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Jester and LANTIRN Weirdness in MP


bonesvf103

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I was flying a hop in our server with Jester as my RIO.  WE had a target designated and locked in LANTIRN, and he talked me on, and when he told me to pickle, I did.  But I never heard the thump and the ordnance remained hung.  HOWEVER, the LANTIRN TTI countdown was still running AND Jester was still counting down TTI.  At 10 seconds he even called 10 seconds and then said "Lasing."  It was as if the sim thought I dropped the bomb and so did Jester, but we didn't. 

I tried 3 more passes on the same target and the same thing happened everytime.  I troubleshot as much as I could considering I had bandits coming in and everything checked out:

I was set to A/G

I had the weapon select switch to off.

"ORD" was in the HUD with a bomb fall line.

I had Jester select stations 3,4,5,6 AND he correctly had GBU-10 selected

Master arm was ON

Wings set to bomb mode

I pressed and held down the correct pickle button--in fact in a CCIP non Jester drop later, the bombs did drop when I pickled them.

On the third pass I even made sure I was above the staple and still no dropped happened.

Has anyone else experienced this or knows what could have gone wrong?  Thankfully my wingman in his pitifully inferior F/A-18 (haha) finished off the target with a Maverick but I would have had it long before if it was working!

v6,

boNes

"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot

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Just did another on the server and I did everything the same way and this time the bomb dropped no problem.

 

Server fluke?

 

I dunno.

v6,

boNes

"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot

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What delivery mode were you in? CMPTR TGT will inhibit a bomb release until its release conditions are met, which are completely separate from the LANTIRN. CMPTR Pilot and Man shouldn't do this, and are recommended for use with the LANTIRN. 

The LANTIRN doesn't actually know if anything fell off the jet or not, it displays the fall / laser timer anytime you press the pickle button with a designation, and jester is essentially just repeating the info on the LANTIRN screen. 

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On 5/4/2022 at 2:35 AM, Panny said:

It sounds obvious, but always just worth double checking - you didn't have any air to air weapon selected on the stick? This can inhibit release of A/G ordnance

I can confirm that not only was I in A/G, but I had the weapon selector switch all the way to off and ORD in the HUD.

v6,

boNes

"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot

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On 5/4/2022 at 12:08 AM, near_blind said:

What delivery mode were you in? CMPTR TGT will inhibit a bomb release until its release conditions are met, which are completely separate from the LANTIRN. CMPTR Pilot and Man shouldn't do this, and are recommended for use with the LANTIRN. 

The LANTIRN doesn't actually know if anything fell off the jet or not, it displays the fall / laser timer anytime you press the pickle button with a designation, and jester is essentially just repeating the info on the LANTIRN screen. 

I was in CMPTR Pilot mode.  Just seems odd that he would still be lasing knowing no bomb came off, even if he's just reading off f the LANTIRN display.  Almost seems as if the bomb did come off, but no one told DCS haha

 

v6,

boNes

 

"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot

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11 minutes ago, bonesvf103 said:

Just seems odd that he would still be lasing knowing no bomb came off

How would he know no bomb came off? The jet doesn't know, the model of AWG-15 we have only knows what stations are selected. The pod doesn't know, it can't talk to the SMS in any substantive way. The only way I can think of would be tactile feedback from the bombs leaving the jet, which jester can't feel, because he's a Lua script. 

The pod displays a bomb timer, Jester is going to read the bomb timer. 

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Well, I dunno what else to say.  All I know is that all the times BEFORE the patch when I failed to drop the bomb because of say master arm was off or I hit the wrong button or whatever, the TTI timer kept going and Jester didn't say squat and didn't lase.

I've been dropping bombs with Jester for well over a year before the improvements even and he's never continued a countdown or lased when the bomb did not drop.

Personally I think there was some glitch in the server or maybe I was below the staple (although I don't know that being below the staple would inhibit your drop) because it hasn't happened much since.  But it was an occurance before.

 

Now what I'm experiencing, even in SP, is that I will tell him to designate a target and he does, and after we kill it, if I designate another target via eyeball and head control, then tell him to track designation, he always go back to the 1st killed target.  If I tell him reset LANTIRN and try again, he still goes to the first killed target.  I have to jump in the back and designate the new target myself then jump back in front before he will track the new target.

 

Now I will say that I am using VAICOM Pro with AIRIO and that may have something to do with it, but that's what I'm trying to figure out.  Plus VAISOM doesn't explain him counting down without a dropped bomb when he didn't all those times before.

v6,

boNes

"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot

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That last bit is expected I think. Eyeballs and head control do not create a new designation. They just slew the pod. You have to either tell jester to designate or tell him to search for X, which he will then designate on his own.

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9 hours ago, iantron said:

That last bit is expected I think. Eyeballs and head control do not create a new designation. They just slew the pod. You have to either tell jester to designate or tell him to search for X, which he will then designate on his own.

I tell him to designate every time.  In the worse of scenarios, I do eyeballs>designate>head control>designate

But  I notice then that the symbology and TTG doesn't appear.  If I say track designation, he goes back to the already killed target I designated.

v6,

boNes

9 hours ago, iantron said:

Is it proper to select 3, 4, 5, 6 when you can only have 2 GBU-10s? Would the release system release 4 and 5 first, thereby doing nothing?

Honestly, all I've been saying is for him to select stations 3,4,5,6 even if I'm carrying 2 Phoenixes and he drops without a problem.

I think also that if I just tell him to select Paveways, he will turn the drum to the proper GBU but also select the proper stations.  In the front seat I have seen the non-Phoenix stations go checker, and hopping in the back to micro manage him haha I see the right station switched are also flipped.

v6,

boNes

"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot

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Your finalizing the head control and eyeballs with the a key right? And, for the sake of being thorough, designate and track designation are separate commands. You probably knew that.

You're right that select paveways does both correctly. I would drop the 3456 step and test with just select paveways.

If you watch carefully you should see the lower right coordinates change every time you or jester designates.

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I'm actually using VAICOM Pro.  But I'm using the same technique that I have ever since Jester and LANTIRN started working with eyeballs etc.  Up until recently, the technique worked.  I would be able to have Jester designate and drop on anything I wanted and if he couldn't (say like on a control tower), I'd be able to go in the RIO seat and do it for him, then jump back into the pilot seat and he'd leave it designated.

 

Now with the new updates, as soon as I get back in the pilot seat, he drops the designation and goes looking elsewhere.  Or he goes back to the first target designated that has already been destroyed.  Or he does weird things like the TTI countdown and lasing even though the bomb didn't drop--all things he didn't used to do.

 

So I can't tell officially if it's the updates, if it's VAICOM Pro not keeping up with the updates,myself, or something else.  I'm still testing out what works and what doesn't but wanted to ask around here too to get more answers and explanation if any.

 

v6,

boNes

"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot

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Even with Vaicom pro, you must push 'a' to finalize eyeballs and head control. Only after that can you command him to designate. The Vaicom command is "designate", but there is no Vaicom command for the a key.

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17 minutes ago, iantron said:

Even with Vaicom pro, you must push 'a' to finalize eyeballs and head control. Only after that can you command him to designate. The Vaicom command is "designate", but there is no Vaicom command for the a key.

Thanks.  I've never had to do that before for it to work, but maybe that's one of the things that changed.  I'll give it a try and report back.

v6,

boNes

"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot

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On 5/6/2022 at 6:50 PM, iantron said:

Well it's possible what you're doing could or could have worked, but it's not advertised that way. Give it a try and see.

You know, you're right.  I think I've just forgotten that I DID used to do that nuance.

 

I tried hitting A as you described and whilst doing it, it did kind of seem familiar to me.  IN any case it worked, and so thanks for reminding me!

Now the only thing now is I've noticed that if I'm on a bomb run and there are enemy air nearby, Jester switches over to the TCS.  I can't get him to switch back even if I jump in back and switch it myself, he'll switch it back.

This is a problem because I could be say 5 seconds from drop then he'll switch it, even if my wingmen are on the bandit, or if the bandit is far enough away that I could get a bomb dropped before he actually can get a shot on me.  Kind of annoying.

Anyway, thanks again!

v6,

boNes

"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot

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He does, but for air to air.  Even if I cycle the HUD mode switch for air to ground, he still in the back has changed the camera to TCS--not that I expected changing mu HUD mode will do anything, but who knows?

On the plus side I was 4 for 4 for non-assigned targets with the LANTIRN and Jester at my last test...so thanks again!

 

v6,

boNes

 

 

"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot

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OK here is another one.  I had Jester select Paveways, even told him to select the stations for it as a safeguard, then he talked me onto the target.  When he said to pickle, I did...but nothing happened.  Everything checked out---master arm on, weapon selector switch on off, A/G selected, ORD in HUD, etc.  I noticed in the ACM panel, the indicators for what weapon station was selected were all blank--no checkermarks.

I jumped into Jester's seat...and he had all the correct stations selected.  He also had the proper GBU showing in the drum, and it matched that shown in the bottom center of the LANTIRN display.

I also hadn't taken an battle damage or hard manuvering.

So, what gives?

v6,

boNes

"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot

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