Wishlist: datalink 9-line FAC interaction

[kengou]

Reading about the CAS page more and I am learning just why the Marines love the Harrier for CAS so much. The plane receives the 9-line brief via datalink direct to the CAS page, the HUD flashes to alert of incoming messages and "cleared hot" or "abort", and the flight members can send data with simple button pushes like "departing initial point". This is in my mind one of the key features and advantages of the Harrier platform, and why I've heard many Marines say it is much more user-friendly and efficient for CAS than even the F-35.

 

 

I imagine that a lot of the implementation of this would be out of Razbam's hands and down to core game features like JTAC and datalink communication. But it would really sadden me if we never got to experience this part of the Harrier's capabilities. I would like to propose an alternative solution and maybe others can share their suggestions on how to implement this.

 

 

Perhaps the plane's avionics can at least be enabled such that a mission editor can script things like 9-line messages appearing, or HUD messages flashing, to sort of artificially fake these things as if they were coming from an interactive FAC on the ground (that may or may not even exist in the mission). Much like how a scripted training mission can do things like failures or change MFD pages. I hope this would be possible.

[Vfa-81 Fix]

At least in part the CAS page will be usable/ populated with the introduction of JDAMs.

It remains to be seen if this can be used for other weapons/ deliveries and if other players will be able to populate your CAS page.

 

 

[Harlikwin]

Yeah the CAS page functionality and integration with JTAC's is a major feature for the harrier. And at least something is being worked on but its pretty unclear how far it will go, and as you say alot of the CAS code is in the Core engine.

 

Honestly DCS overall needs a total revamp of its CAS procedures. They changed siginificantly over time (VN era, 80's era, modern era), and I'm sure the Russians/soviet FAC's had rather different procedures.

[Shrike88]

On 10/2/2019 at 7:47 AM, kengou said:

Reading about the CAS page more and I am learning just why the Marines love the Harrier for CAS so much. The plane receives the 9-line brief via datalink direct to the CAS page, the HUD flashes to alert of incoming messages and "cleared hot" or "abort", and the flight members can send data with simple button pushes like "departing initial point". This is in my mind one of the key features and advantages of the Harrier platform, and why I've heard many Marines say it is much more user-friendly and efficient for CAS than even the F-35.

 

 

I imagine that a lot of the implementation of this would be out of Razbam's hands and down to core game features like JTAC and datalink communication. But it would really sadden me if we never got to experience this part of the Harrier's capabilities. I would like to propose an alternative solution and maybe others can share their suggestions on how to implement this.

 

 

Perhaps the plane's avionics can at least be enabled such that a mission editor can script things like 9-line messages appearing, or HUD messages flashing, to sort of artificially fake these things as if they were coming from an interactive FAC on the ground (that may or may not even exist in the mission). Much like how a scripted training mission can do things like failures or change MFD pages. I hope this would be possible.

any more implementation on this ? Has it been finished since its out of EA ?

 

[Ramsay]

On 7/12/2022 at 1:38 AM, Shrike88 said:

... any more implementation on this ? Has it been finished since its out of EA ?

AFAIK the CAS page is filled out after the default DCS IA FAC transmits the 9-line over the radio.

The only issue I'm aware of that's been mentioned is the AI FAC doesn't always use the correct Ingress waypoint (haven't tested it myself).

Edit: Here's deephack's AV-8B JTAC tutorial describing use of the 9-line in combination with CAS page i.e. how to assign the received coordinate to a target point.

 

Edited July 15, 2022 by Ramsay
Add link to deephack's AV-8B JTAC tutorial