ruxtmp

I was at an airshow a week ago and they had an F-35A on display. I will have to say that from the rear aspect the aircraft appears to be minimally stealthy as the entire engine would be visible to any radar and on IRST it would be a lighthouse. I spoke to the pilot but he wouldn't address anything regarding the stealth characteristics other than saying the plane is virtually invisible to radar. What I found odd was there was no Luneberg lens mounted on the plane, although it did have the wing rails for a sidewinder mounted and an inboard hardpoint as well.

It did not come across well in the post but the statistical portion was meant to be sarcastic as the sample size is so small it is not relevant. I still think this is a hit box random die roll issue though. I agree I dont understand why we are the only ones experiencing 100% pilot death on missile hits, that includes an igla hit too for me.. The hornet and I guess all but the few WW2 planes use the old damage model. I dont think there is any news on better damage models for the jets or if it was ever really planned. https://forum.dcs.world/topic/247298-future-of-hornet-damage-model/#findComment-4445723

I dont think they are going to fix this. Based on a response to another thread for a Bf-109s damage model the jet damage model is even more simplified. I doubt the pilot is a part of the damage model. I suspect the cockpit area is a part of the damage model so if a missile hits the plane there is a good chance that its explosion radius encompasses the cockpit space as shrapnel is not modeled. If the cockpit is hit then I expect there is a simple random die roll calculated, and you are either dead or alive. Since we are the select few that seem to experience this we are probably the statistically unlucky few that keep rolling the number for dead pilot each time. Also unfortunately, historical data shows any F-18 that has been hit by a missile has resulted in the pilot being killed 100% of the time. Although the sample set is 2, one during ODS and one during OIF.

AI is generally pretty poor at acting realistically. Search then destroy in zone I think only works if the AI pilot can visually see the target in daylight. Instead of Attack Group use Attack Unit and pick the specific radar or SAM to shoot at that generally works about 50% of the time versus 0-10% of the time.

Thanks that is good to know but considering how much effort it takes just to create a mission so the AI do something useful as you would want them to I dont think I will try to customize the lua especially since it is hit or miss. Maybe A modder will create a tool that will make it easier.

This module has been slow in updates since roll out, Im sure everyone that was going to buy it has and sales are not supporting quicker development. I was excited about the taxi directors and patiently waited but overall I am disappointed in the final result mostly due to the need to have unrealistic static object setups on the deck for the taxi to work or look ok. I wish there was something like the old MSFS tool AFCAD that allowed users to create the taxi path of ai aircraft, with the tool you could have realistic airport gates and taxi routes versus the sims default simple airport implementation.

Im not sure if the missiles aim for the pilots head or not. It would be nice to see what the hit box is for the pilot, I believe a few years ago the entire volume of the canopy was a hit box. If that is still the case then there is a good probability that shrapnel will hit somewhere on the canopy. The only issue I have with that theory is that I was under the impression that DCS does not model shrapnel and its resultant damage. Either way for me any missile hit results in instant pilot death 100% of the time. I actually stopped flying the hornet as of this week. It's still missing items and the damage model is abysmal.

Thats OK I fixed it by making myself immortal and using triggers around the plane to set damage after a detected missile in zone works well too as I can simulate multiple system failures too.

For player aircraft roads and the runways I mentioned work great. It is just AI cant takeoff from or land on them unless its a vertical landing. That would not be a realitic use of the runway length.

Not sure how you block off ai taxing into static planes in their correct places in front of the island and then parking there too. I have not been successful in creating a reasonable full deck that works so I just script it and save 10 minutes doing a cold start and taxi.

I have tried to but it only works well with an empty or unrealistically empty carrier. I've gone back to just starting on the cat and clearing the static objects once outside a trigger zone. When returning to the carrier another few sets of radio and zone triggers reset the deck for landing. With some good script or trigger logic Im sure you could create the launch and recovery of an entire cycle.

I still see the same thing as well. All air to air missile hits result in 100% pilot kill. Only gun shots are survivable. I am not sure how ED is testing this but a player flown F-18 in single player being hit always kills my pilot. I setup a test with getting shot by a mig-29 from my 6 o'clock with an aa-11. When in an f-18 100% pilot kill. When flying Fw-190D, F-15C, F-16, A-10C, AV-8, F-14A, or F-14B the pilot survives at least 90% of the time so I can eject. II would test with other planes but I don't own them.

It would be nice if AI AV-8s could land at abandoned runways near Kobuleti and Kutaisi. Those airfields would make great FARPs with both short field takeoffs and landings.

Hopefully the navigation routes, targets, stores management, etc. wont take years to finish. The navigation, target points, and stores management setup is the most time consuming thing to do in the cockpit.

I have used ai to successfully mission briefings and create starting locations, ground frag orders, and air sorties based on last mission completion state. It is generally working as a dynamic campaign generator by acting as the red force and blue force commanders. Unfortunately it still requires tons of manual work to build each mission for all the ground movement and air sorties with the actual mission editor. It basically just says what the groups will do and where they will attack and how.