Sideburns

I've always considered this situation an unfortunate balance of bugs. We appreciate your efforts trying to balance @Alpenwolf, thank you for trying suggestions. If there is a RIP here it is the MiG21's broken RWR lock indications to others and radar overperformance issues that have been seemingly ignored since formally posted months ago (and there are earlier comments on these issues also ignored or overlooked). Most players are blissfully unaware of these MiG21 advantages as it is not as obvious in game or in tacview as the Viggen's speed bug. The availability of the unrealistic ASP pipper, that tracks targets, is also questionable. In the mean time the F5 has RWR functionality missing and the jet nozzle scheduling bug are still present. The Viggen speed and damage issues have shown improvement with the recent patches and show some hope of being resolved (and also HB were fairly honest and didn't say the recent patched fixed the issue, but were tweaks they could do while busy finishing the F14 and Forrestal).

Can confirm it is.

Reported, and also there is an IC breaking hotfix available

Great news, that video is such a good teaser. Looking forward to the outcome.

Anyone retested since the patch given "Updates to sidewinder pylon drag coefficients."? I did a quick test (standard ME parameters for Caucasus, 10-20m above sea level): 1580kph for a Viggen spawned in without weapons 1450kph for x-tank and rb24j/rb74 1540kph for x-tank jettison but retaining rb24j/rb74 1710kph for an x-tank and rb24j/74 fire off, pylon retain 1630kph for an x-tank and rb24j/74 fire off and pylon jettison Still too quick it seems, odd behaviour with the pylon jettison slowing the jet down.

Can also confirm this is an issue for me

As per the other thread I personally paid for the AV8b(NA) as advertised and with the fuller range of weapons it carried over its operational lifespan, not a specific model. Why not leave it to the users and mission makers to decide which year they are simulating / flying?

The F16 is a fun jet but buyer beware, the dev team are mostly working on the F18 atm (after we were initially told F16 and F18 would not interfere with each other's development pre F16 release) which means the F16 has had slower then expected development and also that the feature list for the F16 is "dynamic", the sniper pod and AGM-154c have been dropped recently.

Good research regardless! Thanks for sharing, might help me fix my broken board.

The Aim9p5 is the best, but generally not available on CW server these days. The Gar8 is an early Aim9b variant, quite difficult to use and get kills with unless the enemy is unaware. The Aim9p is probably the best one you have access to atm.

It is a joy to see Razbam commit to the Falklands conflict, MiG23 and EE Lightening but as you say who knows what rate they will be released at, presumably not as quickly as people want. I think the Falklands, Sea Harrier, F15E and MiG23 are the priority (and also that's my guess at what order they will release in over the next 2-3 years).

1) 9 normal navigation points, and also has take off base, landing base and alternative landing base (there are more waypoints but these are the normal navigational ones) 2) It is pretty drama free apart from keeping it straight down the road. 3) Unsure in meters, but zone 3 with a brake start can be as short as 1/3 or 1/2 of your typical runway like Kutaisi with a lighter, undraggy loadout (a full set of bombs is a lot drag) 4) Nope.

I had also noticed this, tested and found 200ms pairs 100ms singles for snakeyes and 100ms pairs 50ms singles for AIRS was min safe ripple time (if I recall correctly), mk20 didn't care. Wondered what the real life release settings permit, anyone know the relevant manual for F14 bomb release settings / information?

Aye, good to see we are universally acknowledging issues with all modules when considering balance and mitigations for bugs (and also of course not overload Alpenwolf). As before generally speaking its felt like there has been a balance of bugs, as best of the situation as can be made, and then that the Viggen was being reprimanded for issues or complaints, beyond the raw speed issue, also present in other modules in the CW server. On the pylon point I didn't mean to dig at you. The commentary was meant to defend your point on payloads, that the outer two pylons were pretty useless on the AJ37. But also highlight the asymmetric payload and ability to mix and match a little on the AJ37 to give some flexibility.

Oh man, Cyprus, that could an interesting venue for CW fun and games. DL'ing at 6 but still a beastly download.

Ok, keep misframing my statements. Balance is a dynamic thing, as new bugs and features arise and it is prudent to review it from time to time. Given the Viggen has had so much attention w.r.t balancing it seems odd to overlook other airframes and weapons systems against which it was balanced and in light of some new bugs I have highlighted in previous posts. But as per my question I would be interested to hear other people's opinions. Cheers, you've made your position clear unless you want to say more?

Missing the preceding word which frames the sentence as a question to the audience of the post, as intended, attempting instead to make it look like I made an absolute statement or demand?

I am aware of the situation and do read the posts, did you read my post? Relevant content quoted above for absolute clarity.

So just to clarify on this point, perhaps for people who have seen the AJ37 Viggen has seven* hardpoints, and also respectfully challenge the "not relying on self defence" suggestion: The outermost two wing pylons on the AJ37 were wired for the Rb28 Falcon only. Given that this weapon was not taken forward by the Swedish air force for the AJ37, due to poor weapon performance, the outer two AJ37 wing pylons were unused but physically present. This is why why they appear empty on some diagrams for AJ37, or don't appear at all, until the AJS-37 upgrade. The AJS37 upgrade enabled all six weapons pylons to carry Rb24/24j/74 if desired.** The AJ37 "smart" weapon carriage appears to have been a function of computer weapon handling capacity and wiring, hence some diagrams indicating two Rb24 or Rb75 only in specific locations. It appears from Swedish air force documentation, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8bCDRcq9BVeY0gycWRrMXVIdTA/view?resourcekey=0-oFS9Xlxr5xkcifaQ000kBA page 8,that permitted weapon loadouts changed over time (perhaps the air force figured out they could split the wiring for weapons between nearby pylons) and asymmetric loadouts were feasible. I would recommend considering these if you want some more flexibility in self defence (i.e. single Rb24/24j and/or countermeasure pod) at the expense of a little imbalance of the airframe. i.e. CM pod, Rb75, X-tank, Rb24j, Rb75 is quite a flexible loadout for contested airspace anti armour while being period correct. Conversely four Rb75 (AJ37 computer can only handle two at a time) with two Rb24/24j (outer wing pylons Rb28 only) would not be correct for an AJ37. As per documentation, and the designation of the Viggen, the AJ37 was a strike fighter with an airspace defence / fighter role if required. Gunpod, CM pod, dual Rb24j and an X-tank is a valid AJ37 loadout. Speed and extending from a bad situation still very much a valid tactic for the AJ37 being as it is among the fastest fighters at low level. Remember to eject stores to have the full 1400kph available currently. As always pairing up and flying sensible formations providing mutual support will make you much more effective and survivable in any airframe. Finally if we are discussing period correct airframes and weapons focus should the discussion now focus be on the Su25t, Ka-50 and Vikhr missile (prototypes, limited availability for combat or not available in this timeframe) and also the MiG21 being able to deploy the Grom (this has been questioned, limited evidence to suggest it should be capable). Will we also see similar restrictions or removal for these systems? . At the moment it seems blufor have been quite restricted whereas redfor get minimal restrictions. Appreciate Ka-50 soon to go due to Mi-24, but that should be with similar considerations towards period correct weapons. * Sources also indicate an additional two wing pylons could be configured for a total of nine! But this was so rarely used it is not worth considering for DCS. Limited information on what these could carry but I would assume it is additional dumb weapons i.e. rockets and bombs. ** Carriage on the outer pylon was initially frowned upon by Saab engineers due to the increase weight of later Sidewinders impacting fatigue life of the wing. Eventually the air force and Saab came to an agreement on fatigue life expectations and the carriage was permitted (note this is a long term, over many years fatigue life issue, not the wing snaps immediately if outer pylon used issue).

The ability to limit payload per pylon can't arrive soon enough, by official utility or mod. The Rb24/aim9b is not a practical weapon and having an Mi24 with many R60m and ATGM seems quite overpowered. The Mi24 is also quite a fast helicopter and should be able to dictate engagements with other helos. Having said that as much I have not pre-ordered (F16 pre-order wounds still not healed) I can't wait to see this most ugly yet beautiful thing in the DCS sky.

Ok, you being unaware of MiG21 this goes someway to explaining your approach this discussion. Having said that I assumed, given your extensive involvement in the discussion, you would be aware of the MiG21 issues. Also generally speaking I consider the whole weapons and aircraft choice to be a "balance of bugs" that unfortunately Alpenwolf has to juggle for his CW server. The bugs are already reported but not yet resolved and relatively fresh / easy to find on the MiG21 subforum. The MiG21 suffers from radar bugs resulting it an overly optimistic radar range (fighter sized targets being picked up at 30km, whereas this is probably an accurate range for bomber size targets based on the technical aspects of the radar and some documentation) and it also does not present correctly on other aircraft's RWR (MiG21 does not appear on an RWR until it the MiG21 has detected the target, MiG21 does not give correct lock indications resulting in targets being unaware they are locked or fired upon). Hopefully you will agree this gives the MiG21 a significant advantage when using the radar and radar weapons, but I suspect you will attempt to "downsplain" it again. Just as you have tried to underplay the significance of the MiG21 emergency AB beyond permitted time limits issue affecting speed when really the advantage it provides, given the MiG21 speed limits, is TW increase and improved acceleration beyond what the jet should be capable of. Somewhat ironically at the same time as bemoaning the Viggen's acceleration situation now the speed situation is hopefully in hand. As before I think the acceleration issues would be non-trivial to solve via scripting, and I personally think people's time (mainly Alpenwolf's time) is probably better spent elsewhere given the impact the acceleration has on Viggen usage (and arguably it also has parity with the MiG21 emergency AB time limit situation). Hence why I find your argument unconvincing to change things further or continue the Rb24 restriction based on the Viggen acceleration situation. Not because of the physics involved, which I am well aware of being a physics graduate and having worked many years in the aviation industry. I sincerely hope you give the blufor jets a go, given the free trials, and review the MiG21 bugs highlighted to get a better perspective on things before commenting in the future.

You might want to look up what the J stands for in AJ-37 / AJS- 37. The Rb24j was removed in a major part due to exploitation of the speed issue so it seems harsh not to return it. But it is what it is and I do not intend to waste my time arguing balance when the agenda has been set. I do wonder if the MiG21 should be reviewed from the same perspective given its radar range and RWR bugs? (And I say this as someone currently flying and enjoying the MiG21!) I'm glad we've arrived at, as I introduced it, a "rough fix" for the Viggen speed issue, the main complaint in this context, based on some clever use of triggers. I spent literally 10 minutes figuring out the simplistic triggers I posted, as presented it was intended as a stopgap measure / quick fix and I knew it was not a perfect mitigation. I am aware of how IAS, ground speed, air pressure etc work in this situation and how it applies to my original suggestion, hence why I called it a "rough fix" because it was rough. It is good to see Alpenwolf refine the original suggestion into the mitigation we have, but bear in mind we are limited by the mission editor tools available and time someone is willing to commit to this. I think having acceleration based controls in place would be quite a bit trickier than the speed controls implemented, probably extend into custom LUA scripting. I'm not sure it would be worth the effort based on your unconvincing concerns on acceleration. Lets see how this speed mitigation plays out. Thanks to Alpenwolf for taking the original speed trigger suggestion seriously and working it through.

I mean, if we had an actual cold war Ka-50 or Vikhr missile... you get the point, this argument is bit of a slippery slope. On the carriage of the sidewinders sources seem to go both ways on the AJ37 Viggen being able to carry sidewinders and other weapons at the same time. It would seem short sighted to not give the Viggen this capability given it was intended as a strike fighter. For example, checkout the funky asymmetric loadouts from the official document in this thread, TLDR 2 x rb75, 1 x rb24/rb24j and 1 x KB is described as a valid loadout for the AJ37. Ergo it would have an ability to defend itself while carrying Rb75.

I think the issue would resolve itself, especially if there was warning message as part of the trigger action. While it is a relatively simple trigger to add appreciate this would be for all Viggens in all your missions. It looks like the miz files are a zip file, containing a mission plaintext file which it might be possible to programmatically add the triggers too, assuming one either has the unit names or can script a harvest of them if someone is handy with grep, awk, or similar text file manipulation tools. If you were to supply a miz file I, and possibly others?, could give it a shot to see if there is a cheap way of adding this trigger on a large scale, if that is the blocker on this? As an aside, it would be amazing if the setfailure trigger action worked in MP, then you could trigger a flameout or turbine failure for the overspeed. But this feature is single player only.

This is not quite the only way to get rid of the speed exploit, but I suspect you will still argue for restricted weapons after a solution/patch regardless. @Alpenwolf it is more work for you unfortunately but you could setup a trigger for each Viggen unit in mission to explode if it exceeds a specified speed below a specified height. This doesn't appear to require a trigger zone to be defined. No idea of performance impact for a server wide application of triggers for each Viggen. In the below example if the specified unit, a Viggen, is below 1000 (appears to be in meters) and exceeds 755knts (mixing of imperial and metric units, great), about 1400kph, it will make the specified aircraft explode. I have no idea what the explode unit "volume" parameter means, i.e. no idea if 1000 is large or small, perhaps it is too large and might take out other nearby units. Also note trigger type repetitive action for slots that can be retaken to ensure this fix is persistent. Just an idea to "rough fix" the Viggen overspeed bug in the absence of or until an official fix from Heatblur. Might be worth putting a warning in the briefing if you do this though or it could piss people off. But at the moment the restricted Viggen weaponry is also an annoyance for players.