DoorMouse

no. I did get an email from you on May 26th saying I would get one shortly, but never saw it. Checked my spam and other folders as well.

yeah it CAN work. I am just making the point that it just doesnt work in the way that is intuitive or obvious. The "hold Track" on your TID is kind of complete nonsense. Behind the scenes its doing a magical hidden "am I still tracking yes/no" calculation that you have no way to tell. The game CANNOT track anything except a real physical object.... Behind the scenes a successful hold track is actually just a regular old track. The logic to determine if it magically continues to track or not is a mystery to me, but it does not work even when it should.

Thanks! Ill take a look, but be aware, in DCS the missile will NOT guide to a track hold. What happens behind the scenes is that to the USER It throws up a track hold icon but to the SIMULATION it is still actually factually tracking the missile IF conditions are met- and I don't know exactly, I've heard it's 3 miles but I've seen Hold Tracks on top of the target never pitbull consistently. So if the report is that missiles don't follow the hold track, that is working as expected and has been so since day one. The problem is the missiles simulation isn't sophisticated enough to Track or guide to an INS point. The code just doesn't exist. It either IS or ISNT tracking an OBJECT. I believe the new missile API has this feature but it has been in development for years and well.... Look how awful the 120 Is (which is on the new code). So careful what you ask for.

I rarely ever see extrapolated tracks ever go active. There is a major limitation in the game engine, and the way its implemented is extremely hit or miss. Basically the actual target needs to be very close to the extrapolated track, and even then I rarely see it work. Could you provide some tracks/recordings/descriptions of the other two items. I don't understand.

@MilesD Hey Miles not sure where the best place to post this is - I've put in 3 requests on May 2021, December 2021, and just today via the website and got 3 emails stating: I think something has gone wrong because I have not had a reply back. Appreciate the help!

Yes, when you tell Jester to STT he will PSTT and then your missile is hopelessly searching with its seeker on. The seeker can only detect at ~10 miles. TWS you should be getting them to guide. There is a loft error but its relatively uncommon. My suspicion is that you are not holding the track and need to read the symbiology. Could be wrong, but never hurts to review the manual : https://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/general.html#tid-symbology In any case, I promise that it does and can work just fine in single and multiplayer. The loft and or guidance issues are not a 100% of the time bug

Ok well you are definitely doing something wrong. It does work appropriately Are you holding the TWS track till pitbull? IE you let it create a track number and hold it till it times out and blinks?

120 isn't bad. But if you are having lots of packet loss or network issues then that could definitely be causing a whole host of issues. When you fire in TWS, is your ACM switch covered, your missile mode is NORM, and you have a confirmed GOOD TWS Track? Do you hold a good track all the way until the PITBULL indication? Actually, you are saying "LOCKED" which makes me think you are STT. If you lock a target and fire a Phoenix at more than say 10-15 miles you can expect it to miss UNLESS you are in Pulse Doppler. The Phoenix can only get guidance from the AWG9 from Pulse Doppler modes... TWS and PDSTT. If you are in PULSE STT then the Phoenix acts like a torpedo- it gets a direction, turns on it's seeker, and kills the first thing it sees friend or foe. I suspect you are using the incorrect mode for the job

That's incorrect, all phoenixes can have loft issues, especially if you nose up and manually loft them.

So with many hours in the tomcat I can tell you it does work. But I'd be happy to help figure out what's going on. To be clear, they changed nothing with the radar, only the thrust and drag coefficients of the missile. So you can't fix, what isn't a problem. If it's STT, you need to really be within 10 miles, it's highly dependent on the target and your altitude. If it's TWS, are you holding it until the TID icon blinks, and it is pitbull? Was this single player or multiplayer? (Edit- it might be possible Jester is defaulting to the FOX1 PULSE DOPPLER mode and that's why it's not hitting, unless you retain lock)

Are you firing STT or TWS for those long range shots. If you are firing STT, they won't hit at that range. Pulse STT is firing the missile directly at the target at the correct Azimuth and Elevation for a direct shot, at 36 miles it wont reach, and the seeker can't see the target. If you are firing in TWS it works just fine if you are able to keep the TWS track until pitbull (sometimes the loft is an issue but usually at much longer ranges) (or fire in Pulse Doppler STT, but thats a whole other method and discussion)

That's a known guidance issue with loft. Anything related to guidance logic is Eagle Dynamics. Heatblur can adjust thrust, drag, weight, etc...

A giant radar return less than a mile directly off the nose of the missile doesn't raise any red flags for you? Its going to be hard to have a discussion If the starting point is that far apart, quite frankly. Only because stating something as 100% certain is foolish- I find it HIGHLY UNLIKELY that an Aim120's seeker and couldn't tell the difference between terrain very far away, and a f14 very close (we don't even need to consider that DCS does not simulate geometry of the aircraft to compute RCS either). Under no reaonable circumstances besides a major failure of equipment or software should that missile have missed. Please, I think we would all like to hear the rationale for how that missile, with look down capabilities, Medium PRF signal processing, and a host of other modern features, could lose track of a Tomcat at 1000 feet from impact against clear blue sky or a ground which is miles away.

It's unfortunate but true that all of the missiles in dcs are (for the lack of a more subjective statement) - Bad. There are really two issues: 1) Guidance which is 100% ED 2) the third party missile API for missile features, kinematics, radar interaction, etc. Guidance is a whole other can of worms... Missiles pull turns which lose their targets and have to be G-limited to not bleed All their speed... it's not ideal. All that being said, this is serviceable if the API is implemented. Without seeing everything in the API, I can guess as to what it might contain... It would be a massive quality of life improvement for DCS is to complete the missile API and expose it to third parties. Once there is a working and well documented API then third party developers can finally start building weapons for their aircraft within the same physics framework AND finally get access to features which only some missiles have (like INS guidance). Please, prioritize effort into providing a working API and offload this to 3rd parties. This would be the #1 thing you can do to drastically improve multiplayer. If you took another pass at missile guidance and removed it's Bang-Bang control surface logic that would be a huge improvement too.

OK - So the behavior described in the changelog does not seem to be exhibited in game.... which is great. I presumed from the changelog that it would universally change the timeout of the VR cross. However it ONLY does so if you have the use mouse ticked. Apologies. doesn't look like there is a problem at all.

Appreciate that some VR users may not use the VR cross and would like it removed. Many players, myself included, use the VR Cross to click and manipulate the cockpit. Being able to have it persistent so you know what you are about to click is essential to smooth operation of the cockpit. This change is a major quality of life degradation for those doing that.

I believe it is actually Crunch and Bio who are SME'S for Heatblur.... And I have plenty of footage of BVR, it's just not as exciting. I'd be happy to walk you through it if you like. I've got 3,000+ hours in the tomcat and who knows how many since LO:MAC. We all have lots of time on the stick. Putting that aside, the kinetics of the Phoenix were wrong previously and are 'more' correct now (if I recall it's missing it's drag reduction with the motor on from the thrust boundary ~10% or so). It was previously getting Mach 6+ at altitude and Mach3+ on the deck, both of which were physically impossible. Additionally, the time it took to shed it's speed was up to 50% longer than real life data, and it's drag was incorrect. Heatblur had done this intentionally at release because the Eagle Dynamics guidance code was so poor that it caused the missile to be un-usable without those handicaps. At some point ED improved the guidance, which caused those handicaps to make it over-perform. The AWG9 has some issues, and there are many missing features, which is known and being looked at. The AI is a joke and you can bet it's not being looked at in any meaningful way. But for what it's worth, the Phoenix is kinetically more or less true to it's form. You can easily obtain BVR kills vs f16s with 120s and flankers with R77s and 27RTs are a joke (which is it's real adversary in 1980-90). People have posted dozens of track views. If data, anecdotes, and Heatblurs SMEs aren't enough for you... I don't know what is

So, the data is publicly available and they did post it. I'd encourage you to go read it if you have doubts about the kinematics of the missile. I consistently get kills at 20+ miles easily, and I can easily out range an aim120. I don't know what to say but review your tactics and employment to match the parameters the actual pilots flew- high and fast. (Download and read the PDF. Your other points... AI cheating and dumping chaff before a real human could know they were shot at. AND some KNOWN issues with the awg9 TWS tracks are valid. But the kinematics look to be spot on, they had to change it recently because it was over-performing due to a change Eagle Dynamics made that went undetected. The Phoenix still has the longest range in a straight line, and it is capable of hitting targets at 80 miles at mach 3+ if fired in the correct way. There is no shortage of data, Heatblur talking to SMEs, and in-game track flies at your disposal to review. The only other issue not mentioned is ED'S missile API is incomplete and limiting many advanced features, and the Phoenix is on the old (very poor) guidance code which has forced Heatblur to use a work around- the missile will only pull 9g instead of it's rated 20g

yeah. If you remove the 250lb warhead and you strap it to an F15 going Mach 2+ at 50,000 (from the Tropopause, shooting into the Stratosphere) you can get it to briefly touch mach 5 for a fleeting second. It then is able to relatively maintain its speed while in the stratosphere, and quickly loses speed once it dips back down into the tropopause/troposphere For comparison - Its brief ~60 second mach 4 flight is in an air density around 1000x less than sea level. And it exponentially increases the lower you go, which is why once it gets just a bit lower it really starts to shed speed (causing it to drop even lower even faster) https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20060004771/downloads/20060004771.pdf @OldIronsides NASA Aim54.pdf

Yes, That is correct.... But only RIGHT after the change. They had another patch which seriously changed the guidance and it drastically improved it - but we won't see any further improvement until ED finishes the missile API What you are saying is no longer valid, go take a look

Id wholeheartedly disagree that it currently is worse than the aim120B. It's got a longer NEZ at any altitude, it has much longer range and can easily win in an f-pole if it's in the appropriate launch conditions. It does however have 5x the drag of a 120 due to it's geometry. You can see the white paper and the historical data match up now. The issue is not kinematics, the topic of this thread is that it sometimes over-lofts when it has an active track, TWS errors, and this STT hold track item. If you can manage to get the missile to pitbull and find it's target in the correct launch conditions, it is a much bigger stick than anything in game... It is just vastly more difficult to use

I had this the other day and was very confused. MAYBE this helps track down the similar issue in TWS where the track suddenly drops even though the appropriate non maneuvering contact appears below it half a second later. Could indicate something else further upstream, or could be completely different. Do you know how to reproduce this reliably, other than just doing it a lot? Edit: Actually I cant see what you are describing in your video. Could you clarify? The previous poster @AH_Solid_Snakedescribed exactly what I had experienced

@KL0083The phoenix is now more accurate to how it performed in real life. It was 20-50% too fast (depending on altitude) previously. @Amahvan In both cases you are trying to tell Jester to "lock closest radar target" but your TID indicates only a Data Link and no Radar Track. IE Jester sees nothing on radar. Try one of two things 1) Lock Specific Target, which allows jester to hook Datalink targets and attempt to lock 2) Scan Elevation at Distance and tell him to look in the appropriate area. In both your videos the bandit is low and very close, which makes your radar cone very small. A case could be made that Jester should be 'smarter' about looking for things on Data link. Currently Jester basically is blind to data link contacts unless you specifically tell him to lock one. He only reacts to Radar contacts, which again, you had none. Let me be very clear to my opinion though, The AWG-9 has some issues currently and is far from perfect. It drops TWS locks with only 3-4 non-maneuvering/defending targets flying straight at you, and has issues with formations of more than a handful of bombers. But these two examples, i'm sorry to say, are not bugs but user errors. When the AWG-9 works, it is magical. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1448024745

At 45,000 Mach 1.2 launch 45* launch angle.... probably trivial. Put a target out at 100 miles and shoot those conditions. see what happens. I've easily seen 90 mile missiles retain mach 3+ The issues facing it now are the guidance behaviors (overlofting) and AWG9 performance (in some conditions not being able to track even a small number of non maneuvering targets)

Yes I can confirm this has happened lately too. It took me a while to realize what is happening.