Balancing the F-14

[Dudikoff]

2. "nor intended to be used against fighters" maybe not at first, but the navy did very much intend to use it for that purpose later, hence why they opted out of the AIM-120 for the cat.

 

They opted out as they needed those funds for the LANTIRN integration as they (correctly) assumed that the future deployments might be more A2G oriented.

 

Great post BlackLion213. What is striking I think is how the USN perception of the Soviets lagged behind the reality in the early 80s. By 1982 the VVS had well over 300 BVR capable MiG-23 in East Germany alone, and that for several years already. In fact the VVS was shortly to upgrade it's fighter force in East Germany to MiG-29. USN thinking seemed to be influenced highly by fighting Soviet allies. Perhaps not surprising, considering the USN doctrine of attacking on the flanks and not be engaged in central Europe where the Soviets deployed their newest hardware.

 

Yeah, the funds for upgrades were always lacking and the chances of Tomcats encountering those short ranged interceptors were not that high, so I guess upgrading them and the training wasn't a high priority.

 

They did meet the Libyan MiG-23's later on, but fortunately those were the weaker MS variants IIRC so the obsolete RWR (not being to recognize a fighter radar lock IIRC) was not an issue.

Edited April 11, 2017 by Dudikoff

[OnlyforDCS]

 

*snip*

 

-Nick

 

Your puny facts BlackLion will never match the power of Satan's CAPS LOCK!!! MUAHAHAH! ;)

[Robert31178]

I despise the above pics lol.....I'm a Phan and it made me sad.......Aside form that the pics were pretty sweet!!

[BlackLion213]

AIM-54 is 1000lbs.....

 

Hi FWind, each of the AIM-54 pallets weight about 400 lbs (4 are needed for carrying 6 AIM-54s - these are the tunnel mounted AIM-54s), plus the "front of the canoe" for the forward pallets weight another ~100 lbs IIRC. So front pallets are ~500 and rear pallets are 400, plus the shoulder adapter for the AIM-54 is plumbed for coolant so 2000 lbs of pylon weight is a fair estimate.

 

What is striking I think is how the USN perception of the Soviets lagged behind the reality in the early 80s. By 1982 the VVS had well over 300 BVR capable MiG-23 in East Germany alone, and that for several years already. In fact the VVS was shortly to upgrade it's fighter force in East Germany to MiG-29. USN thinking seemed to be influenced highly by fighting Soviet allies.

 

Agreed, it does seem that they were a bit behind in recognizing the threat. Though 1982 is when the started the "Rising Fighter" program to better counter the BVR threat - this probably should have started a couple of years earlier. The outcome of "Rising Fighter" showed that defending against a weapon comparable to the sparrow was reasonably difficult and maintaining the advantage to the merge was difficult - this result lead to the decision to begin employing the AIM-54 against fighter threats. This need was further amplified by fielding the R-27, but the R-24 also exposed the need. It is perhaps also a reminder that military doctrine is a bit slow to change and that creating operational limits from the top down is not the best approach.

 

However, these rules were not set in stone. During the Gulf of Sidra I (1981) Tomcats of VF-41 and VF-84 were armed in the 2x2x2 configuration and there were no existential CVBG threats in the theater. Clearly the squadron could carry the AIM-54 if they felt it was necessary - perhaps justification for using the Phoenix after the fact would be the bigger problem.

 

Your puny facts BlackLion will never match the power of Satan's CAPS LOCK!!!

 

Capability/adaptability > POWER ;)

 

-Nick

[ward8124]

Sooo to bring us back on to topic - No balancing for the F14 required then yes chaps?:thumbup::music_whistling:

[OnlyforDCS]

Well the thread is not really well named. It's basically a wishlist thread, the OP was asking for a Mig31 interceptor or similar aircraft as a counter to the F14 :)

 

Personally I would have no problems with that, the more aircraft the merrier. :)

[FWind]

Hi FWind, each of the AIM-54 pallets weight about 400 lbs (4 are needed for carrying 6 AIM-54s - these are the tunnel mounted AIM-54s), plus the "front of the canoe" for the forward pallets weight another ~100 lbs IIRC. So front pallets are ~500 and rear pallets are 400, plus the shoulder adapter for the AIM-54 is plumbed for coolant so 2000 lbs of pylon weight is a fair estimate.

 

 

yeah，I forget the AIM-54 pallet. The AIM-120 luancher just about 90 bls. :doh::doh:

Edited April 11, 2017 by FWind

[Frostie]

All I want to know is will a 2 manned F-14 be double points and can I get the Order of Lenin for sinking the carrier.

[lunaticfringe]

2. "nor intended to be used against fighters" maybe not at first, but the navy did very much intend to use it for that purpose later, hence why they opted out of the AIM-120 for the cat.

 

The truly ridiculous thing is that the money issue wasn't for AMRAAM, but the rails. F-14Ds were carrying AIM-120 compatible and qualified software in 97, but the expense for the rails was prohibitive for the number required for the few squadrons carrying it.

 

They uploaded the code in the event dollars ever became available so that it would be turn key and just require issuance of publication updates to make it viable, but the former never happened.

[OnlyforDCS]

All I want to know is will a 2 manned F-14 be double points

 

That's actually a pretty neat idea. I wonder if it could be implemented as some kind of server side toggle.

[Coyote Duster]

All I want to know is will a 2 manned F-14 be double points and can I get the Order of Lenin for sinking the carrier.

 

good luck with that:gun_smilie:

[Vampyre]

All I want to know is will a 2 manned F-14 be double points and can I get the Order of Lenin for sinking the carrier.

 

Having been a server admin for the past 11 years or so, I dislike stats. In games/simulations it usually brings out the worst in people as they are trying to either pad them or trying to cheat others out of them. That being said, I do see a use for them in competitions and for personal use to evaluate where one needs focus their attention to improve their skills. People also really like stats as well and that has proven to be the one feature that brings in the most user numbers in multiplayer servers.

 

I'd rather see a more refined points system based on the relative cost of the airframe, vehicle, structure, weapon or individual being destroyed. The Tomcat was expensive, had two crew members and had expensive weapons. A fully loaded Tomcat would be a juicy target. Weapons expenditure should be recorded as well with negative points included for all expenditure. That would be a way of reducing the "spamram" tactics that are so prevalent online. It is a sort of return for investment points model. I don't see anything like this happening at least until the multiplayer is fixed and we get an honest to god dedicated server software to support it.

[Knock-Knock]

Just my 2 cents. Please dont nerf/'attempt balance' the F-14 and its weapons in any way shape or form. Its not what DCS is about imo.

 

If anything, nerf the available slots on Red/Blue, if this is a MP concern. That would be the more appropriate 'balance'.

[lemoen]

Nobody's going to nerf the F14 Module. We're going to get a system that is as true to the real thing as they can make it.This may well mean that the Tomcat will be able to engage targets from very far or maybe it won't. We don't know yet. If the addition of Tomcats on a particular team is going to cause the that team to have easy mode, then its up to the mission creator to make sure its not unbalanced, not the module creator.

[GGTharos]

Why not, instead give a time-limited target so that strikers and fighters actually have to coordinate and be there together (instead of strikers having to hang back for an hour and wait to see if their fighters win or not) and have to run a cohesive plan ...

 

And score based on mission completion ratios. You could attempt to go into money expenditure details but they're meaningless, especially since exchange ratios in-game are so close, and so are mission flight distances which causes people to use relatively unrealistic tactics/flying techniques anyway.

 

Expenditure of airframes and weapons is very simple: You expend them and you run out. Probably you'll run out of airframes before you run out of missiles given how things play out online.

 

Of course if it's just airquake, then stats are fine. Trying to put economy on top of it seems silly ... the guys with the most expensive toys have the money to fund those toys ... they just don't really get their money's worth in-game since that 'money' doesn't produce superior enough results.

 

And what's this moaning about 'spamraam' tactics? The entire premise of carrying a bunch of missiles is to spam them at your enemy. Cost isn't the object, attrition of the other guy's forces is. Pilots don't care about the money. Yes, they train to not waste missiles, but this is more of a 'well I already shot at this guy, why did you double up on him? Now we've reduced weapons available for the rest of out mission duration'.

 

I'd rather see a more refined points system based on the relative cost of the airframe, vehicle, structure, weapon or individual being destroyed. The Tomcat was expensive, had two crew members and had expensive weapons. A fully loaded Tomcat would be a juicy target. Weapons expenditure should be recorded as well with negative points included for all expenditure. That would be a way of reducing the "spamram" tactics that are so prevalent online. It is a sort of return for investment points model. I don't see anything like this happening at least until the multiplayer is fixed and we get an honest to god dedicated server software to support it.

[Dino Might]

Having been a server admin for the past 11 years or so, I dislike stats. In games/simulations it usually brings out the worst in people as they are trying to either pad them or trying to cheat others out of them. That being said, I do see a use for them in competitions and for personal use to evaluate where one needs focus their attention to improve their skills. People also really like stats as well and that has proven to be the one feature that brings in the most user numbers in multiplayer servers.

 

I'd rather see a more refined points system based on the relative cost of the airframe, vehicle, structure, weapon or individual being destroyed. The Tomcat was expensive, had two crew members and had expensive weapons. A fully loaded Tomcat would be a juicy target. Weapons expenditure should be recorded as well with negative points included for all expenditure. That would be a way of reducing the "spamram" tactics that are so prevalent online. It is a sort of return for investment points model. I don't see anything like this happening at least until the multiplayer is fixed and we get an honest to god dedicated server software to support it.

 

An interesting idea for some kind of competition type mission, but I think you could create such a system with scripting, instead of trying to have the devs put it in the base game. I like the paradigm of devs working on accurate models, and the players generate all the ways to play with them (scenarios, missions, objectives, metrics, balancing features, etc.). If the devs work on some metric like this, it will always be agreeable to some and not to others. Keep the control of such stat tracking and other mission qualities in the hands of the players.

 

I guess you could argue for giving the players more tools, which I am always in favor of doing. The mission editor is decent, but more scripting options for triggers would be nice. There are some basic spawning scripts that almost everyone uses that definitely should be implemented into dropdown menus (e.g., Spawn group at location on trigger X. Once no units in group remain, respawn at same location. Repeat respawn Y [with infinite being an option] times).

Edited April 13, 2017 by Dino Might

[Vampyre]

Why not, instead give a time-limited target so that strikers and fighters actually have to coordinate and be there together (instead of strikers having to hang back for an hour and wait to see if their fighters win or not) and have to run a cohesive plan ...

 

And score based on mission completion ratios. You could attempt to go into money expenditure details but they're meaningless, especially since exchange ratios in-game are so close, and so are mission flight distances which causes people to use relatively unrealistic tactics/flying techniques anyway.

 

Expenditure of airframes and weapons is very simple: You expend them and you run out. Probably you'll run out of airframes before you run out of missiles given how things play out online.

 

Of course if it's just airquake, then stats are fine. Trying to put economy on top of it seems silly ... the guys with the most expensive toys have the money to fund those toys ... they just don't really get their money's worth in-game since that 'money' doesn't produce superior enough results.

 

And what's this moaning about 'spamraam' tactics? The entire premise of carrying a bunch of missiles is to spam them at your enemy. Cost isn't the object, attrition of the other guy's forces is. Pilots don't care about the money. Yes, they train to not waste missiles, but this is more of a 'well I already shot at this guy, why did you double up on him? Now we've reduced weapons available for the rest of out mission duration'.

 

Yeah, I saw the Red Flag thing too. The A-10 is a terrible platform to use for this type of competition. Something a bit faster like a Harrier or Hornet would be much better suited for this.

 

Well, I didn't intend to hit a nerve there. You don't know me, but if you did, you would realize my comment about the spamram was not "moaning" about this particular tactic. I was thinking more about long term stats that would be useful on dedicated mission based servers. It was more directed towards improving ones ability by using stats to see where one is deficient. Wasting eight missiles with no kill is not a good return for investment by any measure and if it was tracked one could use these numbers to try to improve how they fight. Regardless of what you think, the economy is quite important as a MiG-21 is not worth the same an F-15C yet in the game they are tracked the same. The current method where helicopters and WWII planes are worth 30 points, Jet fighters are worth 50 points, and big airplanes are worth 100 points is not very useful if you can't see what it took to actually kill them and you can't go back and review what it took to achieve your kills. This is where you are going to say Tacview... It does not consolidate the numbers for all of your missions. As for mission completion, I think a certain older WWII simulator did a decent job of rewarding mission completion by only giving you 10% of you total if you were shot down and killed or captured, 50% if you were shot down, survived and were not taken prisoner and 100% of the total if you survived and landed back at base... and 2x negative points for the target type for friendly fire incidents that do not change whether you live or die. That could be another way to go about it too but weapons expenditure should be incorporated as well to see where you are falling short.

 

Still the F-14 should be worth big points. Refined stats would be a way to balance the game aspect of this simulator without having to nerf capability... like that is going to happen anyway.

[OnlyforDCS]

All this talk about economy is actually pretty funny and sad at the same time. Economy doesn't enter into it, when it's life and death.

 

If it was about the economy why would the US (or Russia in Syria) waste, millions and billions of dollars bombing out dirt shelters, and shanty houses, or tricked up Toyota jeeps in the desert? If it was about the economy then the terrorists have already won.

 

Im not trying to turn the thread into a political conversation, just illustrating my point. When you take out an enemy using a few more missiles than you had to (for whatever reason) and you return yourself and your jet home safely, even though he was flying a Mig21 and you are in an F15, that's a WIN. Why? Because the enemy pilot is dead and you are alive.

 

With that said, I agree that in DCS the F14 should be two points. Not because of it's cash dollar value, simply because it has a crew of two. In war lives are more important than hardware.

Edited April 14, 2017 by OnlyforDCS

[Vampyre]

All this talk about economy is actually pretty funny and sad at the same time. Economy doesn't enter into it, when it's life and death.

 

If it was about the economy why would the US (or Russia in Syria) waste, millions and billions of dollars bombing out dirt shelters, and shanty houses, or tricked up Toyota jeeps in the desert? If it was about the economy then the terrorists have already won.

 

Im not trying to turn the thread into a political conversation, just illustrating my point. When you take out an enemy using a few more missiles than you had to (for whatever reason) and you return yourself and your jet home safely, even though he was flying a Mig21 and you are in an F15, that's a WIN. Why? Because the enemy pilot is dead and you are alive.

 

With that said, I agree that in DCS the F14 should be two points. Not because of it's cash dollar value, simply because it has a crew of two. In war lives are more important than hardware.

 

You are missing the point. It's not about politics. It's about efficiency and personal improvement for the game aspect of DCS.

[OnlyforDCS]

You are missing the point. It's not about politics. It's about efficiency and personal improvement for the game aspect of DCS.

 

Politics? Don't You mean economics? I get your point, I just don't share it. Not all of us want DCS to be about more "competitiveness". Some of us wan't it to be more about simulation. Including the simulation of war. That's why servers such as Blue Flag are hugely popular, even though they are plagued by other problems.

Edited April 14, 2017 by OnlyforDCS

[Jumbik]

I'm afraid that simulator like DCS cannot be balanced around game mechanics. Yes we can try to give both sides as much "fair" starting position as possible, but it will never be trully balanced due to the nature of the simulation.

 

Just the fact that stats exist for Multiplayer means that it will bring out the best and worst from people.

 

DCS Multiplayer is very limited too, missing dynamic campaings is the worst part. It simply is not yet strong enough platform to prepare really engaging campaings that would at the same time not require HUGE amout of work from community.

 

In my opinion developer should strive for as much realistic representation of the aircraft as possible and the balancing itself should be left for campaing/mission builders. If it means that some aircrafts will not be able to bring in to the fight part of the available equipment, then let it be like that.

 

In the end, if realistic campaign should come to mind, it cannot be balanced unless it will be "fantasy" type of campaign.

[probad]

the concept of balance in itself is folly and nothing more than a euphemistic moniker for the social engineering used to reel in suckers.

Edited April 15, 2017 by probad

[Chrinik]

the concept of balance in itself is folly and nothing more than a euphemistic moniker for the social engineering used to reel in suckers.

 

Which is funny, because as soon as you have unbalanced scenarios in, let´s say 104th (the mission where Flankers get ERs and F-15s get Aim-7s), then everyone suddenly f***s off and does something else.

 

Seems like this whole notion of "Balance means nothing and it´s pointless" only applies when the own side is the one with the advantage and everyone else should just suck it up.

 

Assymetric balance is archievable and is prevelant everywhere, chess is unbalanced, since one side always goes first, which is why the choice of side in competition comes down to a coinflip, because entire strategies have been made around this fact. Yet, noone would be inane enough to call chess "unfair" because of it.

 

You can have one coalition in DCS ticked out with the best gear imaginable and still make it fun for the opposition, you just gotta come up with ideas to make it harder for their enemy.

For example having to fly farther and farther from safe bases to deeper targets as the round goes on, having to go up against heavier defences, having a limited supply of tools available. etc.

 

It´s all doable, it won´t be "balanced", but it will be fair and fun for both sides.

And that´s the point.

 

People who just want to slaughter stuff with their superiour airframe should stick to AI, honestly, unless they are willing to stomach the fact that sometimes, adaptations need to be made to make sure they actually have people to fly against.

Edited April 25, 2017 by Chrinik

[*Rage*]

Balance is the lifeblood of MP. Anybody saying otherwise is just exposing his own prejudices/ignorance.

 

What are the most popular MP servers/events? Blueflag, 104th, ACG, Redflag etc? If you dont believe balance is a keystone then check those threads for a reality check on how important it is to people. Both redfor and bluefor.

Edited April 25, 2017 by ///Rage

[drPhibes]

I know I've said this before, but

 

 

vs.

 

 

= balance achieved.