mattag08

"Shipboard start and poststart procedure abbreviations of the shore-based checklists are as delineated for the poststart pilot procedures. Certain steps are omitted because aircraft are typically spotted too close together to allow the wings to be swept forward while the aircraft is tied down. Cranking the left engine prior to starting the right as outlined in the shore-based procedures will ensure that auxiliary brake pressure is available and that backup flight control module is full of hydraulic fluid prior to cycling." EDIT: Let me clarify. The left engine has to be, at a minimum, cranked before the right can be started so that there is brake pressure. Started was the wrong word. Also, HB did a great job of accurately modelling this! It just needs to be in the manual so people know.

I've been aware of this bug since day 1, but the Supercarrier has made it even more dangerous and annoying. Because any multiplayer client can report a collision to any other client, the RIOs who occupy the slot of an aircraft on the carrier deck cause anything within the wingspan of the F-14 to instantly be hit and destroyed. Additionally, with the new supercarrier spawns and spawn protection any time a RIO is in a seat the pilot must cycle the wings or he is blocking all of the spawns around him due to the RIO's client reporting the wings out (which I assume is a hitbox related check). This would all be solved easily if the default wing position the RIO sees is the wings swept fully aft in oversweep upon joining into the cockpit. The sync could occur as normal when the wings move as always, but this isn't as important of a problem in the air because: 1. The wings will almost always move shortly after the RIO is in the seat since wingsweep is constantly changing. 2. The RIO seeing the wings swept temporarily doesn't matter for any practical purpose and would rarely be noticed. 3. The RIO seeing the wings swept is actually less dangerous even in the air during formation flying. From my experience in MP, most of the time RIOs are going to be joining their pilot on the ground or carrier before a sortie anyway and the wings are in oversweep by default from a cold start or hot parking start. So the RIO would actually see the correct indication in *more* cases than before.

If you're flying the F-14, I've noticed that the LSO seems specifically tuned for the F-18 only. Don't expect anything accurate out of him for the F-14 at this point. I'm sure it will be updated in the future.

The angle deck markings are too gray in color and are unusable outside of about 0.5 NM. I can see where the developers were trying to create a weathered look, but making the markings all a shade of gray is not realistic in terms of weathering or usuable in the sim. I uploaded images of the Supercarrier vs. how the actual markings look in real life. Note that the white paint is very bright and easily visible. The centerline stripe has highly visible yellow/white paint so it stands out and can be used at very long range for lineup information. These things should be visible while in the 180 if visibility is good (i.e. Case I conditions). I hope the devs understand this is not pedantic and is vital for flying a proper groove. Also note that the mipmap appears to be pulling mostly the dark gray from the flight deck and the dark brown of the rubber marks from the middle of the landing area as opposed to the white or yellow for the angle deck markings at range. This makes the angle deck just look like a gray/brown blob outside of about 2 NM.

The PLAT cam crosshair is aligned with an approximately 3.2° glidepath while the Base Angle (B/A) of the boat is set (supposedly) to 3.5°. This leads to an issue for LSOs attempting to provide accurate glidepath information. The crosshair is depressed via a function in the PLATCameraUI.lua. This function has the variable d_pixel which is returning a value of approximately 28 pixels of depression for the crosshair. The actual accurate depression is approximately 10 pixels for the 3.5° glidepath. I believe that the developer may have unintentionally looked at the NATOPS (which talks about B/A vs. the actual glidepath flown) and become confused. The aircraft may fly a glidepath of less than 3.5° through the air, but he will always be at the B/A relative to the ship if he is on glidepath. It appears in the .lua file that there was an attempt to calculate wind over deck and other such things to arrive at the aircraft's approximate actual glidepath, but this is incorrect and unimportant for the PLAT camera and the crosshair. I uploaded the .lua code that is incorrect, an image of where the crosshairs used to be with an F-14 with a centered ball indication, and an image of where the crosshairs should be for a centered ball indication after I corrected them. This is no different for an F-14 vs. F-18 (except that hook height over deck should be adjustable by aircraft type, but since it is not everything is the same for now).

I don't think the windsock is a physics object. It just points in the direction of the winds as set in ME.

The total coverage of the ball is measured in tens of feet for most of the groove length. You have to be very precisely in the groove on glidepath to see it.

The Tomcat and 18 use different AOAs in the groove. I believe the 18 is about 2° less AOA than the 14 (which is a hair over 10°), so if ED just tied the calls to a fixed AOA (very likely) then it will think the Tomcat is slow.

That is all. This is incorrect. The left engine is started first so that hydraulic pressure is available to the brakes. In real life aircraft can roll forward under idle throttle, so brake pressure is vital to making sure you don't taxi forward uncontrolled and hit something (or go off the deck!). NATOPS confirms. http://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/procedures.html#engine-start

Actually, both the ACLS and ICLS are wrong. The ACLS is just *really* wrong and the ICLS is just a little wrong. It's pretty obvious that the ICLS is bringing you down to where you would normally go on the old Stennis because if you fly the needles precisely you will land a little left and a little aft of where you should (which is owing to the old Stennis's incorrect and smaller dimensions).

My group has noticed in testing that it appears to show up primarily when the carrier is moving at high speed (>20 knots). Lower speeds the 14 seems to taxi normally.

People that complain about Jester are the ones that have just bought the module. Spend some time learning how he works and you'll find he's passable. A human RIO will always have some advantages, but Jester has perfect situational awareness and the ability to instantly do some tasks when asked, so he makes up for it a bit. The devs said from day 1 that this module is really meant to be played with a crew of two. Jester is just a temporary solution when you can't find a friend to play with.

It's just an overlay. Not module specific.

If we're talking about modern ECM, the same would be true (or more true) of all the aircraft in DCS. Why come to the F-14 forum to whine about it?

It would be nice if we could get modern radar-aimed flak as well. For instance, the KS-19 and ZSU-57 with the SON-9 (Fire Can) fire control radar would be great choices since they served in Vietnam and Iraq as well as other countries with Soviet equipment. These were a weapon that aircrew have recalled being fired at them by the Iraqis with some significant concern and are quite dangerous in well trained hands. Imagine flak bursts targeting you at 40,000'+.

If someone fires 6 AIM-54s at you, just turn cold and run. Or just notch them all and drop chaff and you will defeat them all at once. Once the 54s are all out of energy, they are out of missiles and you can turn and kill them (or they run home and their sortie was pointless). Firing multiple missiles simultaneously is a very bad tactic. Now a Pk-enhancing missile or two is not the same thing and a very valid tactic. Exploit your enemy's ignorance, don't whine about it. Also as far as jamming, the Phoenix has track hold and burn through is a thing, so that's not going to 100% defeat a shot. I'm kinda thinking you don't actually fly the F-14 and just came here to complain. We all know about ED's half-baked attempts at EW and Radar modelling, but this is the F-14 forum not the DCS World problems forum...

The thrust to weight of a light tomcat is very near 1.0, so yeah...

Please mattag08 is what my parents call me. Matt is fine. :D

There's no superbug in DCS...

You need to learn how to defeat these missiles before whining. You're way off the mark here. This topic has been discussed to death. If anything the Phoenix is undermodeled compared to real life based on statements from actual 14 pilots/RIOs. You're going to have to learn to defeat it. It won't get worse, it'll get better with the missile API.

It was this way in real life. Even new tomcats quickly became worn. You need to memorize the switch positions as the real aircrew would've.

The nose yaws against the turn. I don't need to watch a video to confirm what I can easily observe.

In those situations use the emergency gear/hook release, so at least you can successfully land.

Hopefully the 22nd...

You don't though. You can see the nose track opposite of the turn. The net yaw is adverse.