Wavehopper

I just wanted to say thanks for all the content you've made for the Tomcat Reflected. That's a staggering amount of work with all the skins and the campaigns. It's all very much appreciated.

The AI is something that concerns me especially when the "dynamic campaign" is brought up. I can't see the dynamic campaign even functioning with the AI in this state. Doing the F-14 campaigns showed just how many flaws there are. A lot of the time my wingman just shat the bed and flew off to some mysterious unlisted waypoint rather than air refuelling or landing on the carrier. That's just basic stuff, you chuck in combat and the whole thing just collapses. "2 hit the tanker" "negative" 10 minutes later.... "2, ejecting"

Nice work, I'll probably have another go at that this evening. Regarding the burble, don't reduce power at the initial float and trust the power setting until you're through it. I kept cutting power as it went to float up then it drops like a stone. The TF30's of the A don't respond quickly enough to catch it if you go idle. It also feels way more terrifying at night. Practice a few 10 mile approaches in the daytime to get familiar with it. I don't think I've ever spent so long in Tacview before analysing my mistakes

Fear the Bones first mission by any chance? Yeah I find it borderline impossible on an overcast night trying to refuel from an S3, especially after a long loiter time in IFR conditions. Connecting is tricky, staying connected is an art I've yet to master when I can't even see the tanker im hooked up to (and that's with NVG's). I think I'll knock up a training mission just to practice this situation and see if there's any particular way to set up the NVG's and cockpit. On the plus side we're pushing our training up to the next level

I bought the VKB F-14 stick earlier this year with the gunfighter base and it's fantastic. Huge improvement over the X-56 I was using previously. I've been using it for a lot of stuff other than DCS (X4, Mechwarrior 5, Il-2) and it's great. Very comfortable and I'm a lot more accurate now I don't have the wobbly center of the X-56.

Yarrrr matey. I did indeed use the code although it was a bit of a faff. You can get the code via your account details. Login via the shop then go to your profile. Find the Tomcat in your purchase history and then click on details (if you click on the tomcat it will take you to the store page). Under details you'll find the code.

It's one of those things that once noticed is impossible to not notice. To be fair I only hear it on the ground and once in the air I stop noticing it (probably because i'm distracted by more important tasks and alternating thrust levels). It's also very low in the mix, although there are three distinct looping notes (ascending). Saying that however this does happen with machinery. I had a washing machine that would resonate similarly, and also the sunroof in my old car would resonate with alternating tones. I would guess it's more noticeable due to the shrill whine of the jet engine (if it was a low note we probably wouldn't hear it so clearly).

Anything from ED at all? A rough time scale or acknowledgement?

The problem of making "witty" banter for videogames is that they grow old really damn fast (think of all the sports games you've played and how quickly commentary gets turned off). You get to a certain point and you just want information, not star wars jokes.

Just tested, still crashes. Ok great.

Assigning a new Waypoint to Jester (Navigation, steer point from map) causes a CTD. This was in MP. Just tried it in SP and it works fine.

That last one you were not cleared to the basket, the probe went straight through. If you fall too far back or get too far out of position the tanker will declare "return to pre contact". This probably happened before the sequence you recorded. Settle back in and call pre-contact again. The approach you made would have contacted. You're pretty much there already. Just need to work the throttle a bit more and avoid those big movements (there was only one big lunge in that approach).

Not sure if this is a module issue, an engine issue, or a latency issue but during MP I've found Jester goes into full tourettes mode when air refuelling. He seems to spam every conceivable dialogue option constantly and will continue long after succesfully connecting to the drogue. It makes air refuelling with him a complete nightmare unless you mute him entirely. Would it even be possible to add an option to keep the star wars quotes and snarky comments to a minimum during refuelling with a tickbox or something?

Victory's insights are massively helpful. When I was 12 years old an RAF instructor told me at a careers event at my school in the early 90's that I would never be a jet pilot (I was skinny, and worse glasses). Like an idiot I believed him and never pursued my dream of becoming a jet pilot for the RAF (I was in love with the Tomcat and the Tornado). My only access to military jets has been through flight sims so I've poured everything into it and I'll devour whatever information I can get my hands on. If an actual pilot tells us that how it was done, then that's how I'll learn to do it. Having access to this type of information is invaluable and before the internet it just never happened so I'm extremely grateful to people like him sharing with plebs like us. Basically, thanks to the SME's and to Heatblur for making a tremendous product. This is as close as I'll ever get to my childhood dream and I'm very grateful for such a good rendition of carrier operations with my favourite jet.