol) actions -> SET CARRIER LIGHT MODE.

@Flappie The problem isn't that the doors only partially open (as it should with single stores on the rotary launcher) it's that, when the GBU-31(V)1/B, GBU-31(V)3/B or GBU-38(V)1/B is carried, the doors open as soon as the waypoint with the bombing task(s) is reached, even if the target is nowhere near in range. With the GBU-38, the doors open fully (as they should, though note that in DCS, the B-1B can carry far more GBU-38s than it could IRL before the MPRL upgrade). In the tracks below I have the B-1B starting close to the western extremity of the Black Sea, a waypoint with the bombing tasks is located ~8 nmi ahead (or about a minute into the track), with a target located in Tuapse ~480 nmi away from the B-1B's starting position. When the B-1B passes the waypoint with the bombing tasks, the doors open immediately, despite the aircraft being far out of range (it's not until ~50 minutes into the track, where the aircraft is in range to drop - don't worry, I have been fairly liberal with the time acceleration). B-1B_doors_GBU-31V1.trkB-1B_doors_GBU-31V3.trkB-1B_doors_GBU-38V1.trk Another few items to note: In DCS, it's either all bays open or all bays closed, even for bays that are unloaded or empty. IRL, it's possible for only doors of the required bay(s) be open, while others remain closed - see this image of a B-1B releasing an AGM-158C LRASM from the forward bay - the intermediate and aft bays remain closed. When a bombing task is completed the bomb bays start closing despite there still being bombing tasks to complete that are in range (as seen in the above tracks), this leads to the doors beginning to close only to immediately open again, over and over again. It would be better if the doors remained open so long as a bombing task is in the queue and the bomber is either approaching or is in-range (this bug also applies to the B-52H). EDIT: So instead of just closing immediately upon completion of the bombing task, first check to see if there's another in the queue and if there are, check to see if the target is in-range. If there isn't another in the queue, or if there are, but they're out of range, or if the bomber is engaged defensive, then only then should the doors close.

So far, in my (albeit limited) testing, “OFF” behaves as expected apart from when “AC RECOVERY” is the previous mode set, whereby they’ll be a delay (~11 seconds) before it fully takes effect and in the case of CVNs 71-75, the below deck lights come on.

Part of that issue though is that in DCS, the S-3B tanker unit only has internal fuel available - both the air refuelling store and the buddy store contain 0 fuel and there's no way of adding fuel to them (they should both add 300 US gallons of fuel (~2000 lbs) each). In addition they're also treated as if they're massless looking at the rearming and refuelling window.

Speaking of radars, looks like Forrestal is also missing its AN/SPS-64 surface-search/navigation radar. It's diifcult to see in RL images (I only found one from Forrestal where it's clearly visible), but at least on publicly available CV 60 plans (see the first page for the distribution statement) it's in front of the AN/SPS-48 antenna: In DCS though, it looks like the mount is there(?) but the antenna is not: The AN/SPS-64 version the Navy uses is the AN/SPS-64(V)9 (the RM 1120 6X is a civilian version), which has an antenna 6 ft wide (this example is from CVN 71):

Just CASE III landings from a player aircraft, might be worth trying with the lights set to "AUTO" and another set to "AC RECOVERY", just to see if there's any difference. Although the behaviour should be the same between the AI doing it (which I can test myself) and the player. EDIT: Looks like there's no difference between "AUTO" and "AC RECOVERY" for an AI aircraft. As soon as the the carrier is set for recovery, the floodlights come on and the below-deck lighting switches off. The IFLOLS though only illuminates with an aircraft actually landing. The Forrestal though is somewhat different. When set to "AC RECOVERY" the floodlights are off and they'll never come on unless another mode is set. In "AUTO" though once an aircraft has been recovered the floodlights come on as the aircraft begins to taxi off the landing area.

It's at least SLEP (owing to the weapons and sensor fit) - that makes it mid 1980s - early/mid 1990s (so basically perfect for the early F-14A-135-GR we're due to get). I never noticed it before but yes - they all spin counter-clockwise as opposed to clockwise. The AN/SPN-43B also nods instead of rotating.

Are you (or anybody else reading the thread) able to do a test in the latest DCS build? At the moment I'm on integrated graphics for my new build (wanted to wait for the RTX 40 super series before I commit to a decision), so testing in DCS is a pretty painful experience beyond looking at the AI on the lowest possible quality. Though in the test posted above, the below-deck lighting was correctly off in "AC RECOVERY" (and on in all other modes but "OFF", unless "OFF" is selected immediately after "AC RECOVERY"). As for the floodlights, I'm not sure on this one - you can find videos with the floodlights on and you can find some with them off - I'm not entirely sure what the standard operating procedure is, but it might not necessarily be a bug (though it might be good to have a separate setting to have the floodlights off).

I think the main hang-up here is purely one of semantics - you're used to CW being referred to exclusively in the context of amateur radio, where it is understood to be a single continuous waveform of a single frequency, completely unmodulated (well, aside from on-off keying, which can be thought of as a fairly extreme form of amplitude modulation - indeed that's what's in the source used for the section of the wikipedia page you quoted). For radars though, it is sometimes understood that a CW radar is simply one that constantly (or, put another way, continuously) transmits (i.e. not pulsed) while on the air, without interruption*. It may be unmodulated or modulated. Maybe you're using the term more precisely and I'm using it less so. For the F/A-18 I'm not sure whether the CW light should illuminate solely for unmodulated/pure CW (which is just about what illuminator I can think of uses for guiding SARH missiles, though as said above the 5N62 provides illumination for missile firing in all the modes listed to my knowledge). If it is only for unmodulated/pure CW, then I can be ignored, but if it doesn't (and simply senses an uninterrupted signal) then perhaps not. *

Which is exactly the point of contention, so hardly "plain wrong, side of wrong and wrong on top" - it depends... Yes, we all know that typically (which last I checked, was not synonymous with "in every single case") something is injected into whatever signal the radar was transmitting in its track mode, or some other aspect about the signal changes when supporting a SARH missile (such as a CW illumination signal, frequency, whatever). But the question is does the RP-22's radar do this? If it does, then fine, the lack of a launch warning is almost certainly inaccurate. But what if it doesn't? That question is yet to be answered and without a definitive answer, all we can do is speculate until the cows come home about what the RP-22 does differently when supporting the R-3R, if it does something different at all.

Just note - the bug with the "OFF" mode not turning off the light below-deck and taking ~11 seconds to actually take effect only seems to occur if it's set after the "AC RECOVERY" setting. So long as any other mode is selected before "OFF" is selected, it works as expected, excluding the LRLS remaining on. CVN_71_light_test.trk

Further to screenshot posted above, from Heatblur twitter - TARPS (Tactical Airborne Reconaissance Pod System) is coming, though will initially just be cosmetic, but later will have some gameplayer functionality. Cobra also confirmed on Discord that the AN/ALQ-167 "Bullwinkle" DECM pod and the Expanded Chaff Adapter is also coming:

Ahh my apologies, not sure on that one. Unfortunately no, this new trigger doesn’t seem to have any effect on the Tarawa. The Forrestal, Invincible and Veinticinco de Mayo all have at least some implementation (mostly depending on what lights are actually implemented) for the new trigger. Personally though, it would be great if all naval units in the game could use this trigger (though obviously, “AC LAUNCH” and “AC RECOVERY” won’t be applicable to ships lacking aviation facilities).

Please note that it's just a hypothetical - I don't know what the MiG-21bis' radar actually does when supporting an R-3R. Some radars do in fact change something when supporting a missile (for instance CW being injected, a change of frequency, duty cycle, or an uplink being transmitted etc) but this isn't necessarily the case for all radars (I seem to recall the Cyrano IV being an example). If the RP-22 does in fact inject CW for illumination or do something different between track and launch, then RWRs would potentially have something to differentiate a track from a launch. If it doesn't however, then I'm not sure it would, theoretically it wouldn't be able to tell the difference (which might mean just a track warning, or a launch warning when entering track - as seen in say, the F-15C with FLOOD).

If (keyword: if) the radar doesn't change anything between track and launch, how would it?