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LanceCriminal86

ED Closed Beta Testers Team
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Everything posted by LanceCriminal86

  1. No, because they were the actual F-14A pilot tuning the F-14 to fly like an F-14. That is what they spent their time doing in DCS. It sounds like you need to go buy the F-16 if that's your primary drive and focus in life.
  2. You're not going to win or lose a dogfight because fuel tank pylons are attached. This is usually where our resident F-14 pilot and tester would and has said the same thing, repeatedly, in these forums.
  3. By the time of the current presented Tomcats, A and B, the pylons and tanks generally stayed on. If you were on the boat, there were tanks. There's anywhere from 3-10 threads thrashing this to death already. If removable pylons happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it really doesn't impact anything but the IIAF/IRIAF and shore-based jets. Even by the mid 80s tanks pretty well stayed on.
  4. The S was also in USMC Reserve use into the 90s before they were retired.
  5. I don't think your pessimism is founded, and you're looking for the worst interpretation of a statement.
  6. I'm well aware of the issues. In this case replacing a portion of the cockpit panel's texture with another separate texture file is simpler than creating a "dynamic" BuNO that changes based on the mission editor or loadout screen. We can already replace the BuNO by overwriting the HB_F14_CPT_FRONT_03 texture and its roughmet, and it works in the Livery arguments. But that means re-exporting what already was a compressed DDS file. Also likely simpler than cutting up the external model for dynamic MODEX. Since we're seeing cockpit bits and external model stuff happening again, now's the time to ask.
  7. My research brings all the boys to the yard. Something something, it's good I don't chaaaaarrrrge. What's sad is I have had more success researching other people's projects than my own. 1991 VF-31? Easy, plenty of pics in the Lock On book and elsewhere. VF-11 from the same cruise? Can't even get 1 jet other than the 100 or 101, maybe the 102 with all the names because they had 4x names per jet (more pilots than jets) that cruise. Vf-24 and VF-211's year or so with the A+? Barely a handful of pics that I can find, and maybe 1 or 2 have legible names, most MODEX from either squadron unphotographed or hiding in someone's shoebox. VF-11 from 1998 cruise? Forget about it! Painting the jets is easy. Finding names, plane captains, obscure stencils that can barely even be hazily seen in a distant formation photo or from across the flight line and no closeups, or trying to discern if the early big engine jets had A+, A PLUS, or A(PLUS) stenciled on the nacelles is where the hard part is.
  8. *IF* the BuNO could be separated from the main panel texture as its own, then it could be tied to skins at least without adding another large texture to each skin. Since the BuNO is not dynamic on the outside of the jet anyways, trying to make "dynamic" cockpit BuNO wouldn't make sense. But letting it be more easily controlled at least by the base skin would be a lot easier to manage. Now, if you guys do a MODEX controlled by mission editor, then various stenciled or stickered numbers somewhere in the cockpit should be doable at the least which I think is something you already mentioned being considered before. But the BuNO makes more sense to tie to the skins and you have to duck pretty far down right now to see it anyways.
  9. Apparently not, don't know if the hotfix/patch was communicated or not. Hopefully we can get this ironed out to have some stuff ready for the next one to also take advantage of the new probe door feature. Also time to give the F-14A+/B some love again too.
  10. Oh hey, Eagle Claw Tomcats with refueling doors removed:
  11. Anyone have a solid reference for the differences between the E and F? Visual differences, systems, antennas, slats, anything that would differentiate the two?
  12. It was common during the Gulf War, Southern Watch, Northern Watch, possibly was done during Allied Force, and during OIF/OEF, whether we have the 135's Iron Maiden currently or not. So it very much applies to "the rest".
  13. There's actually a mountain of them but I don't think they've been publicly released. I provided photo references for them months back and for the helmets, so they may show up eventually.
  14. The update hype thread. Hence the skins were removed from the final update notes.
  15. For those wondering, this is what you will need to populate in the description.lua at the end to get the removed probe door: custom_args = { [1616] = 1.0, } Right now it loads when you do the rearm/reload menu but it may not on load into the sim, or for AI. That still needs to be added on ED's side to have the argument loaded on spawn apparently.
  16. No, if you check the other thread there was a push issue that resulted in the skin fixes not being populated to the build unfortunately.
  17. I think what you're TRYING to say is: Blame Canada!
  18. That statement was completely incorrect. The TALD for the F-14 has always been ED's, it's just ED's TALD on a TER.
  19. Cosmetic
  20. The latter is going to take time to code, for now it is in the description.lua in any skin you want to activate. The issue at the moment is there also needs to be a change to how the skins are loaded, so you will have to do the re-arm screen and load the skin for the argument to be loaded. It looks like ED has to add the argument to be read on startup/spawn so AI and player aircraft will have it at load. It was a pretty cool surprise even to some of us helping out, and honestly not something I was expecting to see anytime soon. And it should be an indicator that external model work is a heavy focus right now, which means fun things are going to start happening in the skins and variants department.
  21. It should eventually be both, or that appears to be the goal. Built-in liveries with it off to match jets painted for Gulf War, Southern/Northern Watch, Allied Force, and War on Terror. Then option to switch it on/off in missions via menu tick or script arguments or maybe in the loadout menu.
  22. Coreman's jet is a later B (Upgrade) which features different layouts than older photos of A+/B, like the one in Lock On #18 by Willy Peeters from 1991. Other books with F-14 B and B(U) pits even show different layouts from the VF-32 jet circa 2004 or so from Coreman's book. DFCS may have introduced changes to the front cockpit, but photos of a pretty fresh A+/B from the above reference are more accurate to the jet being modeled in DCS. No DFCS, none of the later B (U) changes, just the LANTIRN integrations. Let's always take the steps to make sure we're comparing the right years and configurations. ^ Credit Willy Peeters, from Lock On No. 18, Grumman F-14A/B Tomcat
  23. These photos including '74 have 111 with an IRST and I'm staring at 101 in the ship's hangar with an IRST hanging on it. The crew member says November of '74 stopping in Hong Kong for the NK-101 pic. Frequent Wind wasn't until end of April '75, he had a photo from that time and it's really hard to tell if 111 still had the IRST mounted, it's from a relatively high angle. But it might not be there. And of course I love seeing the fuel tank pylons and tanks that I've heard some say weren't there as a reason to demand the removable tank pylons "because they weren't used early on".
  24. His pics were '74 and '75 after looking back at some of them, they had mostly IRST but by another guy's photos from the following '76 cruise they were ALQ-100 across the board it looks like. There are some oft-quoted maladies from the first cruise like humidity and heat causing electrical problems, internal seals causing FOD, general teething issues, and the IRST just generally not working. I went looking around and even finding details on the damn things is scarce, photos of the display, what it actually did, performance, nada. It basically was implemented and immediately canned after the first cruise. Some of the T&E jets retained them or kept the housing with an aero cover but it looks like it had no merits worth keeping it around.
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