MBot

At 1x time, I get 110 fps with 4 uncontrolled Tomcats on the deck versus 120 fps for 4 active Tomcats. Attached is a demo mission which spawns 4 uncontrolled Tomcats on the Stennis. After 60 seconds the group is started. Once the first Tomcat starts to taxi, normal fps is restored. Note that the mission has a trigger at one second to spawn the group. This is unrelated to the issue at hand but required for the demonstration. Aircraft at mission start spawn on the carrier's sixpack, where the first two AI Tomcats collide when they want to taxi. Since they never actually taxi, performance is not restored. Spawning the group later into the mission puts them on deck space where they can taxi from without colliding. Tomcat_Uncontrolled.miz

I have already posted this before, here are actual observations by a Tomcat RIO about the Harpoon's cruise alt: This clearly shows that the sub-launched Harpoon can cruise all the way (around 60 NM) at 200 ft. Since this was in 1981 the specific Harpoon variant must have been a UGM-84A. The anecdote about almost colliding with the chase plane of the air-launched Harpoon suggest that the AGM-84A also cruised at the same (200 ft) altitude.

Putting Tomcats on a carrier as uncontrolled AI causes a massive performance hit. Once the AI is activated, the regular performance is restored. Note the following screens were all taken at x10 time acceleration which greatly increases the relative performance loss, making the issue better to see. One uncontrolled Tomcat, 115 fps Two uncontrolled Tomcats, 73 fps Three uncontrolled Tomcats, 36 fps Four uncontrolled Tomcats, 7 fps Four Tomcats with AI fully active on the cats, 93 fps Once uncontrolled Tomcats are activated via trigger, they have started-up and begin to taxi, performance goes back up too. So this is clearly related to the uncontrolled state. Issue is only present on carriers, uncontrolled at land bases is not affected. Happens with both the Stennis and the supercarriers. Issue is related to the Tomcat as the Hornet is not affected in this way.

SA-7/Strela-2 MANPADS. Syria received 15'000 (!) such missiles between 1970-1983.

To me it looks like you forgot to repeat the MissionScripting.lua modification after the latest DCS update.

I have just seen to bug again. MP flight from the supercarrier. Required a lot of power to start taxing. Returning to the boat with half gun ammo left and 5000 lbs of fuel, on-speed was 145-150 kts with DLC out. Had trouble to maintain altitude in the turns of the pattern. My friend who flew the same sortie (host) and pretty much did the same things had no issues (on-speed about 15 kts less with 1000 lbs more fuel).

The Caucasus map features the outline of the entire Black Sea as no-detail coastline but with usable sea-space for naval operations. How much of the Eastern Mediterranean will the Syria map feature as no-detail coastline?

Any news on this?

Not the same group name it seems.

Regardless of this, the radar should switch into TWS-A in every case once a Phoenix is launched (even if it is launched from TWS-M).

No problem, go ahead.

It is an easy fix for each to make individually, so there is that. It is a band-aid though I am unwilling to formally make for the campaign. I carefully designed the scenario to be in 1990 and I want it to be displayed as such in the briefing and debriefing. If it takes another 2 years until ED fixes that totally unnecessary limitation by implementing their full INS sumulation, then so be it. I can wait (and do more Tomcat campaigns meanwhile).

Shooting down AS-4 anti-ship missiles works really well now with TWS-A. I had good successes with being at around 40'000 ft and mach 1.5-ish, obviously directly ahead in the path of the missiles. Order Jester to radar search at around 5° up-elevation. After giving Jester an elevation order remember to order him to use TWS again (even if he already is in TWS). This makes sure that TWS-A is active and automatic elevation control will take over as soon as the first missile is being tracked. Target elevation change rate will pick up very quickly as the mach 3 missiles approach at 80'000 ft, so you need to capture the first missile with TWS-A before it leaves the scan volume on top. The first missile will be picked up at around 70 NM, upon which TWS-A will take over elevation control. Give it some seconds to pick up other missiles in the salvo and get tracks. At around 50 NM I start to ripple fire AIM-54. At around 20 NM I can see the dots of the AS-4 visually, just as the AIM-54 connect. Any AS-4 that is missed can be observed to pass overhead and is basically untouchable at this point. This is all very satisfying and something that the Tomcat is all about.

If you order Jester to change radar elevation, the radar will not automatically switch to TWS-A when launching a Phoenix.

Until about a year or so ago, no workarounds were required at all and you could simply align your INS on the carrier. When I created my 1990 Hornet campaign, it was fully playable with working navigation and bombing. Then it seems the INS alignment process was made dependable on the availability of GPS. This I was an absolutely thoughtless move without also implementing the alternative carrier alignment process when no GPS is available. The easiest solution would therefore be to remove the GPS requirement again until ED later programs the proper CV alignment process (where your aircraft links to the carrier's INS for alignment).

Indeed you will travel a few hundred meters with the carrier before you can perform a DSG fix on WP0. But for navigation I consider this accurate enough. If ED would actually simulate INS drift like Heatblur does with the F-14, you would have similar errors anyway after a while in flight. Even a TACAN fix on a fixed station (if it workes) would technically not be able to produce a position fix that is more accurate then a few hundred meters. A TACAN fix with a moving station (carrier) doesn't make sense anyway, since the position of the station is unknown. The big practical problem I see is that the dumb bomb computations don't work without GPS.

I would also be interested to know how to align the align the INS on a carrier without GPS. I can get the nav system (correct own position and distances to waypoints) working with a DSG fix, but the CCIP remains all screwed up.

I don't have any problem with launching uncontrolled AI F-14. They do spread their wings shortly when being activated but no hits are registered and all aircraft launch as expected. But the uncontrolled player that is activated into the mission indeed isn't able to use the catapults (F-14 or F/A-18 ). I have reported the issue: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=4363407#post4363407 Let's see if this gets fixed anytime soon (not holding my breath).

Player flight that is set Uncontrolled and activated later in the mission is unable to request launch and cannot take off from carrier. See attached sample mission and try to launch. uncontrolled_player.miz

I am also seeing this. Tomcats taxing to catapult 1 will hit Tomcats parked on the forward elevator damaging both aircraft. The taxing aircraft looses an stabilizer and crashes after launch. https://forums.eagle.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=238065&d=1591046938

AI F-14 taxing to catapult 1 will collide with F-14 parked on forward elevator. Both aircraft get damaged and will subsequently crash after launch. f-14_cat1_collision.miz

Ok, I think I have figured out the key for AI cold starts: 1. One second after mission start, spawn the player flight as uncontrolled. This makes sure that the player is not put into the sixpack where he will block other deck ops. 2. Two seconds after mission start, set task activate the player flight. 3. Any AI flight that is spawned after this (either active or uncontrolled and activated later) will taxi and launch even when the player is still parked. The player must be spawned uncontrolled and then be activated separately before you do anything with other AI, otherwise the presence of the player on the deck will inhibit other AI that is spawned later from launching. With this figured out, I am now contemplating to program this into DCE and update my campaigns to the supercarrier.

I have been experimenting some more with launch sequencing. Indeed even in SP if you spawn the player 1 second into the mission instead of at mission start, you can get him out of the dreaded sixpack (which is poison for AI deck ops). Unfortunately that still doesn't make cold starts viable for complete packages. The issue is that if the player is spawned as the first flight of the package, the other AI flights of the package won't taxi until the player flight has completed start-up and launched. This makes the whole effort pointless as the idea was for the player to experience the launch of the package. If the player is spawned as the last flight of the package, his spawning will be delayed several minutes into the mission until sufficient flights of the package have completed start-up and launched to free sufficient deck space. What I hoped was that while doing the start-up, the player could watch the other AI aircraft taxi and launch. It seems this still isn't possible even with the supercarrier.

Well I just flew a bunch of full campaign missions in the Hornet and noticed that while the WP0 designation method will fix the navigation system, it will not fix the twisted CCIP. This just goes to show how little I have actually flown the Hornet since the Tomcat was released. From land the WP0 designation works well also for CCIP, but from the carrier I see no other way to align the ballistics computer. So did ED really purposely disable the Hornet's bombing capabilities when launching from a carrier pre-1993?

This is related to a new script event that was introduced in the second last beta. Parachute landings of ejected pilots will now cause an event in the scripting engine but with a empty initiator that causes an error if being called up. I have written an exception to exclude these events from processing. Will be available in the next DCE version.