LanceCriminal86

They've already stated the intent is initial release = Stennis functionality, with the intent in the future to work with ED and see about SC compatibility. I *think* they are still eyeing releasing all 4 of the class, Forrestal and Saratoga being first then possibly the Ranger and Independence later as those needed changes to the model. The issue with a paint kit is that usually these ships physically have the number lights modeled in, which obviously can't be altered with just a quick paintjob. On the last one, the Forrestal was supposed to be an asset for everyone if I remember right, similar to the KC-130 and Tarawa that came with the AV-8B module but is included for everyone.

There's a textured preview in the Trello : https://trello.com/b/HsMiJggJ/heatblur-public-roadmap Right now the big push is to get the Forrestal prepped and initial released, after that and Jester LANTIRN it seems that the needed model reworks are in the pipe for things like the texture corrections and possibly new pilots. The new pilots and texture split for the A/B models will mean all the liveries are going to need an overhaul and their pilots as well, plus any community made stuff too. Other modules like the MiG-21 have had to do similar overhauls for things like adding PBR textures or other external texture revisions, so it's like ripping the band-aid off really quick. Oh and it's the HGU-55. It should be the standard helmet for most of the A+/B skins currently included, and for the early 90s and later A model skins. And ideally they will not be using a similar UVW unwrap as the Hornet as trying to do proper patterns across the back of that helmet is like ripping off your own fingernails if you need it to go far up the back of the helmet.

I'm prepping VF-201 and VF-202 for Forrestal's short reserve training cruise with CVWR-20 in 1987. It was only a 10 day exercise but still IMO a solid basis for scenarios where Reserve squadrons/air wings are activated in a time of emergency, as was done in Korea and Vietnam, and even in Iraq when VFA-201 deployed on the Roosevelt in 2003 to support OIF. I reckoned a scenario where the Kennedy has to return to Norfolk in an emergency and Forrestal is the only Atlantic carrier available to immediately fill in could be feasible for the new Syria/Lebanon region, or for the Caucuses as in theory the Kennedy was usually in the Med, or even PG makes sense. Perfect excuse to do a whole package of CVWR-20 skins, though for now we have no A-7E or A-6E quite yet, nor many of the other support aircraft. But I can at least press the A-6E mod and EA-6B mods into service, have some F/A-18A skins done up for the VA squadrons as they eventually did pick up Hornets, and just pretend the S-3B is a KA-3. That leaves the E-2 needing a couple skins and the SH-3 mod/reskin to add the reserve helo squadron.

I'm going to take a whack at some of the older VAQ-209 skins, since I'm already doing VF-201 and VF-202 from the 80s and 90s. VAQ-209 had EA-6As on the 1987 reserve training with CVWR-20 on the Forrestal, so I'll try to adapt that skin to the Prowler for now, maybe later I'll add some more early to mid 90s. I'm not a great artist so no expectations of the later, fancy Darth Vader tails. Some snippets of VAQ-209's Electric Intruders in the background here in this clip from 1987:

It doesn't help that DCS' engine has such terrible graphic options, and we can't properly override the existing AA. I finally learned how to use DSR and was taking 4k screenshots last night, and even with the ghosting the water looked WAY better with the custom shaders. The default water is just too reflective for me, especially at distance, and at sunset/sunrise. I'm curious what is causing the ghosting. Has anyone tried installing the shader pack minus the water reflections? Or compared side to side to make small changes one by one to see what setting might be impacting it?

Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to have more. I'd love to find a way for the PTID to get done, and the older 80s-90s upgrades to the Fishbowl. But from what I've gathered asking the HB guys direct is that even with VIPs asking, former Admirals, active ones even, some of the data is either 1) Gone, 2) Classified, or 3) is neither but getting the Navy to actually care enough to do something with requests doesn't always happen. Even with FOIA requests sometimes they'll find the easy out instead of actually fulfilling the request. I don't think we should ever stop trying. But even with the right amount of data, HB has to look at "is the juice worth the squeeze" to make certain changes. In the future they may be juggling 2 or more new modules like the A-6 while also trying to keep the F-14 and Viggen working correctly as DCS constantly is in flux. I get the vibe that some of these changes would be worth it to them, but not things that would require a massive rework of the systems. From some of the things I've seen, PTID came along with a number of things and would require a lot of work, not as simple as just modeling it visually and mapping all the pages in the MFD, but some of the other periphery systems in the back seat as far as radios, nav, or IFF that may have changed as well. And that's even before the GPS integrations, which further added more. It would be up to guys like Cobra to make the final call someday if an "expansion pack" would be worth doing to cover man-hours and art time to fully implement a PTID if 100% of everything needed suddenly was made available.

Sorry to resurrect this, but I'm having the same issues. I had to disable my second monitor entirely, otherwise DCS kept trying to span across both even though I had single monitor selected in the configuration. After disabling it, it's now showing as though I have 3840x2160 in game setting, alt-enter seems to keep the aspect ratio correct. Problem is, like mentioned above screenshots are only at 1920x1080. The entire reason I wanted to use DSR up to 4k was capturing screenshots for liveries, wallpapers, etc. and yet despite me apparently running 4k it's only exporting screenshots as HD. I've rebuilt my config file, gone back through NV control panel, Reshade, everywhere and done alt-enter back and forth trying to see if that changes it but nothing. Is there a way to force DCS to export the screenshots at the full 4k resolution?

As I understand a lot of these connections have already been contacted and involved. Just because former Captains and Admirals make requests and call favors doesn't mean PTID documents are magically going to appear, nor all the details about how it worked or even getting the Navy to officially declassify information so former RIOs can even talk about the systems. And even if they technically could, there's no assurances they would.

Ahhh, the little USB board I have is only a 2-pin cable per slot so I'm guessing it's set up for on/off push buttons. Looks like it will have to be relegated to simple push buttons instead, maybe some Jester commands or something. Or is it that each switch position basically needs to use two of the button ports on the controller board, one for "on" and the other for "off"? So one set of blue white on the top and middle of the left bank, and a set on the middle and bottom on the right bank? What boards would you guys suggest for getting this going that can support on-off-on switches, piano switches, momentaries, etc?

Can anyone crayon out how to wire up one of these piano switches for a non electrical engineer? This sucker has 12 pins per switch, 6 per side. I'm guessing it's designed to allow for different connector types, or to daisy chain across. I have an old arcade controller USB encoder I was going to use to at least start learning how this all works. The wires are the JST 2-pin on one end and flat blades on the other, but the blades are too wide to work with the terminals on the switches so I will probably have to remove the existing blades and replace with a single pin style connector, but I figured I'd ask so I can at least goof around with this 5-button piano switch until I can get a 3d printer and make buttons to go with it.

The musical tone, to me, sounds more like someone playing crystal glasses than background ECS sounds mixed in with the turbine whine. It immediately pulls my attention away, the same as if there was a hard looped sound which has happened before. Can we not just have a clean turbine sample sound, and then incorporate whatever ECS "soundscape" background sounds into one sound or group of sounds? Why add ECS sounds to turbine whine instead of having ECS be its own layer?

Not what I was hoping to hear, I hated the look of the default shaders and I had to do tons more stuff in reshade to get it looking okay. Maybe let this patch settle in and give it a bit? Seems they are indeed slowly making some changes with the 2.7 shaders but I'd hate to see the edits you've made stop altogether.

Has anyone observed weird "ghosting" when in F2 view over water? I turned off Reshade, dialed back some of my graphics settings but I'm seeing a weird ghosting when flying over the water. If I point the camera up to the sky I don't see the effect. I have the latest version of the shader mod, I have not tried rolling that back a version or two. I like the less crazy reflections but am wondering if this has to do with any edits, or maybe I have another graphic setting that's interfering?

I wonder if it's a software byproduct of removing background sounds from video clips of engines running, like talking or wind noise.

With Marianas allegedly looming close it makes sense, until the Corsair comes out that will at least allow for P-51, P-47, and Tomcat owners to go sock it to the IJN in the meantime!

Do you have any pictures of the lenses that are inside the front of the housing? I've been kitbashing some textures together since portions of the internals are currently untextured, but based on the photos I've seen there isn't much to texture other than some kind of reflective bowl. I just took a pic of a flashlight reflector and threw it in there, and it seems to spruce the TCS up nicely.

Wish I could get some mini switches like that to work with the eBay casette switch thing posted earlier in the thread. It seems to work as intended, just needs buttons that rotate and I need to learn how to build a button box for it, wire it up, etc.

There were comments somewhere back in a thread from Cobra that there were no current plans for maps anymore. I can't recall if it was the running Viggen discussion re the AI Drakken or what but somewhere along the way I've seen comments that HB maps are not part of the roadmap anymore.

Testing out some Kodachrome and other film style ReShade settings

Why waste manhours (and therefore money) including and animating a resource that's going to be replaced anyways? If there's one thing I hate professionally it's duplication of work for the sake of duplication. They're adding the new body, from what I've seen it's spot on for the 80s and 90s as far as pilot gear goes from head to toe. Only thing we haven't seen are the new helmets and if the existing HGU-33 will get reworked or not.

I remember that now, either way ED holds the keys to remedying that and it's all locked away. I don't foresee them doing it anytime soon, adding multiple visual model variants for piles of weapons but who knows. There effectively needs to be separate USAF and USN/USMC libraries for weapons, Navy bombs are usually covered in that ablative coating and missile stencils are different. But again, ED has to do all of that and create the visual model entries separately for the 3rd Parties to reference. Then HB could create duplicate entries for the missiles with (white) and (gray) options. Even better would be ED implementing some kind of core date system like the mission builder filter, that will appropriately present the right variant of missile depending on year in the sim. But I think even then if you go too far back the INS or something in the Tomcat stops working.

I went ahead and ordered one of those switches as well, curious to see if it can be upscaled to work or I may just live with the smaller size. My big thing is rudder pedals right now, not running VR but some button boxes and more physical controls that I usually use are high on my want list right now. Gear/Hook levers, flap lever, a simplified ACM panel would be top wants, and the mode switches with some toggles for the settings. A display for the HSD and radar would also be nice, plus airspeed and altitude.

No, not satisfied with them yet. A lot of corrections here and there still need to happen, plus hoping to see if the base "A" textures can get an interim update so each one isn't a massive download. Due to the changes that have to be made to remove B/D features and add A panel lines/features you need a lot of extra normal and roughmet changes, and doing that also degrades the file every time you save over it. Currently trying to figure a way to do that minimally, or have a base skin and then use references to point to one jet that has the corrected normals/RMs. Eventually those changes will be done to the base model/texture and it will be un-needed. Add to that I need different gloss levels for the old late hi-vis schemes vs tactical jets so still a lot of weathering and RM work to do.

Need to go ahead and get a few Superheats line jets knocked out, CAG and CO jets are getting lonely with all these Hunters around.