Exploring Heatblur's New F-4E Phantom II Simulation Platform: A Technical Report

[average_pilot]

18 minutes ago, Super Grover said:

It's "smart" , so it should only happen when a state change needs to be synchronized.

So the wave function of each component propagates through the network in a deterministic way and eventually an interaction happens and the wave function collapse. Hmmmmm, smart indeed.

[Super Grover]

6 minutes ago, average_pilot said:

So the wave function of each component propagates through the network in a deterministic way and eventually an interaction happens and the wave function collapse. Hmmmmm, smart indeed.

It's better than that. We have @Cat107. We ship him in a box, and when we open the box on the other end, we know cat's state. Or something similar.

Edited May 22, 2024 by Super Grover

[mondo]

How did you build your unit tests for this? Or did you go another route? 

Is this something that can be used on your existing aircraft? 

[dali]

I'll take a wild guess here, but bet my money they use robotic testing on daily basis, as the complexity of interactions probably prohibits manual testing. 

[SmirkingGerbil]

Fantastic! I could barely follow, but count myself lucky to be the recipient of such dedication and knowledge. Such a gorgeous model. Well done, and to the team also.

[Jarlerus]

I hope many other devs find your SDK useful and start using it!
I love this initiative!

[Slippa]

Amazing ingenuity. ‘Well done’ doesn’t really do it credit.

I’ve held off for now but you’ll have my money soon enough, I can feel it in my waters . It does look pretty good, amazing work.

[RaisedByWolves]

[Gunjam]

Very impressive read. Thank you for that. The F-4E already is fantastic, and I am looking forward to multi-thread and further improvements being implemented.
It's is generous of you to share your advancement through SDK, and very good news for the simulator community.

Bravo!

[Johnny Dioxin]

You've done an excellent job, no doubt.

Unfortunately for me, despite having been eagerly awaiting this release, it has just made me realise what I had been fearing for some time now - that I'm just not up to flying these new modules in combat any more. I don't even know if I'll be flying it at all, yet. I supposed age gets to us all - some earlier than others and dependent on other conditions. I started realising when I was reading the pre-release manual.

In all honesty, I've been struggling for a long time and often feel disconnected even in aircraft I've flown in the sim for over 10 years, with a decent guide on my kneeboard. Start-ups usually go fairly easily - but the deeper the simulation of other systems, the more I start to struggle. This is why I'm still only doing basic stuff in the F-16 and -18 and have totally given up on the Harrier and probably the Mirage 2k as well. That's another reason I was looking forward to FC4, but as it just adds modules I already own, it's a bit pointless for me.

Still, you never know - if I get my head around start-up and navigation (not really looked properly at either just yet, in-sim) I could still do plenty of sight seeing in it, and I do like my navigation exercises.

 

btw just to be clear I did fly these missions in days gone by - especially in the A-10C and Ka-50, I do know what they are like, it's just not happening any more.

Edited May 28, 2024 by Johnny Dioxin

[r4y30n]

2 hours ago, Johnny Dioxin said:

Unfortunately for me, despite having been eagerly awaiting this release, it has just made me realise what I had been fearing for some time now - that I'm just not up to flying these new modules in combat any more.

I know how you feel.  I've never been terribly proficient in combat in DCS and the F-4 takes more skill than I currently have to fight with.  Fingers crossed Reflected's Topgun campaign can teach some of the basics of BFM a little better than books and YouTube.

Anyhow, super exciting to hear about the modularization and the SDK.  Obviously the Viggen and Tomcat will be even more mind blowing once Anvil gets ported over but hopefully it can raise the bar for DCS as a whole by having more of an open forum for development.  Why build a whole second crewman NPC yourself when you could just collaborate on Jester to suit your needs?

[Esac_mirmidon]

So we can expect a nice boost in perfomance when the Phantom runs fully on MT.

Thats great

[DucS2r]

3 hours ago, Johnny Dioxin said:

You've done an excellent job, no doubt.

Unfortunately for me, despite having been eagerly awaiting this release, it has just made me realise what I had been fearing for some time now - that I'm just not up to flying these new modules in combat any more. I don't even know if I'll be flying it at all, yet. I supposed age gets to us all - some earlier than others and dependent on other conditions. I started realising when I was reading the pre-release manual.

 

I’m 72 and have been doing combat flight sims starting when I would do them with one kid on each knee. Those were fun times. I fully understand where you are now. The last two DCS sims I felt enough mastery to engage in combat were the A-10 and the F-18. I have put a lot of time into the AH-64D and am decent with it in semi-controlled situations. These days I am satisfied with learning start up and take off, navigation, landing, and the basic combat systems. I then write my own missions where I can anticipate what I am going to encounter and prepare for it. I add complications as I get better and only then try some of the campaigns. So far I have a terrible time with situational awareness in the F-4E, though I love the sim as it was the first fighter I fell in love with as a kid and Heatblur did an outstanding job. I still love simming, but like many things in life, as I have gotten older I ramp down my expectations. But I still have fun. 

[Slippa]

Well I didn’t hold out for long . I grabbed it last night and started binding buttons. Went through the cold start and rolled it out for a trial run.

Feeling cocky I lined up and tried my luck. About halfway down the runway I might’ve over-compensated with the rudder and span it sideways for about a 1/4 of a mile before rolling backwards, still going at a fair lick. Poor Jester almost had a nervous breakdown but he’ll get used to me in time .

Second time around I pulled it into the air and blasted away merrily, familiarising myself with the cockpit a bit but really just throwing it around. I don’t know what speed I was doing but I tried to frighten Jester out of his seat with a bit of inverted squirrel spotting over the forests. Lots of chatter from the back with pleas for me to behave myself then pats on the back for getting back on track, wherever that was meant to be? Things ended abruptly and quite toasty with the possibility of a little scorch mark here or there. OK, I torched it and I’m completely at fault. More again later .

I have to say, initial impressions are that it’s bleedin gorgeous. I had no trouble going through the early bits with Jester, everything looks and sounds great so far and I’m chuffed to have it. Well done everyone at Heatblur, thank you, she’s Mustard. Looking forward to more of it.

Though I’m not as old as some, nor as young as others, my concentration and memory levels are a bit frayed too and I can get in all kinds of trouble and regularly do. Better to try to exercise the muscle up top with these things and it’ll be a blast along the way. I’m only pleasure flying for now, trying to frighten Jester out of his seat a little but getting there.

I’m waiting to see more RAF liveries for it as I know of someone that flew them operationally with the RAF for a bit. i could only find a ‘fictional RAF’ skin so far for it, I’m sure there’ll be plenty soon enough. Glad I’ve got it.

 

 

[Johnny Dioxin]

10 hours ago, DucS2r said:

I then write my own missions where I can anticipate what I am going to encounter and prepare for it.

Yes - this is a very good way to deal with it and what I always end up doing, despite the amount of excellent missions like TTI and so on. Hopefully will be possible for me to do it in the F-4E, too, at some stage, I've not totally given up. Yet.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

1 hour ago, Slippa said:

my concentration and memory levels are a bit frayed too

You're not alone there, but at least we can learn at our own pace eh?
For that reason I don't do large complicated multiplayer missions anymore with lots of people: sensory overload is real but DCS still offers plenty to keep me busy and entertained  

And the more I fly the F-4 the more impressed I am, and after getting my behind handed to me multiple times in a row trying to dogfight the thing, the first victory against a MiG-29 felt soo good  

[Slippa]

^ Tea and medals . Or maybe a nice cup of cocoa .

[Longiron]

With this anvil system will we ever see persistent aircraft?

Like instead of just picking a livery in rearm window could we choose an airframe that we flew in another mission with say 3 kills painted on the side? Or an airframe with a better performing radar ect.

Of course the option to get a "like new" with livery of choice would always be present.

[hermes7226]

And for what reason, when loading the plane, there is no loading picture with the image of the Phantom? 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

1 hour ago, hermes7226 said:

And for what reason, when loading the plane, there is no loading picture with the image of the Phantom? 

There is, if you select the Phantom as DCS Theme in your settings.

[upyr1]

Thanks for posting and the awesome modules. 

[Viper33]

So why exactly does the components sim run server side and lag the game whenever an F-4 is hit by a missile? Who needs this level of detail in DCS, especially if you don't own the F-4?

Edited June 2, 2024 by Viper33

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

I dunno if someone notices before me, the gun details are amazing

 

[Glide]

On 5/22/2024 at 4:52 AM, Super Grover said:

The second feature unlocked by the component system is multi-threading. By strictly separating components from each other and not allowing them to access other components directly, we ensure that the simulation part of each component can run concurrently. This approach means that developers do not have to worry about the complexities of multi-threaded development and can work as if the simulation of each component were entirely single-threaded. The connection system governs the rest — it de-conflicts multiple simulation threads seamlessly. It is important to note that while our system is designed to support multi-threading, this feature is not enabled in the version that users are receiving today to limit the risks of the adverse effects for the premiere of such a complex aircraft. However, multi-threading will be enabled in future updates, offering a significant boost in performance for everyone. Also, note that this is not the same as using the multi-threaded version of DCS - the multi-threading part of our component system adds another layer of parallelization, effectively offloading the aircraft simulation from the main DCS thread.

This is very exciting news.

[Iron Sights]

Phantom is really all I fly now. I will say it is challenging, but fun. I will say the details are amazing and I’m looking forward to the wear and tear model. Also, ready for Red Flag for the F-4 as well.