Swordsman422

You haven't also edited the 3-in-1 LOD texture to match. The LOD stepdown for DCS is rather close, with several markings still being legible. Best thing to do is to copy your edited full-sized textures to the 3-in-1 in the order in which they appear on the 3-in-1 and then reduce them in size (12.5% for most of the textures, but 25% for others). In Photoshop, the copied and reduced textures will sort-of snap on to their respective cells in the 3-in-1. Once you have them lined up, merge visible and save.

I just use the Photoshop skew tool to slant it by ~5 degrees depending on need. On both sides of the nose it's slanted aft.

Especially during long missions with multiple aerial refuelings, the flimsy door fodding the engine was considered a bigger issue than any drag removal of the door might create.

VF-41 and -14 were on the Theodore Roosevelt. VF-154 were on the Kitty Hawk, though for 2003 half of the squadron deployed to Al Udeid Air Base. I know VF-154 can't make use of any available carriers for DCS, but I like their liveries and think they did some interesting things. I forgot to add that I'll probably also do VF-211 around 2002 while they were aboard John Stennis, so that's 5 I have planned.

Thank you. I don't have any more planned for the B yet, but when the A comes out, you can bet I'll be tackling VF-14 and VF-41 in 1999, and probably VF-154 for 2000 and 2003, but it will be some time until I get to them.

I wouldn't say the most popular liveries should be handled first, but if they were to do it this way, the most "standard" modex placement that would cover the broadest options of subjects. That's assuming the atrocious kerning issue can also be handled, or the very common italicized modex numbers will look awful.

Someone would raise hell that their own requested livery wasn't dynamic. Just because VF-84 is "everyone's" favorite doesn't mean it should be the only. All liveries should be equally supported.

Yeah, the tails are tricky, especially when the artwork covers both the rudder and vertical tail. When we say you need photoshop, you need a fairly current version, too. CS4 suite has issues reading some of the layers as corrupted, especially on the tail. Except for one side, I had the rivets and stiffeners missing and had to rebuild them. My recommendation, make yourself a blank template of the base livery you want to work with first, transplant it into your livery folder, and then add markings one file at a time. Test every time you make a change. When you make changes, the final thing you should do is merge visible layers and save as .dds but don't close Photoshop. The easiest thing to do is use Photoshop's step backward function after testing if you need to make changes. Good luck.

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In the typical configuration worn by F-14 crews, the HGU-68 is almost indistinguishable from the HGU-55. Stock, the -68 has a 600kt track visor, but this visor is incompatible with ANVIS systems, so was replaced with the same bungee visor as the HGU-55. You still did see the 600kt visor occasionally, but it was rare vs. the bungee visor.

By the time the F-14 was in the fleet aside the occasional zap decal and the callsign, squadron helmet art was pretty much standardized. Everyone from the skipper to the newest nugget in the squadron had the same helmet artwork as everyone else. Variation was and remains extremely minor. That said, since this is a game and not real life, there's no reason why texture artists can't give the pilot and RIO different helmets. And we can. We just can't give the RIO a different body texture from the pilot, which would be nice.

Actually, to add to what you've said, the MS22001 was commonly used with the APH-6, both with butterfly bayonets and with the rare swing-a-line bayonets. The MBU-5 was used occasionally, but it was much less common. At viewing scale, the APH-6 and HGU-33 wold be almost indistinguishable, especially if it's an APH-6E modified with cast bayo receivers. By 1983, the combination was solidly HGU-33/MBU-14, with the MBU-14 being green. By the time low-profile helmets (as you saw, modified HGU-33s or stock HGU-55s) started hitting the fleet, you wouldn't really see MBU-5s in Tomcats. Some of the green MBU-14s might still be hanging on around the late 1980s, but they were typically grey by this point (except the hoses. Early grey dyes would cause the hoses to deteriorate, so by the time a mask had it's first service inspection, the grey hose was replaced with a green one.). As for mask mounting, I can say exactly why they moved away from either the butterfly bayonets or the swing-a-lines; they didn't make for strong connections. I've pulled a 22001 off an APH helmet with a firm enough tug, and I'm not a strong guy. A high-g turn could see that mask in your lap. The existing bayonet system is a lot better at maintaining connection, with the movement from cast to lightweight receivers mainly driven by weight savings. I actually know Andreas Salimbeti. He and I are members of the same ASE Facebook group and he's one of a handful of guys who are main reference sources for flight equipment. He knows his stuff, so you can put money on his site being accurate. There might be two other guys in the FB group who know more than he does, but those guys were rated ASEs whose careers spanned several periods of gear changes. You can trust him. Shoot me some images of that helmet. Maybe I can ID it for you or find someone who can.

The MS22001 was a much more common mask on 1970's F-14s than the MBU-5. The new model is looking good. I'll be excited to have the modern low profile visor setup.

I'll be satisfied with Jester's LANTIRN capabilities if he can find and lase entities and if he doesn't switch TID output modes and maintains point track and lase for scenery objects I find myself as RIO when I have to switch to pilot for release.

Not quite. VF-1 and VF-2's -70GRs lacked the nose probe, had different gun gas vents, and a completely different aft fuselage from the -80GR and beyond, including the -90GR that was delivered to Iran. We're still quite a few details away from a first cruise Tomcat. Shame, too, but if they were only going to give us one version of the F-14A, I think they picked the correct one.

The A+ is not an A. Period, the end. It's an old designation for the F-14B. The F-14A was, is, and always will mean the TF-30 equipped Tomcat. The US Navy F-14A we are getting is a contemporary of the F-14B we've already got, upgraded with TCS, LANTIRN, and a similar ECM suite to the F-14B. But you are correct, the Iranian F-14 will basically be just the F-14A with textures and unable to equip the TCS.

Yeah, why would they possibly want to cover the longest-serving model that fits into scenarios anywhere in a 35-year timeline instead of a model that only served for 15 years they have incomplete documentation for? I wonder...

Yeah, that cockpit is from the NASA flight test aircraft and is pretty much a one-off. Production F-14s, even the original -70GRs delivered to VF-1 in 1973, had the familiar screen arrangement.

It's already available for download. https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3311409/ https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3311410/ https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3311411/

The bag color isn't universal regardless of model. Here are a couple examples, an F-14D from VF-2 and an F-14B from VF-32, with light gull grey bags.

I think with the completed F-14A cockpit we might get those lights. How often they should be flashing is a matter of opinion, but according to Victory205, not that often thankfully, LOL.

I'm in the opposite camp. I'd rather have the F-14A with the maximum capability they'd have documentation for, because aside from some small, mostly aesthetic details (when it comes to DCS) nobody loses anything this way. And the version we're getting actually satisfies 100% of that poll.

I absolutely get the rationale. The F-14A we are getting provides an A-model with the most mission flexibility, representing the A-model at its best stage. The external difference between an F-14A from the mid 1990s and mid 1980s is small; ECM blisters, TACAN antenna, and gun gas vents. It can still get away with wearing those "iconic" old hotrod liveries and all you're going to lose out on is the extra FM work from the glove vanes, which the Navy eventually decided weren't worthwhile and bolted shut. It's still an exceptional air-to-air platform and will fit just fine into 1970s and 1980s scenarios so long as you don't put PGMs on it. Heatblur probably chose this route because it provides the maximum number of players with something that they'll enjoy, vs. limiting it to one role.

I'll point out that F-14Bs remanufactured from F-14As retained the analogue engine tapes. Also, again for those people new to the concept, the F-14A+ is NOT an A. It's a B with an older designation. The F-14A we're getting isn't "A-ish" but a reflection of the F-14A in fleet service from a particular time period. By the mid 1990s, the F-14A and B differed only in the engines and one or two places on the IP. Air-to-air, air-to-ground, and ECM capabilities were pretty much the same. Other details like the ECM blisters, TCS pod, gun gas vents, and TACAN antennas were identical. We are getting an F-14A, but we're getting this one... ...and not this one...

Aside from the placement/presence of the RWR gauge and the engine instruments (analogue in F-14As and Bs remanufactured from As, digital in new-build F-14Bs) they will be very similar. The F-14A we are getting is a contemporary of the F-14B we have, so it will also be able to use LGBs just like the B we have, but load it out for air-to-air and it'll fit nicely into the scenarios Dave speaks of above.