F-14 is Weak Now 2/3

[Gungho]

First of all Why the heck would heatblur release an unfinished update to break the aim54s. They made the missile “more realistic” but said the guidance is broken. Instead they should have left the aim54s as they were until tIll they get both the realism AND the guidance before they release it. But here we are with a completely useless f-14 until the next patch. 
 

I witnessed yesterday a f-14 in a light configuration fire a phoenix at near pointblank 15-20 nm at a hot su27. The missile was well below subsonic before even the 10 mile mark. Throughout the session i watched multiple launches. 0 hits with good guidance. The issue i was seeing was that the aim54 loses so much velocity so quickly its hard to believe nasa wanted to modify these missiles to fly mach 5. I dont have data to back it up but common sense would find it hard to believe a high mass medium drag missile would lose its energy so quickly. High mass would mean it would retain its energy better and increase its ballistic coefficient. These missiles dont look to be that draggy either. The Iranians would throw all their aim54s in the garbage can if they were using heatblur’s “realistic”missiles . Sorry for the rant but i hate to see our baby neutered so badly. Im skeptical that a mere guidance change will make a big difference as the issue is energy retention. Is it really supposed to be this slow?

 

Edit:just watched a video  of it and the missile feels like it has parachutes or speedbrakes deployed 

Edited February 4, 2022 by Gungho

[near_blind]

Meanwhile, in the Slayersphere...

Tacview-20220131-215439-DCS.zip.acmi

[lunaticfringe]

Oh, look- another Phoenix thread.

[NeedzWD40]

3 minutes ago, lunaticfringe said:

Oh, look- another Phoenix thread.

Can we make a Sparrow thread instead? If there's anything deserving of the "slow" label, I think the AIM-7 takes the cake.

[Paladin1cd]

But the sparrow looks amazing burning into a target!

[Exorcet]

1 hour ago, Gungho said:

First of all Why the heck would heatblur release an unfinished update to break the aim54s. They made the missile “more realistic” but said the guidance is broken. Instead they should have left the aim54s as they were until tIll they get both the realism AND the guidance before they release it. But here we are with a completely useless f-14 until the next patch. [/quote]

The Phoenix as is in the current OB, is the longest range missile available.

1 hour ago, Gungho said:

I witnessed yesterday a f-14 in a light configuration fire a phoenix at near pointblank 15-20 nm at a hot su27. The missile was well below subsonic before even the 10 mile mark. Throughout the session i watched multiple launches. 0 hits with good guidance.

Was this using the common online tactic of flying 5 ft off the ground?

1 hour ago, Gungho said:

The issue i was seeing was that the aim54 loses so much velocity so quickly its hard to believe nasa wanted to modify these missiles to fly mach 5.

What does max speed have to do with speed loss? And bringing up hypersonic Phoenix, look at the Mach numbers reached in the sim. The Phoenix had to be modified to reach Mach 5 (and launched from a max speed F-15). It's not something you should expect the common AIM-54 to do in combat configuration.

 

1 hour ago, Gungho said:

I dont have data to back it up but common sense would find it hard to believe a high mass medium drag missile would lose its energy so quickly. High mass would mean it would retain its energy better and increase its ballistic coefficient.

Missiles track. So common sense would say that if a heavy missile turns it will suffer great induced drag. And mass is only half of the ballistic coefficient. Without drag, mass is meaningless. The Phoenix isn't a small missile.

1 hour ago, Gungho said:

These missiles dont look to be that draggy either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fineness_ratio

1 hour ago, Gungho said:

The Iranians would throw all their aim54s in the garbage can if they were using heatblur’s “realistic”missiles . Sorry for the rant but i hate to see our baby neutered so badly. Im skeptical that a mere guidance change will make a big difference as the issue is energy retention. Is it really supposed to be this slow?

 

Edit:just watched a video  of it and the missile feels like it has parachutes or speedbrakes deployed 

 

 

[Quid]

Dude...it's being taken care of.  I guess I should be totally unsurprised; when ED did the incremental update to the AIM-120 which temporarily bent the missile it caused such a flow of tears that I thought the ocean levels would rise by at least an inch before the following update(s) fixed the issue in spite of the fact that ED was completely open about it and literally told everyone it was a multi-part update which would be fixed in time.  HB as well has openly stated and shown that there will be a fix to the guidance, which will return much of the lethality of the AIM-54 (not all, because it had been over-performing before) and that it will either be in the next hotfix, or the next patch.  Yet, the tears still flow.  Please, just be patient.  We ALL KNOW that the missile's guidance is being tweaked.  Let it be tweaked.

[JNelson]

3 hours ago, Gungho said:

First of all Why the heck would heatblur release an unfinished update to break the aim54s. They made the missile “more realistic” but said the guidance is broken. Instead they should have left the aim54s as they were until tIll they get both the realism AND the guidance before they release it. But here we are with a completely useless f-14 until the next patch. 
 

I witnessed yesterday a f-14 in a light configuration fire a phoenix at near pointblank 15-20 nm at a hot su27. The missile was well below subsonic before even the 10 mile mark. Throughout the session i watched multiple launches. 0 hits with good guidance. The issue i was seeing was that the aim54 loses so much velocity so quickly its hard to believe nasa wanted to modify these missiles to fly mach 5. I dont have data to back it up but common sense would find it hard to believe a high mass medium drag missile would lose its energy so quickly. High mass would mean it would retain its energy better and increase its ballistic coefficient. These missiles dont look to be that draggy either. The Iranians would throw all their aim54s in the garbage can if they were using heatblur’s “realistic”missiles . Sorry for the rant but i hate to see our baby neutered so badly. Im skeptical that a mere guidance change will make a big difference as the issue is energy retention. Is it really supposed to be this slow?

 

Edit:just watched a video  of it and the missile feels like it has parachutes or speedbrakes deployed 

 

Comparing the AIM-54 to the AIM-120 the AIM-54 has 5.6 times more frontal area and only 2.9 times the mass. If we calculate the approximate area/mass ratio for each missile we get:

Missile	Area/mass Ratio (cm^2/kg)
AIM-120C	1.2
AIM-54	2.4

since we know the area is roughly proportional to the drag force we can tell that the missiles will slow down roughly proportional to the above number and as we can see the AIM-54's number is twice that of the AIM-120s meaning it (the AIM-54) should slow down much faster than the AIM-120!!! In this case we are ignoring the drag coefficients of the missile they are close enough for this basic comparison but in general the AIM-120's drag coefficient is lower making it more favourable than the 54's.

Take a look at the two graphs below, these are the speed of the missile at a given time after launch, as you can see if anything the missile doesn't slow down enough when the motor burns out! The black line shows the CFD (in-depth simulation) and the blue line shows the game. 

One thing you will notice is that the high altitude shot is much faster for much longer. This is because air resistance is your enemy. If you want to make the most of the AIM-54's monster motor you will need to take advantage of that in the thinnest atmosphere you can find (ie super high up). 

 

Lastly the guidance changes that are being made for the next patch specifically relate to the lost behaviour. It was found that the missile would make large turns when loosing and regaining lock, this would happen when an aircraft passed through the notch. This behaviour has been improved by adjusting various filter parameters so this should be less of an issue when the missile is on it's terminal guidance, but it will not suddenly make the missile perform like it did before the patch. This is because before the missile was vastly over-performing with a no-escape-zone of over twice the actual NEZ.

 

Hopefully this help clears it up somewhat. Thanks again for your patience.

Edited February 4, 2022 by JNelson

[Gungho]

6 hours ago, JNelson said:

Comparing the AIM-54 to the AIM-120 the AIM-54 has 5.6 times more frontal area and only 2.9 times the mass. If we calculate the approximate area/mass ratio for each missile we get:

Missile	Area/mass Ratio (cm^2/kg)
AIM-120C	1.2
AIM-54	2.4

since we know the area is roughly proportional to the drag force we can tell that the missiles will slow down roughly proportional to the above number and as we can see the AIM-54's number is twice that of the AIM-120s meaning it (the AIM-54) should slow down much faster than the AIM-120!!! In this case we are ignoring the drag coefficients of the missile they are close enough for this basic comparison but in general the AIM-120's drag coefficient is lower making it more favourable than the 54's.

Take a look at the two graphs below, these are the speed of the missile at a given time after launch, as you can see if anything the missile doesn't slow down enough when the motor burns out! The black line shows the CFD (in-depth simulation) and the blue line shows the game. 

One thing you will notice is that the high altitude shot is much faster for much longer. This is because air resistance is your enemy. If you want to make the most of the AIM-54's monster motor you will need to take advantage of that in the thinnest atmosphere you can find (ie super high up). 

 

Lastly the guidance changes that are being made for the next patch specifically relate to the lost behaviour. It was found that the missile would make large turns when loosing and regaining lock, this would happen when an aircraft passed through the notch. This behaviour has been improved by adjusting various filter parameters so this should be less of an issue when the missile is on it's terminal guidance, but it will not suddenly make the missile perform like it did before the patch. This is because before the missile was vastly over-performing with a no-escape-zone of over twice the actual NEZ.

 

Hopefully this help clears it up somewhat. Thanks again for your patience.

 

Thank you very much! this is a very professional response. I agree i went out today with the f14 and it did fine at high altitude shots. I hope you guys find a good balance on the performance and am Looking forward to the guidance improvements.

[Esac_mirmidon]

I know It was not your intention , but next time try not to use "garbage" on the thread title.

HB deserves at least some respect when talking about development issues. 

I say this as a positive and kind approach to you. A moderated speech is a sign of kindness.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Esac_mirmidon