Feedback Thread - Tomcat Patch 21-05-2025

[IronMike]

Dear all,

As we roll out of spring, we’re excited to share a fresh round of updates across our modules. Alongside ongoing development of larger features, we strive to respond directly to your feedback and to keep each aircraft evolving toward its full potential.

The F-14 Tomcat received some important fixes and tuning. Lighting artifacts at distance have been resolved, formation and wingtip lights now behave consistently across LODs, and afterburner flicker has been corrected when switching views. The USS Forrestal has undergone another lighting pass — IFLOLS visuals are cleaner, deck lighting ramps more naturally, and spotting during night ops should feel noticeably improved. Audio in multiplayer has been adjusted for better spatial consistency, and AI enhancements include A/A TACAN additions, ICEMAN ground logic, and we taught JESTER to avoid calls for neutral aircraft when in BFM.

As always we thank you for your kind support and feedback, and hope that you enjoy plenty of hours of flying! 

Your Heatblur Team
 

DCS: F-14 Tomcat by Heatblur Simulations

• Night Lighting: Made a pass to improve night lighting visuals, distances and extant issues, including:
  • Fixed right wingtip collision light not appearing past LoD1
  • Improved distance at which nav/collision lighting is visible across most LoDs.
  • Fixed formation lights (slimelights) disappearing on wingtips beyond 100m. 
  • Fixed wingtip lights not moving with wings with distant LODs.
• Forrestal: First pass to significantly improve Forrestal class lighting system:
  • IFLOLS is not visible from the sides anymore. 
  • Runway lighting is visible from a longer distance.
  • Changed min pixel sizes for most lighting types.
  • Extended range at which mast navigation lights are visible.
• Increased refueling probe light distance; the basket should now be more visible when doing AAR at night. 
• Made JESTER ignore neutral enemies detected visually in BFM. He will no longer go crazy and call out neutrals as bandits and give dogfight calls.
• ICEMAN: Disabled Iceman with weight on wheels. This should help with instances where you switch to the RIO cockpit and Iceman resets e.g. your trim or autopilot settings. 
• Added A/A Tacan to AI aircraft. 
• Fixed the flicker animator + afterburner animations when switching cameras.
• Added the Top Gun 104 livery for the F-14A. 
• Fixed distant LOD appearing darker than it should due to a missing RoughMet texture.  
• Fixed non-ownship aircraft not having exhaust sounds in Multiplayer; other jets should now be correctly audible from your cockpit with the canopy up. 
• Fixed strange “stepping” in audio for the left engine.
• Improved phasing-protection for dual-engine sounds. 

Edited May 22 by IronMike

[shocknawe371]

F-14A Early soon?

[Zabuzard]

1 minute ago, shocknawe371 said:

F-14A Early soon?

No ETAs, sorry.

Edited May 22 by Zabuzard

[Trancers]

Hi is a F-14D in planning? Question for a friend

Edited May 22 by Trancers

[Zabuzard]

32 minutes ago, Trancers said:

Hi is a F-14D in planning? Question for a friend

The planned Tomcat variants are the early A and the B(U).

[scommander2]

47 minutes ago, Trancers said:

is a F-14D in planning?

It is a good question.  Hope HB has enough information for AN/APG-71, then F-14D may be possible  

[LanceCriminal86]

They've answered that so many times, NO, there isn't info on the APG-71, and NO the D is not on the docket.

[Trancers]

11 minutes ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

They've answered that so many times, NO, there isn't info on the APG-71, and NO the D is not on the docket.

 Pity

[JupiterJoe]

Thanks for these fixes HB.  The improved refuel probe light is particularly awesome. 

Edited May 22 by JupiterJoe

[IronMike]

4 hours ago, JupiterJoe said:

Thanks for these fixes HB.  The improved refuel probe light is particularly awesome. 

It is our sincere pleasure, as always!

[Shahriar0]

Years of awaiting a fix for the refuel probe light has come to an end at last! I tested it and it appears realistic with proper illumination level. Thank you! Now I can finally refuel at night without the assistance of NVG. With the release of 95GR in not too distant future, I can fly proper missions in Tomcat with maximum realism. That's awesome.

[Slant]

14 hours ago, IronMike said:

It is our sincere pleasure, as always!

Nah, the pleasure is ours. The external lights have been a thorn in my eyes for years, but I knew you'd get around to them like you did with the Viggen. It's a lower priority item and eventually you get there. And you did. It's nice that trust is rewarded with consistency.

[Tulkas]

Feedback on the Forrestal IFLOLS:

Finally improvement. It's much better, no doubt, you don't see from the sides and light orbs effect it is not so bad as it used to be, and gets better the closer you get.

But I wonder. why it has to have bloom effect at all? Long time ago I used to mod the supercarrier with a simple texture and the IFLOLS became a sharp yellow dot and two sharp green lines, exactly as they look in dozens of real life videos. Later the supercarrier meatball was sharp by default, while the Forrestal's was almost unusable. And then the Supercarrier started to use the awful orb effect as well.

Isn't it possible to have just a sharp texture for it?

Edited May 23 by Tulkas

[j-tk]

F-14D next week?

[cesarferrolho]

Hello!

So, the refuel probe light, very nice ! Very useful. Now i hope that ED can also improve some lighting on the tankers as well, a longtime wish. 

The aircraft lights are also improved in distance, but they can suddenly disappear due to clouds (i think), even if it's very thin clouds. And they become very small, very hard to see at some closer distances. But another good improvement anyway.

So, i had never tried flying with a human wingman before and... i noticed the Pilot Radio UHF 1 sounds very muffled and low volume, even if i set the volume to max on the radio volume knob. It was very hard to understand him. I don't know if it's always been like that or since a patch change or if it's a MP issue... We have no issues when he is my RIO, using ICS.

[Shaman]

Nav lights and anti-col light are still very weak in daylight, is it a DCS engine issue? You'd expect you can spot these at long ranges.

[Ghost7]

I flew for almost 40 years, spent my life around airplanes (military and airlines), nav lights are barely visible during the day and certainly not visible in the distance. anti collision are more visible but still not visible in the air trying  to visually deconflict. I don't understand why many request very bright lights, same with taxiway edge lights. Do not use pictures as reference, they will vary depending on many factors.

[JupiterJoe]

[scommander2]

4 minutes ago, JupiterJoe said:

UFO?

[Cab]

4 minutes ago, scommander2 said:

UFO?

Yes. They’re having a close encounter.

[JupiterJoe]

Thanks to the adjustments made to the external soundscape audible from the cockpit, you can now more clearly hear things like the carrier elevator's motors and changes in rpm as a fellow F-14 is just about to trap.  Fantastic. You still can't hear your own wings sweep with the canopy open, although you can hear a wingman's wings sweep, if he's close enough.  A shame, because it's a very cool sound effect.

 

Edited May 28 by JupiterJoe

[RustBelt]

How would you hear either your or Others wing sweep actuators? Engines got to be running for them to move. And Engines are LOUD. 

[WarthogOsl]

5 hours ago, RustBelt said:

How would you hear either your or Others wing sweep actuators? Engines got to be running for them to move. And Engines are LOUD. 

In DCS, at least, it's possible to move the wings just after shutting down the engines.  There's still hydraulic pressure, I'd assume.

[draconus]

7 hours ago, RustBelt said:

How would you hear either your or Others wing sweep actuators? Engines got to be running for them to move. And Engines are LOUD. 

You can hear them in DCS but only for AI aircraft.

[JupiterJoe]

The F-14's sound design is a major part of what made this module the landmark in simulation it is.  The team responsible did an incredible job balancing realism and immersion. It may be a little unrealistic to hear some of these things with your helmet on and the engines running, but it's the age old argument of sound effects being a substitute for the vibration you might feel if you were in the cockpit.  The wing sweep mechanism is a hefty bit of kit, surely when that thing moves, or hits its stops, you'd feel some of that vibration through the airframe?

I select the 'Hear like in helmet,' option in the audio menu, because the ECS is so loud (realistically so), and it's a shame to dampen such a vivid soundscape, but editorial choices have to be made somewhere and HB have struck a very nice balance.

Edited May 30 by JupiterJoe