LanceCriminal86

Not every guy I talked to could remember who made their barrel, what twist rate it used, which chamber dimensions it used (was it cut for M855 or Mk262), how many turns until the suppressor locked up, or what all was included in the kit. But considering they are still alive and by many accounts had plenty of opportunities not to be if they couldn't figure out which end of their rifle was which, I guess it all worked out. As I knew this was likely the case, I instead asked them about their experiences, did the rifle fill the role it was built for, what would they have changed, etc. For the technical minutea I tracked down armorers and folks at AMU or 5th SFG who built and originally configured them. In the same vein, I'd be more surprised if a Grumman engineer who worked on aerodynamics didn't know about or notice the anhedral of the HStabs than a pilot, but I still wouldn't try to publicly diss them for it. This is precisely what I was driving at while you were trying to have a jab at Victory because he didn't pay attention to it. Within the various US Special Operations groups yes, some guys are very switched on about the technical details of the weapons they used. Usually it's because they already were predisposed to it, guys like Larry Vickers. Some former Tomcat pilots and RIOs have done things like write books, do seminars, interviews, and appeared to really be into the minutea of the jet's designs. Others naturally did not. They focused on flying, doing their jobs, got out of the Navy, and went on with their lives. Some got out of aviation completely. Thank you for totally derailing the thread. What I suspected seems to be verified, though I was hoping perhaps others could provide some documentation that perhaps would show that, in fact, some of the B models did have those small vents. Like Mike said yes there are some small differences between blocks, but this seems to be a feature on D model cats and not the A and B airframes we have or will have.

You mean the one they fixed? No, we tangoed because YOU were criticizing a Tomcat pilot and module SME for not noticing it on his walkarounds. I pointed out that there are tons of bearded SF dudes who know almost nothing about the specs and details of their rifles, because they are too busy putting rounds on foreheads. I never said you were wrong about the missing anhedral, did I?

Maybe because the livery and model guys probably aren't working on the issues with radar coding, missile API, or flight model values? Yeah, the A-6 and Forrestal are on their plates too but we haven't seen those in an eternity. For all we know the model/texture work could be done and they're on the coding queue. Or maybe they're not, it's up to HB to prioritize their time. People who spend time painting Tomcats notice things. People who spend a LOT of time painting Tomcats notice a lot more things. Painting talent does not equate to attention to detail, there are a ton of very talented skinners who have stepped right past these issues, and I know some of them are waiting on final corrections and template updates to fix their skins. With the ongoing state of turn rates, missile behavior, EDs lack of any real updates to the Supercarrier, the continual existence of FC or Flanker era assets, and the litany of other core issues with DCS I find my time better spent on trying to at least get accurate, correct Tomcat liveries. And in doing so some issues have become apparent when comparing the models we have side by side with high quality photos that are readily available with a Google search. People can't talk about how a module's attention to detail sells them on it and then get mad if someone applies attention to detail and finds issues. The difference is Heatblur have generally shown a strong desire to embrace making corrections even if they were minor. If they told me to pound sand, at this point I'd probably hang up on DCS and go do something better with my time. The HB Tomcat is the entire reason I finally got DCS, pardon me if I want it to be *right*. This isn't a thing like glove vanes or PTID, or a feature. It's the model/product being accurate.

So, that actually is not an easy fix. The black square is in the right spot for the model. It's the rest of the panel textures that are misaligned, OR the whole landing gear assembly is off. One of the two. I can see how that would happen if you modeled it off plans and then scanned the jet and tried to overlay the scans. Obviously the modeler noticed the issue and adjusted the locking port location so at least the arms will go in there on the model, but now the whole rest of the nacelle is off. In turn that probably impacts the front textures too. Can anyone find a B model with those little vents? The HQ walk-around photos I reviewed from books and websites were VF-11 and 74 B models, and I didn't see them on the 101 B model walk-around either. But they are definitely on D models. If they don't belong then that's at least one less difference between the A and B visual model.

I ask this out of constructive criticism, because there are features present in the model that should not have been there for any variant of the Tomcat, and there are also features there correct for the D model that I can't seem to find photos of on B models, or at least from VF-74 and VF-11 B models. Can you guys provide which jets were used for the scans and references to build the models and textures? Perhaps only certain builds of A+/B models retained certain visual features? The items have already been added in the bug tracker in the past, but they included the NACA duct that does not belong on the right engine, the small "vents" above the NAVY stencil aft that I can only find in photos of D models so far, a misalignment of the model and textures where the landing gear reinforcement struts lock into the nacelle, the leading edges of the vertical stabilizers having the wrong reinforcement shapes, and a few other issues. What I'm trying to understand is how some of this stuff showed up without being compared to mountains and mountains of photos of Tomcats which should have perhaps shown they weren't right?

Just do the schemes now, you're going to need the time to get them right. There's a TON that has to be redone to get A model skins right. Stencils, stencils, stencils gentlemen. There are some glaring differences and attention to detail there will go a long way.

I thought that was what I had read as well, but wanted to be clear in my question. I recall that being a point of contention for some because it was extrapolating a small circumstance vs the reality. BUT, it makes sense why PTID can't be done because as you said, you'd have to know what every menu option did, symbology, and any other rear cockpit changes that came along with it. You guys could always just say hey, since you want "historically correct" and take LANTIRN away entirely and just say the cutoff is mid-90s pre-LANTIRN lol. Keep the GBUs but force everyone to have a buddy lase when the Intruder comes out... And hey, that solves the JESTER LANTIRN problem! Two birds with one stone!

IF we ever got the D model's TCS added as a model argument, then AI D models at least would be feasible. Or you can pretend it's a D in the meantime. That would also make the B model prototype possible as well. But, HB would need to make all the TCS as animation arguments across the models to make that feasible. There are photos of the B prototype/test/D model tester with no TCS whatsover, bullet fairing, and with D TCS housing.

The last A model tomcats produced, the Block 140s, were made in 1986-87 timeframe and the very last 4 of those went to VF-201 and VF-202. They even shipped with bullet fairings and didn't come with TCS installed and stayed that way for a few years it seems. Well before PTID, LANTIRN, etc. Hell they were the first squadrons authorized to drop A2G ordnance apparently and were part of the early tests at Fallon (of course after the VX squadrons did their stuff). Saying Block 135 as "late" doesn't necessarily imply that they were supposed to be As with PTID. Even by the time VF-201 finally went to Hornets in 1998 they did not get LANTIRN. I believe their allotted pods were redirected to VF-103? I think the general statements from Heatblur is that these Tomcats are supposed to represent the later 80s through the mid 90s or so, but prior to the PTID, DFCS, GPS, etc. upgrades that came with the 2000s. Some of those upgrades were only being signed off on, not heavily deployed to fleet jets by '96-'98. I guess my question is, were As and Bs using LANTIRN during the period of time represented with the fishbowl TID? Because I know it has been questioned in the past stating that the BUS upgrades to even make LANTIRN work in a Tomcat also came with the PTID. You mentioned the D model Tomcats that still had fishbowls which I have heard many times, and we also saw plenty of D model LANTIRN usage through the GWOT, but is there anything specifically showing that our A and B Tomcats with LANTIRN and no PTID are not in themselves somewhat of an extreme rarity or "loophole" in order to say it did happen?

I believe the Sajad's Iran skins will be included for when the Iranian cat comes out. But in the meantime you can reuse them from the existing files. Also I swear I'll actually finish VF-201 and VF-202 and make them downloadable, honest! Just after I get every single stencil on the jets 100% photo perfect....

Statics, just set them all up there for screenshots. Then by delaying my player craft a little it spawned me on the stern. That meant I could good around and good with the camera and get a group shot. No, Supercarrier AI and all that jazz is not fixed not has had anything done since release.

And I'm saying that no, it did not work that way for me. I attempted to go straight to datalink and there was no option to select the E2 or E3 in the mission. I used the radio menu, made a call to the E3, and after I was able to go to datalink menu, option 3, then select the E3. I will check what my radio/comms option sets are. I recall unchecking one a while back I think because I wanted to start learning to manage more of the radio stuff but then stopped playing for much of the year.

Okay, it's tied to the radio I guess. Once I used the radio menu and requested picture, suddenly I could go back to Datalink and select the E-2 as my source. I didn't recall having to do that in the past, again maybe it is tied to not using some of the ez radio/comms settings. I misspoke about the whole TACAN thing, was thinking about tankers.

I'll take another look at it tonight. I may have turned off some of the comms aids, maybe that's why? I just remember before all I had to do was add an AWACS, give it a TACAN, make sure the ELPRS was on and it had an AWACS objective type, and it just worked.

The Tomcat template is like Mt. Everest. It's not easy, many have tried and many have turned back. There's also a mountain of dead bodies along the way. But, if you make it and get to the top, you realize nothing's going to top it. There are quirks, you have to reverse-engineer some stuff, scratch make some of your own masks and templates, and even start messing with the layers marked *NO TOUCH* to get what you want. It's maddening sometimes. BUT, to me it's very powerful compared to some of the other jets where everything is crammed into two textures. Even a big texture size on the hornet means that major portions of the jet only get a 512x512 or even 1024x1024 section and resolution. You have to bump the Hornet's main textures up to I think 8K to really start getting some detail like the Tomcat has available, and then you have to basically rework the whole thing to properly upscale it and rebuild all the details. Case in point, Megalax's work on the Hornet and its roughmets. The nice thing is the Tomcat has some great roughmets and normals already. Yes, the diffuse template has an insane amount of layers but I can see their purpose and it produces a very good end result. You just need 32gb+ of RAM and plenty of SSD space to really be able to swiftly work with it, otherwise saving and loading can take a really long time. Or, you can't save anymore because your scratch disk is full after opening 2-3 different template areas. My "working" folder is 23gb, and I have 2 different versions of the template I use. One is now dedicated to the A model skins because I've had to alter some elements that are fundamentally different from the B, namely the fire punch-in and the VStab's leading edge reinforcements which YaeSakura kindly provided along with his own early 70s high-vis template.

Progress on VF-201's final CAG bird continues, despite it needing the not yet released bullet fairing, HGU-55s, and RWR blisters. I believe I may need to make the tails and strakes glossy, based on a couple photos they seem flat but then in another couple photos they seem very glossy. May just offer two different roughmets to solve that issue. The backlot of 201 that need to get updated/fixed/revised with correct A model stencils and some other revisions.

I checked and the ELPRS setting or whatever it was called and everything was active. I need to go and do more testing but I couldn't seem to get jester to connect to the E-2 via datalink.

Man, I expected that to go a little longer. It's semi-fictional, in the sense that it's how one of the airframe guys proposed they paint their color birds around the early 90s. I took his description and worked with it. It's a what-if but in a sense that it was actually proposed, they just ended up sticking with the late hi-vis style or colored stripes on the tail instead.

Did I quote you? It wasn't directed at you, but I think you rather completely missed my point which was that skins that don't win *quite possibly could get adopted anyways* if they meet HB's criteria for accuracy, quality, and historical relevance. You seemed to take my statement and quite literally reverse its meaning. You should direct your angst higher up the chain at the folks talking about where fictional skins belong and doing all this gatekeeping in every thread about available skins, being able to complete air wings and squadrons, and what they think should be done vs what people are doing. Sure, let's get those VX skins in here cause they're pretty (well some of them). Hell I actually planned to do the rest of the missing Bs at one point but A model news got me back on the war path to try and finish VF-201 and VF-202. Neither of which are finished of course, because there are 3 major iterations of VF-201's line jet liveries, 2 of the CO/CAG jets, and there's a final sendoff scheme to do that's nearly impossible. VF-202 was pretty simple, but they had a lot of awards over the years so trying to pick one cohesive timeframe makes it really tough to do, because you need to try and match the CO/CAG jets to the line jets here and there or they stick out (having the CAG/CO jet with names and E/S award with multiple awards vs a line jet with only one of those awards). At this point I just want the dynamic MODEX to happen if only just to make the complaining stop. Then half the community will be happy with their one or two color birds and a generic line jet. And the other half can join in nerding out about whole squadron packs with 1:1 BuNO and MODEXes and all the little unique details we can cram in based on photos scraped after months of digging through Facebook, Instagram, books, Navy publications, Cruise Books, the list goes on. I could personally care less what gets adopted officially, I care more about the model fixes and updates that are coming because they relate to the jets I'm *trying* to paint up here. But I guess that's the difference between folks who spend their time making skins versus those that are waiting for someone else to do it for them. I barely fly the jet anyways because between the bugs and the overall feel of the DCS environment right now, I just get disappointed and go back to skinning until stuff gets fixed/added. The fact that especially the online guys constantly REEEEEEEE about what skins are official (and how they don't fit what they think should be included) is honestly more frustrating than actually trying to paint these jets, and paint them up to the standards of what I expect meets Heatblur's requirements. And if someone has actually taken a crack at painting Tomcat tails in the template, they understand the depth of that comment. There are a ton of complainers on this board with quite frankly zero concept of what it takes in terms of time, research, redoing work, and general perfectionism to provide a skin that actually would make you think Heatblur made it, or even exceed that. To show I'm not just sitting here talking about skins and not actually doing anything, here's a skin that I think I've been working on or towards since the templates dropped for the B. I spent almost 6 months trying to figure out the emergency canopy jettison stencil because this squadron happened to stencil theirs in a way completely different from any other squadron I could find anywhere, including across a handful of well regarded Tomcat books. Even the guys in the squadron that painted it couldn't tell me because it's been over 20 years. I had to make a best guess based off of the factory stencil's wording and where they could have perhaps taken that and adjusted the arrangement before I got something that at least has VF-201's airframe guy's thumbs up as what they probably did. And almost all photos of this jet are either really far away, blurry, from different times, or are a combination of those 3. Almost every stencil you see there either had to be remade or relocated to be correct for an A model, and particularly this jet around 1998 in the squadron's final year of Tomcats. Finally locating a photo and decal set detailed enough to make out the CAG and DCAG names and callsigns took until sometime this summer. I just got myself back into redoing stencils this week and last week, redoing the MODEX, resizing and relocating the awards (which may get redone, again). The intake stencils were completely redone about 7 times until I got here, I may do them one more time as I'm still not 100% happy with the angle. They were not as high up as some B models had them, but also they were different than the Grumman standard A model stencils. The Tails took an exorbitant amount of tries just getting the Texas shape right. Drawing and re-drawing, tracing over photos, redoing it. Then there was the AF tail code, getting those proportions right because hey, they were different over the years since these were all hand stenciled. The stripes took again an exhorbitant amount of tries before I got them mostly happy. I know they are still a wee bit off but if I try to re-do them I might not retain my sanity, even with the helper layer ensamvarg provided. But hey, apparently we just have to have another Jolly Rogers skin with candy canes instead because one guy rreeeaallllyyyy likes it. Since this is a skin competition here's the rest of the back lot of skins I still am completely reworking, and competition or no competition plan to offer up for inclusion because if I'm ever actually done with these, they will be down to the smallest stencils and rivets as best as I possibly can. Oh, and one of those is "fictional" but I challenge y'all to figure out which one. Also of importance, my skins can't be "done" and accurate until we get the RWR antennas modeled, the bullet fairing, and the HGU-55s, plus the removal of the external tank pylons.

It could be argued that test squadrons are less important than fleet squadrons if you want to start controlling what should be in as official skins. But HB are running the competition and they will add whatever they feel would be an appropriate addition to their Tomcats and/or Viggen. There's also a powerful assumption here that skins that don't get added in this competition will never be adopted and the official skins list is closed off forever. So maybe if you aren't contributing or submitting anything, just sit back and let the competition run its course?

In the F-14A, I'm unable to get datalink working in the same way I did with the F-14B in the past. Mission has E-2 set up in the same way as the past. If I try to select Jester > 7] Data Link > 3 the E-2 is not there. On the B all I used to have to do was follow that, select the E-2 or E-3, and I had datalink. Is it a radio option issue? Do I need to have the specific frequency selected before hand? Maybe it's tied to turning easy radio or comms assist on or off? Or is it working as intended and the late As did not have the functionality?

But they were still there till the end on most As. Almost every jet I'm trying to get painted up for the reserve squadrons were Block 135s and 140s and had the fairings through the ends of their careers when they were sent to VF-41, 211, etc. and deployed to combat in OEF and OIF.

You know, that's a really good thought about how to tastefully do some dynamic MODEX skins. Do some corrosion control/paint over where the scheme would have had the carrier or something. Doesn't fix the fact they will still all have the same BuNO but hey, at least that's a neat way to bypass the whole thing.

@KingKenny04 any of these on the list? I bet he'd tweak them to the time-frames if we asked especially when we know what carriers are coming.