Bunny Clark

I believe it uses current altitude and fuel flow. So if you want to know your best mach or altitude for range or endurance, you'll need to check the FPAS Page. But for a quick check of fuel remaining at destination, you can just look at the HSI.

It's mostly a historic / realism difference. Only USMC Hornets operating from land bases ever carried the Lightening pod in US service, any carrier based missions should realistically use ATFLIR. Several foreign operators do use Lightening with the Hornet though. Functionally, they're pretty similar. It seems like there will be some nice usability changes on ATFLIR, like no need to use the RAID/FOV button on the throttle to change zoom - so if that button is captured by a weapon it won't matter. You can see waypoint locations on the ATFLIR, and I believe we'll get a FOV box in the HMD something like what the A-10C II has.

Did we actually see the offset function in Wag's video? He demonstrated using the offset cursor to move the designated location, but that may not be the same as the actual offset track function, or only a partial implementation of it. We didn't see him track a moving target at all, so I'm thinking ATFLIR may not be fully feature complete yet.

The AMRAAM datalink uses the radar antenna as its transmitter, so if the radar is literally off then the WCS has no way of communicating anything to the missile post-launch. If you want to launch with the radar operating but not tracking, I have no idea if that would work or not. I'm not sure what use it would be, as any target that's close enough to be acquired visually with your eyes and the FLIR is going to be close enough that the missile will go active off the rail or very shortly thereafter. Going STT from HACQ right before launching the missile isn't likely to give your target more than a few seconds of additional warning. And even then, selecting the target as L&S in TWS would look the same as a radar on no-track launch to your target, so I really can't think of any reason to do this.

Getting everything to work is a difficult and always evolving process. Frequently, I spend an enormous amount of time just trying to get the AI to do what I want, because the options and systems interact in weird and unpredictable ways and finding the root cause of a problem can be really challenging. At one point I discovered that the AI wingman refused to attack ships at night with IR Mavs unless the moon was full; which is not an easy sort of thing to trouble shoot. But as I learn more and make more missions I get faster at it. A large point of this campaign was just to learn how things worked and develop a workflow, and some missions exist almost entirely because I wanted to experiment with a weapon or try out a concept. It's been really interesting to see how people get on with some missions. My perspective of difficulty gets pretty warped as I fly the mission dozens of times and I know what's coming. Some of the missions I expected people to have a lot of trouble with, like finding infantry units on oil rigs, don't seem to be a huge problem; while missions like the first BARCAP mission which I've never had a hard time with seem to cause some people a lot of grief. I've been thinking about this. That kind of functionality kinda already exists in DCS, it's just not obvious. The DCS campaign engine is designed with a non-linear campaign in mind, where you can move forwards and backwards in the campaign depending on your score. If you score 0-49 you'll move backwards, 50 will stay on the mission you currently are on, while 51-100 will advance you to the next mission. This is why you start the mission with 50 "free" points, to prevent a failed mission from moving you back to the previous mission. But it means being potentially stuck on the same mission forever. When you complete a mission you have the option to Accept and move on, Refly the mission, or Cancel to exit the campaign without saving the results of the mission you just flew. So, if I just set it up so that you have more than 50 points by default, hitting Accept after any mission will advance you to the next mission regardless of if you completed your objectives. Then anyone wanting to retry a failed mission could use the Refly button that's already there in the debreifing screen. I could make this simply by setting the default starting score to 51, or maybe I rejigger all the scoring so everyone gets 50 by default and another 5 for being alive at the end of the mission. That way you're only forced to refly the mission if you die, and any mission result where you're still alive would be considered passing that stage and moving on. The next campaign I'm working on is being designed in 3-mission chapters, were every (most?) chapter results in the end mission being different depending on their performance in the other two missions. Allowing the player to continue in the campaign even if all objectives are failed would make this even more interesting.

You don't even necessarily need to use the FPAS Page for this. With a TACAN selected, the estimated amount of fuel remaining at the TACAN location will be displayed in the HSI data block. Same for the currently selected waypoint.

Yah, I saw that. I've been hoping Virpil was going to make one, but might have to see how this looks when more details are released. I'm not really a fan of how RealSimulator makes normal buttons into 5-way switches, it'll be interesting to see what they decide to do with this.

That would be a teaser for the new ATFLIR pod, which it sounds like we have a chance of getting with 2.7. This will be the proper pod for the Hornet, the one the USN and USMC actually use normally.

I also use a joystick button for it, so I'm not sure what a good keyboard option is. You can always go into controls for the Hornet and start hitting buttons on your keyboard. If that button is bound to anything the list will jump to that button. You can find something that's either unbound or bound to something you don't care about.

Is it possible you accidentally hit RAlt + Num0 at some point? That sets the default view. You can move your head to looking back forward again and then hit RAlt + Num0 to save that as your new view. You can also manually edit the default view parameters in the Saved Games\DCS(OpenBeta)\Config\View\SnapViews.lua file. The nuclear option would be to delete that file, which will set all custom views for all aircraft back to default. If you haven't set up any custom default views or snap views at all this wouldn't break anything.

Yup, this is the best way. Whenever I make missions that require hitting aircraft on the ground, I make the objective to damage them. If you want to get fancy, you can make a trigger for each aircraft so that once it's damaged to a certain amount it will explode and spawn a fire as well.

Some of this is down to the DCS damage model, but it's actually the opposite problem that most people have with the DCS damage model for ground units. Because the damage model is quite advanced for aircraft, a bomb going off next to them is less likely to result in the unit being "destroyed" and more likely to result in a pile of system errors which would absolutely make the aircraft impossible to fly for a very long time, but the game doesn't register it as a destruction. Usually this isn't a problem in game, since heavily damaged aircraft generally fall out of the sky and are destroyed when they crash. But when the plane is already on the ground, it just keeps wracking up damaged systems without actually being completely destroyed.

As Falconeer also said, that's not a TER-9, it's a BRU-57. The TER-9 looks like this: It is capable of holding up to 3 bombs and functions like a "dumb" hardpoint: it is not capable of providing power or data to any mounted weapons. The only guided weapons it can carry are LGBs, which need no power or data from the launching aircraft. The BRU-57 looks like this: It can hold pairs of weapons and includes all the wiring for power and data. It is on the list of planned features for the F-16 but is not in the game yet. When implemented it will be able to carry two GBU-38s, two JSOWs, or two WCMDs. As others have also stated the GBU-54 LJDAM is not a planned weapon for the DCS Viper. The very similar (and visually identical) BRU-55 smart rack is already in the game for the Hornet. It can be used to carry pairs of GBU-38s and JSOWs. GBU-54 LJDAM is also not a planned weapon for the DCS Hornet.

Yah, I've been meaning to spend some time to properly re-test the JSOW-A and produce a good clean track for ED if there's a problem. Haven't gotten around to it yet. Yup, the damage model for ships is pretty out of wack right now. No need to worry about it for the mission though, so long as you damage all three ships by any amount you will complete the mission. A single SLAM is unlikely to sink a warship in real life anyway, and the idea of the mission is simply to cripple them and prevent them from leaving port. Wingman AI is always an adventure to try to understand. He isn't told to attack units specifically, just two locations, which happen to be two anchored ships. So he should attack both targets, regardless of the status of the ships. Weird things happen though. A single hit on each ship is all you need, so as long as he lands one hit and you hit the other two you'll be all set.

Not possible. The TER-9 does not include the wiring to allow transmission of target coordinates to the bombs. That's why the BRU-57 exists.

I just remove them before I even begin startup, it's never a problem then.

You should overwrite the old one with the new one. Drop it into the same folder as the old one.

Nope, campaign progress is saved in your logbook file. Just overwrite the campaign files with the new version and the game won't know the difference since the file names are all the same.

This isn't true any more. As far as I know, Stable and Open Beta are the same build right now, and the ALQ-165 controls are bindable for me in Stable. Something must have gotten borked with your controls file in the update, which is not an unusual thing to happen.

As far as I know, HMD blanking is its only purpose in DCS right now. It does sometimes need to be held for a bit in my experience. Not quite a long press, but close.

That's actually a UI feature of the Hornet, meant to keep the Bullseye symbol visible and not become hidden under the aircraft symbol. For the purposes of the mission, the trigger will fire so long as you fly within a few miles of the hold point. Also, make sure you've downloaded the newest version of the campaign, which makes this trigger more reliable.

Correlating the HUD and Radar is a fairly easy thing to do, both systems are fixed on the aircraft and aren't commonly removed. Once they're calibrated correctly they'll stay that way for a long time. The TGP is tightly mounted on a precision pylon and calibrated automatically on the ground, though this process does need to be repeated every time the pod is reinstalled on the aircraft. The problem is with the Maverick missile itself. It's not a sensor that's attached and stays attached, it's a weapon that is loaded per mission and needs to be able to fire. It can't be bolted super tightly to the airframe or it won't be able to launch when needed. The Maverick is slid onto a launch rail and held in place with a shear pin that breaks when the missile motor fires. So, there is necessarily some slop in the mounting, and no two missiles will line up exactly the same way on the rail. This means that the aircraft doesn't have a perfect idea where the missile seeker head is looking. It is certainly quite close without boresigting, but not perfect. I usually don't bother boresighting if I'm planning on using the VIS delivery mode, it's really only necessary for doing an Auto handoff in PRE mode with the TGP. The AGM-65D can't see lasers, so I'm not sure how firing the laser would help with boresighting. It's a fairly easy process to do while you're cruising to the mission area. Just remember when you're bored flying 15 minutes from your airbase to the mission location, it's time to spin up the Mavs and boresight them.

Sounds like you're using the Mav in the VIS delivery mode. In the VIS mode, you initially steer the seeker using the TD Box on the HUD. This will begin caged to the flight path marker, but can be slewed off of it with the Cursor. TMS Up will ground stabilize the TD Box and automatically move SOI to the WPN Page. Then you slew the Mav seeker onto the target, TMS Up again to lock, and fire. I also highly recommend using the FOV button on the stick to toggle the Mav to NAR FOV, the missile will track much better that way. The HUD TD Box represents the system designated target. It's a calibrated target location that's correlated with the INS/GPS system and precise range information from either TGP Laser Ranging, or FCR Ranging when the TD location is within LOS for those sensors (and in the case of the TGP, when the laser is armed). This target designation ability is a baseline Viper function and independent of the TGP. A system very much like it can be used to designate targets for most weapons and slew the TGP onto a target seen through the HUD. This system is called DTOS, and isn't implemented yet. The circle that appears once you start slewing the Mav seeker is the Mav seeker position (this will be approximate if you have not boresighted the Mav seeker, so its location relative to the TD Box may look weird). Moving the Mav crosshairs does not update the designated target point, that will remain at the TD Box location. This can be an important distinction, as the In Range cue on the WPN Page is based on the TD Box location, not the Mav seeker head location, so if they're significantly different your displayed range information will be incorrect. This delivery mode seems to be a WIP right now and not functioning entirely correctly. I believe when a missile is launched, the next missile in the sequence should snap to the current TD Box location, which would allow for rapid follow-on attack of an adjacent target just like you're asking for. But right now the next missile seems to be sitting at boresight and not ground stabilized, despite the presence of a stabilized TD Box. That does not doesn't seem correct. You should also be able to cue up two Mavs with targets before even firing by using the MSL Step button on the stick. When you do that you should see two circles on the HUD marked "1" and "2" which indicate the seeker locations of both missiles. This doesn't work at all right now.

The problem with that is that DCS does not model the aerodynamic interactions between the aircraft and a released store with any amount of complexity. I'm sure it's entirely possible to load and release weapons in DCS that would cause a collision in the real world. And then you'd need to add some kind of UI element to the loadout screen to indicate which weapons are risky or unrealistic to load. Otherwise we'll have lots of people on here trying to figure out why their plane keeps exploding when they drop a bomb that the game let them load.

Pretty sure that's concept art. As far as I know USN Legacy Hornet's never carried APKWS. USMC Hornets did, but not until a decade after the time frame for our Hornet.