Wavehopper

Hi guys, I'm also experiencing repeated freezing in DCS. In the F-14 on the caucases map (only experienced in MP but that might just be time spent there). Updated drivers (GPU and Windows), did a slow repair of DCS, removed all mods, cleared the fxo and metarshaders but no joy. Log is attached. Any help would be greatly appreciated. dcs.log

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.

Minor bug but the carrier will repeat the tail number of the previous aircraft in the first radio response (calling inbound). All subsequent calls use the correct number (see you at 10 and overhead use the correct number). I think it may also be doing this with the Charlie call as the carrier has a habit of calling two at a time.

I suppose the last thing you could try is a repair. There's been a few updates recently so maybe something went wonky?

It has been working for me and my wingman fine as well. 1. Ground crew, request launch. 2. Taxi to a cat. Wait for yellow jacket to wave you in to the shuttle. 3. Kneel before Zod 4. Wings out, set flaps. 5. Shuttle set, move forward to engage shuttle. 6. Spool up 7. Salute 8. Get flung off the carrier at high speed like a chimp flinging poo at zoo visitors.

I'm going to disagree heavily here. I actually think the F-14 is a much better SP module. Flying the thing is fun in itself (the other two are fairly sterile affairs) and the amount of missions Heatblur has made for the Tomcat is so much better than any other module I own. There's something like 10+ instant action missions per map, 2 SP campaigns, and a ton of good single missions. The A-10 and F18 don't have anywhere near as many missions for them without downloading third party stuff (which is of wildly varying quality).

After about 300 hours in the Tomcat I have yet to jam the flaps due to misadventure. I simply don't touch them unless I'm landing or recovering at very low speed and very low altitude. Even then I'm loathed to use them as I thought that's what the leading edge slats are for. Conversely, a friend of mine who I'm helping to train up has broken them several times (he's brand new to flight sims). The cause I suspect is heavy handedness on landing approaches. Inexperienced pilots tend to react rather than pre-empt and I think that's his problem. All of a sudden the jet will start climbing or descending and he will put in a panicked input via the stick probably putting too many G's on it. You see it in a lot of Tomcat videos on youtube as well. People will just crank as hard as possible and the AoA meter just goes through the roof and turns them into a giant airbrake. If they're doing that sort of thing with flaps out at low speed it's no wonder the flaps keep jamming.

Third mission (intercept, cap, case 1)

Just did the first two missions, superb stuff so far. Mission 2 especially stands out as what I was hoping for in these missions (I always loved the "boring" Bar Cap's as a teenager playing MS's F-14 Fleet Defender) It certainly makes you respect the men and women who do Case 3's for real. Terrifies me every time, and that's just a simulator. Great job Heatblur, cheers!