F-4E Air to Air Weapons/Capabilities Discussion

[Omega417]

After looking at the Wear and Tear aspects, I'm wondering if when we get a Vietnam Phantom the AIM-7s will behave like real life with inconsistent motors and seekers due to rough maintenance and other external factors.

[Kalasnkova74]

2 minutes ago, Omega417 said:

After looking at the Wear and Tear aspects, I'm wondering if when we get a Vietnam Phantom the AIM-7s will behave like real life with inconsistent motors and seekers due to rough maintenance and other external factors.

That’s a good question. Hopefully it’s not simulated with the missiles ; while that’s certainly a historically accurate aspect, I’m not sure most buyers of the F-4E module are aware. They’ll simply throw a fit & file a bug report when their AIM-7 shot doesn’t connect or the missile’s motor doesn’t fire. 
 

This dynamic is why I like the F-4E & VSN mod combination. Most players are used to the 4th Gen look and feel- even going from a Hornet to an F-4E will be a major transition. Going from a Hornet/Eagle/Fulcrum to a paid module early F-4B or F-4C is a bridge too far.   It’s a recipe for upset players once the flaws of early 60s tech are clear , yet the early Phantoms deserve inclusion in DCS too. The VSN mod solves this because at the end of the day, it’s hard to complain about a $0 investment 

[SgtPappy]

21 minutes ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

That’s a good question. Hopefully it’s not simulated with the missiles ; while that’s certainly a historically accurate aspect, I’m not sure most buyers of the F-4E module are aware. They’ll simply throw a fit & file a bug report when their AIM-7 shot doesn’t connect or the missile’s motor doesn’t fire. 
 

This dynamic is why I like the F-4E & VSN mod combination. Most players are used to the 4th Gen look and feel- even going from a Hornet to an F-4E will be a major transition. Going from a Hornet/Eagle/Fulcrum to a paid module early F-4B or F-4C is a bridge too far.   It’s a recipe for upset players once the flaws of early 60s tech are clear , yet the early Phantoms deserve inclusion in DCS too. The VSN mod solves this because at the end of the day, it’s hard to complain about a $0 investment 

HB said that the components that experience wear will be an option in-game.

[Bremspropeller]

Doesn't really fit anywhere in between the A-A and A-G threads, but:

Are we going to get the HPC (F-15 tank) and the original 600gal tank for the center-line, or just the HPC?

[Omega417]

1 hour ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

This dynamic is why I like the F-4E & VSN mod combination. Most players are used to the 4th Gen look and feel- even going from a Hornet to an F-4E will be a major transition. Going from a Hornet/Eagle/Fulcrum to a paid module early F-4B or F-4C is a bridge too far. 

I hope we get a bit more of that dynamic with the Naval Variant, I still cant decide if I'd rather have a B/N or J/S. I would argue that the -E is a good middle point in a transition from an F-18 to an early F-4B.

Dynamic campaigns would be awesome with the slow degradation of your jet, and potential issues with ordinance.

[Bremspropeller]

28 minutes ago, Omega417 said:

I hope we get a bit more of that dynamic with the Naval Variant, I still cant decide if I'd rather have a B/N or J/S. I would argue that the -E is a good middle point in a transition from an F-18 to an early F-4B.

Dynamic campaigns would be awesome with the slow degradation of your jet, and potential issues with ordinance.

Agree with everything you said, including the whole B/N or J/S dilemma. Except for the "your jet" part, though. There is no your jet. You fly with what's up and what you got. That includes aircraft with "down" radars for CAPs and escorts.

Certainly with the Navy and Marines. The Air Force might have had a better spare-ratio, better equipped shops and logistical support.

Now, if a dynamic campaign had that feature spread across the entire squadron, well, that would be really awesome!

Edited October 30, 2023 by Bremspropeller

[Omega417]

2 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

You fly with what's up and what you got. That includes aircraft with "down" radars for CAPs and escorts.

I mean, that's a challenge for campaign makers to figure out, and verges on the "too realistic" for a sim. I do understand your point. I would imagine that during an online campaign all jets are being flown regularly so they would all degrade at varying rates and it would start to become more of a chore to inform the next guy that you have a sticky rudder vs just flying your assigned jet. Starts to remind me of the "Phantom Leader" board game, but with airframe degradation instead of pilot degradation.

[Bremspropeller]

I think you could  introduce a squadron MX-board inside the dynamic campaign feature with "UP" and "DOWN" aircraft and with squawk-sheets attached to all aircraft, so you can see the individual writeups. I think this should be doable if the backend in the DCS framework is there. Certainly not an early access feature, but maybe a feature down the road.

Imagine you'd be so deeply into dynamic campaigning that "69-7221" couldn't get it's engine-change performed last night because the transport with the new motor was stuck in Tan Son Nhut. Damned monsoon...

It's alright, I get carried away sometimes

[Omega417]

That kind of realism would keep the campaigns interesting past the first month, when all the red air is toast, and most of the SAM sites are missing radars. But I would be extremely frustrated if the 2 times i get to log in per week to do my flight and my jet is INOP for the mission. Unfortunately real life takes precedence over DCS.

[Bremspropeller]

Then there'd be two options: Get somebody else's jet (which you'd fly 98% of the time anyway) or skip to the next mission.

What would really blow, though, is when the jet you're in decides it hasn't had enough aborts lately just before you're going in country. But that could happen with a normal randomized wear and tear as well. So maybe there'd be a "no mission aborts" option.

 

I think a campaign system like this is viable, if it's done well enough. We'll see how the wear and tear system is going to progress

[Omega417]

Agreed.

The only part id be unhappy with is if it happened on the one night i get to play DCS.

[Kalasnkova74]

I agree that a “degradation” model -implemented well, among understanding participants- could make an interesting campaign. Suddenly MiG-21s and F-5s are a valuable part of the arsenal- because the more complex stuff like MiG-23s (eventually) and F-4Es are all in the shop or NMC. 
 

Tie in each sides “up” aircraft to player actions like airlift missions flown, and you’d be cooking with grease. 

[Gunfreak]

Just make it all optional.

Some want to spend 2 hours briefing, flying everything correctly. Fly 2 hours with 3 refuels. Only to have a hung bomb. Fly back try and get the bomb off at the designated live ordnance field and land.

6 hours of hardcore milsim well spent.

Others don't want that. And so it should be all optional.

[Omega417]

26 minutes ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

Tie in each sides “up” aircraft to player actions like airlift missions flown, and you’d be cooking with grease. 

I would gladly fly some C-130 resupply missions in idle time if it meant I could carry more/better ordinance with a better maintained jet.

[Harlikwin]

On 10/30/2023 at 8:08 AM, Omega417 said:

After looking at the Wear and Tear aspects, I'm wondering if when we get a Vietnam Phantom the AIM-7s will behave like real life with inconsistent motors and seekers due to rough maintenance and other external factors.

Honestly the best way to deal with this for ED is to include a "reliability" setting for each missile. And have mission designers/players/server owners set it how they like. And then you can have like a few failure modes, motor, seeker etc. I see 9B's with 100% reliability in MP servers and I shake my head. 

On 10/30/2023 at 10:17 AM, Omega417 said:

I mean, that's a challenge for campaign makers to figure out, and verges on the "too realistic" for a sim. I do understand your point. I would imagine that during an online campaign all jets are being flown regularly so they would all degrade at varying rates and it would start to become more of a chore to inform the next guy that you have a sticky rudder vs just flying your assigned jet. Starts to remind me of the "Phantom Leader" board game, but with airframe degradation instead of pilot degradation.

I also think ED should allow mission makers to disable systems on jets, this would be useful for alot of things to simulate maintenece etc, or to simulate "older jets" i.e. disable HMCS. But it should be enforceable server side.

My perspective here is 100% from what the MP community has been wanting for a long time. 

Edited November 2, 2023 by Harlikwin

[Northstar98]

On 10/30/2023 at 5:18 PM, Gunfreak said:

Just make it all optional.

Some want to spend 2 hours briefing, flying everything correctly. Fly 2 hours with 3 refuels. Only to have a hung bomb. Fly back try and get the bomb off at the designated live ordnance field and land.

6 hours of hardcore milsim well spent.

Others don't want that. And so it should be all optional.

Absolutely.

System failures are already optional and can be user-configured, the same should be true here.

Even ignoring any realism argument, being able to turn off failures is incredibly useful for testing. If you're trying to investigate say, 'x' weapon's kinematics, it's going to be substantially more of a pain if there's some random probability of it just outright failing in the mission. Even more of a pain is if something didn't fail in the mission, but does when replayed in a track.

[Ninjaviper]

Do we have or do we get the high visibility aim7e? The white one.

If Im correct we only have the grey version in the game.

[Stackup]

42 minutes ago, Ninjaviper said:

If Im correct we only have the grey version in the game.

Well, currently the E we have in game was recently renamed as the AIM-7E2 which we should be getting for the Phantom.  However, it is still using the AIM-7F/M/P external model and does not look how it is supposed to in more ways than just being gray instead of white.  Heatblur has confirmed they have redone the external model but has not released any screenshots of it.

[Ninjaviper]

59 minutes ago, Stackup said:

Well, currently the E we have in game was recently renamed as the AIM-7E2 which we should be getting for the Phantom.  However, it is still using the AIM-7F/M/P external model and does not look how it is supposed to in more ways than just being gray instead of white.  Heatblur has confirmed they have redone the external model but has not released any screenshots of it.

Thanks!

[Northstar98]

1 hour ago, Stackup said:

Well, currently the E we have in game was recently renamed as the AIM-7E2 which we should be getting for the Phantom.  However, it is still using the AIM-7F/M/P external model and does not look how it is supposed to in more ways than just being gray instead of white.  Heatblur has confirmed they have redone the external model but has not released any screenshots of it.

You can get a glimpse of it in the pre-order trailer - there appears to be a long-nosed one and a short-nosed one.

[Harlikwin]

On 11/3/2023 at 6:23 AM, Northstar98 said:

Absolutely.

System failures are already optional and can be user-configured, the same should be true here.

Even ignoring any realism argument, being able to turn off failures is incredibly useful for testing. If you're trying to investigate say, 'x' weapon's kinematics, it's going to be substantially more of a pain if there's some random probability of it just outright failing in the mission. Even more of a pain is if something didn't fail in the mission, but does when replayed in a track.

I agree. 

But it needs to get fleshed out more, at least for MP server owners. While you can damage systems now (or at least some of them), "clever" MP players can easily circumvent this. An easy solution would be an option to enforce the damage, i.e. you can't repair it. This would allow for less cheating, and more flexibility when trying to shoehorn certain planes into certain earlier eras in MP.