DCS: F-14 Development Update - AIM-54 Phoenix Improvements & Overhaul - Guided Discussion

[GGTharos]

They'll do PvP.  So no, he doesn't mean just PvE.  Aggressors exist for a reason.  If you want to just sling sticks without risking having to turn circles in the air without action though then yeah, you might not enjoy those.

[RustBelt]

On 1/5/2024 at 10:09 PM, GGTharos said:

They'll do PvP.  So no, he doesn't mean just PvE.  Aggressors exist for a reason.  If you want to just sling sticks without risking having to turn circles in the air without action though then yeah, you might not enjoy those.

I’m guessing by “they” you mean an infinitesimally small and fully insular group of players. Which blurrs the line between online and Walled garden multiplayer. 

[GGTharos]

Infinitesimally small, hehe.   Right.  If you want some measure realism, you need to make a commitment.  People will play the way that suits them.  That's all there is to it. 

[draconus]

8 hours ago, RustBelt said:

I’m guessing by “they” you mean an infinitesimally small and fully insular group of players. Which blurrs the line between online and Walled garden multiplayer. 

If you want to have any realistic mission online you have to close the server, otherwise it's a mess and you risk it to be severly spoiled by random players, even without bad intentions. Usually PvP but can be also PvE. Look at how many squads are there with lots of members: https://forum.dcs.world/clubs/

I'm pretty sure many of them fly non-public MP and are not very vocal on forums. They have their own discords or other social media to connect and plan.

For the topic: yeah, good missile that impoved Phoenix.

[RustBelt]

8 hours ago, GGTharos said:

Infinitesimally small, hehe.   Right.  If you want some measure realism, you need to make a commitment.  People will play the way that suits them.  That's all there is to it. 

Yes, and all else is Quake. I restate my hypothesis. 

[FlankerKiller]

On 12/16/2023 at 3:04 PM, Noctrach said:

Simultaneously nobody is allowed to fly it with Phoenixes on the weird community canon of what cold war is

I suspect once the MiG-23MLA,  and the MiG-29A are out that this will change. Also once the Phantom is out doing escorts for Phantoms will be a thing. That will be especially true once the A-7E is out. Basically what I’m saying is the hay day of the Phantom for PVP hasn’t arrived yet. But it’s coming. 

[DD_Fenrir]

On 12/16/2023 at 8:04 PM, Noctrach said:

... nobody is allowed to fly it with Phoenixes on the weird community canon of what cold war is, because the jet and weapons outclass almost everything flying there. (All of which occupied the same timeframe as our F-14A)

There is real life precedence for this; prior to the mid-late 1980's the use of AIM-54s was reserved for the Fleet Defence mission, ergo any Tomcat going feet dry running OCA or covering the strikers in the majority of the Tomcat's Cold War career would have by doctrine been limited to Sparrows.

If anything the liberal use of the R-77 by the community is one of the issues... from my sources I understand that missile was essentially a pre-production model in very limited distribution throughout the '90s and really only see's more widespread appearance in the -1 variant that appears well after the millenium.

[captain_dalan]

On 1/2/2024 at 3:09 AM, Hobel said:

Basically this is possible on any dynamic PvP server, if you suppress another plane and friends can complete missions as a result, the job is done.

A friend and I recently flew out with the F18 and 20x Aim120s and only made 1 kill. The point is that even though the missles came in with very little energy because we fired them very far and early, which was intentional because even a slow missile scares a Hostile into giving up all of its altitude.

if you want you can play like this and it also has its uses

Now doesn't get me wrong, i have escorted strike packages on a view occasions, but as i said, the mission, or the game itself, doesn't really keep track of  this. There's no (if you want to call it that way) "Mission success popup" for the escort. Add to that the fact that most open MP missions aren't designed around it at all. It was fun escorting that F-18 guy for sure, but it's not like he really needed it. And most servers, especially PvP are just like @RustBelt said, quake. Almost a BVR extension of a dogfighting server. I can't help but wonder why do we even start cold on the ground? The opposite sides start less then 200 miles from each other, why bother with take off at all? Just to pretend you know how to start a plane? While i can understand the dogfight servers as a training tool (which let us be honest, they really aren't, as their starting locations, positions and loadouts, don't really reflect actual training scenarios), most open MP PVP servers aren't even that. Air superiority and any form of CAP doesn't exist under such conditions. It's just "quicky" free for all melee. 

[captain_dalan]

On 1/8/2024 at 3:56 PM, DD_Fenrir said:

There is real life precedence for this; prior to the mid-late 1980's the use of AIM-54s was reserved for the Fleet Defence mission, ergo any Tomcat going feet dry running OCA or covering the strikers in the majority of the Tomcat's Cold War career would have by doctrine been limited to Sparrows.

If anything the liberal use of the R-77 by the community is one of the issues... from my sources I understand that missile was essentially a pre-production model in very limited distribution throughout the '90s and really only see's more widespread appearance in the -1 variant that appears well after the millenium.

And often overstated and somewhat misleading precedence. Even back then, a flight would often consist of a pair in which one plane would carry a more fighter oriented loudout, i.e. Sparrows and Sidewinders, while the other plane would carry a pair of Phoenixes. And even if we decide to take "Save the Phoenix for the fleet defense" mantra, it's not like anyone flies realistic mission loads anyways. Cold war era or otherwise. The way i see it, the F-14 treatment in Cold War scenarios (open MP) is more of "keep it fair" mentality, as it always has been, then any attempt at historical accuracy. I just can't wait to see what excuses will be given when the Eurofighter comes around. They'll probably ban it from 90% of the servers out there....

[Hobel]

vor 51 Minuten schrieb captain_dalan:

Now doesn't get me wrong, i have escorted strike packages on a view occasions, but as i said, the mission, or the game itself, doesn't really keep track of  this. There's no (if you want to call it that way) "Mission success popup" for the escort. Add to that the fact that most open MP missions aren't designed around it at all. It was fun escorting that F-18 guy for sure, but it's not like he really needed it. And most servers, especially PvP are just like @RustBelt said, quake. Almost a BVR extension of a dogfighting server. I can't help but wonder why do we even start cold on the ground? The opposite sides start less then 200 miles from each other, why bother with take off at all? Just to pretend you know how to start a plane? While i can understand the dogfight servers as a training tool (which let us be honest, they really aren't, as their starting locations, positions and loadouts, don't really reflect actual training scenarios), most open MP PVP servers aren't even that. Air superiority and any form of CAP doesn't exist under such conditions. It's just "quicky" free for all melee. 

Which servers do you play on, on pvp servers like Blueflag where you only have a few lives for fighters it's 3or4, it's a different story

Edited January 14 by Hobel

[Exorcet]

59 minutes ago, captain_dalan said:

Air superiority and any form of CAP doesn't exist under such conditions. It's just "quicky" free for all melee. 

I've been out of online MP for a long time at this point, so feel free to tell me that things have changed, but as much as the label of air quake has been ever present, finding mission oriented online was never impossible.

DCS online in the majority of lobbies does stray from reality in that lone wolves are common and dogfights take precedence over winning the war, but at the same time I can remember quite few times finding people to actually cooperate with, both as a flight or as striker and escort. There is a demand for that kind of thing. Maybe it's not the majority of players, but they do exist. Or did. I think it's important to keep this in mind and allow for servers to enable this type of play, even if not everyone will care.

[Elf1606688794]

On 1/4/2024 at 6:08 PM, RustBelt said:

or Air Warrior grey hair

I wouldn't say that everyone played AirWarrior as if it was Quake, many did but many others did not. I used to terrorize the Big Pac arena and always tried to make it back safe from fighting the Borg Cubes. I didn't always succeed in my goal of landing but then, no one did.

 

-Elf-

[throAU]

On 12/17/2023 at 2:19 AM, The_Tau said:

I wouldnt expect much better PK to be honest, as missile performance wouldn't drastically change. Remember that AIM54/AWG9 weapons system was designed in 1960s and put operationally in 1970s, so yeah no wonder that missile from 2000 - AIM120C-5 is better. However for nearly 20 years of F14 until 1991 (when first 120As appeared), Tomcat was only fighter with true FOX3 capability. And F-14B we got is essentially from 1987, so in typical "modern" setting pvp fighting against F-18s/F-16s from 2005 with JHMCS/AIM-9X/LINK16  its no surprise that tomcat is "out teched". But if you had historical 1989-1990 settings with same F14 we got, with all its weaponry (minus BOL chaff expanders) fighting vs AIM-7 only F-15s/F-18s or AIM-9Ms only F-16s or R-27Rs 27s/29s, then everybody would fly F-14, isnt it?

 

As an aside - I suspect people may be disappointed with PK in DCS vs. reality in general because (for example) the Phoenix and anything else typically does pretty well against targets that do not manoeuvre.

The history of jet fighter missile combat is mostly USAF (or Israel using USAF spec or better aircraft - or in the case of f14, iran using USAF model) against export model or ancient models of Mig presumably with no or terrible RWR, no AWACS, minimal pilot training, minimal SA, etc.  This would have made detection a lot harder for many of the missile kills that have actually happened - most of the kills against foreign fighters may well have been against pilots who didn’t even detect the launch and react.

 

 

Edited January 15 by throAU

[-Cipher-]

as someone who studied and listened to various Iranian fighter pilot interviews I can tell that there is a misconception about level of skill of Iraqi Air Force.

Iraqis were very skilled and experienced pilots they had powerful radar networks including good GCI allowing them to fly deep within Iran.
they had plenty of good combat experience against Israel even more combat experience than Iranian pilots, based on interviews with former Iranian SIGNIT/ELINT officers of Iran, their GCIs somehow could get intel on presence of an F-14s in some instance which led to dozens of mission abort for Iraqi side.
it was very very common that lots of Iraq planes jettisoned their bombs as soon as locked by an F-14 (commonly mentioned, mentioned by Shahram Rostami as well)

they performed cooperative maneuvers to evade and destroy a considerable number of Iranian radar installations, which led to Iranian air defense units work together with the air force, The Operation Fath Ol Mobin proved cooperation of air defense and air offense can be game changer sometimes.

anyway back to the topic , Iraqis also had their own techniques of evading the F-14 and AWG-9 (as described by one of our former pilots whose name I forgot) i.e performing ZigZag which we call Cranking to the left and right but interesting part is, these maneuvers did not help them as they got close as below 20 nautical miles, missiles fired within that range had a really good PK and I don't remember reading somewhere they miss within that window, except Colonel Mazandarani's Phoenix was missed because he fired the phoenix at a fast and cold target despite it was within 15nm range and he almost got detained for that.

interesting part is they have done lots of these tactics using the old SPO-10 RWRs , they heavily relied on their GCI as EWRs however.
Iraqis also used ECM a lot, the most powerful Jammers used by Iraqi airforce were the ones used on their Mirage-F-1s, these jammers managed to disable many of our HAWK systems but due to the fact that the ground based radar installations were exposed to hot and humid weather, based on interviews and mentions in Tom Cooper's book ; the Iraqis used very advanced ECMs against AWG-9 but the it could easily counter the jam and do it's job without any issue.


I don't really like the way some people want to represent the phoenix as a slow fat brick only able to crash into straight flying big bombers. 
Phoenix is a very capable missile, and it is proven to be a very good and reliable weapon against agile fighters even in DCS with current state. 

regarding missile kinematic performance I have almost 0 data to verify how accurate it is performing vs real life but I believe the PK of DCS Phoenix will significantly improve once we get a much realistic or advanced missile API.

personally I manage to fire the phoenixes against AI above 30k feet and Mach 0.9 and I always get +90% PK, I also have a good PK with it down on the deck , if fired within NEZ I always score a kill (~7nm).


If you guys are interested in hearing first hand memories of our Iranian Tomcat pilots I highly suggest you to follow this youtube channel , it is in Persian but using a powerful AI service such as Gboard you can translate and use the details provided in this channel : 

Alireza Hamzei is a retired F-14 test and instructor pilot he has a youtube channel and he used to interview veteran pilots of Iran-Iraq War : https://www.youtube.com/@AlirezaHamzei/videos
the content or the details shared by our veterans are valid they are not propaganda bold claims because Iranian national airforce was always opposed by Islamic leadership, the leaders always treated as our airforce pilots with poor trust and always disregarded their credits, they gave all the credits to the IRGC and corrupt IRGC officers who were poorly trained with awful results in war, they always insulted and discredited by IRGC and religious figures so it was their own benefit to share the public non but honest reports to gain the true reputation they deserve.  

I'm so sorry for the long message but I hope it helps the community. 
Sincerely

Edited January 15 by -Cipher-

[cheezit]

21 hours ago, -Cipher- said:

as someone who studied and listened to various Iranian fighter pilot interviews I can tell that there is a misconception about level of skill of Iraqi Air Force.

Iraqis were very skilled and experienced pilots they had powerful radar networks including good GCI allowing them to fly deep within Iran.
they had plenty of good combat experience against Israel even more combat experience than Iranian pilots, based on interviews with former Iranian SIGNIT/ELINT officers of Iran, their GCIs somehow could get intel on presence of an F-14s in some instance which led to dozens of mission abort for Iraqi side.
it was very very common that lots of Iraq planes jettisoned their bombs as soon as locked by an F-14 (commonly mentioned, mentioned by Shahram Rostami as well)

they performed cooperative maneuvers to evade and destroy a considerable number of Iranian radar installations, which led to Iranian air defense units work together with the air force, The Operation Fath Ol Mobin proved cooperation of air defense and air offense can be game changer sometimes.

anyway back to the topic , Iraqis also had their own techniques of evading the F-14 and AWG-9 (as described by one of our former pilots whose name I forgot) i.e performing ZigZag which we call Cranking to the left and right but interesting part is, these maneuvers did not help them as they got close as below 20 nautical miles, missiles fired within that range had a really good PK and I don't remember reading somewhere they miss within that window, except Colonel Mazandarani's Phoenix was missed because he fired the phoenix at a fast and cold target despite it was within 15nm range and he almost got detained for that.

interesting part is they have done lots of these tactics using the old SPO-10 RWRs , they heavily relied on their GCI as EWRs however.
Iraqis also used ECM a lot, the most powerful Jammers used by Iraqi airforce were the ones used on their Mirage-F-1s, these jammers managed to disable many of our HAWK systems but due to the fact that the ground based radar installations were exposed to hot and humid weather, based on interviews and mentions in Tom Cooper's book ; the Iraqis used very advanced ECMs against AWG-9 but the it could easily counter the jam and do it's job without any issue.


I don't really like the way some people want to represent the phoenix as a slow fat brick only able to crash into straight flying big bombers. 
Phoenix is a very capable missile, and it is proven to be a very good and reliable weapon against agile fighters even in DCS with current state. 

regarding missile kinematic performance I have almost 0 data to verify how accurate it is performing vs real life but I believe the PK of DCS Phoenix will significantly improve once we get a much realistic or advanced missile API.

personally I manage to fire the phoenixes against AI above 30k feet and Mach 0.9 and I always get +90% PK, I also have a good PK with it down on the deck , if fired within NEZ I always score a kill (~7nm).


If you guys are interested in hearing first hand memories of our Iranian Tomcat pilots I highly suggest you to follow this youtube channel , it is in Persian but using a powerful AI service such as Gboard you can translate and use the details provided in this channel : 

Alireza Hamzei is a retired F-14 test and instructor pilot he has a youtube channel and he used to interview veteran pilots of Iran-Iraq War : https://www.youtube.com/@AlirezaHamzei/videos
the content or the details shared by our veterans are valid they are not propaganda bold claims because Iranian national airforce was always opposed by Islamic leadership, the leaders always treated as our airforce pilots with poor trust and always disregarded their credits, they gave all the credits to the IRGC and corrupt IRGC officers who were poorly trained with awful results in war, they always insulted and discredited by IRGC and religious figures so it was their own benefit to share the public non but honest reports to gain the true reputation they deserve.  

I'm so sorry for the long message but I hope it helps the community. 
Sincerely

 

Thanks for your contribution!

 

I would say that all kill claims and reports of exploits need to be scrutinized, whether they come from Iran, Israel, the USAF, USN, etc.  Circumstances matter and are non-trivial to account for, everybody honestly thinks they've destroyed more aircraft than they actually did at all times (even without taking purposeful overclaiming into account), aircraft are frequently misidentified, etc.

[Harlikwin]

10 minutes ago, cheezit said:

Thanks for your contribution!

 

I would say that all kill claims and reports of exploits need to be scrutinized, whether they come from Iran, Israel, the USAF, USN, etc.  Circumstances matter and are non-trivial to account for, everybody honestly thinks they've destroyed more aircraft than they actually did at all times (even without taking purposeful overclaiming into account), aircraft are frequently misidentified, etc.

Yeah, I think alot of the phoenix kills need context to go with it for the Iran Iraq war. The phoenix was a capable missile, but it was in fact designed for fleet defense first. It could be used against fighters as the Iranians repeatedly showed, but it was not exactly optimal. And the larger context there is the Iraqis didn't really have a good handle on the shortcomings of the missile or the AWG-9 like DCS players do at least initially. So they did well with the missile early on, and less well as the Iraqis learned how to deal with it. I'd say thats a pretty normal outcome of a protracted air war, the key word being protracted. 

In DCS MP, the good players know exactly how to deal with both the AWG-9 and the Phoenix so are relatively immune to it, which well, thats DCS. Meanwhile noobs will fly straight into a Phoenix fired at long range. I've seen plenty of both use cases in DCS MP. And its one of the unfortunate realities of DCS MP that people rapidly learn to min/max systems/missiles/etc. Its just what competitive gamers do. Like the whole DCS notching "meta" which IRL isn't really used because IRL you don't have perfect angular resolution on your RWR, and IRL modern radars have notch predictors. But in DCS its the gospel due it being the FC3 and even later radar models. 

[garrya]

Does anyone know how altitude difference ranging work?

[Machalot]

On 2/14/2024 at 6:44 PM, garrya said:

Does anyone know how altitude difference ranging work?

I don't know but I can try a guess. ADR seems to be available when the target is jamming. It may be a method to find an upper bound on the target's range by applying reasonable assumptions on its altitude.  Since you get an angle measurement from a jamming target, and you know your own altitude, you can form a triangle between yourself, the possible target range, and either of two altitude planes (the ground and, say, 50,000 ft, pick your upper value). With this triangle you can find the max possible range. 

That would be my guess. 

Edited February 19 by Machalot

[draconus]

On 2/18/2024 at 5:16 AM, Machalot said:

With this triangle you can find the max possible range. 

Another hint can be the angle rate - if it changes too fast for the distant target, it cannot be too far away even when going 2M.

[Sindar]

В 05.01.2024 в 03:08, RustBelt сказал:

There has and will ever be only ONE online PvP play mode. Quake. Doesn’t matter if it’s an RTS, an FPS, a Flight Sim, and it doesn’t matter what play rules you set up prior. Once play begins it’s just Quake. Been that way since before even Quake. Just ask any hard core Doom Grognard or Air Warrior grey hair.

Absolutely agree. In all game genres, there's a game that established the rules of that genre a long time ago. Forever. Everything that is developed after it is just another attempt to take money out of our pockets.

В 05.01.2024 в 10:02, draconus сказал:

What about close squad servers with planned missions and briefings?

Are you kidding me? It's 2024 on this planet. Maybe we should put the game back on CD and call it LockOn again. We'll be playing over LAN again in a college dorm "with planned missions and briefings".

ED is implementing MP mode, spending tons of time, money and resources to develop the server side. Are you suggesting to develop missions for 3-4 friends to play in the evening against bots?  If a multiplayer game hasn't reached the level of cybersport, it's just another paid garbage. If DSC reaches the level of cybersport at least in the mode of team competition in piloting, it will be a huge success of the project.

And I'll add on the topic of this section. I do not consider PvP mode, where a lot depends on the player's skill. But there are PvE servers with well-customized missions. There bots launch AIM-120 with 30-35 nm. at an altitude of 35-40 thousand feet. There is NO ONE flying the F-14 on those servers. Maximum 1-2 people in multicrew are practicing to take off and land on the aircraft carrier. Out of 20-30 players, NONE of them fly the F-14. AGAINST BOTS! The reason is simple: the AIM-54 long range missile is worse than the AIM-120 medium range missile in long range air combat. It's gotten worse at mid-range as well. I always vote for realism. That's the right thing to do. That's why we love DCS. But until I see this reality - servers where 8-10 players fly F-14, as it used to be, don't exist. That's a fact. It's a realistic attitude of players to realistic AIM-54 changes.

Don't make the AIM-54 a miracle weapon. Make sure that it fulfills its purpose, as in reality - strikes at 40-50 miles on several targets. Right now it can't even hit 15. Find a reason.

 

[draconus]

3 hours ago, Sindar said:

the AIM-54 long range missile is worse than the AIM-120 medium range missile in long range air combat. It's gotten worse at mid-range as well.

Yeah, like IRL, new missiles are better so they are used today instead of the older ones. What's your point? We don't really have any data that says Phoenix was very effective against well trained fighter pilots with perfect SA and RWRs. The biggest confusion, it seems, comes from the fact that in DCS it used to be OP before and you can't get to grips with the current state. I mean, what are you asking HB to do? The missile is in ED's hands now. So are the bots.

[The_Tau]

3 hours ago, Sindar said:

That's a fact. It's a realistic attitude of players to realistic AIM-54 changes.

Don't make the AIM-54 a miracle weapon. Make sure that it fulfills its purpose, as in reality - strikes at 40-50 miles on several targets. Right now it can't even hit 15. Find a reason.

 

AIM 54 was never designed to fight vs AIM120. If you want realistic setup you should fight MiG-21/-23s/-29As or at most Su-27 armed with R-27Rs (VERY rarely ERs) armed with 54C, and all Blue fighters in the same time have AIM-7s. Against those threats AIM54 is still very capable weapon, by simple fact its only one which is Fox 3. 

 

3 hours ago, Sindar said:

The reason is simple: the AIM-54 long range missile is worse than the AIM-120 medium range missile in long range air combat. 

Yep, it is worse, but are those players using at least 120B from 1994 or 120C-5 from 2000? Why would they stick to latter - always?

 

3 hours ago, Sindar said:

 

There bots launch AIM-120 with 30-35 nm. at an altitude of 35-40 thousand feet.

 

mmm excellent target for 54 if you are in correct launch parameters, and you can easily outrange them. But also dont forget that AI cheats in DCS. they see missile always at 10nm (for players in 8ish nm, quite big difference) and they know exactly when to dump chaff to get best chance of defeating missile with it. 

 

3 hours ago, Sindar said:

 If a multiplayer game hasn't reached the level of cybersport, it's just another paid garbage.

 

And in modern setting PvP and especially in cybersport, everyone is slinging 120C at each other, which frankly i find extremely boring now. 

[Sindar]

4 часа назад, draconus сказал:

Yeah, like IRL, new missiles are better so they are used today instead of the older ones. What's your point? We don't really have any data that says Phoenix was very effective against well trained fighter pilots with perfect SA and RWRs. The biggest confusion, it seems, comes from the fact that in DCS it used to be OP before and you can't get to grips with the current state. I mean, what are you asking HB to do? The missile is in ED's hands now. So are the bots.

 

 Is the reality in DCS different from the reality of Iran's war against Iraq? Are we discussing the reality of DCS or what? 
We don't have this real data on the use of AIM-120 against Su-27/30 or R-27R against F-15/16 either. However, in the reality of DCS no one questions their performance, effectiveness and tactics of use (all discussions are mostly on the interference immunity of their GSNs). Because in the game these missiles are of the same class. Medium range. And the tactics of application / defense is clear to everyone.
Earlier for AIM-54 was also clear - the only long-range missile. Defense tactics against it were very different from defense tactics against R-27R.
I didn't mention HB. What does that have to do with HB? ED also took over the development of the Mistral so what? Why do I need to know who and what they are developing?
I remember a discussion of several dozen pages when we were convinced that the missile settings matched the actual performance. And it took off vertically upwards and flew in the opposite direction from the target. And I remember who from the community fervently defended these "real settings". We've been over this. 
I don't vote for the tournament capabilities of the AIM-54 in PvP. A simple question from a simple DSC player with 15 years experience: what class does this missile belong to now after changing its energy settings. In the "reality" of DCS is it Long Range?  Medium? To provide "as in reality"?  Don't go on about pilot training, years of development, RWR, SA and "smart" bots. 

3 часа назад, The_Tau сказал:

Yep, it is worse, but are those players using at least 120B from 1994 or 120C-5 from 2000? Why would they stick to latter - always?

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm talking about the reality of DCS and the number of F-14s on PvE/PvP servers. 

 

Edited February 26 by Sindar

[Sindar]

3 часа назад, The_Tau сказал:

And in modern setting PvP and especially in cybersport, everyone is slinging 120C at each other, which frankly i find extremely boring now. 

I agree with you completely. It's all about pilot training and luck. The conditions are absolutely equal.

[draconus]

49 minutes ago, Sindar said:

I'm talking about the reality of DCS and the number of F-14s on PvE/PvP servers. 

But this is AIM-54 thread. Why do you care about number of F-14s on servers? Player figured it's easier to score with newer aircraft and weapons. They also have new toy modules like F-15E. Idk. I don't care. You like the Tomcat - you fly the Tomcat. If you find a bug - report. Easy as that.