Dino Might

Server was especially unstable tonight. I think the routine spawning of defenders has been really mucking with things, but it's likely the growing pains of 2.5. Not sure whether ED is going to get the right fixes in place soon enough, but it's getting pretty tough to fly any sortie that is going to last longer than 30 minutes. Do we have an idea of how many troops are on the map at any given time? Often, when capturing, the capturing troops don't despawn, so in a busy 3 hour run, we could have dozens, if not hundreds of manic infantry who tend to gum up the works doing just that. I'd be in favor of testing a "no defender troops" run to see if those are the problem.

Agreed. My request was for the F-5 to be on both sides. It would work just fine.

Frostie, you need to train me. I probably just suck too much in the 25T. :joystick:

I loved the 2.0 version with F-5s and MiG-21s as the only fighters, but it cuts off a significant portion of population that only fly FC3. I also like the East vs. West distinction, but it's already difficult to balance, and it's only going to get worse. Unless the players are given more reason to come to Red, most will flock to Blue because of the platform advantage. I don't know how to solve that problem. But I'd like to make Red side more palatable. I love the F-5 and flew it regularly when on Blue, but can't stand staying on Blue side when it's just PvE all the time.

Invisible buildings is a problem for both sides - same bug, same issue. Have you flown the Su-25T and the A-10C in Blue Flag? I have played both sides many times, and I can close a FARP in a single pass with the A-10C, with a second pass to wipe out defenders to neutralize it. In the Su-25T, the best you can do is two targets in one pass, and you had better get both SAMs first, or you better get lucky with flares. Not even close. Su-25T takes much longer to close a FARP, making it much more risky with enemy CAP able to respond in time to stop it. And the Su-25T and Mi-8 combo can capture FARPs, but nowhere near as fast as you think, especially when fighting through multiple F-15s every single reset. Please, please go use an Su-25T and an A-10C on a mockup FARP in single player and you'll see the huge difference. It's not even close. The Ka-50 is a bit better than the Su-25T in rapidly engaging targets, but it must position itself perfectly, takes a longer time to get on station, is much more vulnerable to all enemy aircraft, and has a hell of a hard time killing FARP defenses that are hidden in the trees. Mi-8 has a speed advantage, but honestly, the Red advantage right now is mostly because of coordination. Blue routinely has 4+ F-15s when no Red is even online. Blue only has two or three guys that will fly helos. Giving blue the Ka-50 would be fine by me if Red gets the A-10C again. I'd even straight up trade, blue gets Ka-50 + Su-25T and Red gets A-10C exclusively. As for the F-5, I hardly ever see any blues flying it anyways. Do you really think it's a balance issue? Seriously, I've seen two short F-5 flights by blues in the past 2 weeks. And it didn't do anything for them. Why would it be so bad for Red to get them? You will still only see them once in a blue moon, and your only fighter that needs to visual IFF is the F-5, which can only fight WVR anyways.

Do you anticipate AI fighters at all once the round starts? With the team imbalance as it is, Blue can run strikers completely unhindered for most of the day, and then just cap rush at night with the neutral mechanic in-place. In order for Red to capture, it is usually while still fighting multiple blue CAP. Wouldn't be an issue if odds weren't 5-10:1 most days, but I guess that's life. It will essentially force me to go Red side because I feel compelled to play the underdog. Here's an example - blue right now has 24 players, 2 in helos, and they haven't even captured anything. But they can continue neutralizing everything, and then when Reds are gone, use just a couple of helos to chain-capture everything in a single reset. All Blue has to do is run A-10Cs against everything because they always have enough F-15s to cover them, and Red can either *sometimes* get enough CAP to slow them down but never try to capture anything, or get steamrolled when odds get worse than pictured. I would agree that the player imbalance is the primary culprit here, but the neutral mechanic compounds the issue, whereas before, Red could gun for blue helos to prevent them from capturing, and blue wouldn't be able to chain-capture 5 bases with one helo all in a single reset when no Reds were online. One last question...any chance of F-5 on Red? Pretty please? :) Put it in the "MiG-28" skin - would be amazing, though I understand the hesitation because that much awesome might completely turn the tide of our war. I also want to continue to plug that this is my favorite server for the past 1-2 years (how long have you guys been at it?), and any whining or complaining is a reflection on me and my sometimes unreasonable sensibilities and not your work. Keep it up!

Can we also revert to before the neutral mechanic? Being able to kill everything on a FARP in one pass and then have it not repair indefinitely is giving strikers way too much importance. Right now it's way to easy for a single A-10C to turn every FARP in a Pak or 2 neutral in a single server round, with no need to coordinate with helos and then blue gets to roll through with a single helo when there are no Red online later in the day. The numbers game plays heavily enough in Blue's favor, but their lack of coordination was what is giving Red some capability to fight. Forcing teams to coordinate with their helos makes captures more interesting and puts more emphasis on people actually flying and/or supporting the helos, which is what is desperately needed (usually see about 10:1 ratio of planes to helos). TL/DR: Neutral mechanic makes the A-10C way too powerful and gives Blue a significant advantage despite the fact that they never run helos.

So, what I'm getting from this is that the mod does most of what we might want in the near future, with the exception of automatic calls and grading. I'm really interested in a single player version that could be used offline (or online without anyone manning the LSO station), because I can't expect to always have a human LSO player when I want to play. Any indications on work towards an AI LSO from the modders? I really hope ED/HB would have a solid system in place on F-14 or F/A-18 beta release, but I'm not confident in that. I expect they will have a good system up and running after they release the full fidelity carriers, but it would be nice to have something on the current Nimitz for both the short term and for those who either don't pick up the two upcoming aircraft (thinking about eventual group training missions where all participants don't have every module, like me).

Is there a reason you were using the F-5 for this? Not a CV aircraft, but you can use whatever you want for touch and gos I guess.

My numbers are not precise, and I'm only going off feel and the fact I was handily outturning the flanker. It just felt a bit weird and seems to be a massive difference when at 600 kits compared to 500. With just slight input, the G meter was pegging to the limit, and speed did not bleed nearly as much as I am used to. Almost all of my time in the F5 has been at or below 500 kts on the deck, so maybe I just haven't understood this regime.

Checked again on another server. From my perspective (not sure if this is what's happening in TacView or not), when I get the F-5 over 600 knots, it then behaves very differently in turns (not losing energy very fast, even in a 9G turn). It regains energy to get back to 600 knots in level flight very quickly, which should not happen (should struggle to even get past 550 when clean with full fuel, right?). WTF is going on? Getting over 600 knots turns the F-5 into deity-mode. To be clear, I know that at 600 knots, you should be able to turn pretty hard, but you should lose speed like crazy doing so. That's the problem. Try it out and let me know if you are running into a similar situation. It feels like a bug to me.

I was playing in private server with a friend so he could practice with the Su-27. With F-5 at 50% fuel and Su-27 with 30% fuel and 6x R-73, I was outturning him easily with only about 10% stick deflection in full afterburner. I was doing about 500 kts, only ever getting down to about 450 kts in the turn. I was worried I had somehow enabled game mode or something, but all checks of options and the mission options show nothing out of the ordinary. Has anyone else noticed the F-5 behaving like an F-16N on steroids? I didn't measure it, but I am pretty sure I was able to do a 12 second 360 without losing more than 50 kts.

It takes ~30 seconds for troops to capture.

Use the aileronen limiter override when in low speed scissors and you need that extra bit of roll rate to turn inside your opponent.

Is the IFOLS in that mod an actual working system or just for show? I'm really hoping birth versions of the ED carrier and the HB carrier will have it fully functioning.

Human LSO would/will be awesome, but I really want an AI (perfect) LSO available for single player flights. If I'm looking to work on my carrier ops on my own, I want me to be the only variable that's responsible for any errors. I also would prefer the human LSO slot be in the actual LSO position. I think of all the things needed when the F/A-18 or F-14 launches, the optical landing system is the most urgent. I'm worried that won't be available for quite some time...

Any links to official announcements on what is in development? Right now, need working optical landing system, TACAN, and LSO. Of these, what do we know is being developed? My impression was none, currently.

http://vlso.blogspot.com/ If anyone here has played P3D with the Hornet and vLSO mod, I'm wondering if a similar environment and tool could be scripted for DCS. It's a fantastic tool that would greatly enhance the single player experience and work well on dedicated multiplayer CV Ops servers. To that end, does anyone have some expertise in LUA coding or DCS mods that understands how something like this would be done? I'm a neophyte when it comes to anything outside of Matlab, but would be willing to learn to try and help out. My vision is ultimately to have a player LSO slot available on the CV and a vLSO mod working when no players are active in the LSO role. That way, anyone doing carrier landings can have the appropriate feedback as they are in the pattern. Anyone already working on something like this, or is anyone interested in leading some development on it?

The times I noticed a crash when trying to capture a FARP were right when defenders spawned, and I saw about a dozen or more instead of the normal 8 man group. It seemed like it was double spawning, and maybe a script/trigger glitches? Not sure. I remember this happening twice in the NW farps. As an aside, the neutral script for bases is really rough. A10c becomes even more crucial. I prefer the old way that requires coordination with helos.

Admins, can you please switch me to Red side when you get the chance? Would like to give them some help, and also tired of having to fly helo every single time on Blue :)

The F5 is a fantastic bird. My favorite in DCS, currently. I've splashed more than a few Flankers with it. You just have to k know how to use it, and get a bit lucky is all. I like that you have to work for every knot in a turn.

Not really sure why there is a ? associated with the title. Carrier, Highway to the Dangerzone. Its the only option.

Mumbles, Still making progress? I've stalled out in my data gathering, but am slowly digesting some of what you've posted. The frame and seat will likely be the part that gives me the most trouble, just because I don't have access to many tools for large size wood working. Hoping to buy a house with a garage and change that in the next 6 months, so actual building is not yet started. I enjoy perusing yours and other's creations in the meantime.

So did I. I will give you guys this - I love the discussion. Lots of information to digest.

I suspect (and could very well be wrong), that there's some discussion with ED and some strategizing on the part of HB to tailor an appropriate release date as they near completion. If they decide to wait until after Hornet sales die down, and that actually causes some delay of the Tomcat relative to when it could be earliest delivered, then it just means that the one delivered will be more feature-complete. We're losing a bit of early access time in that case, but not losing any playtime on the release version that is to come. I'm with ya in wanting that bird now. I'd take whatever current iteration of chromecat that exists in a heartbeat at full price plus tip. But I satisfy myself with the understanding that later delivery means more complete module. We're going to be getting a gem.