bfr

The seeker needs what you're targeting to have decent contrast in the video screen to lock. When the contrast is so-so then you often need to coax it back onto the target mid-flight but the relative size of the target and then image contrast should improve with reduced distance to target and it should eventually lock on.

Isn't a big part of the problem the way damage modelling is done on ships? Whilst i'd not expect a single Harpoon to automatically send a warship to the bottom, it should at least mess up its ability to operate or defend itself (loss of propulsion, radars, C&C function, partial weapon system loss etc depending on where its hit and how hard) from that point onwards.

And if there are modules you fly infrequently then you lose the muscle memory for the sequence or never even get it in the first place. The Viper and Hornet I can rattle off a cold start no problem. Whereas the A-10 I can never remember it all and i'm not sure i'd even know where to begin with cold-starting the Viggen.

You can get everything working in less than 70 steps to be fair. In the full list there's a good chunk of optional stuff and checks of things that will never be broken in a cold start in the game. The biggest chore with cold starts is sitting around for a full INS alignment to complete if you need to do one (and you still have that wait with autostart).

I was going to mark you down for popping a tyre on landing but then I looked back and realised it was shredded before touchdown

That'll polish out, no worries.

The "lift drop" thing seems quite common in DCS. I've observed similar on the Caucasus map where the target vehicle is on a bridge when a weapon hits.

Excellent, I'll give that a try later.

Firstly, well done on this and I'm loving it. With being able to swipe between panels is it also possible to have the MFDs as part of the swipable set for a given aircraft module, rather than having to go all the way up to the root menu of the app and then go into MFD? Also, would it be possible to add some visual indicator of which MFD is currently the selected one? The only way currently seems to be to open the selection dialog box up.

Yup, the down-river side of that is definitely the most butt-clenching one and especially if you shoot under the bridge for entry at any decent speed. The one I fly the most probably is a long valley that runs down to a dam on the Caucasus map. Not particularly challenging (you can fly it at full beans in anything) but its pretty. There's some quite tight ones too on the Syria map that I stumbled into just flying about at low level to see the scenery but I doubt I can remember precisely where.

A B-2 in the game wouldn't be that much fun I imagine. If they were ever going to do a big bomber as a module i'd absolutely love a go in a B-1B (pitched at low level work, more varied missions it could be used for and probably also a much better fit for the size of maps we have). F-117 would be something completely different though as the challenge would be to remain undetected as if anyone spots you then you're likely absolutely toast, plus your weapons load is massively limited. When I was much younger I used to play the old Microprose F-117 and it was great fun back in the day with it being like an aerial 'sneak-em up'. Getting declassified literature to do a proper job of it is going to be somewhat problematic though.

Maximum yield of the B-61 is 170kt, 340kt or 400kt depending on which version you go for (but can be set much lower). That's very much current ICBM warhead yield territory.

The F16 in DCS also has a nuclear consent switch if I remember rightly. RHS console. I remember they put a nuke (B61 I think) into F4AF, it was pretty boring. Could only drop it in manual mode, big flash (no mushroom cloud modeled though) and then your machine ground to a halt as all the destructible structures below and within view burst into flames.

I'd noticed this too that it'll use a lot of RAM if you've got it. I'm on a 32GB system as well and total system usage was getting well into the 20's. All lovely and smooth though.

Cheers, i'll give that a try.

True enough. The only annoyance is if you have to cycle back round the track modes to reframe then the pod seems to jump back to where you first started (in the test scenarios i've done I used a waypoint to initially fix the pod position and then slewed to the tank i'm targeting, and it always slews back to the waypoint spot when you cycle the modes to allow manual slewing again).

Its definitely not the coordinates you're using, the missile just doesn't seem terribly accurate without some help at the business end of flight. When my initial SLAM tests were missing comfortably I hit the same targets with JDAMs using the same coordinates and those were right on the money.

Its been suggested on another thread that the E needs the manual terminal guidance IRL, so we might have to wait for the H/K (SLAM-ER) version before we have something that you can leave to its own devices. Certainly my experience tallys with yours that you seemingly can't even hit large buildings by GPS guidance alone.

Yes, I found it to be pretty awful when left to its own devices too, always misses by enough of a distance to do no damage to the intended target. Hopefully the SLAM-ER is much better when that gets added (I believe its on the roadmap?)

Me too. Always had to also shift-u to get the catapult to fire for the Tomcat. Hornet always triggers following the salute though.

I noticed on one launch of the F14 that in external view the shuttle was still ahead of the nose gear despite having followed all the deck crew instructions to hook up, was being given the instruction to run the engines up etc. i decided to plough on and the launch went ahead fine. I was going to save the track file as evidence but that was all screwed up (when I did playback my plane ploughed badly into another jet when taxiing on the deck, which definitely didn't happen).

Sorry, you didn't specify. Not sure what the situation is there as I don't fly MP.

They're in the list of events in the debrief when you exit the mission.

Its properly mounted.

MECH mode has been discussed elsewhere in another thread. AFAIK its not implemented currently, and no one knows for sure if it ever will be. Also the suggestion was that it still requires hydraulics to operate so wouldn't be particularly useful in the "dead aircraft with zero power" scenario that the OP described anyway.