Has anyone Tried the F14 online lately .

[KoN]

What are your thoughts if you have any . How do you feel about jester , Tracking air-targets .

Ive been flying this CAT all week online in buddy-spike 80s .

Ive had some wired stuff going on with jester, i hope there is an update coming very soon .

 

[Grater Tovakia]

Works just fine for me, sometimes you need to micro him a little (using scan at alt and range) but more often than not letting him do his thing works for me. 

[KoN]

Not really happy about Jester to be honest .

Locks on to friendlys without telling you its a Buddyspike you wait a few seconds nothing , then you engage then he decides to tell you its a friendly .

Too late mate missile gone . !!!!!

Looses locks with Phoenix near  pitbull .

He cant see targets right in front of us . Not sure what's going on with him maybe he's got the flu . lol .

Too many bugs for my liking .

Edited December 29, 2023 by KoN

[Noctrach]

I wouldn't consider them bugs.

A lot of the not-seeing-targets and losing lock aspects are just down to the AWG-9 (especially with a little online latency). It's an old radar that needs a lot of babysitting, which, unfortunately, Jester doesn't do at all.

As someone who primarily flies RIO seat, I can tell you that the AWG-9 becomes an entirely different beast when you manage your contacts. For instance, if you flag everything you're not launching on as "Do not attack", it stop trying to keep everything it sees in the scan volume, resulting in massively enhanced track stability. Jester has no ability to do this, or similar pro-active tasks.

Second part is that 60% of the AWG-9 magic happens in the DDD (pulse mode, blessed pulse mode...), which Jester nor pilot can access. So unfortunately, flying with Jester means you're flying at slightly less than half of the system's capability.

The only true gripe I have with Jester is how slow he is at doing the things he can actually do. From punching in frequencies to modulating the radar takes him a good couple precious seconds more than acceptable in the heat of a BVR engagement. Combined with the time spent navigating his somewhat clunky interface... well, I very much avoid going inside 20 miles as a solo Tomcat if I can at all avoid it. In the time it takes for me navigate the menu and for him to set an elevation, I could've done the math on the elevation angle, slewed the radar, locked the bandit and launched a missile.

As I take it, JESTER 2.0 is aimed to solve a good part of all this. However, it's also just the limitations of an "AI" in the backseat.

 

 

[bonesvf103]

I've been flying with Jester since he was born, notht in SP and MP.  Jester is fine with me but the only problem I have with him is all his responses are queued.  So if alot is going on, he has to go down the laundry list of triggered responses, so that means that bandit that was at your 10:00 is now on your six and he only NOW calling 10:00.  I've come to learn to not trust any of his clock code calls unless I am straight and level, and even then, only where this is not much air activity.

On the other hand he is dead accurate with the LANTIRN.  There have been times when he lost the LANTIRN track as the bomb was falling, but he corrected right away and got the track back and killed the target.

I haven't had him lock any friendlies before.  But when he did, did you see what HAFU symbol he had?  Was it unknown?  Maybe even friendly?  I wouldn't fire unless I knew for sure it was hostile, or that it was declared by AWACS.  Sometimes he hooks them maybe even locks them, but then realizes they are friendly and he changes HAFU on them and kills the lock.  He also never STT locks them unless I tell him to, which is fine and helps me make sure it's not a friendly.  So are you sure he's not just hooking the target?  Just because he hooks it doesn't mean it should be fired on, he may be checking it out. 

My only problem with his targeting abilities is when he has hooked a target but leaves the LatLong info up instead of the target info up.  I don't need to know what his coordinates are, I need to know his altitude, range, etc!  I also don't know if he is actively popping chaff.  I read that if he sees the missile he will, but a human would be popping anyway just in case, such as if there was a spike.  My only indication he is popping chaff is if I happen to hear them dispense but if there is alot going on, I may never hear it.

I can't say it is necessarily Jester when Phoenix locks are lost just before pitbull.  It may be him, but more often the enemy aircraft can spoof it (notch it, terrain mask it, etc), or it may be the missile itself which is notoriously buggy on and off.  I would say if you want to be sure, but AIM-54Cs on so that at least if the lock is broken, they will go pitbull on their own and give you a better chance of a hit.

Maybe Jester can't see targets in front of you because there are many other targets in the area?  He is programmed to optimize the scan volume to get as many targets in the scan as possible.  If one of these happens to be say below the optimal scan of the radar that has 90% of the other targets in it, then he won't "see" the on right in front.  Of course that is why it is better to fly with a human RIO or for you to jump in back real quick.  But that's more an AI limitation of a logical program than anything else.  I'd say, if you know the bandit is less than 15 miles away, you shouldn't have Jester do the targetting.  You have PAL mode which is goof to 15 nm and when closer say 5 nm or less, you have PLM and VSL Hi/Lo.  So try to use those when they are right in front of you.

v6,

boNes

 

[bonesvf103]

2 hours ago, Noctrach said:

I wouldn't consider them bugs.

A lot of the not-seeing-targets and losing lock aspects are just down to the AWG-9 (especially with a little online latency). It's an old radar that needs a lot of babysitting, which, unfortunately, Jester doesn't do at all.

As someone who primarily flies RIO seat, I can tell you that the AWG-9 becomes an entirely different beast when you manage your contacts. For instance, if you flag everything you're not launching on as "Do not attack", it stop trying to keep everything it sees in the scan volume, resulting in massively enhanced track stability. Jester has no ability to do this, or similar pro-active tasks.

Second part is that 60% of the AWG-9 magic happens in the DDD (pulse mode, blessed pulse mode...), which Jester nor pilot can access. So unfortunately, flying with Jester means you're flying at slightly less than half of the system's capability.

The only true gripe I have with Jester is how slow he is at doing the things he can actually do. From punching in frequencies to modulating the radar takes him a good couple precious seconds more than acceptable in the heat of a BVR engagement. Combined with the time spent navigating his somewhat clunky interface... well, I very much avoid going inside 20 miles as a solo Tomcat if I can at all avoid it. In the time it takes for me navigate the menu and for him to set an elevation, I could've done the math on the elevation angle, slewed the radar, locked the bandit and launched a missile.

As I take it, JESTER 2.0 is aimed to solve a good part of all this. However, it's also just the limitations of an "AI" in the backseat.

 

 

Ah ,yes, I forgot that the OP was talking about online.  Latency does effect things too.

I have been using Voice Attack with VAICOM Pro for a couple of years now and since I have I have never gone back to the Jester wheel if I could help it.  Things you say like punching a frequency, I just tell him what freq I want and I see him changing it in my radio freq display on the right panel within a second or 2.  If I see a datalink target 30 miles away at around angels 30 I justt tell Jester "Scan sector angles 30 for 30" and he sets the radar properly and I see the contact on the TID.  I can even put a map marker on the F10 map and tell him "Map marker 1 to fixed point" and he will immediately start entering the coordinate into the INS.  Then when he is done I tell him "Navigate fixed point" and he changes the steering for me without me having to go in back to do it.

Where he really shines for me (or she since I modded him to JEstHer haha), is with the LANTIRN.  As I mentioned above, that is great but if I were to eyeball a target area, designate it, and then tell him to look for SAMs or what have you, he finds a valid target way quicker than I can.  And after we hit it, he automatically starts looking for another target in the area and locks it right away if there is one.

So I have a love hate relationship with Jester, but it's mostly love.  Either way, Jester is the most advanced crewmember around, more than in any other sim (Oh, that's right,they don't have any in any other sim), and I think certainly more than George or Ivan or us having to jump in the back so much.

v6,

boNes

Edited December 18, 2023 by bonesvf103

[Noctrach]

20 minutes ago, bonesvf103 said:

I have been using Voice Attack with VAICOM Pro for a couple of years now and since I have I have never gone back to the Jester wheel if I could help it.  Things you say like punching a frequency, I just tell him what freq I want and I see him changing it in my radio freq display on the right panel within a second or 2.  If I see a datalink target 30 miles away at around angels 30 I justt tell Jester "Scan sector angles 30 for 30" and he sets the radar properly and I see the contact on the TID.  I can even put a map marker on the F10 map and tell him "Map marker 1 to fixed point" and he will immediately start entering the coordinate into the INS.  Then when he is done I tell him "Navigate fixed point" and he changes the steering for me without me having to go in back to do it.

I also use VoiceAttack to mitigate the menu, but you still need to pause a little between commands to get the software to parse it. As an example, just asking him to scan at altitude and change azimuth takes about 3 seconds worth of voice commands, then Jester takes 6-7 seconds to actually execute. On average, that is 10 seconds of your engagement time just spent pointing your radar at the right piece of sky. In this time the bandit has already closed another 2-5 miles, depending on geometry. Then you have to wait for AWG-9 to pick up the tracks (DDD will have had multiple hits already), then you have to wait for Jester to hook/lock them, then you have to wait for IFF. By now we've closed 8 miles and counting.

As a RIO (or single-seat pilot), I'd already be sending missiles. There's just no comparison. It's perfectly fine if you're just slinging Phoenixes at range and disengaging, but inside 25 miles, it's almost better to just rely on PAL. Whereas in multi-crew, this is where a good RIO really shines. By the time Pulse Search loses value, pilot should be visual for VSL.

I'm not saying it's impossible to fly with Jester, but it severely limits your employment envelope and feels pretty fiddly imo.

44 minutes ago, bonesvf103 said:

Where he really shines for me (or she since I modded him to JEstHer haha), is with the LANTIRN.  As I mentioned above, that is great but if I were to eyeball a target area, designate it, and then tell him to look for SAMs or what have you, he finds a valid target way quicker than I can.  And after we hit it, he automatically starts looking for another target in the area and locks it right away if there is one.

This one I'll definitely give him. He's way better at identifying ambiguous pixel blobs than I can ever dream to be.

49 minutes ago, bonesvf103 said:

So I have a love hate relationship with Jester, but it's mostly love.  Either way, Jester is the most advanced crewmember around, more than in any other sim (Oh, that's right,they don't have an in any other sim), and I think certainly more than George or Ivan or us having to jump in the back so much.

True and true, he's a blessing and a curse

[bonesvf103]

I've never had that problem with Jester taking that long to scan a piece of sky.  My voice command is pretty fast, takes less than a second, and he executes in way less than 6-7 seconds.  Even if that didn't work out, the 10 seconds of engagement time is pretty negligent on a whole when the targets are farther out than say 30 miles.

Closer than that, I am relying on Jester but I'm also maintaining SA with the AWACS so i don't need to wait on Jester's IFF or finding them per se as I have AWACS info to go by.  Without an AWACS, I go in the direction of the nails/spike and put the picture together to figure out where the bandit might be and find him on radar then.  Less than 15 miles away, I'm taking the radar completely with PAL then PLM/VSL.

Where I do need more work is in more efficiently deploying the DDD which is from what I understand, the game changer between everyone else's radar and mine.

v6,

boNes

[ustio]

Jester is always finicky to use. Although I jave to say, the WCS now hold its track when you fire a phoenix. Back then, the WCS would lose track the when you fired a phoenix only to appear seconds later 

[KoN]

Yes there is a lot going on down in the valley and yes stutters are happening online and clock ray is hit and miss with call outs . 

With the Phoenix it's A type so got to stay locked for a hit . 

Pitbull I think is 60s . By that time I'm already engaged by other targets in the area . I'm not sure that the Phoenix is actually tracking within 60 seconds . I need to look at Tacview again. 

Thank you for all your responses. 

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by KoN

[IronMike]

On 12/19/2023 at 1:07 AM, KoN said:

Yes there is a lot going on down in the valley and yes stutters are happening online and clock ray is hit and miss with call outs . 

With the Phoenix it's A type so got to stay locked for a hit . 

Pitbull I think is 60s . By that time I'm already engaged by other targets in the area . I'm not sure that the Phoenix is actually tracking within 60 seconds . I need to look at Tacview again. 

Thank you for all your responses. 

 

 

Pitbull is based on range, hence the time depends on the range you fired from.

[BubiHUN]

On 12/17/2023 at 10:35 PM, KoN said:

What are your thoughts if you have any . How do you feel about jester , Tracking air-targets .

Ive been flying this CAT all week online in buddy-spike 80s .

Ive had some wired stuff going on with jester, i hope there is an update coming very soon .

 

it was always unergonomic. No use flying it except some 1v1 dogifght rounds

[KoN]

17 hours ago, IronMike said:

Pitbull is based on range, hence the time depends on the range you fired from.

So the white number count down is time to pitbull ie the missile goes active on its own A type , type C . > ??

[IronMike]

3 minutes ago, KoN said:

So the white number count down is time to pitbull ie the missile goes active on its own A type , type C . > ??

It's the time to impact counter, from shot to impact. Pitbull is when the timer starts blinking, which in DCS due to how active missiles are modeled will be at 10nm range from the target.

[ustio]

6 hours ago, IronMike said:

It's the time to impact counter, from shot to impact. Pitbull is when the timer starts blinking, which in DCS due to how active missiles are modeled will be at 10nm range from the target.

Does the target size still effect pitbull distance?

[IronMike]

11 hours ago, ustio said:

Does the target size still effect pitbull distance?

Only in the A, not in the C.

The AI will however cheat, as they start defending the missile before it goes active, when set to small.

Additionally target size is a DCS-ism - irl it is different, as it would have to be set correctly to "where the missile is most likely to see the target itself", and if set wrongly could lead to the missile not going active on the target, missing it (as in not seeing it) etc. However this depth of seeker modelling is not present in DCS.

[Spurts]

On 12/21/2023 at 9:14 AM, IronMike said:

Only in the A, not in the C.

The AI will however cheat, as they start defending the missile before it goes active, when set to small.

Additionally target size is a DCS-ism - irl it is different, as it would have to be set correctly to "where the missile is most likely to see the target itself", and if set wrongly could lead to the missile not going active on the target, missing it (as in not seeing it) etc. However this depth of seeker modelling is not present in DCS.

Are you saying that IRL the Phoenix goes active at the same range no matter what and the switch tells it which range gate to look at for a return of the target?

[IronMike]

24 minutes ago, Spurts said:

Are you saying that IRL the Phoenix goes active at the same range no matter what and the switch tells it which range gate to look at for a return of the target?

Seeker head information is rather scarce, but in general it would go active, or if you will, start actively looking for its target at the predefined range, as appropriately selected for the target size. So for example, if you shoot at a fighter and have it set to large, it might not go active at all, because it would not be in the correct range from the target to pick it up, but also if set too small, it may not pick it up. The crew would have to judge which mode to use for the target at hand appropriately to increase its chances to go active. To my understanding this is even more involved, with different things to consider, but as mentioned, such seeker head modelling depth is not present in DCS.

What it definitely was not, is an "I decide when I want to surprise my target" mode, like some use it in DCS.

[unknown76]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb IronMike:

... So for example, if you shoot at a fighter and have it set to large, it might not go active at all, because it would not be in the correct range from the target to pick it up, but also if set too small, it may not pick it up. The crew would have to judge which mode to use for the target at hand appropriately to increase its chances to go active. ...

But how does the crew know, which kind of radar contact (small/medium/large) they have, if they don't recognize at which distance the contacts appear?

 

 

[RustBelt]

By knowing what they’re attacking, and the speed its moving.

Scrambled for Fleet Defense? If it’s fast its a missile, if it’s slow a bomber. 
On CAP, odds are good it’s a fighter sized target.

Context clues, and the briefed mission.

[IronMike]

On top of that TWS was not really used as an attack mode. RL is vastly different from DCS. First of all you have an entire flight section, your flight, AWACS and all kinds of integrated support, so the scenario "me alone against 6" is highly unlikely. Secondly, anyone ran from an F14 nail or spike, most of the time. The deterrent from the F14 was so high that just being there was usually enough, and lastly, PDSTT was a much more reliable mode to attack, with your wingmen sorting targets and the entire flight group backing you up, you would not need to launch a phoenix in TWS. Your opponent also cares much more about his life, and getting spiked/launched at would usually result in bugging out, which IRL is as good as shooting down.

And also also, the US would rather destroy an enemy's air force on the ground than in the air, so even during large scale conflicts like Desert Storm or Iraqui Freedom, etc, skirmishes in the air would be the rare exception, most of the enemy's air capability got destroyed nicely parked on their airfields, before even taking off.

Edited December 29, 2023 by IronMike

[KoN]

On 12/18/2023 at 2:15 PM, Noctrach said:

I wouldn't consider them bugs.

A lot of the not-seeing-targets and losing lock aspects are just down to the AWG-9 (especially with a little online latency). It's an old radar that needs a lot of babysitting, which, unfortunately, Jester doesn't do at all.

As someone who primarily flies RIO seat, I can tell you that the AWG-9 becomes an entirely different beast when you manage your contacts. For instance, if you flag everything you're not launching on as "Do not attack", it stop trying to keep everything it sees in the scan volume, resulting in massively enhanced track stability. Jester has no ability to do this, or similar pro-active tasks.

Second part is that 60% of the AWG-9 magic happens in the DDD (pulse mode, blessed pulse mode...), which Jester nor pilot can access. So unfortunately, flying with Jester means you're flying at slightly less than half of the system's capability.

The only true gripe I have with Jester is how slow he is at doing the things he can actually do. From punching in frequencies to modulating the radar takes him a good couple precious seconds more than acceptable in the heat of a BVR engagement. Combined with the time spent navigating his somewhat clunky interface... well, I very much avoid going inside 20 miles as a solo Tomcat if I can at all avoid it. In the time it takes for me navigate the menu and for him to set an elevation, I could've done the math on the elevation angle, slewed the radar, locked the bandit and launched a missile.

As I take it, JESTER 2.0 is aimed to solve a good part of all this. However, it's also just the limitations of an "AI" in the backseat.

 

 

I totally get what you're saying here, and agree if you have a good RIO with you, but I manly fly online servers. And was hoping jester would be up to the task, I just want simple lock and keep him locked, not unless gone deep into the mud and bracketing. But some targets are not even trying to loose jesters lock and he will loose it .

[The_Tau]

On 12/29/2023 at 3:59 PM, KoN said:

I totally get what you're saying here, and agree if you have a good RIO with you, but I manly fly online servers. And was hoping jester would be up to the task, I just want simple lock and keep him locked, not unless gone deep into the mud and bracketing. But some targets are not even trying to loose jesters lock and he will loose it .

do you have special option selected - "Allow Jester to switch to PSTT when entering WVR"? Disable it. When you are twisting and turning when he switches to PSTT then AWG9 will lose lock. Best to tell him to switch to PSTT when you fly straight and level for a second or relock target with PAL. Issue would be same with human RIO. 

Also you have to learn AWG9 limitations. Way you fly also impacts the quality of lock, PDSTT have 100 +- kt closure filter. So you closure drops below it, you will lose lock. To mitigate it you have to change your intercept geometry and increase speed to keep closure over that filter. Or switch to PSTT with the instructions mentioned above

Edited December 30, 2023 by The_Tau

[Spurts]

On 12/28/2023 at 10:35 AM, IronMike said:

Seeker head information is rather scarce, but in general it would go active, or if you will, start actively looking for its target at the predefined range, as appropriately selected for the target size. So for example, if you shoot at a fighter and have it set to large, it might not go active at all, because it would not be in the correct range from the target to pick it up, but also if set too small, it may not pick it up. The crew would have to judge which mode to use for the target at hand appropriately to increase its chances to go active. To my understanding this is even more involved, with different things to consider, but as mentioned, such seeker head modelling depth is not present in DCS.

What it definitely was not, is an "I decide when I want to surprise my target" mode, like some use it in DCS.

Thanks.  That cleared it right up for me.

[Tweety777]

Personnaly I do think Jester can use some work, but I still mainly fly the Tomcat, also often in MP. I must admit that since I switched to VR I started with practicing SP to addept my (limited) skills to VR, along with tweeking settings to get somewhat decent FPS but this is off-topic. 

 

When someone asks to be my RIO I usually accept though in my experience a RIO needs to have SRS (which I don't ATM, I reinstalled DCS and ever since it doesn't work anymore) otherwise the human RIO is pretty much useless to me. I also use Voice Attack for the most important features in the Jester Wheel and since I got the Hornet MFD from WinWing I bound some buttons to the 8 options on the Jester Wheel (ie CTRL+1 to CTRL+8) hoping to make things easier though I haven't gotten around testing this in combat yet because of the voice commands. 

 

My biggest problem with Jester ATM is IFF-ing targets. I found him calling bandits friends and vice versa. This is a bit harder for me in VR since checking the HAFU symbol works less reliable due to the resolution, though this has improved after reinstalling DCS. I started a topic here asking for a Jester Wheel option and perhaps even a key bind for having Jester IFF the target straight away since this can make the difference between life and death also in dogfights in MP.

 

I agree with the assesment that within say 20 miles taking over the radar with PAL works much more reliable then having Jester do the work. I also found that his Clock callouts are quite unreliable, if he is delayed that makes perfect sense as a reason for this. Maybe add a code that a new target makes him quite his sentence eevn halfway through to call out the target first and then continue his laundry list?

 

I remember a time where Jester would continuesly work the radar, switching modes and all, while a Phoenix is on it's way, this seems to have been resolved since. 

 

2 days ago I took the Cat to MP and got myself 2 kills before failing to see a Sidewinder coming my way getting myself killed, where the firing F16 was lucky not to get hit by my Sparrow. This includes 2 Phoenix kills from within 10 miles.