Naquaii

Short answer? In DCS, they don't currently do anything unfortunately. Long answer: The MSL options switch allows the RIO to set the AIM-7 to PD mode or the Phoenix to active mode. PD mode for the AIM-7 allows the newer versions to be guided with pulse doppler giving greater range. Active for the AIM-54 tells the missile to go active immediately after launch, in effect reducing it's range greatly (this is normally not needed as the pulse modes does this automatically and the pd modes do this when at short range). The missile speed gate configures the missiles acquisition gate, allowing the RIO to fine-tune the missile to find the correct target easier. The MSL options switch is something we can feasably model and intend to eventually do, the missile speed gate is a bit undecided as we're talking % of P-kill and it might be a lot of work or not even possible currently in DCS.

Thanks for the info! Not something that's really covered in the manuals! :-)

I think the real one was but not at all like a flight control stick.

Not exactly sure what you mean by biased but if you're thinking of it being absolute, i.e. that the center position always equals the center of the controlled screen and a given deflection also always points at the same location then yes. This enables the RIO to train his muscle memory for really quick hooks on the screens. If it worked more like a mouse it would be slower, at least for a trained individual.

Still planned but no date as of yet, we will let you guys know! :-)

Not unless the target is really close to the ground as the radar would filter out returns outside of the range track gates.

I usually switch to pulse when the target is starting to enter the notch or within 15-20nm. In ACM you should really always stick to pulse as it's quite easy to shake pd that close in, this is also the reason all the ACM radar modes transfer to pulse.

That's out of our control unfortunately, just not possible currently in DCS multicrew in multiplayer.

It's correct that it's only in PD that guidance commands can be sent. What happens in other modes is that the missile will be launched active, locking onto the first thing it sees along its seeker field of view. The prelaunch command do set the missile seekerhead direction before launch though, allowing the missile to be launched towards the locked target if available, making it much more likely to go for the correct target even if not updated after launch.

As to the original question, it is correct that this happens when Jester switches to TCS, the reason is that the TID repeat doesn't work when the TID in the backseat is showing video, the WCS isn't drawing the TID picture anymore. This changed with the newer PTID but for the TID that's how it was in the -A and -B.

Yeah, the dual mode functionality on the -F we're fairly certain of.

I guess it all depends on nomenclature really, the natops manuals are notoriously ambigous in these regards. While the CW illuminator in the F-14 has it's own path to the CW flood illuminator separate from the normal radar transmitter the manuals could very well call CWI just "CW". We do know for sure that the F-14 could indeed use the later AIM-7s, the real question is whether the CW illuminator on the AN/AWG-9 was really a CWI illuminator or upgraded to it later on or not at all. Unless we find evidence that proves that there were settings that could dud the later AIM-7s in the F-14 it's probably better to just leave the switch as is and when possible make the range lesser if set to NORM (CW) as we do not know for sure if this was modded later on or if the CW was indeed really CWI.

The Flood mode is enabled automatically with AIM-7 selected when boresight is chosen (BRSIT), when in ACM without a sensor track or you loose target track with a AIM-7 launched with CW set. The antenna will not emit though until the missile is launched if not already in the air. In these cases the CW illumination is directed through the flood antenna, otherwise if you have a wcs track it will be directed through the normal antenna and directed at that track. Unfortunately no news about the auto mode other than that it's being worked on! :-)

If so the F-14 might be unable to use the later AIM-7s in flood mode as the F-14 flood is CW. I'm just kinda wondering what conclusive sources you guys have saying that the later missiles for sure doesn't have CW? In any case this might not be possible or even something that's necessary to model in our F-14 apart from the range differance. The reason for the switch in the F-14 defaulting to CW is that it used to carry the models that couldn't guide in PD, that's why it has to be selected.

Currently the difference is not modelled but like has been stated the main difference would be the lesser range when guiding in CW. I've yet to see any information stating that the CW function was removed in the later missiles, my understanding was that it remained as a fallback, especially as the flood mode only works in CW. I might be wrong though and if you have sources I'd be happy to take a look!

The F-14 fuselage stations are a bit "special" in that they have different positions for the sparrows than for the rest of the stations while still calling them the same. On the real aircraft you can't use any of the forward 3 sparrow stations if you have anything on station 3 and 6 and if you have anything on 4 and 5 you can't use the two backmost sparrows. The DCS loadout system isn't really set up for this but it is something we're looking at improving. If you use custom loadouts be aware that you can set up "illegal" loadouts and if you get stuff that clip you're most likely currently using a loadout that wouldn't be possible IRL. The only exception is the MAK-79 stations allowing multiple bombs per rail, those are still missing in art so the bombs will float a tiny bit.

As have been stated, both the AVIA and the Navgrid pages are planned. No date as of yet though.

The Fighter to Fighter link had no provision for waypoint transfers. It's only the TDS version that has datalink waypoints but as we have no current way of playing as an AWACS atm those has to be set via the ME as per the manual.

It means that the WCS has control and will set that switch to NORM when you have the ACM cover open. The ACM cover shouldn't be open when you're engaging long range targets as the phoenix will be set to launch active, making it impossible to use at long range with the pulse doppler modes.

The ACM cover doesn't "need" to be up. You should look at it like a shortcut to setting up the aircraft for WVR fights by configuring the weapons control system for that. You can also do that manually, so if you're already in a good mode for engaging your current target you don't need to flip it at all.

What I meant is that either you have the functionality on your physical switch, otherwise you'd have to press another button other than the weapons selector to enable movement which in itself breaks emersion even more. I'll talk to the coders about it but it'll probably be a bit down the list as it's likely not a quick addition as we'd have to add an option to enable this functionality for those that want it.

This is a safety feature on the real stick, not sure I see the reason for forcing a thing like this with an additional keybind if you do not have a stick with this function. And if you do have a stick with this function it will work anyway as it is a physical limitation inhibiting movement between OFF and GUN unless you depress it.

The scales to the sides of the DDD in the search modes can really only be used to help the RIO gauge the position on the screen of the returns. Use whichever you want for that, it's the DDD scale which is set by the Aspect switch that's important. In the STT modes the right scale is used but it's still not set as you can change it using the Vc switch. Remember that both these scales are physical indicator lines on the surface of the DDD itself, they can't change because of different settings.

Our -C already has different flight parameters and range compared to the -A in addition to slightly different seeker performance. If we find reasonably trustworthy data on other paramaters which we could feasably implement we'll ofc do that.

Thanks very much for clearing things up. Can you please writte down here, after WCS overloading is implemented? So far, as I understand to MLC filter, it can(will) help you only in PD Search or RWS mode? When it comes to radar lookdown situation. The MLC filter is for lookdown situations yes, it's mostly visual in PD Search but like I said, in RWS and TWS it actually helps the computer by removing the clutter. Both TWS and RWS do compute target locations and are vulnarable to clutter from the MLC. Correct, it just to have a written scale on one side in early Tomcats but they removed that to allow the Aspect switch to change the scale shown instead.