Feedback Thread - F-4E Phantom II Patch, September 30th 2024

[Tango3B]

3 hours ago, IronMike said:

Thank you for the feedback, we will take a look.

Thx, bud. And let me add that the exterior engine sounds are basically spot on. These are insanely good. New Jester functions (NavFix, etc.) are also superb and working fine. Also love what you guys did with the RWR. 

[Zabuzard]

17 hours ago, Lt_Jaeger said:

The backseat TACAN binds (channel, incr / decr) still don't work correctly

Known, thanks. The TACAN system isnt compatible with our (new) bind-system yet and has to be ported first.

Edited October 2, 2024 by Zabuzard

[Lt_Jaeger]

53 minutes ago, Zabuzard said:

Known, thanks. The TACAN system isnt compatible with our (new) bind-system yet and has to be ported first.

 

Thank you for the info. Will sit tight for the moment then.

[Bazz_Mulder]

@Zabuzard
Any information about ETA for a fix on exterior lights not flashing on other players F-4E's? 

[MichaelJWP15]

Great work Heatblur  .. just tried the first mission of the Yom Kippur mini-campaign, just the kind I like; low level ground attack with not too long distances for ingress/egress.

[ebabil]

what is samp-250kg? 

[Esac_mirmidon]

A French bomb

[Zabuzard]

4 hours ago, Bazz_Mulder said:

Any information about ETA for a fix on exterior lights not flashing on other players F-4E's? 

no

[dggoofy]

Great update. And a question. Now Jester asks for the alignment quality as soon as power is set on. But I always hear only a part of the message. 

I put the helmet, ask for external power, wait a bit, then put right then left external power switch on, and I immediatly get the question from Jester, but only I cannot hear him completely. What should be the right procedure ?

[Stickler]

On 9/30/2024 at 8:42 PM, IronMike said:

• Art/Visual: Added Brightness Control logic for the UHF repeaters

Would it be possible to harmonize the AVTR minutes counter and UHF repeater brightness in the rear seat? At the moment, with brightness fully down, the repeater is not legible while the minutes counter is easily readable; increasing the brightness to maximum makes the repeater readable while the minutes counter subjectively barely increases in brightness. Of course, if the current implementation is realistic by all means leave it as it is.

[Northstar98]

10 hours ago, ebabil said:

what is samp-250kg? 

https://cat-uxo.com/explosive-hazards/aircraft-bombs/samp-type-25-aircraft-bomb

[Biggus]

I've quickly grown accustomed to Jester asking about alignment much earlier than he did before.  Perhaps there should be a check to see if the helmet is on and a generator is receiving power before he asks, though?

Could we also perhaps have a special option to default Jester to always being prepared for flight under 50 feet?  I don't mind interacting with Jester but 95% of that interaction is me telling him that we're going low and then him responding with one of the same four or five lines of dialogue in response.  Or perhaps there might be a smarter way to go about managing that, like having Jester remember how low I went on my last flight, then him telling me how low we went and asking if we'd like to tell him our lowest point will be higher or lower than that?

[Zabuzard]

12 hours ago, Stickler said:

Would it be possible to harmonize the AVTR minutes counter and UHF repeater brightness in the rear seat? At the moment, with brightness fully down, the repeater is not legible while the minutes counter is easily readable; increasing the brightness to maximum makes the repeater readable while the minutes counter subjectively barely increases in brightness. Of course, if the current implementation is realistic by all means leave it as it is.

This is actually a "bug" or rather oversight. Its not supposed to drop down all the way to 0% brightness. Thanks, fixed.

Edited October 4, 2024 by Zabuzard

[Retnek]

On 10/1/2024 at 2:07 PM, ben_der said:

The 1986 Flight Manual mentions only unretarded Matras. Thats why I added the Low Drag ones.

Thanks for the TER-racks and the weapons to realize cold-war Luftwaffe-sorties. Could you please enhance the "F-4F-options" with the SAMP-250KG-high-drag-bombs? Looking for sources (or traces) of the Luftwaffe's-use of Matra-250-kg-bombs one regularly stumbles over the retarded model. From the mid-1970s on Fiat-G91 or F-104G until recent Tornado-sorties. Corresponding threads in scale-model-builders forums, former Luftwaffe-groud-crew reporting and so on - it's the retarded model of the Matra-250-kg-bomb. That model fits best to the BL755, too - specially developed to be dropped as low as possible. (Yes, those balloon-retarded Mk-82 might fit to the job, too. Somehow ... but it's not the same! Not really ... if there's a little time, please)

[AvroLanc]

On 10/1/2024 at 5:38 PM, Tango3B said:

Yup. The new engine sounds are definitely a step back. While they were actually intended to create more immersion they really do not. Now, on my end at least, it sounds a bit like the famous "J-79 Dyson edition". Especially the quite immersive revving howl isn´t there anymore, which is sad. Maybe something has gone wrong with the files HB submitted to ED for the update. As it stands, the old engine sounds were way better in my opnion...

 

On 10/1/2024 at 8:12 PM, IronMike said:

Thank you for the feedback, we will take a look.

Yep, the new sounds are definitely NOT an improvement. I miss the old 'howl' sound. The old sounds need to make a comeback. This is a huge step backwards imho.

[MavOne96]

For me Jester is "blind" again and refuses to lock targets. I was so happy when the previous update fixed it and now with the last update Jester is uselss again. So many occasions when targets were nose aspect , 12 o'clock, closer than 25nm no ground clutter and still no radar return. Jester even notifies me on visual and still he's not able to put the radar on it. It's ridiculous. 

[Zabuzard]

For me Jester is "blind" again and refuses to lock targets. I was so happy when the previous update fixed it and now with the last update Jester is uselss again. So many occasions when targets were nose aspect , 12 o'clock, closer than 25nm no ground clutter and still no radar return. Jester even notifies me on visual and still he's not able to put the radar on it. It's ridiculous. 

The update didn't touch anything on this. If you genuinely think you found a bug or run into a situation you think Jester should have behaved better, please send us a (working) track so we can improve it.

The radar is complex, old and the pilot also plays a huge role in it. It is hard to say without seeing whats going on if a human WSO would have performed better than Jester.

Cheers

[MavOne96]

41 minutes ago, Zabuzard said:

The update didn't touch anything on this. If you genuinely think you found a bug or run into a situation you think Jester should have behaved better, please send us a (working) track so we can improve it.

The radar is complex, old and the pilot also plays a huge role in it. It is hard to say without seeing whats going on if a human WSO would have performed better than Jester.

Cheers

Please find below a track containing multiple radar/jester bugs I have encountered today with the F4. Please let me know if you can access it.

https://we.tl/t-5lDeq1FBFt

[ben_der]

On 10/4/2024 at 7:21 PM, Retnek said:

Thanks for the TER-racks and the weapons to realize cold-war Luftwaffe-sorties. Could you please enhance the "F-4F-options" with the SAMP-250KG-high-drag-bombs? Looking for sources (or traces) of the Luftwaffe's-use of Matra-250-kg-bombs one regularly stumbles over the retarded model. From the mid-1970s on Fiat-G91 or F-104G until recent Tornado-sorties. Corresponding threads in scale-model-builders forums, former Luftwaffe-groud-crew reporting and so on - it's the retarded model of the Matra-250-kg-bomb. That model fits best to the BL755, too - specially developed to be dropped as low as possible. (Yes, those balloon-retarded Mk-82 might fit to the job, too. Somehow ... but it's not the same! Not really ... if there's a little time, please)

I'll add the High Drags

[Kalasnkova74]

On 10/1/2024 at 2:12 PM, IronMike said:

Thank you for the feedback, we will take a look.

While I personally like the previous engine sounds too, the goal should be accuracy of presentation.
 

If the real F-4E sounded “quiet” in the cockpit (remember the J-79s are more than 20ft behind the seats) , then regardless of preference that’s what the sound should reflect.

 

[Kreutzberg]

5 hours ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

While I personally like the previous engine sounds too, the goal should be accuracy of presentation.
 

If the real F-4E sounded “quiet” in the cockpit (remember the J-79s are more than 20ft behind the seats) , then regardless of preference that’s what the sound should reflect.

 

One other note about engine sounds--I've noticed that while flying in external view, there are some oddities with the sounds depending on the camera is. From some angles, the sounds nearly disappear (nowhere near supersonic speeds).  Thanks for continuing to improve the module!

[Blinde]

Old engine sounds were way better.

[Lord_Pyro]

Since the beginning there is a huge freeze incoming as soon as the radar scans for50nm for the first time due to the huge amounts of returns it receives (same thing for the Strike Eagle btw).

 

At first i thought it had something to do with the gear up animation but it soon klicked and now my workaround is to scan at 5nm during takeoff, stabelizing the plane and plan for the sometimes 5 seconds freeze in advance. That works, but is not ideal. After aerial refuelling the same issue arises, obviously. 

So the question is, if it's something we just have to learn to accept or can things be improved somehow? 

[Zabuzard]

Since the beginning there is a huge freeze incoming as soon as the radar scans for50nm for the first time due to the huge amounts of returns it receives (same thing for the Strike Eagle btw).
 
At first i thought it had something to do with the gear up animation but it soon klicked and now my workaround is to scan at 5nm during takeoff, stabelizing the plane and plan for the sometimes 5 seconds freeze in advance. That works, but is not ideal. After aerial refuelling the same issue arises, obviously. 
So the question is, if it's something we just have to learn to accept or can things be improved somehow? 

Are you running DCS on a SSD? These spikes are usually caused by heavily increased IO traffic due to the map-data calls made by the DCS engine to answer the radar rays.

There isnt too much we can do on our side to get rid of the issue, but we are planning to shift the moment to shortly after takeoff by delaying Jester turning on the radar, so that the timing isnt that critical anymore.

[Lord_Pyro]

Yes, i run it on a SSD. 

Thanks for the reply