Bunny Clark

Search Then Engage is sensor based, the unit will not engage anything it cannon detect. And AI sensor ability in DCS is based on available light levels, sometimes even when they shouldn't be.

If the FLIR is currently the sensor creating the designated target (the FLIR reticle is a diamond), you'll see the current target point, and thus where the FLIR is looking, as a diamond both in the HUD and HMD. The AI isn't smart enough to respond to you being out of weapons or low on fuel. You can fly back to the carrier and land to rearm and refuel. That will work better in some missions than others. Generally though you should have enough weapons to complete every mission with a spare or two, though in some missions it's impossible to score 100% with less than perfect accuracy. Make sure you're leveraging your wingman, most missions will have a brief description of what you can have him do to help with the mission in the briefing.

Those F-5s are taking off from the airbase right next to the SA-6 site, so that's why they seem to be poping up out of nowhere. How quickly they take off is actually dependent on how good of a job you do flying low. If you stay low long enough you can nail them as they take off, if you pop up early you could take them on at longer range if you want to. But one thing to keep in mind: there will be more threats coming after the F-5s ... If you can't find them at all telling your wingman to engage bandits can be useful. The "Cover Me" command can also be great, as when using it your wingman will automatically engage any bandits that get close to you.

That seems to have been the realistic lock range for the A & B; but the D, H, and their derivatives do seem to have much better seeker range performance.

They shouldn't line up perfectly, they don't in real life, as they don't originate from the same place on the boat. ICLS is intended for long range lineup, in close you should be flying the ball, not the needles.

Why are you extracting them at all? I always use 7zip, and have for ages. I always just open .miz files in 7zip, make any changes to files I need to, then close it. Nice and simple.

There is a "Restrict Jettison" option you can set, that should at least solve the problem with their dumping weapons. Not sure why they'd be attacking other aircraft in the first place.

There is only a Super Carrier version. Nothing is specifically tied to the Super Carrier, though simply changing the unit type can do some weird things. All the static object placement on the deck gets blown up for example, so you'll need to redo or delete everything. Otherwise, changing the carrier out for the stock Stennis should be fine.

You're correct. At the moment in DCS the Final Bearing will always be the reciprocal of the Marshal Radial. That's apparently not very realistic, and offset marshal stacks are probably something that we'll get eventually.

The Hawk site has 4 radars: the search radar, the CWAR acquisition radar, and two tracking radars. Your priorities should be the tracking radars, as those are the threat, but the more you can destroy the better. Between you and your wingman you have 8 missiles for 4 targets. The mission is actually advanced by you with the F10 radio menu. When you think it's safe enough to clear Uzi 2 into the SAM threat range use the radio command to send them in. At this point, technically, you've passed the mission. Mission scoring is 50 baseline points, you get 30 points for transmitting the message to send in Uzi 2, and another 20 points if the Hawk site is totally destroyed. Uzi 2 is carrying 8 Mavericks and will pretty reliably destroy 8 targets so long as you don't let the Tomcats shoot them down. If you can take out at least 3 radars Uzi 2 will wipe out the rest of the site and you'll get a perfect score.

When you manually select a weapon station in the DSMS it uses a default generic profile rather than any user edited or created profiles. To select a specific profile you've set up you need to actually select a profile rather than a weapon station. You can cycle active profiles with DMS left and right while the HUD is SOI, or you can go into Profiles in the DSMS and select Activate Profile.

There is currently a single 5-mission mini-campaign and a handful of single missions. I believe at some point we'll get a full included campaign, but don't know when.

That's not done while landing in the real world, I assume there's a good reason why. I don't imagine doing a procedure in an unrealistic way would be better.

Yes. Yes, it is. There's a reason these charts can't be found on-line. You're asking someone to violate their security clearance.

Yup, STPT is Steer Point. He's talking about creating mark points with TMS Right while looking through the TGP, then if you switch the SPI to STPT (TMS Down Long, it'll say STPT in the bottom left of the HUD) and then switch the STEER PT dial on the AAP to MARK you can scroll through all your mark points and attack them at will. It's an awesome way to employ JDAMs for sure, and it can be useful for GBUs too. I generally prefer to just use the TGP for Maverick and APKWS attacks though, and mark points are mostly useless for moving targets.

It's pretty hard to make any specific comparisons without knowing which version he way flying. It may not even have been a C model, and it could have been a two-seater. It could easily have been a block 40, 42, or 52. The differences aren't only in engine type, but aircraft weight as well, which can easily throw off these results.

The TGP has three tracking modes: INR is an inertial track. It uses aircraft movement combined with the DTED, as SpaceMonkey explained above, to keep the TGP pointed roughly in the same spot. An INR track can continue pointing in generally the same area even if the target location is masked by the aircraft or terrain. Area track uses image analysis of the entire scene to keep the pod pointing at the same spot. It looks at features visible in the pod, not just contrast, but any detectable patterns, and uses the motion of those patterns combined with the movement of the jet to stabilize the crosshairs as much as possible. Area track will revert to INR backup if the pod is masked by the aircraft, and if the target area is masked by terrain the tracked area will jump to the piece of terrain that got in the way. Point track looks for a area of high contrast in the center of the crosshairs and if it can isolate a clear shape it will track the center of that shape. This is most reliable in an IR camera mode, but will work in TV mode as well if you can get enough contrast with your target. Point track is the most precise tracking mode and will also allow you to track a moving object. A point track is lost if the TGP is masked by either the aircraft or terrain. Slant range to a target or CCIP piper can be determined by using the FCR, TGP laser ranging, or the radar or barometric altimeter in conjunction with the DTED by doing some trigonometry. Which method is currently being used is indicated by the letter in front of the current slant range in the HUD, i.e. if the HUD says "F027.5" your target is 27.5 miles away and that range is being provided by the radar (FCR).

Both should work.

@CalderaYou need to change FOV with each Maverick, as the FOV setting is a physical lens move on the missile itself. So if you switch to Narrow, fire that missile, then bring up another it will be in Wide.

Make a trigger that once the unit is in the zone remove the "DO NOT ENGAGE" radio item and add a "CLEARED TO ENGAGE" radio item. You can't set the radio items place on the list though, so if you have multiple other radio items the ROE one may shift positions when it switches.

Mine doesn't have nearly so much empty space on the bottom, do you have UI scaling on? I use color codes a bit like folders, with different colors representing headers for "nested" triggers underneath, which helps me scan the list quickly and find what I would like. I also put a note in the trigger name every time a trigger turns on a flag, so I can see which flags are being used and what triggers set them. More organizational tools would certainly be nice, but I'm fairly happy with it the way it is right now.

Here's an excerpt from my HOTAS guide, if the visual reference makes thing more clear:

This is Brake Lock mode, it happens when the Mav can't get a solid track. To get out of it, go TMS Down to ground stabilize, then slew the crosshairs over the target and hit TMS Up. Part of the problem is likely that you're in wide FOV, the Mav tracks far more reliably in narrow FOV. Yup, I have this problem too sometimes. I'm not entirely sure what causes it, something about the way the aircraft moves in the turn-in for the attack. I genberally don't have as much of a problem when making a straight-in attack run, but that's not very convenient. I usually don't launch the APKWS until about 3 miles, after which I'm generally past the point where this is most commonly a problem.

The one we have now is the BLU-109 version, the Mk.84 version has a pretty different body shape.

Do you have NVGs or JHMCS equipped?