LanceCriminal86

Just to apply more context to all of this, I've been spending hundreds of hours digging through to find the right helmet designs, flight suits, gear, patches, etc. for as many cruises as possible to not only be able to update all of the default skins on the A and B, but any proposed/ideal skins for the future on cruises that match DCS terrains, Supercarrier boats, all that. Are there exceptions to rules? YES! But they are usually pretty isolated or specific, as opposed to broad sweeping loopholes. Here's my thoughts too re: switching via options in the settings pages, as far as multiplayer. If I'm up front and I have HGU-33s selected, and someone joins in as RIO with HGU-55 selected, how is that going to work out? Are we expecting that to be added to unique values that follow the player around? Is it just going to impact what the player sees like client side skins? Another thought I had re: 55 vs 33 in an option switch, is if skins aren't being produced with both variants of helmet, what happens then? If the helmet goes to a default skin in the base folders that's going to look odd as well. Again, food for thought. I know Cobra and IM's desires are always to provide choice and preferences when possible, that's fair and a very noble goal as seen by the efforts to make the new pilot models more "modular" with patches and such. That said I'm the nerd on the other shoulder who'd like to see things be consistent across the right "eras" the Tomcat module is going to represent. And on the flight suits side, sometimes they'd wear different suits during the cruises. So for ops leading out to the PG they may still use traditional sage green CWU-27 suits, but when they start operations flying over Iraq or PG waters they would wear tan suits, remove patches, and throw on camo covers for their helmets. Other squadrons like VF-213 would sometimes wear their blue CWU-73 suits instead of the sage 27s when not flying Southern/Northern watch missions or combat hops in OEF/OIF. Plus you have VF-114 further back with their orange CWU-28 or orange summer suits from the 60s-70s. In whatever case I definitely haven't spent any money on references trying to get the colors and materials and everything correct. And I definitely don't have folders and folders of reference pics of helmets and gear and jets from specific cruises, including instances of where both HGU-33s and HGU-55s or converted 33s were being used mixed between crew members, which this crew from VF-74 is definitely not doing in 1992.

The IRIAF spinoff is not cancelled, why are you repeating this?

No, those things happened based on DATES, not the model of jet. The 55 was introduced on the Navy side around '87/'88, and due to shortages many 33s were converted to the bungee visor using new edgerolls installed by the PRs, or even without that step and just adding visor bumpers or other leather material to help the visor stay put. From that point onwards, there was a transitional phase where some folks continued to use their HGU-33s as they were still considered serviceable and approved for use by NAVAIR and the newer 55s were still trickling in as the Air Force had been getting the lion's share of the allotments. During ODS there was a mix of them, 55s, converted 33s, and standard 33s all being used. But within a year or two after for most fleet squadrons the fixed-visor 33 had faded out and either full on 55s or converted 33s were in use. The exceptions there were reserve squadrons but they still had to comply with NAVAIR. But past a certain point the 33s would not be seen, somewhere around '94 from what I have seen so far. Aggressor squadrons were just as quick to work on switching over because the bungee visor setup was lighter, meaning less weight and stress on the head during ACM. So, no. Most liveries are being done based on dates, cruises, specific jets or at least airwings from a particular time. And based on those dates, certain helmets and flight suits are quite specifically "right", and some would be directly "wrong". An HGU-55 with the Fast Eagle 102 and 107 skins from 1981 are going to look just as retarded as Jolly Rogers F-14Bs from 2003 with HGU-33s.

I'll take the original intent to tie them to the liveries instead. Right helmets and suits tied to the right timeframes. They might add a switch to change the anim arguments in the sim but it would be silly to have HGU-55s on the hi-vis 70s and early 80s jets.

Client only, unless others have that skin installed, or the server does. It's currently a bit of a mess how they are handled. There's actually a site that covers it: https://www.angelfire.com/extreme/raafphantoms/index.htm

Skins can come one of two ways, either directly from the dev provided in the main install with the aircraft, or downloaded/installed from the user files in a folder that will read and display them. Right now the general goal is that the main countries that operated the F-4E and its variants will have represented skins available. HB is not going to be making separate versions of each exported F-4E systems wise but at the least skins for those operators should suffice. Once the later E comes along some skins could be shifted around to better represent the systems of those export models but we're nowhere near crossing that bridge quite yet. Some nations added dual language stencils so there would need to be some research done there, tracking down various squadron logos/stencils beyond just a plain jet with say Korean roundel on it. Probably there will be more generic/dynamic skins available for things like dynamic numbers, and separately detailed specific airframe skins, anniversary schemes, farewell jets, demo teams, etc. I'd expect basics at launch, whenever that's going to be with more schemes and squadrons added over time.

No, by the -90 and -95 those were ironed out as well as they were going to be. The screens will all still be there, you just won't have anything show up if you try to select the TCS, if the switchology will even be there. At the minimum it should be the "early" 1980s -135 but with some systems disabled, not sure if they will make a 3rd or really 4th cockpit iteration just for the Iranian jet, maybe the panels will be blanked over via some arguments. But both screens should still be there.

VF-11 and VF-31 transitioned to F-14Ds in 1992, with only a few others doing so later like VF-2 and VF-213 after their sister squadrons shut down, and 11 eventually going to Bs in the late 90s. DCS is supposed to be a "rivet counter" type sim to at least some degree, but more importantly Heatblur themselves have stated they don't want to half-bake any version or component/system. They said the same with all of the PTID questions, because little exists mapping out and showing all of the different displays and pages for the systems that were integrated, or the different piggy-back systems eventually added later for JDAMs and GPS. And yes, Bs got JDAM too. Part of the B upgrades included a digital BUS, iirc it was the As that needed a digital to analog converter for LANTIRN. VF-11 and VF-143 did the operational testing and 11 deployed with them in 2002, performing the first combat JDAM drops from a Tomcat. The guy that wrote up the F-14 JDAM article/story/whitepaper deployed with VF-11 on that cruise as he was the program officer on it. But JDAM required additional piggyback equipment to work. DFCS also didn't come until later, and was rolled out to all operational Tomcats at that time whether A, B, or D. The D didn't have DFCS from the start. DFCS testing was in 1995 with rollout to fleet As starting around 1998. Adding DFCS alone would be quite an undertaking in DCS, having to model how it interceded and did control coordination or spin recovery, we'd need details on all of that whether A, B or D. F-14Ds didn't get PTIDs until the As and Bs started decomissioning, and the PTIDs were moved across as the D's TID was digital and newer. After VF-103's testing and cruise with LANTIRN in '96 VF-154, 211, 41, and 14 received LANTIRN as well, with there being transitions from 96-99 of some jets having LANTIRN but not the PTID yet. The D also had a different jamming suite, altered external model features that would need to be done, cockpit remodeling, pilot would need changes to some of the equipment as the D had OBOGS and used different regulators. There's a lot to even just an old D, and Heatblur still don't want to cut corners. Docs have to not only be available but releasable/usable by HB without someone going to the Fed for breaching ITAR and espionage charges. Also, PTID had been a separate project due to old TIDs burning out and wasn't originally linked with LANTIRN, it just happened to enhance the capability. That's part of why As got them initially as their TIDs were the oldest and needed replacing the most from what I've seen.

Based on the previous discussions about the Phoenix, there is no API 'documentation', whitepaper, wiki, etc. as again it's still being worked internally by ED, but ED will sometimes provide values to use. The Phoenix may not even be 100% on the same "new" model as the AIM-120 if you peel further back.

All it means is that if any requests for docs ever come through, that are actually releasable to HB for use in a simulation, then they'd look towards what they could do. If you were to mind map out all the systems, displays, tests, MFD views, and all the progressive updates to the D from when they were delivered through 2006 there's a huge amount that would have to be covered. Doing a 1992 F-14D and a 2005 F-14D is a pretty big canyon of differences potentially.

You keep throwing "API" around but it's a lot more than that. ED barely even shares the "new" missile "API" with HB, nevermind the unfinished state of the SC implementation for crew, elevators, parking, comms, and LSO/IFLOLS. Yes, ED has implemented a way for the Stennis to be both SC and non-SC, which means yes, HB *COULD* add that on. But that isn't going to be done until the SC implementation/framework is more complete and nailed down, as the Forrestal itself likely needs to be "rigged" on the model side or have other reference points added and coordinates for crew, the ability to have unique/different crew skins to properly recognize the 80s-91 era of the Forrestal or later on for say the Sara, Indi, and Ranger, probably some kind of FLOLS instead of the IFLOLS of the more modern carriers, it would need internals added for the bridge/PriFly/Airboss, maybe even a briefing room skin. ED would have to have completed that themselves before a third party should even think about trying to add the same framework, and there would have to be some kind of documentation showing what is needed and how it would be done.

How do you expect it to be integrated into a module/framework that itself isn't even partway finished? Why should they burn up focus and coding effort on something that ED themselves haven't even completed and ironed out for their own ships? There's plenty for them to work on with just the F-14 itself while ED figures out exactly what they're doing on the SC module/framework. Right now we can't even access the deck crew to skin them because ED encrypted those away somewhere.

But first-person accounts are, and they stated exactly what I provided that by month 2-3 the lines were extremely obscured by tire marks, deck grime, fluids, etc. I have already provided a complete timeline of Forrestal's 1988 cruise in terms of deck photos from lots of different angles and weather, already from the pre-cruise visit to New Orleans to the first month or two at sea headed to the Suez it went from brand new to about what we see in the DCS model and just stayed that way or worse through her return. I think the issue again is how DCS is handling things like LODs, mip-maps, textures at distance, and lighting. And the latest update has impacted a lot on the lighting front, with roughmets behaving quite differently now than they used to. With the game engine performing "better" or differently the hints of the lines should be more visible further out.

{"HB_F14_EXT_INTAKERAMPS", 0, "hb_f14_ext_intakeramps", false};

HB_F14_EXT_INTAKERAMPS. If it isn't in the template you will have to grab it from the coremods/aircraft/f14/textures/diffuse_roughmet folder and use overlay or another mode to work with it.

Been asking some aircrew, by month 2-3 the decks were quite worn like we are seeing, both the markings from all the tire skids and fluids, but also the actual anti-skid wore off and the decks got slippery. IF the tempo and time and weather allowed sometimes they'd re-apply anti-skid, and sometimes touch up markings, but not always and it again would quickly get worn/beat up/grimed over again. Add to that weather, sun position, and trying to see the deck markings could be extremely hard.

Ejection seats are basically metal/plastic containers with a thin butt cushion, like wooden chair with one of those tie-on butt pads: I hacked up a cheap racing seat for now but eventual plan would be a GRU-7 repro. Racing seats aren't a bad base but most ejection seats have no bolsters and as said, the seat and backs are solid containers for survival items and parachutes and such.

Whatever you can find, it's the APR-36/37. When built most Es after the first batch through mid '68 had the APS-107, but the performance was considered to be terrible, and after VN jets were upgraded with APR-36/37. It looks like the older Phantoms had the 25/26, and really late ones had ALR-46 but I believe the APR-36/37 are currently what's planned from the release posts.

TISEO will the be the second E that comes with DMAS and factory slats etc. TISEO was on the '71+ serial jets. First released jet will be the older 66-69 serials with retrofitted slats.

So, as a friend who is a Hornet enjoyer likes to remind me, there apparently was a letter from the CO of VFA-125 to the Deputy CNO in 1982, where they noted that during a deployment to Yuma earlier in the year they were able to maneuver their F/A-18s into a rear aspect gun or AIM-9 shot on an opposing F-14 in 20 out of 34 engagements, with the F-14s unable to gain a simulated firing solution against an F/A-18 in any of those engagements. Book is "Legacy Hornets: Boeing's F/A-18 A-D Hornets of the USN and USMC by Brad Elward":

Keep telling me to "go back to school" and I'll keep reminding you to read the forum rules and responses from the devs while you attempt to "1v1 me bro" and make personal attacks.

Getting a little personal aren't we? And from the last rounds of these performance tweaks I recall that there were factors related to stores drag that are out of HB's direct hands, as the drag of the AIM-7 (and all other stores) is controlled by ED's values, which don't take into account drag differences between different pylons and airframes.

No, I read very clearly where the representative of the development team explained what is going on and you continued to insist on directing their development resources from an internet forum.