F-4E Phantom Development Report - DCS Newsletter 31/03/2023

[Silver_Dragon]

7 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

Yeah I'd rather fly the F4E with no gun ammo pretending to be an D or C then fly thr VSN one.

You don't go back to microwave hot pocket after eating a steak. And that's not on VSN, they do as well as they can being outside of the DCS partnership with what resources they have. I would actually love for them to go full 3rd party and do the f104 or f105 as a full fidelity 3rd party modual. 

Having to learn a system, such as programming and using ED DCS World's SDL development tools from scratch will take a few years, if you don't have the help of another 3rd party like True Grit with Heatblur. This is not getting in and starting to develop. The problem for those coming from other companies here as new 3rd parties, they have to forget "everything", including how to 3d model, animation, damage, systems, weapons and a long etc, and let's remember that VSN and others in that "other" companies don't simulate systems and weaponry, it was already proved with a certain "Super Hornet" (there is already a post in the forum talking about that sistuation).

[Kalasnkova74]

5 hours ago, Schmidtfire said:

HB does feature the only DCS F-4 Phantom II module.

Not to take anything away from VSN, they have done a good job. But there is a vast difference between a mod and a module.

Even the best of mods (like A-4) is not really comparable to a commercial product with full SDK and access to the ED team. It sort of looks like the real deal, but isn’t. Also, running mods risk messing up DCS World on different levels, so it’s not for everyone.

Would you prefer no early Phantom II variant at all? Because that’s the realistic alternative. Not only were the early variants not exported to many countries (just Iran & Spain), but it’s much more temperamental to fly and the missiles are far harder to effectively employ.
 

I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, but if you’re a studio looking to make a profit on  time & development investment the first variants don’t have a business case. It’ll be years before HB makes a full Naval variant module, since in detail it’s a very different Phantom to the Air Force variants (and they’d be remiss to leave out the UK carrier based variants, adding Dev time). So the choice will be VSN or nothing for the foreseeable future if you’re a Naval Phantom fan. 

[Schmidtfire]

1 hour ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

Would you prefer no early Phantom II variant at all? Because that’s the realistic alternative. Not only were the early variants not exported to many countries (just Iran & Spain), but it’s much more temperamental to fly and the missiles are far harder to effectively employ.
 

I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, but if you’re a studio looking to make a profit on  time & development investment the first variants don’t have a business case. It’ll be years before HB makes a full Naval variant module, since in detail it’s a very different Phantom to the Air Force variants (and they’d be remiss to leave out the UK carrier based variants, adding Dev time). So the choice will be VSN or nothing for the foreseeable future if you’re a Naval Phantom fan. 

Personal preference, but I would not choose a mod over a full fidelity module. Even if it lacks the carrier ops.

I also understand that some players are fine with lower fidelity as long as they can fly their favourite aircraft. Just look at the F-22 mod!
There is probably not one bolt in the correct place in that thing, but many players love it anyways. The don't care if it's 20% of the real deal.

That is ok, but it's not for me. Fidelity is what got me into DCS in the first place. Also, having dealt a bit with mods (even created some) I have noticed that
it's likely to mess with your DCS World install in some way. There is no right or wrong here. But mods and modules are two very different things. 

[juvat22]

After having a detailed look at HB cockpit footage, I‘m wondering why there‘s no discussion about the modeled version. IMHO it‘s not an ‚E‘ but a ‚G‘…

[Oesau]

Heatblur: the upcoming field of Heatblur modules will span eras and types!!!

[Raisuli]

22 minutes ago, Oesau said:

Heatblur: the upcoming field of Heatblur modules will span eras and types!!!

I can't get to instagram to look at the link, but if the module spans eras and types that would dovetail nicely with Iron Mike's comment that there was a delay so they let a little feature creep into the project.  After all, no good deed goes unpunished...

[juvat22]

training for the ‚e‘ with the original manual and then it‘s a ‚g‘ feels like…. now try to get a ‚g‘ flight man 1993…

[G.J.S]

1 hour ago, juvat22 said:

After having a detailed look at HB cockpit footage, I‘m wondering why there‘s no discussion about the modeled version. IMHO it‘s not an ‚E‘ but a ‚G‘…

Which footage are you referring?

[Oesau]

1 hour ago, Raisuli said:

I can't get to instagram to look at the link, but if the module spans eras and types that would dovetail nicely with Iron Mike's comment that there was a delay so they let a little feature creep into the project.  After all, no good deed goes unpunished...

The title is a little misleading at first sight - what it is referring to (and if you could see the fancy video it would make sense) - it refers to the eras of HB jets e.g. Phantom, Viggen, Tomcat and Eurofighter not different eras of Phantoms (sorry)

 

[Raisuli]

18 minutes ago, Oesau said:

The title is a little misleading at first sight - what it is referring to (and if you could see the fancy video it would make sense) - it refers to the eras of HB jets e.g. Phantom, Viggen, Tomcat and Eurofighter not different eras of Phantoms (sorry)

 

Drat.  Now we're back to the whole SkyNet conspiracy theory, which might be more fun to joke about but it doesn't fly very well. 

Aren't the Viggen and Phantom pretty much the same era, though?  Viggen is only 9 years younger than the Phantom, produced about that much longer according to my five second on-line search done in lieu of being an actual expert.  The Phantom was a bit more ubiquitous which is why it's still flying, but the Strolling Bones (Rolling Stones) are still playing so age must not be everything...

Sorry if I'm asking dumb questions; I'm a bit of an aviation nerd, but not obsessive about it... 

 

[juvat22]

7 hours ago, G.J.S said:

Which footage are you referring?

https://m.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100056384396101&name=xhp_nt__fb__action__open_user

[Stackup]

6 minutes ago, juvat22 said:

https://m.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100056384396101&name=xhp_nt__fb__action__open_user

In what way is that a G and not the E we are getting?  We've only seen the front seat, which I would think would be similar between the two anyways with most of the differences being in the rear cockpit.

[G.J.S]

6 hours ago, Stackup said:

In what way is that a G and not the E we are getting?  We've only seen the front seat, which I would think would be similar between the two anyways with most of the differences being in the rear cockpit.

Indeed. Not a part of Facebook (thank god), so cannot view it.

As Stackup alludes to, the front pit is basically the same, it’s just the rear pit where the sex change took place. 

[juvat22]

7 hours ago, Stackup said:

In what way is that a G and not the E we are getting?  We've only seen the front seat, which I would think would be similar between the two anyways with most of the differences being in the rear cockpit.

To say it short: Every Model A - early G has the generator panel on the right side below the master caution panel. that´s not true for the pictures one can see on heatblur´s facebook-site. there´s a very good cockpit-tour-video on youtube of a f-4g wild weasel, it´s almost exactly the same as on HB´s pictures. also the reference system selector, on the g-model it´s located left of the adi. it might be possible that there is a late Flight manual of an F-4E with those changes depictured, but i´m not sure... i only know TO 1F-4E-1 FEB/1979

[Gomez Adams]

14 hours ago, Raisuli said:

Viggen is only 9 years younger than the Phantom

It's actually 12 years, not 9. You're counting first flight only, not development and production.

The Phantom's first flight was in 1958, but was being engineered with the latest technologies of 1952-1955. It also went into production that very same year.

The Vigen on the other hand had its first flight in 1967 having been engineered with technology from the 60's, far beyond that of the Phantom, but it didn't go into actual production until 1970 and got some pretty big technological advances due to that as well, so stock vs stock, the Viggen had a big advantage over the Phantom, over a decade's worth.

Just take a look at how far video cards, RAM and processors have come in the last 10 years. Can you imagine trying to run this game wide open on a 10 year old computer?

[Raisuli]

46 minutes ago, Gomez Adams said:

Just take a look at how far video cards, RAM and processors have come in the last 10 years. Can you imagine trying to run this game wide open on a 10 year old computer?

I started working with real computers on a PDP-10, so...yeah.

So that makes the Vigen and the Tomcat reasonably close; F-14 went into production in '69 (remember some guy walking on the moon that July) and introduced in '74, when the last Skylab module was launched.  Yes, my search-fu is still working.  Ish.

[MAXsenna]

2 hours ago, Gomez Adams said:

Can you imagine trying to run this game wide open on a 10 year old computer?

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "wide open", but my computer is actually 10 years old, and handles DCS fine except for the highest graphic settings, and MSAAx4 kills it obviously.

[Cobra847]

DCS: F-4E is, as the name implies, an -E.

Our -E is modeled mostly after a specific block and set of T.O., however in general, specimens did change slightly here and there. E.g. our cockpit includes the AVTR recorder, which was a later addition to the cockpit across the fleet. 

[Ramstein]

1 hour ago, MAXsenna said:

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "wide open", but my computer is actually 10 years old, and handles DCS fine except for the highest graphic settings, and MSAAx4 kills it obviously.

I can't run msaa 4x, I could single player and dumbed down settings and definitely my vr would be unplayable

the E model is ancient it was old by the time the F-16 came out...

[Kalasnkova74]

On 8/16/2023 at 12:51 PM, Schmidtfire said:

Personal preference, but I would not choose a mod over a full fidelity module. Even if it lacks the carrier ops.

I also understand that some players are fine with lower fidelity as long as they can fly their favourite aircraft. Just look at the F-22 mod!
There is probably not one bolt in the correct place in that thing, but many players love it anyways. The don't care if it's 20% of the real deal.

That is ok, but it's not for me. Fidelity is what got me into DCS in the first place. Also, having dealt a bit with mods (even created some) I have noticed that
it's likely to mess with your DCS World install in some way. There is no right or wrong here. But mods and modules are two very different things. 

For reasons you’ve stated and others, it’s not up for debate whether a module is superior to a mod.
 

Rather, the current choice for fans of early model & carrier based F-4 Phantom IIs are the VSN mod or nothing. It will be years before HB releases a US Navy Phantom II module. Would people here really prefer no option at all over a standalone mod, warts and all? 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Kalasnkova74

[Biggus]

4 hours ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

For reasons you’ve stated and others, it’s not up for debate whether a module is superior to a mod.
 

Rather, the current choice for fans of early model & carrier based F-4 Phantom IIs are the VSN mod or nothing. It will be years before HB releases a US Navy Phantom II module. Would people here really prefer no option at all over a standalone mod, warts and all? 

 

If it generates risk for the developer in terms of whether to continue development of the module, then I would not only prefer to not have the mod, I would be actively resentful of the maker.

"Years" isn't a concern.  Everything in DCS takes years.

[RedeyeStorm]

2 hours ago, Biggus said:

If it generates risk for the developer in terms of whether to continue development of the module, then I would not only prefer to not have the mod, I would be actively resentful of the maker.

"Years" isn't a concern.  Everything in DCS takes years.

That kinda depends on your own age!

[Gomez Adams]

21 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

handles DCS fine except for the highest graphic settings

And that is not wide open, which means maximum settings on everything. I didn't figure I'd have to actually spell that out.

[SgtPappy]

12 hours ago, Biggus said:

If it generates risk for the developer in terms of whether to continue development of the module, then I would not only prefer to not have the mod, I would be actively resentful of the maker.

"Years" isn't a concern.  Everything in DCS takes years.

Maybe I have a dumb question, but would a fan mod actually be a problem if an official dev wanted to make a module? I would think since its just an unofficial thing (anyone can technically make anything), as long as its not official, then an 3rd party dev or ED aren't obligated to bat an eye unless the mod is actually official dev quality which hasn't been a concern.

[Biggus]

12 hours ago, SgtPappy said:

Maybe I have a dumb question, but would a fan mod actually be a problem if an official dev wanted to make a module? I would think since its just an unofficial thing (anyone can technically make anything), as long as its not official, then an 3rd party dev or ED aren't obligated to bat an eye unless the mod is actually official dev quality which hasn't been a concern.

I'd like to think that it wouldn't be a factor.  But at the same time I'm not expecting to see an official A-4 module any time soon, because the mod is such an incredible piece of software.