F-14B acceleration correct?

[Wingmate]

12 minutes ago, Katj said:

Perhaps it's even possible to add a dynamic kneeboard page or two, that show drag index and weight of current loadout? But I digress...

Would also love to see a page with current center of gravity so we can set the correct trim for cat shots.

[Victory205]

Use your Google-fu to find a NATOPS manual online. The drag numbers are there, and in the performance manual. If it takes you more than three minutes, then you should join the Air Force and fly C5’As (not that there is anything wrong with that). 

[Hummingbird]

6 hours ago, Victory205 said:

Some performance charts use TMN, some use IMN, and whenever the former is in play, indicator error is an issue. If you look at your manual, you will see significant instrument error in the transonic range. Alpha is another value that has an impact on velocity indications.

 

In other words, determining performance more complex than it may seem at first blush. We don’t have a test aircraft instrumented with a pitot/alpha boom, we have a simulator with algorithms that may or may not model  instrument error. I am not sure that the other modules model the sonic shock wave phenomenon on the pitot static system. I will investigate a few of the other modules at some point, time permitting.

 

Hence why I'm not using the cockpit instruments for checks but instead the Ctrl + Y infobar, precisely to avoid any issues with instrument error  

 

All the aircraft in DCS I have tried have some built in instrument error, based on the IAS to CAS to TAS conversion charts available for the aircraft, for example at SL the F-15C in DCS generally shows about 10 kts too much on the HUD as compared to TAS. I'm sure the F-14 is no different here, and is also modelled with instrument error, which is why I don't rely on the cockpit instruments for performance checks in any of the aircraft.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Hummingbird

[Victory205]

What makes you believe that the Control Y bar is correct?

[TLTeo]

Tbh the best way for the community to do while minimizing errors it is to combine instrument readings, Tacview and the ctrl+y bar data and check for discrepancies and/or find which one is closest to the real thing. Without access to whatever dev tools HB have, that's the best way to mitigate any systematic issue.

[captain_dalan]

14 hours ago, TLTeo said:

Tbh the best way for the community to do while minimizing errors it is to combine instrument readings, Tacview and the ctrl+y bar data and check for discrepancies and/or find which one is closest to the real thing. Without access to whatever dev tools HB have, that's the best way to mitigate any systematic issue.

My thinking exactly. I don't work for ED (obviously), but if my hunch is right, then the info-bar should provide the most accurate data on the AC behavior as fat as the sim is concerned. Comparing the values between the 3 tools should provide with valuable insight into how much each is reliable.

[Victory205]

Do you have anything more than a “hunch”? Is there a way, especially for those with a keen focus on performance, to ascertain the accuracy of the various available indications of velocity in the sim?

 

Your testing and subsequent decrees were all based on a hunch?

 

Growing up in a digital world creates biases and complacency. Think.

[Skysurfer]

I think what he is saying is the info bar actually shows CAS, which is the same for each airframe in DCS. It's the normalized reading so to speak. There's always gonna be some delta error by the way you fly or test it but that's to be expected. Even the EM charts in the NATOPS aren't all precisely tested values and usually extrapolated with some degree of error/varience in them.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Skysurfer

[mattag08]

Unless ED stealth patched it at some point, the standard atmosphere in DCS was found to be modeled incorrectly when a 3rd party did computational fluid dynamics analysis of all of ED's missiles in the game and compared them to known parameters. The effects of temperature, pressure, and the rate of change of each with altitude are not modeled properly, which affects performance at different altitudes. It would also affect the performance of different aircraft differently since aircraft are optimized for certain Mach numbers, altitudes, etc. which means the non-standard atmosphere will cause better or worse performance depending on a number of factors. 

 

To summarize: this debate is largely moot because ED won't provide a proper atmosphere model.

Edited May 20, 2021 by mattag08

[dundun92]

1 hour ago, mattag08 said:

Unless ED stealth patched it at some point, the standard atmosphere in DCS was found to be modeled incorrectly when a 3rd party did computational fluid dynamics analysis of all of ED's missiles in the game and compared them to known parameters. The effects of temperature, pressure, and the rate of change of each with altitude are not modeled properly, which affects performance at different altitudes. It would also affect the performance of different aircraft differently since aircraft are optimized for certain Mach numbers, altitudes, etc. which means the non-standard atmosphere will cause better or worse performance depending on a number of factors. 

 

To summarize: this debate is largely moot because ED won't provide a proper atmosphere model.

 

do you have a source for this?

[fat creason]

4 hours ago, dundun92 said:

do you have a source for this?

 

Yeah I'm skeptical on this unless there's hard evidence to back it up. I recall some atmosphere model changes happening several years ago but never did any testing before or after to see what changed. If ED changes the atmosphere again it would cause all kinds of mayhem.

[Maxthrust]

Excuse me for sidetracking--but has there been any flight model changes to ground handling since the last free to fly event?

 

I recall the jet being extremely draggy on the ground as if it had square wheels, hardly needed any brakes to stop but took a lot of gas to taxi around. I am waiting for this to be solved first.

[fat creason]

29 minutes ago, Maxthrust said:

Excuse me for sidetracking--but has there been any flight model changes to ground handling since the last free to fly event?

 

I recall the jet being extremely draggy on the ground as if it had square wheels, hardly needed any brakes to stop but took a lot of gas to taxi around. I am waiting for this to be solved first.

 

We'll take a look eventually but there are higher priority things that need to happen first. Have to prioritize resources in areas where people spend the most time, which is in-air, up and away from the airfield. Same reason that it doesn't make sense to spend a ton of resources on FM damage since flight with a missing wing constitutes <0.1% of your total time in the aircraft. Because we're so limited, we have to allocate our resources accordingly. Hope that makes sense.

Edited May 21, 2021 by fat creason

[Hummingbird]

On 5/20/2021 at 1:03 AM, Victory205 said:

What makes you believe that the Control Y bar is correct?

 

Because it records the actual movement of the aircraft in the simulation.

[Maxthrust]

I taxi in and out each flight, but don't bother flying with one wing. 

 

I couldn't help but to revisit this issue after trying the free A-4. Have a look if you have the time. I understand HB is not a freeware publisher, but you guys have a funny way of measuring quality. It seems the bar is not high, you just need to try to reach it. Anyway I will steer clear of the -14 while you guys getting to it lol.

[fat creason]

1 hour ago, Maxthrust said:

I taxi in and out each flight, but don't bother flying with one wing. 

 

I couldn't help but to revisit this issue after trying the free A-4. Have a look if you have the time. I understand HB is not a freeware publisher, but you guys have a funny way of measuring quality. It seems the bar is not high, you just need to try to reach it. Anyway I will steer clear of the -14 while you guys getting to it lol.

 

Do you think ED should rename DCS to Digital Taxiing Simulator? How much time do you spend taxiing vs flying? Not sure you read my post, I said we would look at it eventually. Not touching the F-14 because you don't like how it taxis is absurd IMO, and it currently doesn't diminish quality to the point that it's literally unplayable. Up to you I guess. Don't see how that means we have a "funny way of measuring quality", it's more of a resources problem like I said above. If you get hung up on things like that I'm surprised you haven't just deleted DCS from your computer entirely. If we didn't care about quality my answer would've been "The ground handling is fine as-is and we don't care/we're not going to look at it any more." We think taxi behavior is important, but it simply can't be as important as the in-flight portion of the FM. Therefore we have to spend more resources on the portion of the FM that matters most before we can move on to other things. If everyone was playing Digital Taxiing Simulator perhaps my answer would be different.

 

2 hours ago, fat creason said:

Hope that makes sense.

 

I tried to explain why, does it make sense now?

Edited May 21, 2021 by fat creason

[Skysurfer]

Well, I agree to a point with Max. The DCS Tomcat just seems to have way too much wheel friction to a point where it breaks immersion. You need substantial power to start taxiing and keep rolling and once you touch down and go idle the plane stops way shorter than it should (as if you used max wheel braking). No other plane in DCS exhibits that and most planes meet the landing ditance charts within a reasonable margin. It's not game braking per so but it does break the immersion at times. You should be able to start taxiing and keep the speed on idle power. By far not as big as FM issues or inaccuracies but still an area that needs to be addressed. 

[fat creason]

4 minutes ago, Skysurfer said:

Well, I agree to a point with Max. The DCS Tomcat just seems to have way too much wheel friction to a point where it breaks immersion. You need substantial power to start taxiing and keep rolling and once you touch down and go idle the plane stops way shorter than it should (as if you used max wheel braking). No other plane in DCS exhibits that and most planes meet the landing ditance charts within a reasonable margin. It's not game braking per so but it does break the immersion at times. You should be able to start taxiing and keep the speed on idle power. By far not as big as FM issues or inaccuracies but still an area that needs to be addressed. 

 

We realize this, that's why we're going to take a look at it...eventually like I stated above. The current ground handling was a compromise from the early days of carrier ops to prevent deck sliding (remember the Tomcat was in development before the Hornet came out and before DCS carrier ops were even a thing). A lot has changed since then. The ground handling stuff is very time consuming to work on as well, so we can't just fix the FM and this at the same time.

Edited May 21, 2021 by fat creason

[Maxthrust]

5 minutes ago, fat creason said:

 

Do you think ED should rename DCS to Digital Taxiing Simulator? How much time do you spend taxiing vs flying? Not sure you read my post, I said we would look at it eventually. Not touching the F-14 because you don't like how it taxis is absurd IMO, and it currently doesn't diminish quality to the point that it's literally unplayable. Up to you. Don't see how it's a reflection of how we "measure quality", it's more of a resources problem like I said above. If you get hung up on things like that I'm surprised you haven't just deleted DCS from your computer entirely.

 

 

I tried to explain why, guess it didn't make sense?

 

 

I don't have the time to get hung up on the -14, even if you gifted it to me I would still fly other modules that does not fudge on realism. It's a shame on my part, but I am happy with my taste.

 

Your priorities simply don't match my expectations. I only want one plane that flies by the book. Do it good and I might pay for the variants, boats, scenery and whatnot on the horizon. Or don't, who cares--but you still don't get to dictate my priorities and shun on me with weird comparisons when I ask for realism.

 

 

 

[Harlikwin]

1 hour ago, fat creason said:

 

We'll take a look eventually but there are higher priority things that need to happen first. Have to prioritize resources in areas where people spend the most time, which is in-air, up and away from the airfield. Same reason that it doesn't make sense to spend a ton of resources on FM damage since flight with a missing wing constitutes <0.1% of your total time in the aircraft. Because we're so limited, we have to allocate our resources accordingly. Hope that makes sense.

 

 

But it really is the most exciting part of the flight... 

[Maxthrust]

10 minutes ago, Skysurfer said:

Well, I agree to a point with Max. The DCS Tomcat just seems to have way too much wheel friction to a point where it breaks immersion. You need substantial power to start taxiing and keep rolling and once you touch down and go idle the plane stops way shorter than it should (as if you used max wheel braking). No other plane in DCS exhibits that and most planes meet the landing ditance charts within a reasonable margin. It's not game braking per so but it does break the immersion at times. You should be able to start taxiing and keep the speed on idle power. By far not as big as FM issues or inaccuracies but still an area that needs to be addressed. 

 

Good point, though I don't know if the idle thrust would be sufficient to keep it rolling as the nozzles are open. Nevertheless, as admitted, HB must fix what ED fixed long time ago on their court.  

[Victory205]

22 minutes ago, Maxthrust said:

 

I only want one plane that flies by the book.

 

Honest Broker-

 

A) How would you know? B) Let us know when you find one.

[fat creason]

1 hour ago, Maxthrust said:

 

I don't have the time to get hung up on the -14, even if you gifted it to me I would still fly other modules that does not fudge on realism. It's a shame on my part, but I am happy with my taste.

 

Your priorities simply don't match my expectations. I only want one plane that flies by the book. Do it good and I might pay for the variants, boats, scenery and whatnot on the horizon. Or don't, who cares--but you still don't get to dictate my priorities and shun on me with weird comparisons when I ask for realism.

 

 

 

 

I don't know what to tell you man, you asked a question and weren't prepared for and/or didn't like the answer. I'm not dictating priorities to you, I'm simply telling you that we're going to work on it and giving reasons why we haven't worked on it yet. It would be foolish to think that even one DCS module has no flaws, doesn't "fudge on realism" in some respect, and perfectly "flies by the book." Are you busting out landing roll-out charts for every plane and checking them down to the last foot? If it's wrong is the whole module unplayable to you? If something like that makes a module unplayable, you should never even look into the radar, EW and weapons implementations in most modules, you'll have a mental breakdown. At the end of the day this is a PC game, I know how the sausage is made behind the scenes and DCS is definitely more on a game level, not a military simulation level (I've worked on those too). You'll get the "realism" (to the level the DCS can provide it) you so desire eventually, it just can't all be done at once because we don't have the resources to do that. Of all the flaws in DCS, the F-14's ground friction issue strikes me as an odd hill to die on.

 

40 minutes ago, Victory205 said:

 

Honest Broker-

 

A) How would you know? B) Let us know when you find one.

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by fat creason

[Victory205]

Makes me chuckle to recall that we had a Level D 757 simulator, certified by the FAA, that would track straight down the runway while you yawed it ±20º from centerline. Took about a decade and a half to address it in a multimillion dollar upgrade, which included a new visual, and it still wasn’t quite right. Good enough for flight training.

 

Must say, I’ve never heard anyone so interested in taxi before.

[Maxthrust]

1 minute ago, Victory205 said:

 

5 minutes ago, fat creason said:

 

I don't know what to tell you man, you asked a question and weren't prepared for and/or didn't like the answer. I'm not dictating priorities to you, I'm simply telling you that we're going to work on it and giving reasons why we haven't worked on it yet. It would be foolish to think that even one DCS module has no flaws, doesn't "fudge on realism" in some respect, and perfectly "flies by the book." Are you busting out landing roll-out charts for every plane and checking them down to the last foot? If it's wrong is the whole module unplayable to you? If something like that makes a module unplayable, you should never even look into the radar, EW and weapons implementations in most modules, you'll have a mental breakdown. At the end of the day this is a PC game, I know how the sausage is made behind the scenes and DCS is definitely more on a game level, not a military simulation level (I've worked on those too). You'll get the "realism" (to the level the DCS can provide it) you so desire eventually, it just can't all be done at once because we don't have the resources to do that.

 

 

Well there is no need to look up any charts in the case of -14 as you admitted HB still did not implement the fixes introduced by ED long time ago. In other words, no work is done on this issue or planned for foreseeable future as it is not a priority for HB. All -14 owners to overlook this and fly happy & merry until further notice  

 

This answered my question. I might bug you again in 6 months, but I will leave you happy and proud with what you have to offer for the time being.