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Raisuli

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Everything posted by Raisuli

  1. I knew a couple guys (in the Navy) who spoke like that. Never used contractions, always enunciated every word properly. Extremely precise, measured diction. It happens.
  2. 15E can get the gear repaired on the carrier, so I suspect even if you prang this one it can be repaired. Take off? Well...maybe. Put enough horsepower on a rock it will fly, and maybe this will take off in 1000 feet. I'm am curious how they're going to handle bridles when they get to that point. Easy answer is to ignore them, but when was the first time HB did anything the easy way?
  3. Of course in your 'wear' models you also have to model 'maintenance', particularly if you're going to keep persistent air frames. Then there's the whole rabbit hole of maintenance quality, replacement part availability and the QA associated with that entire ecosystem. If you do it right you've just modeled real-world component failure on everything from aviation to space flight to nuclear power plants, and Heatblur's primary revenue sources will have nothing to do with games. As long as there is an off switch for those of us who would rather play a game...
  4. The elephant in the room still hasn't been addressed. Ok, every rivet is in the right place. We can program Jester to be a fourteen year old squeaking TickTock influencer, systems are modeled down to the Amphenol pin crimp, and mustaches have a configurable amount of silver in them. But what really matters is whether or not the wallpaper is going to be better than the F-14's, because let's face it, the F-14 has horrific wallpaper.
  5. Even better. You have a sense of humor. Cracked up when Clown self-ejected from the F4 in your release video...
  6. I used -66 as an umbrella at Norfolk Navy Shipyard. There's a picture of her in the dry dock somewhere, but our little dingy isn't visible. She hung over the edges nicely. Kitty is a good choice; there were four of them if you count the Kennedy, and they bridge the gap nicely for early carriers. 64 is Kitty Hawk class. Flew everything on the current and upcoming list, took the F-18 out on it's first deployment, and I have a picture of those two aft hanger doors lined up. Apparently, and I don't know if this is true, the Omani mercenary pilots wanted to scoot through those doors in their Hawks and were asking about dimensions... Besides, we need something with a bridle catcher. On the other hand once I'm off it a deck is a deck. I don't give them a ton of thought as long as there are two runways and a couple wires in back. The rest is pretty sparsely modeled and there's no sense of smell in DCS...
  7. No, of course you haven't. That was me being tongue in cheek (and probably inappropriately direct), but the fact is you have defended the state of that cockpit from about the day of release and made no move to suggest an alternative is even possible until very recently. At least not that I've heard, and I've had the model, and been a (probably too) vocal critic, since about then. Is that 'pound sand'? No, but a 'no' can be expressed any number of colorful ways, and it still means no. At least I didn't go Monty Python on it! In the end it was a business decision, and I don't have enough information to even have an opinion on those. If I had to make a wild guess you're probably shaking your head wondering why this whole thing hasn't gone away after how many years? Drawing a new cockpit at this point is probably stupidly time consuming, and expensive, which brings up all kinds of interesting questions. But without impugning your SMEs I have to wonder how many hours of wear that is, and if an air frame with 200 hours looks like that what does one with 2,000 hours look like? Actually it makes me want to know what degree of wear is common on aircraft with n hours of flight, and work on the math to model aircraft wear based on panel location and use percentages and all that 'not quite on the bell curve' stuff because this thread kind of triggered my curiosity. (Okay, Dymo tape. That is epic! I still have a Dymo gun if you need more of those made, but only black tape) ((Are we seriously on page three of a thread more or less about how much wear is appropriate for a computer generated graphical representation of an aircraft? Damn our lives are good!))
  8. Well. Pfft. Non issue then. I read that line and for some reason 'afterburner detent' option didn't click. Blowers off the deck it is for now! Probably some stupid regulation forced down by the Air Boss because he thinks burners look pretty off the end of the deck while his penguin butt is bolted to that chair.
  9. I sure hope so! Looking forward to that one, and let's be honest; HB is the varsity when it comes to this stuff. Those still flew when I was in the Navy as well. I was there for three generations; -4, -14, and I was on the first deployment of the -18. Besides, when I was growing up it was all about the Phantom! I'm actually holding off on rev 3 of the simpit for the F-4; not sure what it might need that's unique to that air frame. HB has been stingy with cockpit pictures so I don't know what controls it uses. I can worry about bindings later.
  10. Lie? No. I would never accuse anyone of intentionally lying without some pretty clear information to the contrary. There are plenty of more reasonable explanations why something might be inaccurate, which is why I asked the question. I had not seen the comment about being destroyed before deployment. However, if they decay at that rate how long before everything needs to be replaced? Mathematically that doesn't make sense to me; even if the decay rate is a logarithmic curve it's going to be unusable within the aircraft's lifetime and they're going to need a lot of Dyno tape. The rant was meant to be more tongue in cheek because we've had this conversation before. Me: Don't like the cockpit, rest of the model is awesome. HB: Too bad, this is how we make models. Fortunately HB seems to be the only developer in DCS with that philosophy. The revenue I provide to any developer is a drop in a lake so I don't expect them to change anything for me. On the other hand there are two flight sim ecosystems in which I have an interest and up to now I've bought every release in DCS (other than a few campaigns) just to support the developers, so plenty of models to fly and places to go shopping when the time comes.
  11. <rant> Yeah, so Heatblur loves their 'realism' to the exclusion of all else. I have to wonder how many of those thousands of hours HB's SMEs fondled F-14s were in the late 70s and early 80s when the A was new, or even how many got to play with recently updated Bs. The Tomcats I saw flying were on their first deployment and despite their thousands of SMEs with an hour of experience each I'll bet they didn't look like they'd fallen off the deck and been left in the ocean for a few months, then power washed. Maybe they did in the 90s and 2Ks because they'd been handled by all those SMEs for decades. Maybe Gumman sent sent them out of the factory looking like that, which explains why they went out of business. Our engineering control rooms looked a little better than those cockpits HB loves. The Vinson's control rooms looked...lightly used! The difference between something over a decade old and something only a few years out of the shipyard. Imagine that. Realistically I'm not allowed to fly the things anyway, so to be realistic I leave mine in the hanger or use them for AI. I'm sure HB doesn't mind; they got their revenue. This mod, of course, is TOO clean, and doesn't have HBs touch, but I'll call it an improvement anyway. Now I'll need to get some bindings set and actually fly the thing, despite that not being very realistic... </rant>
  12. Well, of course! Why waste a perfectly good, expensive, CBU on a soft target
  13. Here's a track that pretty much matches NineLine's result. You have to make sure you're lined up on the target or they'll fail to drop, though. It's not going to let you send them off course. At least not too much, and if you just fly straight that's too much off course. 2023.10.27 CBU-97 MIZ Test.trk
  14. Many fish died to bring you this track file... I discovered if the waypoint is in the air the CBUs don't drop. Changed the waypoint to (something closer and on) the ground and they dropped just fine. Didn't save the airborne waypoint track where I got two failures to drop on two waypoints hovering in mid-air. 2023.10.27 CBU-97 Test.trk
  15. For what (little) it's worth I just did a couple CV launches to test a different problem and gain worked as expected every time. So, went to a drive through to test and got mostly expected results: Wings locked: Normal gain, hold NWS for high gain. Release NWS return to normal gain Wings unlocked: Normal gain until NWS is pressed, then locked in to high gain, and in fact you can't get OUT of high gain once you lock it in. That might be different, but I'm not sure Wings folded: See 'wings unlocked' From here it seems like you have control issues somewhere? That's where I'd start, at least. Maybe try a different KB? 2023.10.27 NWS Gain Test.trk
  16. Might be an SC rather than an F-18 issue. Didn't try in anything else. Perfectly clean (no pylons) F-18, shooter signalling mil, not max, couldn't launch until I went past the gate. WAS able to throttle back immediately after the wheels cleared the deck. Didn't actually try to do that while I was still on the shuttle. 2023.10.27 F-18 CVTest.trk
  17. No, but he has claws and he's sharp on five ends! I've seen him use a MiG-29 as a scratching post and it wasn't pretty... Speaking of Bignewy I was just checking the boards this morning, because it beats the heck out of working, and thought we're about due for the first patch...and there he is!
  18. Happy to help. Got to thinking about Viggens, set up some basic controls, and took one out for a spin (with an AI out in front). I've owned it...forever. Not sure I've ever flown one, but dang! Surprised at how much I like it! Thrust Reverser! I want after market thrust reverser kits on all my jets! J-turns on runways. Pulled into a hanger, thought 'this is stupid', backed out of the hanger, turned around, then backed in. How cool is that?! Maybe not Norway, but I think Slartibartfast would approve
  19. Well, I know what a 'skede' is now, but I almost certainly can't pronounce it intelligibly. And yes, formations with AI are all fun and games until you tuck up close and that enormous aluminum cloud turns into you. Since I created the route you'd think I'd be aware, but...not so much. Pucker factor spikes every time. On the whole, though, it's not too bad. You get used to the little glitches at the top and bottoms of climbs and learn there are places where you just need to give the AI a bit of follow room. It's the slides that really shake you, though, and you have to learn how to set up the waypoints so the AI doesn't do that. I've got four or five formation trainers set up at between an hour and an hour and a half each. The only clues I give myself (because I'm too lazy to create 80 waypoints and 80 trigger points with turn warnings) is when the lead aircraft spawns at the start and right before it breaks off to land at the end.
  20. Viggen training good. My Svenska bad. Actually, calling my Svenska bad is insulting to people who speak a language badly. More like 'nonexistent'. Flying formation with the current state of AI: Where'd she go?
  21. Might be an MP thing? Haven't seen much difference in SP, whether the TACAN was built in or added (the portable one we can set up as a ground vehicle).
  22. The place where I noticed this the most, downright jarring, was A2AR from a C-130. Of course I didn't try with an IL-78, so maybe the tanker version is inconsequential. Anyway, the basket had about twelve gallons of coffee too much. It was visible flying formation with an AI F-14, it about took my teeth out when I tried to refuel. Tracks, maybe even videos, on demand. I'd be a bit stunned if ED hasn't been inundated with both.
  23. I got the mini, but with shipping the way it is I also got the button expansion, grip replacements (because...because) and detent frames. Arrived yesterday and spent last night getting mad at it, in large part because with the throttle all the way forward it would go from sending 100% to 0%. VKB wirelessly connected to the throttle overnight and fixed all the bugs, so my day today went much better. Come to think of it, DCS does that, too...pretty sure it has nothing to do with me reading manuals... Right now my biggest gripe apart from the TDC being on my thumb is the rate at which it slews. After tweaking software all day I'm not convinced I can't slow those axis down a bit, though. The other thing is the way the F-18 antenna elevation control works, which isn't VKBs fault. That makes me want to have multiple button configurations, and I've heard that is also possible. Given some time I'll look at that tomorrow as well. If you want videos Jabbers has about 85% of what you need in his review video, and that was done better than the tutorials provided by VKB. I did need VKBs tutorial to turn an encoder into an axis because Enigma's attempt needed help (boolean? Huh?). Then I made it an encoder again once I remembered why the F-18 antenna elevation sucks. I didn't get any of the button expansions because I build my own. Up until today I've used a Warthog throttle since forever, but never configured any of the buttons other than those on the grip, and not all of those. With the significantly improved control density on the STECS more and more get use; the front triggers are 'HORNET BALL' and 'READY PRECONTACT', but that might change. As for detent frames, that's a point of annoyance. Apparently you can't set up detents on the black frame (and still call it a black frame). No idea where that decision came from, but I'd prefer to match the colors on the one that gets the most use. Seriously, VKB, why make that one special? So there's one with shutdown and AB detents for real airplanes, one with just the shutdown detent for almost real airplanes (those without an AB), and by default the black frame for helos with, as of now, no detents. Jabbers set his shutdown to pulse, I did not, and set it to < and mapped to IDLE/OFF. Works perfectly. The downside to a shutdown detent (that I will probably never use) is it reduces the throw length, which compresses the travel needed for things like A2AR and formations which are the same, really. Those detents could be a bit narrower; they eat up a significant amount of travel, and even with two you can tell some real estate is missing. I'm sorely tempted to take the shutdown detent off and just keep the AB. The best news is you can tweak the throttle on the fly without restarting DCS. Mostly. That didn't apply to changing the encoder to an axis; I had to restart DCS for that to pick up. The base wants to be flat, but isn't. When I mounted the throttle I put small (#8) washers under the holes to prop the corners up so the center won't flex. The whole thing is surprisingly light after using that 100 kilo Warthog throttle for so long and you can just forget about using it on a desk without some kind of mount. It does not have any kind of rubber or non-skid feet or surface, but that's an advantage for mounting it (almost) flat. Another point of annoyance is the right throttle handle will move on it's own if the tension is dialed down into me range, so it's stiffer than I prefer. The fix is to either link them or have more friction than I'm used to, but neither of those make me regret the purchase. I never linked the WH throttles, but I might try to get used to that with this one. On the whole I really like it. For $321 all up, of which about $65 was shipping, it's a great deal. If you can live without all the 5 way switches and extra detent frames you can get it for a bit less. Incidentally I almost bought the carrier for all those extra parts ($5, shipping change is sunk cost) but they all came in one, so bonus. Once this is bolted to something solid it has a wonderful feel, and despite several hundred hours using the WH throttle I didn't have any trouble doing A2AR or formations on this one. Yes, the throttle position is a little different, but it's tighter and more responsive than the Thrustmaster. I put off getting a Virpil (I have a Virpil stick) for years because I didn't want the buttons and was unsure about the smaller throw distance. VKB really nailed this. The real test will be how well this holds up five, ten years from now. I could see crud getting in and gumming up the works, but we'll see how that goes.
  24. Keep getting server errors. Since there's nothing in the patch notes that I wasn't able to live without for the past six or seven years I suspect I can continue to live without them for the next six or seven days. I'll just try again later.
  25. That last one concerns me. Does this mean they reel in the drogue after five gallons of fuel transferred? Mission accomplished? I've heard back-office rumors the sheep have bugs, or at the very least fleas. Hopefully they get that fixed in time.
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