LanceCriminal86

I will again ask, when is ED going to resume providing paint kits for AI assets? Over the last couple of years nice, improved models have been introduced and yet no paint kits were ever released. The SU-34, MIG-31, TU-22, and a number of other AI assets have either been added or reworked with nicely done models, but none have come with even rudimentary paint kits. With the upcoming S-3 rework providing an important part to representing carrier air wings back from the 70s through to the 20-teens, it will be extremely frustrating if yet again, no paint kit is provided and we are handed only a few skins of some arbitrary choice that don't align with the periods 3rd Party modules such as the F-14 or upcoming A-7 and A-6 cover. Please, whether these are being done in-house or outsourced, require at least rudimentary paint kits with separated panel lines and details before they pick up and move on to the next asset. Painting over existing .dds files degrades the quality and the details leaving the only real option being the paint community has to start from mostly scratch, redoing panel lines, rivets, and small details.

But the VR users aren't necessarily the majority of DCS users. That's the point being made, and it's unlikely to increase in drastic numbers between DCS' slow improvements in performance and the current GPU/chip supply issues that have pushed the GPUs needed for VR into absurd price territories. I don't care if I can see the pilot body in cockpit, I already have enough things to focus on when flying to add being bothered if the body doesn't reach out and click buttons as I click them. Because IMO a body that just sits there isn't really adding anything.

Make it worse with the HGU-33 too, part of why lighter helmets were designed and implemented were to reduce strain. Also one of the complaints about the VTAS I system was its weight under G loads.

@Victory205Being the nerd that I am, I have a decent amount of the aforementioned stuff hanging around the house now, and you're not kidding about the bulk the SV-2, MA-2 harness, and an LPU add. It's pretty close to what our plate carriers with mag pouches and such were like but at least you didn't have SAPI plates preventing you from properly bending over. I was also disappointed my wife's clothes didn't immediately blow off her body, but as you pointed out it was probably the lack of a moustache. Oh, and after wearing an HGU-68 for a good hour or two I see why the fitment is important. I wore an HGU-47 that came from VT-27 (still has the LT it was fitted for in 1989 sharpied on the fitted insert) and boy, talk about pressure points. It was uncomfortable to wear for more than 15 minutes, and it's noticeably heavier than the HGU-68 or HGU-55.

I'd rather the option to have them all with SC, or no SC functions, and have it simply swap the versions depending on if the SC module is purchased. That would be the ideal way to do it, let the 3rd parties add all the coordinates and locations to hook into the SC functions. If SC is bought, then it displays the SC crews and all that jazz.

Few remember what Chuck Yeager's Flight Simulator was like on a 286 with nothing but arrow keys, and what felt like a sizzling 2-3 frames per second. And by contrast what it felt like to boot up USNF '97 and see and hear the glory that was Jane's in their heyday. Regarding the pilot body thing I was cursed with the creeperstache genes, hence why I need the new bodies to have a stache so I can live out my fantasy of having a crumb catcher as I ride my glorious metal steed for some sunset volleyball. Or whatever the hell the Navy does when it's in the Philippines....

Imagine coming to the merge and seeing a C-2 or an S-3. Do they even get to say "GUNS"?

Then uninstall.

Pay attention and learn what "weathering" actually is on Navy jets. That's what leads to jets that look real, versus over-weathered like most scale modelers do. "Corrosion Control" is a constant activity, especially with jets on a float. A lot of what folks try to do for "weathering" just doesn't match what's actually going on with the jets. Some of the dark smudges in certain areas are from boots and gloves, particularly around the crew ladders. Those areas could get somewhat grimy looking, but pay attention to where actual darkened areas are from dirt and grime versus paint fade, possibly chipping, and, corrosion control paint. Some areas around the engine nacelles might be a bit grimier but the jets did have to be washed down often at sea to prevent corrosion. Gun residue from live fires didn't last long as it's very corrosive, so it'd get cleaned off at the end of the day. Whenever corrosion would pop up on the jet, they'd usually hit it with fresh paint, possibly after stripping a small area to make sure they got the root of the issue. That's why you see various lighter patches of paint all over the jets. This is a more extreme case: It looks like 114 used a darker paint to perform CC here, but often you would see a light gray. https://nara.getarchive.net/media/a-fighter-squadron-114-vf-114-f-14a-tomcat-aircraft-is-launched-from-the-no-dbbf60?zoom=true Note the places that are getting the CC paint, latches, doors, portions of panel lines. Here's another example, similar concept but this shows the lighter paint along panel lines: https://nara.getarchive.net/media/a-fighter-squadron-213-vf-213-f-14-tomcat-aircraft-taxies-out-to-launch-position-0f1a09?zoom=true Understanding the weathering itself produces better weathering, and also helps to show where the limits ought to be.

No

I sadly must report that I just lost the entirety of my ext01 template, which was overwritten during some kind of memory issue and Photoshop led me to believe I had a different file selected, and lost all progress I had made last night on ext 3 and 4. Anything 80s I was doing including the currently included VF-11 jets just got significantly set back because there were stencil changes in ext01 that are unique to that side of the jet, and stencils that I had added.

Weirdly I feel like I found more 86/87 pics on the Tomcat side than '88. Finding jets with names and callsigns was not easy. Even tougher, try finding anything for 1991 of VF-11. Outside of the Lock On book series there's almost nothing, and very few of the scans used in the books are readable enough for names. AND it looks like VF-11 had two sets of names on different sides of at least some of their jets on that cruise. I am very appreciative folks have been working on getting the Intruders, E-2s, S-3s, etc. painted up though, as I like replicating photos from the cruise with Reshade and film filters. There's a private A-7E mod out there somewhere too but I'm hoping the Flying Iron project will progress quickly enough to see something next year or so.

11/31 are still getting some more jets and some reworks to the current '88 ones. Shmoo42 did the 31 tails up and I did the rest of the jet, he's going to take over reworking the existing 31 and adding 2 more, and doing more dedicated weathering/roughmets to go with them. I'm working on AE-111 right now, I think I overdid the corrosion control and am probably going to rework it yet again. I'd also say, yeah overdoing the stains and dirt. 11 and 31 have some moderately dirty jets and they had a couple of big exercises up north but none of them looked nearly that rough. Honestly the existing weathering layers and roughmets worked pretty well overall for the 80s gull gray jets. These are a bunch of the reference pics we have been using from the national archives, from '88 and '89 including the exercises TEAM WORK and WEST WIND: https://nara.getarchive.net/search?created_date_from=1988&created_date_to=1989&page=1&q=forrestal Also re-saving over the existing skins is going to degrade the quality since you're importing an already compressed DDS and then compressing it a second time when you save it.

EDIT - Did a repair, re-installed Barthek's 2021 with Taz's trees V5, no issues:

This has been reported numerous times, ground handling has already been listed as a planned rework point in the future.

The /s means sarcasm mode.

60 and 65 were the "production" but really pre-production and test jets that went to Pax River, VX-4, PMTC, and some to VF-124, where they generally stayed or were mothballed until rebuilt in the 80s.

IF the skin author actually put the work in, an "A" skin will have the turbine warning stripe further to the rear on the fuselage to where it's right about at the front edge of the horizontal stabs, while a "B" has them a bit further forwards. Otherwise at this point you'd have to know which squadrons flew Bs and when. Or just decide to not care.

The overarching concern is not just having to cut up the model to add the areas where the numbers need to go, and to add a few variations, but also that the model has to store and load/display/hide a lot of things based on animation arguments. Keep adding stuff on like the desired TCS variants, ALQ-126 antennas, maybe old gun vents, etc. and there's a ton more stuff that can impact performance. And I think it was also mentioned there may be limits to how many arguments can be loaded. Oh, and dynamic MODEX isn't going to be great for when you need digit kerning and raked digits like pretty much every Tomcat squadron used, or really the Navy in general. But it seems the people screaming for dynamic modex aren't the kind that care about accuracy there anyways.

Should be: F-14B F-14a-135-gr Skins technically work for both, but markings for B are different than markings for A in some places. Some don't care, for me it makes for eye twitches.

People: We need more MODEX to actually have a full flight of the same squadron! Also people: My hard drive nooooo!!!!!! If ED allowed for "DLC" of just liveries to be enabled in the module management in DCS, that might be a way to somehow please everyone. Because boy howdy, y'alls hard drives are going to start crying when me and the boys really get working after the model/texture updates someday. I went and got an SSD just for DCS, and had to relocate all of my skinning WIP files and templates. And I know the other skinners have even larger folder sizes because they're churning out full 12 MODEX stacks of liveries.

201 pic would have to be at least '87 or after as that was one of the last A models produced, a -140-GR, the last of which went to their sister squadron in April of '87. 201 might have gotten their two 140s in late 86 or earlier in '87. Their first carrier quals with the Tomcat were in June 1987 on Forrestal and they were still short a few jets, and had to borrow some from VF-202. *The "official" date on that Phoenix shot is August 1987. ALQ-126 showed up at the end of 110-GR with 161168, and then all subsequent blocks. So pinpoint when 161168 was delivered and you have your date, but VF-11 and VF-31 got their spanking new 130-GRs in '85 or '86, so it would seem early 80s for those iterations is right. Apparently 161166 was delivered in March of '81, so anything built around '81 or after would have the ALQ-126. But lots of squadrons still had the older block jets which continued to get shuffled around and were even in use through the 90s and even 00s. And the ALQ-126 are coming for the B and -135 A with a model/texture update after the Viggen gets its big patch this month. There's some stuff up in the air as to whether it can get added like the non-updated gun vents for 80s jets, changes to the ALR antennas for ALR-45 vs ALR-67, the beaver tail, and how the other TCS versions will be done. The desire is stuff to be anim arguments where possible to allow for broader variations to be represented but we'll have to see what we get.

I spent a lot of my time in high school with Silent Hunter 2 and Destroyer command, was on a pretty big naval surface stuff bender. I don't necessarily expect DCS to ever properly get into that Dangerous Waters / Janes Fleet Commander type space in depth, but I really hate seeing the ship options so barren. I used to love reading dad's Bluejacket's Manual and his old ship identification books from his Academy days and still have some stacks of books around here I bought when I was trying to paint ships in Destroyer Command. I'm hoping to have some more free time to dip into boat stuff and modeling here in the future.