Wizard_03

Especially with jets where the HUD is your primary flight control instrument.

Please. With normal gamma settings some of the HUDs specifically in the hornet and viper can get down right unreadable on a sunny day. This is a real life issue and not a bug and the real life solution is a pair of shades. I'm thinking like, an in game button to put them on. You could even have an option for the frames to be visible on the edge of the screen FOV like with the apache helmet display in setting or something. The MiG-21Bis has a helmet visor that can be put on via click box. Just need something like that for all the modern jets with bubble canopies and open glass HUDs. Please would improve Quality of life beyond imagination for me.

First of all counter air isn't everything. The hornet is a much better strike fighter. It can carry more farther, and has a better selection of stores. Its a true multi-role. The F-16 is first and foremost a fighter, but you can also strap bombs to it, the multi-role capability in the viper was evolved over time including the ergonomics in the cockpit and systems which have the benefit of being integrated later after lessons had already been learned. The difference is the hornet had strike in mind as its central role from the get go, everything from stores management to weapon fire control integration is better in the hornet. You have much more control over getting the weapons on target and how that is accomplished. Which is critical because a lot of that functionality is important for the type of on the fly precision attack the hornet is required to preform. It can't rely on pre-planned missions as much as the viper can, and as a naval fighter, it may very well be the first or only available asset in theater to get the job done so It needs to be much more independent and have the ability to quickly and easily adjust its mission to changing circumstances while already air-born and en route to the mission area. The viper has the Ability to do many of the same missions, but its a lot more limited in some cases, one look at the JDAM page on the hornet vs the SMS page on the viper and you'll understand what I mean. The hornet is strike aircraft that can self escort. It's not really intended for the dedicated defensive counter-air role the viper was first designed for, It CAN do that mission but the viper is more suited to it. But on the other hand the viper makes a lot of sacrifices for that mission, stores and fuel capacity being chief among them. The hornet is a lot more balanced. As its the not the perfect jet for any given job but it CAN do pretty much any job. Which from a logistics standpoint is much more valuable these days. As having the perfect tool for the job at the right place at the right time in the right condition is going to be increasingly unlikely with the fast paced nature of modern conflict today. You need aircraft that excel in changing environments where you don't have the time to move in the absolute best of the best or doing so would cause you to loose an opportunity in the critical first hour first day of the war kinds of situations. The naval component of the hornet is very central to the way it was intended to be used. Deck space is limited so you need as much bang for your buck as you can get. Viper needs to be deployed in theater and have a nice big airbase with lots of intelligence and support to really shine. warhorse vs racehorse

Again I would rather have the center tank then the wing tanks. Once you drop them, theyre gone. I don't need to drop the center tank for WVR. All that extra performance does you zip if you don't have enough gas. And in dogfights where your trying to outrate your opponent. Like how your supposed to do it in the viper your in burner the whole time and that low drag fuel efficiency doesn't mean much. In the hornet I have the option of JUST the center tank or three tanks and preserving the center one. In the Viper if you want to do BVR right you gotta have the wing ones and only the wing ones period, so after the merge your down to internal. on paper what your saying is true, but in reality always trying to exploit your speed and acceleration advantage makes you stay in burner a lot. The hornet isn't a speed demon and I don't try too make it one. You have enough performance to get weapons out and survive till the merge where the balance usually switches to your side. There's a lot more too air combat then just the performance of the jet, the individual inside makes a much bigger difference.

I said I like the SA in the hornet for me. I didn't say it was better or ineffective in the viper. I personally prefer the hornet and its large displays. I can barely see the Gameboys In the viper lol The hornet doesn't have to choose between a third tank or a jammer. And between the wing tanks and the center tank. I'll take the center because it's 9G rated in the viper, so I don't need to drop it once the fight goes WVR but it's unfortunate I don't have that option realistically because I pretty much have to lug around a jammer pod. So after dropping my tanks I've got a pretty short legged bird. Hopefully the base I need to land at is right under me. Hornet has fuel for days compared to the viper and that drop tank situation is a big factor of that. Internal jammer is plus, no way around it. Realistic counter air missions usually have a patrol or long ingress segment and fuel becomes a big deal in those situations. But this is DCS so you can just take off fly for 5 minutes and get into a fight.

I doubt it, the hornets ITR is still significantly better, it's dangerous in a guns fight. It's a death sentence with SRMs Improvements in G onset and acceleration won't change that.

It's primarily a defensive system anyway. In the wild the hornet is suppose to have a prowler or growler nearby to do the offensive stuff. The podded solution on the viper can do a little of both. But it's all or nothing, you have to carry the pod in any realistic AA situation because they didn't end up putting an internal jammer in like they wanted too. So your stuck with an overall better system in the viper but you get the weight and drag penalty as well even if you just need it to protect yourself after you take your shots and turn cold. Plus is has to take up a fuel or weapon station. Which is already a big concern in the viper. But both aircraft are very comparable however. I wouldn't say that the hornet is better or the viper is helpless I just prefer the hornet, and the big screens and little things like having RWR nails on the radar page and other small Quality of life stuff that help me build SA faster, that I personally would trade some of the vipers speed and acceleration for. A bigger and I think very important advantage the hornet has is in it's strike capabilities. Both aircraft can self escort but I think where the hornet really shines over the viper is in the ability to carry a bigger and more flexible strike package. The USAF doesn't really use the viper in all the missions the USMC and USN use the hornet in, the USAF has the F-15E for a lot of the strike stuff so it's not really the US vipers fault that it hasn't been developed as far as the hornet has. But it can carry more further at the end of the day. Which is something to consider as pure AA is not as desirable as multirole theses days but I digress.

Performance wise: F-16 better at BVR F/A-18 better at WVR For AA in general the hornet has much better sensor fusion an on board jammer, and is much better at sorting and classifying contacts and providing more SA in general. Personally that is more attractive to me then hucking amraams a little farther and faster. Because at the end of the day the F-15 is still BVR king. The viper just does it a little bit better the hornet. It's not decisive, SA is is. Imo

They've stated we aren't getting a specific RW configuration but one with all the features that they can find enough data for. So it won't be locked to a specific nation or capability set. Which is a first for DCS as far as I know, as they have fudged/stretched equipment weapon sets a little before on some aircraft but never stated up top that one will not conform to a specific time and nation, i.e. Full Frankenstein. So We'll see how it goes over. Anyways cockpit looks fantastic! Can't wait.

It should, he is describing a game exploit.

I said May have been used in Bosnia, they were tested with the pod and fishbowl for certain. It's not unrealistic, it flew with that Config.

Not true, they Definitely had the pod before D, they even had it before sparrow hawk B(U) models.

There is evidence that the config we have, Fishbowl + LANTIRN was actually used in at least one squadron and may have saw action in Bosnia. They for sure tested the pod that way on A birds (We know that), with the same Input switching method jacked in through the TCS feeds the exact way we see in game. But going forward All LANTIRN birds got PTID and a digital bus for GPS PGMs. So it may not be completely unrealistic per say. But its not really representative of how it was Ultimately implemented Fleetwide. It may have been a quick sort of "Jerry Rig" to give the jet PGM capacity for that conflict, or it may have just been a testing config its unclear. So its kind of a case of yes and no. So you don't need to concede anything. lol

ED isn't the public, Its a safe bet they have the EM charts or we wouldn't have the product to begin with. The vipers are in fact available, and wouldn't you know it, its very close. There's work left to be done but it actually is quite close right now. There's some drag issues and G onset problems at the moment, its underperforming by a few degrees in the turn rate department up at high altitude. But Hardly: " not done within 1% or 2% in any way" as you said, and It's getting better almost every patch. The bigger issue IMO is the mountains of confirmation bias over on the viper forums, hoggdit, and youtube. That the Viper should just outrate everything it encounters because that's what they have heard regardless of what the charts say. In fact There are bits and pieces of data on the EPE hornet that ARE available that seem to contradict that but If everything else in the game is super accurate I don't see why they would suddenly forget about realism with the hornet. That's just me. Also the margins by which the FM on the viper are still WIP are not enough to make you loose in a dogfight, nor will having it be in its final state be significantly better then where its at right now. 1 or 2 degrees more above 20K is not going to suddenly make the viper the dogfight god people make it out to be. In any case, the other issue people like yourself have a hard time with the fact that ED takes a long time in early access and you also seem to have a better understanding of how long it takes get things like the FM done then the people actually doing the work. So with that mindset your going to be disappointed no matter what they or I say, Because its unreasonable, your welcome to be critical of them I certainly have been, but at the end of the day I don't understand what benchmark your comparing them too. Is there some other company with a more accurate hornet and viper simulation that took less time? How long should it take to tweak a FM within reasonable accuracy to the data?

That will probably never happen as the actual EM charts for our hornet are not available to the public. As for the comments from real hornet pilots on this forum and others that aren't SMEs for ED they have so far all turned out to have never flown the EPE hornet in the first place, never mind the stripped down no pylon, low fuel state configs of the EPE hornet you see on youtube, which are completely unrealistic. And even if they had they couldn't comment on specific data points. So I wouldn't hold your breath. ED's Flight modelling for other aircraft such as the F-15C, A-10C, F-5E and others, have been verified as more accurate then military sims by their respective SMEs and both ex and active duty pilots, and are often within 1 percent error of their respective data sources. So personally I think ED is pretty trustworthy. Perhaps More so then open source Devs for the other three letter sim that aren't paid, and using an incredibly old game with significant limitations in the exact areas that you are interest in. I won't even get into non combat sims, they also have repeatedly have said both FM for the hornet and viper are not complete and under active development. So its kind of Apples to nothing right now anyways. They also have zero reason to make one of their products intentionally worse then another with regards to realism. Especially the newer one. Is the FM perfect, probably not, nothing is perfect, but is anything else out there even remotely close, absolutely not. I would love to see a competitor to DCS make a better FM and provide proof of that, but that fact is there aren't any right now and It took ED literally years and they didn't start from scratch at that. SO before talking about the FM make sure you actually have evidence that its wrong and why its wrong because their are literally mountains of data and man hours that go into it from people that do have data and are privy to non-public sources, otherwise leave it to the full time engineers that have made it their profession. Some of which have worked for other game studios that made study sims of the hornet in the past.

Awesome news!! Thanks HB

Be Careful, because it can also turn into team attack mode since you don't get IFF responses with IRST.

Thing about the F-14 is you also have carrier ops, two seats, and a significant A2G PGM capacity. In addition to A2A and fleet Defense. A FF USAF/ANG F-15C won't have nearly as much "gameplay" potential. Even from an AA perspective the F-15C is much more specialized. It's the best, and it's only the best. That may not be enough for ED, it is for me.

What are we doing about the IFOLS spotlights?

PM bignewy they evidently think it's right.

Based on what? According to NATOPS the throttles are back driven when either mode is engaged THEN moved to capture mach in cruise or on speed in approach mode respectively. So in other words power is cut and brought back when the button first gets pressed.

@1.54 ATC initialization zeros out the throttles. So this is expected and correct behavior.

Would it be possible to get a separate jester keybinds for designate and laser always on at some point? Its kinda clunky having to designate from page 2 of the menu same story for buddy lazing someone else's weapons, I'd be nice to have those binded so we can use voice attack. Thats my only notes. Great work otherwise. I never thought dropping LGBs would be easier in the tomcat then hornet

If you have Supercarrier you get the high fidelity comms with the Forrestal. Thanks HB

IFOLS is too bright, I can hardly see the meatball with gamma at default setting, because the green lights are blinding. Can even see it from the side of the ship way outside the grove on the downwind leg.