Disconnecting from the boom while smoothly flying when I have 1 green light for UP and 1 for AFT

[Maverick Su-35S]

Hi,

       Although I truly enjoy this product's quality, especially when it comes to the flight model realism of the aircraft, aerodynamic forces and moments versus AoA and Beta (sideslip angle), as well as engine performances, for which as an AE I can tell that for me HEATBLUR has won the prize for truly the best team in making the aircraft in flight behavior be simulated very correctly and I don't even want to talk about other third parties who never managed even 50% of what HEATBLUR proved. Every correct/fair definition comes relative to something, so I had to say it!

Now, for the subject that I'm here with, whenever I do air refuels with the F-4, very often when I'm just one dot below and one dot (green light) ahead of the ideal center position, although I'm not making any abrupt maneuvers or anything, the boom disconnects!

In order to catch this suspected bug, I've reconnected plenty of times and re-done the scenario and yes, for a good couple of times when I'm with both green lights from the belly of the tanker ahead of the ideal center position, meaning when I'm one green light towards UP and AFT indications, the boom unlocks for whatever reason and I must go for a re-connection!

The track file has 65MBs, so I've shared it on this link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cmkhmOfZEDHRm6SmuNKk5DgAZiMFS3jx/view?usp=sharing

Kind regards!

[MAXsenna]

@Maverick Su-35S I don't have this issue at all, so it's definitely not a bug. As soon as I'm connected. I can drift around quite extensively before it disconnects. Stupid question. If you have a disconnect, you do recycle the switch, right? 

Edited October 13, 2024 by MAXsenna

[Kalasnkova74]

Personal choice, I ignore the tanker lights and let Jester’s guidance keep me on track. Works well enough to tank on, and I don’t have to mess with the seat height.

[Zabuzard]

Could it be that you perhaps accidentally hit the disconnect button on the stick or cycle the aar door? ive seen people who bound that somewhere and forgot.

As far as Boom movements go, we dont control any of that ourselves. So if there's a bug, it would likely be a topic for ED. Cheers

[Maverick Su-35S]

15 hours ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

Personal choice, I ignore the tanker lights and let Jester’s guidance keep me on track. Works well enough to tank on, and I don’t have to mess with the seat height.

Some times he says things the opposite way, so, personal choice, I erase Jester! I mean there's nothing more upside down than ignoring the lights and waiting for Jester who is also late in response to tell you what to do=)). Personal choice, I like to fix things, not ignore them!

Edited October 13, 2024 by Maverick Su-35S

[Maverick Su-35S]

12 hours ago, Zabuzard said:

Could it be that you perhaps accidentally hit the disconnect button on the stick or cycle the aar door? ive seen people who bound that somewhere and forgot.

As far as Boom movements go, we dont control any of that ourselves. So if there's a bug, it would likely be a topic for ED. Cheers

Nope! I don't even have a button assigned for disconnection as I never plan to disconnect before fully refueled and I didn't even set may inputs as I've only started trying the F-4 with some play around in mind, starting with air refueling which has this apparent bug, which all other jets that I do air refuels on don't do!

You have the track, you can check it. Like some 6 minutes after starting you can find what I'm talking about. And that didn't happen once by chance, I've intentionally then tried to see if it does it again (like a tester I like to be) and yes, it does it every now and then with no logic. Sometimes you sit there with the most forward green lights on, telling that I'm a bit lower and too forward (so the boom isn't that compressed if I'm also low and not just forward), and all of a sudden it disconnects, sometimes it stays for a while and won't do that. I think that it's triggered by the motion of the plane, cause let's be honest, you can't remain stuck in a position, so as the whole plane wobbles a bit, but still maintaining that general position with those 2 green lights, wammm...it disconnects!

Regards.

[MAXsenna]

3 hours ago, Maverick Su-35S said:

Some times he says things the opposite way, so, personal choice, I erase Jester! I mean there's nothing more upside down than ignoring the lights and waiting for Jester who is also late in response to tell you what to do=)). Personal choice, I like to fix things, not ignore them!

 

He doesn't say the opposite. He's just very slow, so he lags with his instructions. 

I'll have a look at your track tomorrow. 

[Zabuzard]

Actually, Jester sends an appropriate instruction within milliseconds. The "delay" you feel is due to the length of the sentence itself.

Like, lets say he decides to say "Move 5 feet forward". When he starts speaking this, your position is incorrect by exactly 5 feet. But by the time he finished speaking the full sentence you might have drifted elsewhere already, since the sentence takes about 3 seconds to say.

There isnt too much we can do about this, you would have a similar experience with a real human. Something we are looking into is to evaluate individual parts of the sentence at runtime. Meaning that for example the number "5" here could change up until the moment he said "Move" instead of being determined before having said "Move". So that would give the number another 0.5s extra accuracy.

The "problem" feels more real for people who are not used to AAR yet. If you ask one of the SMEs they tend to fly so precise (because that is what they did/do for years profesionally) that what Jester says is still super accurate by the time he finished talking.

Edited October 14, 2024 by Zabuzard

[MAXsenna]

@Zabuzard

Well, I believe you and I'm not gonna argue against it. He was great teaching me the correct position and achieve the perfect sight picture, so I don't have to look at the position lights. I do somewhat following his instructions until connection. I understand the time it takes to say those complete sentences. What I "feel" now is that he starts speaking too late. Maybe because I don't really need to listen anymore, and I have already corrected myself when he starts speaking. I can even anticipate when and what he's going to say. All this is while I have already connected. It's great when I am connected and in perfect position. He can't tell me enough times! This might be due to that my computer is very old. In any case, it doesn't bother me really, but I do understand if one struggles. 

Cheers! 

[Zabuzard]

This is the moment you disconnected at 6min into the track:

The second disconnect happened at 6:39 into the track and while the lights are all green, the operator disconnected you because you were charging the boom too fast. Like, your approach rate was too high for the boom operator to keep up.

The third disconnect at 6:56 has red lamp again, too high up:

Next disconnect at 7:36 was falling off the boom, also red light:

Disconnect at 8:21 had green lights but you fell off the boom too fast for the operator to keep up.

Ill stop here, cause I think I get the point. First of all, thanks for the track! I guess we can ignore the disconnects where the lamps were red, those should be clear. For the other cases, what I think happens is that your movement is too fast for the DCS operator to keep up with. If you think this is unrealistic you have to forward this to ED, as the boom movement and the disconnects are totally out of our control.

Watching the track I kinda understand what you mean when you think Jester reports nonsense. For this you have to understand that Jester refers to the ideal spot to be in. That is, the center position where you have the most room for error to all sides. He doesnt just want to give you a donut on the boom, but also navigate you to that perfect spot. So its possible that he might tell you to move down and forward even though your boom is perhaps already charged to its max because you are currently way too high. So moving down would relax that and then you would have to move forward again for the sweetspot etc.

[=475FG= Dawger]

Once again, word order matters. 
 

Forward 5 feet would be more useful than Move 5 feet forward

 

[Zabuzard]

I dont recall what exactly he says without checking in-game right now, but what he says is taken exactly from our real-life F-4E WSOs.

Super exact and precise brevity wasnt that common at that time in these situations yet. (Not that I want to get into this discussion now, perhaps a topic for a different thread if you want to challenge that claim )

Edited October 14, 2024 by Zabuzard

[=475FG= Dawger]

9 hours ago, Zabuzard said:

I dont recall what exactly he says without checking in-game right now, but what he says is taken exactly from our real-life F-4E WSOs.

Super exact and precise brevity wasnt that common at that time in these situations yet. (Not that I want to get into this discussion now, perhaps a topic for a different thread if you want to challenge that claim )

 

We were all well aware of the importance of word order way back when. We had indoor plumbing and electric lights too, believe it or not. 

[Kalasnkova74]

2 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

We were all well aware of the importance of word order way back when. We had indoor plumbing and electric lights too, believe it or not. 

Truth is , the tanker implementation in DCS (boom or probe/drogue) needs an overhaul irrespective of the F-4E & Jester’s vocabulary. Of course the fella’s behind the aircraft - can’t help it when the KC-135s dancing like John Travolta after connection. 

[MichaelJWP15]

Interesting thread. Like many, I find air refuelling one of the most challenging flying tasks in DCS. In the F-4E I can connect fairly easily but very tricky staying on the boom, mainly due to the slow response of the throttles. It feels fairly realistic though.

How do you mute Jester, he's not really saying anything wrong, I just find him distracting?

[Zabuzard]

4 hours ago, MichaelJWP15 said:

How do you mute Jester, he's not really saying anything wrong, I just find him distracting?

Jester Wheel, Crew Contract, Silence or something like that

[Derbysieger]

On 10/16/2024 at 11:17 AM, MichaelJWP15 said:

In the F-4E I can connect fairly easily but very tricky staying on the boom, mainly due to the slow response of the throttles. It feels fairly realistic though.

What I have noticed in my squadron is that people in VR just drive up to the tanker, plug in and then stay there until the tanks are full whereas the guys flying in 2D really struggle in the Phantom even though they can refuel other aircraft like the A-10C, F-16C or F-15E just fine. It's mostly about the canopy bow being absolutely massive in 2D and not being able to look across it even when adjusting the seat all the way up. I think you'll need to shift your camera position in the cockpit in addition to moving the seat all the way up.

 

On 10/14/2024 at 8:56 AM, Zabuzard said:

Actually, Jester sends an appropriate instruction within milliseconds. The "delay" you feel is due to the length of the sentence itself.

I can attest to Jester being very precise with his call outs. I have come to rely on him in situations where I can't see one or both of the PDL due to the sun. In this video he saved my butt when I was about to fall off at the 7:40 mark:

https://youtu.be/oCn3vwt4U30?si=-m3CFciDw2F0ZpHK

[Volator]

2 hours ago, Derbysieger said:

I can attest to Jester being very precise with his call outs.

Absolutely. I (2D user) had a hard time AARing the F-4 because of the canopy bow up front obstructing the tanker lights, and I always got a sore neck from trying to compensate, but after reading this thread and Zabuzard's advice I tried relying solely on Jester and not looking at the lights at all, and voila, AAR in the F-4 suddenly became a lot easier.

Edited October 20, 2024 by Volator

[MAXsenna]

4 hours ago, Volator said:

Absolutely. I (2D user) had a hard time AARing the F-4 because of the canopy bow up front obstructing the tanker lights, and I always got a sore neck from trying to compensate, but after reading this thread and Zabuzard's advice I tried relying solely on Jester and not looking at the lights at all, and voila, AAR in the F-4 suddenly became a lot easier.

 

And if you start looking at the tanker when you're in position, and not the lights. It will be even easier.

[Nealius]

On 10/14/2024 at 8:20 PM, =475FG= Dawger said:

Once again, word order matters. 
 

Forward 5 feet would be more useful than Move 5 feet forward

1000% this. Most of my issues with Jester are his horribly inefficient communication style. This isn't a matter of brevity but of common sense communication that any individual should pick up on and tweak on their own initiative regardless of existence or absence of prescribed brevity. Even today, brevity doesn't account for all radio/crew communication. 

Edited October 30, 2024 by Nealius

[Zabuzard]

You can just delete the variations you dont like. He has about 20 for each and ~5-10 of them are in the style you are asking for already. Delete the others, then he will only say it in this style.

Mods\aircraft\F-4E\Sounds\Jester\refueling
Mods\aircraft\F-4E\Sounds\sdef\Jester\refueling

If you are having an issue with other non-AAR calls, please be specific and tell us which calls you do not like. Otherwise your feedback cant really be used, cheers.

Edited October 30, 2024 by Zabuzard

[Nealius]

5 hours ago, Zabuzard said:

If you are having an issue with other non-AAR calls, please be specific and tell us which calls you do not like. Otherwise your feedback cant really be used, cheers.

Outside the scope of this thread, but (contact-BRA-long pause with mumbling-friendly/hostile/unknown) clogs the comms. I don't know what "proper brevity" would be but a more effective and common-sense communication would be (friendly/hostile/unknown-BRA). 

[=475FG= Dawger]

5 hours ago, Zabuzard said:

You can just delete the variations you dont like. He has about 20 for each and ~5-10 of them are in the style you are asking for already. Delete the others, then he will only say it in this style.

Mods\aircraft\F-4E\Sounds\Jester\refueling
Mods\aircraft\F-4E\Sounds\sdef\Jester\refueling

If you are having an issue with other non-AAR calls, please be specific and tell us which calls you do not like. Otherwise your feedback cant really be used, cheers.

 

Is this folder available to be replaced by the same path in Saved Games?

Is this folder subject to Integrity Check if the above is No?