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F-14 Refueling Probe Light


Bones308th

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Guys, thank you for all the hard work in making this module awesome! I was hoping to conduct some dark night, no Moon AAR tonight, but have found the probe light to still useless. Is been like that since the module was released. Yes, it is brighter as listed on the latest change log, but it lights up the basket when you are within two feet of it. Is this something that’ll be fix sometime? I doubt it was that bad in the airplane. Any thoughts? Thanks. 

Ray

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I wonder if it's a case of something getting lost between what HB worked on and what was actually submitted to ED for the patch, because I don't see any change to the probe light at all.

 

It's been happening a lot lately. The fuel dump bug occurred, HB said they fixed it, but it got overlooked somehow on the next patch and we had to live with it for another cycle. Same thing with the busted wheel chocks too, IIRC.

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It's a limitation of the light currently, as in you cannot just turn it up indefinitely. We need to change how it works, and will do so. Hence this was the maximum increase we could deliver for now. We agree, it needs to deliver more to be really useful.

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Copy MIke. Thanks for the reply man. Yeah, I would say that feature will make the Tomcat complete for dark night, no Moon, precision strike missions. I currently have to put a fool Moon to see the basket with 2.2 set for gama. Take care and thanks again to HB for working on this stuff. 

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1 hour ago, IronMike said:

It's a limitation of the light currently, as in you cannot just turn it up indefinitely. We need to change how it works, and will do so. Hence this was the maximum increase we could deliver for now. We agree, it needs to deliver more to be really useful.

Are you positive the implementation made it to the patch though, and wasn't accidentally left out on the cutting room floor similar to other recent Tomcat fixes? It might be worth confirming, IDK.

I don't see one photon of light hitting this basket.

image.png

image.png

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100% sure, I see the difference on my end, and we tested it and confirmed with testers, it was in several weeks before the upload already. Difficult to say why you in particular see no gain at all, though at the same time, if you saw a gain, it would be very little indeed.

PS: it is also the cone of the light, which is in parts why just turning it up doesn work. in your screenshots the light is below the basket, which I think is why you dont see anything there in particular. try moving up a tad.


Edited by IronMike

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4 hours ago, IronMike said:

100% sure, I see the difference on my end, and we tested it and confirmed with testers, it was in several weeks before the upload already. Difficult to say why you in particular see no gain at all, though at the same time, if you saw a gain, it would be very little indeed.

PS: it is also the cone of the light, which is in parts why just turning it up doesn work. in your screenshots the light is below the basket, which I think is why you dont see anything there in particular. try moving up a tad.

 

It's not just me in particular, so far nobody had been able to show a picture of the improved light. I will try repositioning.

Are you able to show us a screenshot of what it looks like on your end?

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4 hours ago, Callsign JoNay said:

It's not just me in particular, so far nobody had been able to show a picture of the improved light. I will try repositioning.

Are you able to show us a screenshot of what it looks like on your end?

Sorry don't have one atm.

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I compared it to this video : 

And it seems like the direction of the light may be wrong ?

nullHere's one screenshot from the video:

Capture.JPG

The light seems to reflect on the probe and the basket even when the probe is on its left. That isn't the case in DCS, even when closer.

Capture2.JPG

The light seems to reflect on the basket only when the probe is higher than the basket and on its right.

capture3.JPG

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1 minute ago, Callsign JoNay said:

Agreed. The issue seems to be the direction the light is pointing more so than the strength of the light.

@IronMikeDoes anyone from the HB team have a picture of the light working as intended? 

Unfortunately no, but this is precisely what I meant that just increasing its strength does not fix the issue. We need to change more about the light to make it work as intended. Which we will. 🙂

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3 minutes ago, IronMike said:

Unfortunately no, but this is precisely what I meant that just increasing its strength does not fix the issue.

I get that, but it was also mentioned in the patch notes that the light direction was corrected, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

Screenshot_20230312_094624_Chrome.jpg

Anyway, I'll drop it for now, and wait for future improvements. Thanks for the replies.

 

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1 minute ago, Callsign JoNay said:

I get that, but it was also mentioned in the patch notes that the light direction was corrected, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

Screenshot_20230312_094624_Chrome.jpg

Anyway, I'll drop it for now, and wait for future improvements. Thanks for the replies.

 

Yes, it was, but not enough. We need to change more, as we basically ran into its limits, if you like, or if that explains it better. We just ran out of time for this patch to keep pushing the matter, everything from here on out, is much more involved unfortunately and requires a great effort to get it right, hence I'd kindly like to ask you for your patience. Suffice to say, we feel the same as you guys do about the probe light. 🙂

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  • 2 months later...

Correct, night vision is always an option but since IRIAF pilots did not have such equipment during the Iran/Iraq war and managed to refuel using the probe light only, I like to stick to real life and experience what they went through. It's more satisfying to me. 

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2 hours ago, Shahriar0 said:

Correct, night vision is always an option but since IRIAF pilots did not have such equipment during the Iran/Iraq war and managed to refuel using the probe light only, I like to stick to real life and experience what they went through. It's more satisfying to me. 

Not to mention real USN Tomcat pilots prior to 1995 or so!

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"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 6/13/2023 at 8:01 AM, Shahriar0 said:

Correct, night vision is always an option but since IRIAF pilots did not have such equipment during the Iran/Iraq war and managed to refuel using the probe light only, I like to stick to real life and experience what they went through. It's more satisfying to me. 

DCS isn’t real life. The rendering system doesn’t work like the human eye. You have to make functional compromises due to that. 

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I guess you perhaps wish to rewrite a rendering system that behaves exactly like a human eye, and or a display system that can produce an un-attenuated light field that would provide the eye with the exact same input as if it was looking at the real scene.

 

otherwise, i mean, using the NVG is a reasonable workaround. Even adjusting the light cone aim isn’t fully solving the problem due to how rendering manages dynamic range. 
 

Especially at night, vision is super weird and hard to duplicate with computer game rendering techniques. 

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5 minutes ago, RustBelt said:

vision is super weird and hard to duplicate with computer game rendering techniques

Not a reason to stop trying and improving it. HB and ED will deliver:

 

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If we waited for everything ED and HB needed to improve. We’d never actually fly. 
 

Until someone invents a Holodeck, even Level D sims have work arounds or usually more often operating limitations to make up for equipment fidelity limits.

Even the current market of VR goggles can’t manage realistic night until they finally put proper UHDR OLED displays in them, not bleedy grey for black backlit LCDs. 
 

Or again, my crazy crackpot pet theory that we need to give up on projection rendering and get working on direct light field pipelines. Let the eye do the eye’s job. Not a rendering algorithm. 

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Regarding the comment "DCS isn't real life", it's correct but it is darn close! My vision in VR suffers from the same exact errors in judgement as it does in real life when flying at night, and that is judging distance and speed. I often approach the basket faster at night as I do in daylight using the same muscle memory I have developed for managing throttle and stick.  So I am currently very happy with what DCS is providing us. All is missing is proper aiming of the light cone by the F-14 probe.


Edited by Shahriar0
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