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LanceCriminal86

ED Closed Beta Testers Team
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Everything posted by LanceCriminal86

  1. I think the problem we still face is needing the contemporary opponents and assets. As much as you want a B/C or D, we wouldn't really have a good environment for a more pure 60s/Vietnam Cold War. OTOH, the E and J/S covers the heavier parts of the Cold War from the late 60s through to even the early 90s. By the early 70s the Bs were being phased out for the Js, Ns, and mainly F-14s, while the C/Ds started going to rear line Reserve or Guard squadrons as the Es took over for the Tactical Fighter role. And even there they were overshadowed as the F-15A was coming in to dominate the air superiority role. I totally see the argument though for representing the B/C/D when they were the premier fighter for the AF and Navy, as well as the Marines. They deserve to get some representation for when they were the top of the food chain, I just think without the right "Red Air", either player or AI, it'd be an empty experience. Kind of the same with trying to represent late 70s-80s F-14A action without some older MiG-23s and Soviet bombers that better match the era. When the MiG-17 is completed that's going to really help, maybe even if an older MiG-21 could be done, or an earlier MiG-19. But we'd still need a decent 105 to escort and other VN era assets for the Air Force. Older KC-135s for example, earlier C-130s, C-123s or C-141s, B-47s, B-66/A-3, etc. I think the point is, many would rather fly in an era before the Hornets and Vipers, FBW, MFDs, and all that noise.
  2. The Tomcat doesn't have dynamic MODEX, I think he's referring to other ED/party aircraft that do have them. In the existing ED system a material/face for each number array is cut into the model, and then assigned an arg. They then use TGA or PNG with alpha and coordinates within the image to display the number based on the assigned BORT/MODEX in the mission. To do the larger/heavily raked numbers Tomcats typically wore you're going to need a lot of real estate around each number to have the skewed MODEX display. And with the geometry of the Tomcat in that area it's a heavily complex set of curves. It sounds like something is coming down the pipe in the future but the assumptions that it's ezpz to just slap them on there seems flawed to me.
  3. Here's a fun trick for taking pilot/RIO selfies: While you're in the cockpit, use the pause function, and then switch seats with 1/2. You can then move the camera position around to take photos because the other body has not disappeared yet. I've used it to take some RIO style selfies like those Bio and co took.
  4. Same, I picked up mostly by time in grade but then 100 extra points because special duty or something, which blew me way over the cutting score. Always an LC at heart though. As to colors/resources I had some different shades I used, maybe your saturation or reshade is amped up but the intensity of the colors looked way more vibrant than what I used. The early war blue-gray is pretty tough to pin down as there's some resources making it more blue and others more gray. And there may have been different shades for Atlantic vs Pacific there in '42-'43. Then there were the Korea ones, still need to revise them and rework stencils, the base color, and roughmets all over again. The late WW2 and Korea blue is really hard to nail down as well because sometimes it looks almost black, but it also faded into a more blue-blue, and some shades also show it with a blue-green tint after they revised it following WW2 to reduce the color fading.
  5. I did very similar ones that I've never released. Once some of these historic ones are done I want to resume working on my fictional CoNA skins for each squadron.
  6. I know, and the problem is fixing it will break anything but blank tail skins. Even if graphics don't cross over from VSTAB to rudder panel the alignment of anything on the rudder panel would be thrown off. It looks like the VSTAB was accidentally rotated longitudinally at some point.
  7. Heatblur's ACLS is not using ED's LINK stuff as it came before, you should just be using the existing ICLS channel and TACAN for the ship. The LINK system for the Tomcat is apparently different and separate from what the Hornet has, as apparently are the implementations themselves.
  8. The hard part isn't just the positioning, but the raked numbers and kerning in trying to size/position that to match most squadrons. It was rare for the MODEX to just be straight vertical numbers like you see on the Hornet. The MODEX cutouts would have to be oversized to fit raked numbers, but then on the flaps and tails they may not be. And that's just trying to get the 98% solution if you average out where squadrons had their numbers and how they did them. VF-301 had super raked numbers for example, and I think another squadron had them almost vertical at one point. But for that 98% of scenarios the nose numbers were usually raked about 15 degrees or so, the wings were usually only two digits, and same with the tails with them either on the upper rudders or the fin caps. In whatever case we'll have to see what iteration is chosen and how it's going to work out. But in the meantime there are some more F-14B skins coming down the pipe while we wait for the earlier F-14A external model, the new helmets and pilot bodies, and the fixes/additions for the model in general like the ALQ-126 blisters. The challenge right now is finding good references for some of those late 90s cruises that align with not only the current F-14B's configuration, but the carriers they were operating on. I was researching VF-11 from 1998 but just haven't been able to nail down jets with names. Almost zero photos out there, and the cruise videos are just too grainy to make out some of the names. A lot of cruises were like that, while the more available photos are pre- or post-cruise with different names, paint, etc.
  9. Because the solution to enable dynamic MODEX in the first place requires a model rework, not just flipping on an argument in LUA as had been stated many times before. It means pulling the model apart, cutting faces, potentially reworking UVW maps, and other time-intensive and destructive methods if the model wasn't built with them to begin with. And even the Hornet and Viper numbers have some oddities themselves viewing from certain angles. It's not off the table, it was mentioned in the interview video from the other week and it will probably be a generic position or two. That's also going to mean having to go back through each livery/squadron to create "blank" jets to please the online folks so effectively double the work creating blank and historic skins. I also would not expect that every single livery added to the F-14 is going to have both a dynamic and fixed/historic version. I'd anticipate a dynamic jet for the main fleet squadrons, and that would be that.
  10. The current tails also have a D feature, an extra light on the right VSTAB cap below the mentioned anti-collision light. Not present on As or A+/B as far as I can see. Let's see if they can get some liquid nitrogen or dental floss out and chop it off like a skin tag.
  11. ..... Well, I've been staring at that area because the stab or rudder is slightly crooked and never noticed that. Guess I'll add that to the stack.
  12. I was researching on that the other day, trying to get ideas for some VN era skins for the Es that we will have as far as slats but not TISEO jets. It had seemed that some of the Es rushed out to VN around that time supposedly had both slats and TISEO under RIVET HASTE in '72 or '73? or something like that, and then older jets had slats retrofitted from there through the end of the war. If you've got anything showing the slatted, non-TISEO Es in VN I'd really appreciate it.
  13. I had to start finding former maintainers to finally get the radar stencils along the anti-glare that was added somewhere around the -75 or 80 jets. And finding some of the factory stencils that usually were obliterated over the years and rarely covered in books. There's still a whole ton not covered in the Detail and Scale books. There were also some stencils only done on certain squadrons in certain earlier years, like VF-124, VF-14, VF-2 to name a few. Up around the forward antenna on the spine some kind of stencil was added, I think we determined it basically said "do not paint" or something along those lines. Example here from an early VF-124 jet, one of the -65GR jets: Of course there were also the ones VF-2 had around their wing box area, with no explanation that I have ever been able to find as to why. And some of the stencils would just be too small to even be readable. The pitot/probe stencils are already barely legible, trying to do the other factory markings you'd be fine making squiggly lines.
  14. Should be "Normal Canopy Control", give me a few and I can find some pics Basically a reminder not to use the f@*$)%& emergency canopy release, because that absolutely did happen. Wording may change the further you get in years past "factory fresh" but this at least is an example from VF-201's last CAG jet as it was being flown to AMARC:
  15. Yeah, imagine volunteering your time to do something like reworking panels so the core HB art guy(s) don't have to. Or reworking the default skins so they don't have to. Painting up replacement helmets so they don't have to. That definitely sounds like nationalistic socialism to me.
  16. Clearly the rational response is for you to go back to the first post, download the paint kit, and create the skins you desire. You can then submit them to UserFiles. You may then feel free to delete the packages for any other liveries that are released through the F-14 module, because they were made by a bunch of "rivet-nazis" which you clearly don't need or want.
  17. Keep calling people rivet-nazis and don't get all shocked pikachu faced when they stop making liveries.
  18. There are a lot of timeframes to fill in, with looming reworks of the base textures, panel lines, normals, etc. and earlier configurations coming it makes sense to hold up and do things once instead of having to completely rework skins later on. I get everyone wants every jet now, whether correct or not, but there's also a ton of work that goes into getting it *right*. For those that don't care about the differences between the B and A, might as well go right ahead and start working on them. If a better way to manage optional skin packs can be done then absolutely expect a lot more "official" skins coming down the pipe with as many jets as you can shake a stick at. But the challenge right now is guys are already complaining about drive space, and adding 4x detailed skins per squadron per year/cruise, with a couple eras represented is already hammering on drive space, imagine that spread out across 3x different iterations of the F-14.
  19. I remember the 90s as a military brat, the budget cuts definitely hit pretty hard. But even before Clinton it sounds like the Tomcat was marked for death. Tailhook and the Clinton budget cuts just helped drive some bigger nails in.
  20. The "LANTIRN" episode of the Tomcast paints a pretty nasty picture of how hard the Hornet Mafia was working to kill the Tomcat, and kill the Intruder, and literally anything else that threatened their budget. If it weren't for quite literally the right people being in the right jobs at the right time, it would never have happened. "The Guy" knowing the back end of the AWG-9 and where and how you could piggyback to listen in on the WCS and INS, the guy knowing that there was a pile of A-12 control sticks, the other guy loaning a LANTIRN pod for testing, and guys like Dave Parsons who had worked on AIM-9X and other projects trying to get digital stuff working with analog jets. All while actively having admirals making threats and stealing every last dollar they could to ensure it couldn't be funded, tested, etc. Even more sad when you consider the light attack community that became the strike fighter community was mostly the A-7E guys, the "we don't need a RIO/WSO" guys. And when the Intruder went away a lot of those BNs and pilots actually ended up on the Tomcat side, bringing their strike experience to enhance the training for the Tomcat RAG and LANTIRN stuff. OH, and the PTID was a separate effort from LANTIRN, it just ended up that they went together perfect. PTID was part of separate upgrade programs to replace the old TIDs that you couldn't even read or see anymore. I believe that effort was called the MCAP Mod (Multi-Mission Capable), which was happening on one of the former VF-74 jets in 1995 at VX-9/Pt. Mugu at about the same time that LANTIRN was happening out at Oceana.
  21. There were a few things going on in conjunction with Cheney and Chu, before during and after. In the 80s the light attack role was taken over by the Hornet, with the concept of the multirole strike fighter. You also had the sunsetting of the A-6E and the medium attack role, brought on by both the ending of the cold war, experiences in the Gulf War, and the oncoming Super Hornet program (plus the failure of Grumman's proposed replacement). Somewhere in there was the Air Force's ATF program and I believe considerations for a Naval ATF, and you also had the JSF program. All of which were being touted and pushed to eliminate as many aircraft types from inventory as possible to "keep costs down" and reduce maintenance. Those factors, plus Tailhook, led to a perfect storm situation for those decisions to happen. The senior officers from the fighter community soon found themselves swept up in Tailhook, with brass from the strike fighter community taking their places or so the tale goes. Now you have Hornet guys with all the ammunition they need to usher the Tomcat out the door and hang everything on the Super Hornet. Replace the F-14, F/A-18 A+/Cs, replace the A-6E and KA-6Ds, replace the EA-6B eventually even. Of course Grumman was going to lose that "war" at that point. Effectively the decision was made further back as said above, but the years after slammed the door shut on that position being reversed, or their lifespan further extended. I think the only way you'd have seen much different in history, would be 1) Tailhook scandal not happening, and 2) the A2G and particularly LANTIRN program starting further back. If the Tomcat had a precision strike capability during the Gulf War for example and all through Southern Watch and Northern Watch, perhaps it might have lived longer. Arguments could have been made further back that the Tomcat was providing an essential capability even above the Intruder with its speed and loiter time that would have made it worth keeping. Granted, I think even there we'd still have seen it out the door by the time the Super Hornets showed up, maybe a few years longer at the most. The amputation of the spare parts and related contracts meant they were already on borrowed time. Only by some miracle would the mythical "ground up rework" the Tomcat could have used been funded, because again the brass would still have looked at maintenance hours. Maybe that's the other thing that should have been pushed more, apparently the D models should have been treated less like the As and Bs. We see anecdotes that during OEF and OIF the D models were getting their maintenance hours down and uptime percentages at or even better than some of the Hornet squadrons they were alongside. It sounded like if that had been better tested and proven in the years before, perhaps Grumman and the Navy could have shown that it would be worth it to upgrade the fleet to the D to reduce maintenance overhead, leaving the Navy with two platforms that could do precision strike, long loiter times, and able to fill the fighter and fleet defense role. I think the latest you see the Tomcat go, even in a fictional alternate history, is 2008 or so. Even with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq still going and the money still flowing through the DOD, by then the Super Hornets would still have taken over. I don't think even a major strategy shift towards the South China Sea region would have changed that. The only thing that saves or drastically extends the Tomcat's life is an earlier push by Grumman to get the maintenance down to the Hornet's level and maybe precision strike in the late 80s/90s when the A+ is introduced.
  22. The oldest Tomcats even remotely considered for representation would be the Iranian jets, and potentially at least from a visual/systems standpoint the equivalent US jets from the same production block. I say that in the sense that *IF* an economic way to allow swapping/mounting of TCS pods and ALQ-126 jammers is achieved, you could remove the jammers & TCS from the "early" 135 jets and represent back to about the -95 jets. The ALQ-126 and associated beaver-tail are the quickest way to differentiate jets that are older than the 110 GR block where the feature was introduced, and newer production jets. But kind of like SkateZilla alluded to, the rest of the systems/features aside from that like AWG-9 updates and tapes and such would all have been brought across to older jets. Just not the jammers without the jets going back to Grumman for a significant rebuild (which did happen to the -60/-65 and one other BuNO). And yes, for a period of time that would mean working glove vanes, but that would be a visual only feature if Cobra takes the time to work them in. He already surprised us with the removable refueling probe door, so I'd say let's see what he can do. Though removable fuel pylons may not get done anytime really soon, the ALQ-126 and removable TCS have been discussed with a higher likelihood and optimism so we've just got to hold on and see. IF we do get them, then everyone can party with their '79 VF-41/84 Hi-Vis skins, '81 Sidra shoot-down jets of the same vintage, '89 Sidra skins, updated '88 and '91 VF-11 and VF-31 skins, all that jazz with and without the appropriate jammers and TCS pods. And most likely with the old style gun vents modeled in too.
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