Engine failures not included, our apologies

[IronMike]

Just a heads up, everyone. It seems couple items failed to make it into the release build properly (they worked in the testbuilds), among these were Engine failures and PD surface targets not being detectable. Hopefully there will be a hotfix, so we can rectify this. Our sincere apologies and thank you for your kind understanding and patience!

[Gunslinger22]

Can you guys double and triple check that this doesn’t happen to the Forrestal in a months time! 

[IronMike]

2 hours ago, Gunslinger22 said:

Can you guys double and triple check that this doesn’t happen to the Forrestal in a months time! 

 

We do and will, but sometimes an upload of the release candidate can still get screwed somehow unfortunately, as in the files not being pulled properly. Not sure how and why this happened this time, but fortunately it is a rather rare occursion with usually minor files, like in this case a lua not being pulled properly. The Forrestal is a much bigger thing and much harder to miss in that sense. 

[JupiterJoe]

On 9/18/2021 at 2:08 PM, IronMike said:

Just a heads up, everyone. It seems couple items failed to make it into the release build properly (they worked in the testbuilds), among these were Engine failures and PD surface targets not being detectable. Hopefully there will be a hotfix, so we can rectify this. Our sincere apologies and thank you for your kind understanding and patience!

Engine failures?  Is this a thing?  I've never had a 'Random Mechanical Failure', engine or otherwise, are they modelled?  The fire extinguishes don't do anything, never have. 

[draconus]

28 minutes ago, JupiterJoe said:

Engine failures?  Is this a thing?  I've never had a 'Random Mechanical Failure', engine or otherwise, are they modelled?  The fire extinguishes don't do anything, never have. 

Dude... just an example read.

 

[sparrow88]

1 hour ago, JupiterJoe said:

Engine failures?  Is this a thing?  I've never had a 'Random Mechanical Failure', engine or otherwise, are they modelled?  The fire extinguishes don't do anything, never have. 

There is an option in mission editor to enable random failures.

[JupiterJoe]

5 hours ago, sparrow88 said:

There is an option in mission editor to enable random failures.

Well then I guess either no one is enabling random failures in the construction of their F-14 Campaigns, or they're not working.  As I've said, I've never encountered a single system failure that wasn't brought about by damage.  IRL the Tomcat was known to be quite maintenance heavy and crews did experience various systems failing on occasion.  Be nice to have to work around an issue mid-mission every now and again.

[Baco]

Nobady uses it much since it defies the prupose of virtual flying unless you do want to practice emergencies....

Engine faliure means return to base asap. so whats the point of creating a mission were you dont get to fly it.

People want realism, Not "too much realism" lol

[Dragon1-1]

It could possibly be more useful in the dynamic campaign, where probability of failure could be tied to logistics and mission rate (fewer missions per airframe per day mean that more maintenance can be done between them). "Random" mission-ending inflight failures are extremely rare in aviation, stuff is maintained and tested on the ground precisely so that when the actual mission is flown, nothing goes wrong unexpectedly. Usually, replacing an LRU or jumping into a new jet is all that happens if the ground tests fail. Just about the only random failure that should happen on occasion is hung ordnance (and even that is usually caused by over-G or a maintenance mistake). It still happens, particularly on worn-out airframes (like the Tomcat would be post-2000), but a lot effort goes into averting this.

Scripted failures are useful for campaign makers, though. Not exactly random, but if you want to throw the player a curveball, it's there. Most campaign makers don't use it, but more narrative-minded ones sometimes do.

[Uxi]

An ultra realistic campaign would include these.  The maintenance and logtrain being huge issues.  Looks like quite a few BuNo were lost to TF30 engine fires or explosions but see one or two F110.

[JupiterJoe]

Yes there's a scripted failure in one of Reflected's campaigns and it's an awesome touch.  I understand adding random failures could interrupt a carefully scripted campaign missions.  Managing the failure and still completing the mission would increase the sense of accomplishment, but if you can't find a workaround and have to return to base then so be it.  You can always fly the mission again, or choose to skip it.

Edited July 1, 2022 by JupiterJoe

[Dragon1-1]

This still happens with failures caused by enemy fire. However, for most part they're your own damn fault. Having it occur purely randomly wouldn't be good gameplay, unless restricted to non-critical systems. Also, if made a realistically rare occurrence, it'd be a pain to test. Even otherwise non-critical battle damage can break missions, for example, in realistic A-10 campaigns, losing a radio would leave you to miss out on dialogue (I wish there was some checkbox to make radios specifically indestructible, the realistic solution would be to switch the dialogue to an ad-hoc frequency on an alternate radio, but this isn't feasible in DCS). DCS mission scripting is brittle enough as it is. Scripted failures, OTOH, can happen at suitably dramatic moments and following scripting can take them into account.

Dynamic campaign is another matter, though. There, too, you could prevent failures from happening - if you keep your logistics operating like they should, and don't overstress the fighters. In some scenarios, this would not be feasible. In others, it would be, as long as you're good at it. The F-14 in particular would be something that, especially in a campaign set at a later date, require tons of maintenance to keep reliable. So, you either accept some of them (hopefully AI ones too, not just you) having to abort due to various problems, or even losing an aircraft due to material failure, or you don't use them very much and keep the ground crews doting over them.