Strike_NOR

It may not be very helpful to you, but I noticed some funky stuff going on with Gryphon and Shikra gear aswell. They are floating in the air. Maybe devs are sorting out some issues with the physx suspension?

I would like to bring a few suggestions from the unofficial thread over here. One of the things that make jet aircraft really stand out is the cockpit voice annunciator system. Or "Bitching betty". Currently the way ArmA works, it's not always obvious that you have taken a hit or significant damage. A bang from a missile or a hit from Anti Aircraft Artillery are usually very muffled and don't give the player the impression of taking damage. Therefore I suggest that the jet alerts the player to when an aircraft system has started malfunctioning. While real jets may have individual warnings for each type of damage. Such as "Engine fault!", "ECS Failure", etc... you can get away with only a few "Tones/Chimes/beeps" that will do the job more than good enough in ArmA. First of all, I like the new missile warning sound. It's nice, but I also think you could do brilliant stuff with the radar warning receiver system! Right now, you get a warning when locked by radar/incoming missile, but a really handy feature is a "New Threat" sound. Once a new radar emission has been discovered, it should give a subtle hint "short beep" just to alert the player to look at his RWR display. That is usually how it works in real life and is called a "spike". A tracking radar will often give you several pulses with quick succession, this is known as "nails" and is a more serious warning. I think this is already implemented when a radar sensors "locks" a player with RWR. And the final stage is the missile tone. This indicates launch, which you already have implemented in the game. Onto the more JETS DLC related topic, cockpit sounds! First of all, the general work on sounds for jets is outstanding and I would never imagine such a fantastic replication of jet noise. Well done! Everything from the cockpit sound to the flyby's taxiing, engine spool up. I can't think of a better way to compliment you than saying I work with jets and your sounds give me the chills :) However, I really think you should consider implementing a few tones to really flesh out the cockpit environment! Any transition from "white" to "yellow damage state" followed by a "Caution! Caution!" or chime that sounds once. Any transition from "yellow" to "red damage state" followed by a "Warning! Warning!" or chime that sounds once. A warning for low fuel that sounds under 10% A warning for low chaff/flare that sounds when CM ammo is under 25% A stall warning/beep when the speed indicator numbers usually shift to red text.This is hard to pick up in ArmA, even if it says "stall" in hud. A warning for engine failure that sounds as long as aircraft has Airspeed>0, AGL>0 and engine is off. Even though we have all heard that pilots are superior human beings and master the art of multi-tasking, they still need to be reminded to pay attention to dangerous situations. So those are my suggestions. There's obviously something missing when you get hit badly and jets start spinning uncontrollably, but cockpit is still dead silent. I hope you find the time to add this before 16th of May :) It will greatly add to the overall Jets feeling. As a final note, are you guys going to add sonic boom? :p Talking about the sound effect, not visuals :) Speed of sound is already modeled and very believable, but it would be amazing if there was a boom from supersonic jets :)

Which is totally realistic for Radar Homing missiles, but not IR missiles. The only IR missile systems that give off a warning are those where range is calculated before launch by means of a radar. I believe the SA-13 has this. It does not rely on radar to guide to target, only to find the target. In this way, it can operate completely "stealthy" but with reduced alertness to incoming jets, or unstealthy, with radar switched on, but a better situational awareness. This kind of behavior adds more to gameplay and tactics! It's not really worth debating because, like you say yourself, we have modders to give us that :) . There will be no more jets added to this DLC. Some dev has already vaguely mentioned that as a possibility. The AI controlled SAM systems for the USS Freedom could turn out to be editor-placeable. Which means, you can assign these to each side and place them around airfields etc. Let's hope for that :) Actually, UAVs of this size are normally controlled from mobile containers/sites that can be deployed around the globe. However to sort all your needs, a "drone control terminal" would be nice (Computer/Chair) that could be placed wherever you want. As for sound, I agree. Unless the drone has a microphone recording the sounds you should only hear what's at the control terminal. Having a dedicated ground attack gun does not make it a multi-role aircraft. The ability to carry and employ both AA and AG weapons, carry out reconnaissance etc is what makes it multi-role. Clue is, if you go up to 30mm you need drastically more space to carry enough ammo. You need loads of ammo to hit aerial vehicles (think of it as a shotgun shooting fast moving skeets), compared to ground vehicles (shooting turtles with a 9mm). A shotgun pellet hitting a skeet is enough to break it, while it wastes a ton of lead to guarantee a hit. A 9mm round deals more damage than a pellet, but takes more aim. Anyways I digress... a 20mm Aircraft Gatling gun should realistically have about 500-700 rnds of ammo and a firerate of about 100 rounds/sec. Which means about 5-7 seconds of trigger squeeze. Ammo types are usually High Explosive and Multi Purpose. The F-35 has a 25mm gun which allows ammunition manufacturers to put more snacks into it such as armor-piercing mayhem. For fun facts: The ammo drum of the A-10 is nearly the size of a VW Beetle, while the F-16 has an ammo drum the size of 1/3 of an Oil Drum.

@S3blapin Check that your dual throttle has not been registered twice in the settings, or that one of the throttle axis has been registered in "Brake analogue". They will cancel each other out. I have the Logitech G940 and I experience similar things when messing with my throttle inputs in ArmA. My tip is to delete all control inputs to throttle and brake axis, then use only one of the throttle axis (either left or right) to act as "Throttle (Analogue)". See if this helps. If not, check calibration software settings in windows, see that you get the full range. Then lastly check Devices in Arma Controls and see what the curves/sensitivity looks like. Edit: Underlined text^

copied from the unofficial "Jets DLC?" thread ?

So instead of typing out this bug, here goes a new feedback method: So in other words: I ejected, seat crashed into wall, player despawned, then POPPED back next to the wall. Voila! Über-effective seats? lol!

While I really agree with your view on this matter, I feel inclined to say that missile type should matter. I don't know what you tested against, but if you tested, say 20 launches from Titan AA, and 20 launches from a ASRAAM, then I would expect different success rates. The air-to-air missiles should IMHO have an advantage over MANPADS. I don't mind a 50% success rate for manpads, given that they normally take two hits to kill a jet. But for AA missiles, they should either do more damage, or have a higher hit probability. That's my idea of balance. Just imagine the online games where Titan AA's are readily available and cheap, versus bringing an expensive jet. You'd hope that the jet stood a better chance against handheld stuff, but other jets? That's different!

Exactly what I am hoping for! The "M" marker is the most arcade thing in the sensor suite, but I would accept it for active radar homing missiles. These are WAY harder to spoof and it would be nicely balanced if the pilot knew that A) This is a Radar Homing Missile, and B) I have to maneuver at the best possible time to defeat the missile (look at the "M")

I didn't elaborate enough. What I meant is that if we want it "automated" (player does not have to ID it himself), it would "simulate" the pilot slaving the TGP to radar point of interest, this would allow the pilot to effectively zoom in and identify the aircraft. No algorithms required, of course. But like you mention, many modern cruise missiles have a surface vessel database and contrast image recognition so they can pick out high-value targets autonomously. I just don't see this in use against incoming missiles. And by the way, the IR- missiles' stealth comes from not having an active radar tipping you off that someone is preparing to fire at you. Also, once missile is fired it does not emit anything other than massive amounts of heat and therefore IR light. During rocket flame burn it also emits UV light. Like you state, these are all observable by such devices, but my gripe with ArmA 3 is that it currently shows you the incoming missile on the RWR, even if it's a heat seeker. In my opinion, based on knowledge about current systems, it should only show the launch direction and as long as the rocket is burning, where the missile direction is. This all works to my personal opinion about game balance. Handheld Manpads are generally quite weak and simplistic in design when it comes to target tracking. They do have built-in algorithms to counter flares, but are far easier to spoof than larger missile with better contrast, cooling etc, thermal imaging etc. So to balance the "weakness" of manpads, they should only tip off pilots that they're coming from a direction, but not how close or remaining time until impact. Being manpads, their major advantage above all should be stealth. It's hard to spot the infantry carrying it, it's not possible to lock onto with any aircraft sensors (except if you can find him on TGP) and it should only give a "launch detected X O'clock" warning. Its downsides are: Short range, mediocre tracking and guidance, small warhead. Chances are you will miss every time with the current system, and if the missile has short range and does little damage additionally, it becomes completely ineffective as a weapon. And ARMA has few SAM options to choose from...

Instead of condescendingly trying to outbest every member on the forum with your "facts", look at your own statement that I quoted. You claimed most modern fighters had this? We're not discussing anything but the DLC fighters so why bother?

Some modern fighters feature this as a built-in system, others have stuff like that integrated in pylons or pods. But I think you can agree that it is technically difficult to estimate the exact location of the missile through it's entire flight. Right now, Arma shows you an "M" moving from launcher to you. This is Okay for Active radar seeking missiles, because you can measure the energy from the incoming missile to estimate a range. The problem is that MAWS is designed specifically to deal with Manpads. And Manpads are generally going to be IR-seekers. So like you say, they detect the UV and/or IR light from the rocket plume and give you a directional warning like "missile launch, two O'clock", but nothing thereafter. It is now the pilots job to dispense flares and defend against that threat. For MAWS to be able to show the flight path of a missile, it would have to either: -Know the exact missile type, range to launcher and guidance system. or -Visually track the missile and range it by laser. Both of which are equally "impossible" to do. Therefore I suggested in the sensors thread that IR missiles only give a directional launch warning on MAWS fitted aircraft, and Radar missiles give a lock, launch and range estimate on the RWR. on a different note, I think this is going off topic. I believe Saul wants us to discuss the vehicles more specifically. There's a seperate thread for sensors, HUD symbology and MFD's. I will post more on the jets tomorrow.

Just like sensors have a max range, and weapons have a max locking range. Maybe confirmSensorTarget could be linked to range. In real life, if the enemy is not transponding their identity the only thing you have to go by is really a radar signature or visual confirmation. Unless you can use elimination, by removing all friendly aircraft and all civilian aircraft from the mix, and hoping that all "unknown" targets are enemy. However I propose a suggestion to identification: If the target is emitting radar energy, this will be recognized by your RWR and Identified due to radar signature. (Gives players reason to switch off Radar - even if you are "seen" by the enemy, you are not identified). If the target comes within visual sensor range, it will be identified. If the target is lost from every friendly sensor for a given time, the confirmSensorTarget is reset again. (Gives players a reason to break radar contact). I think these are some simple rules that enhance gameplay :)

All in all a very detailed and informative read Instagoat. Thanks for that! I have the exact same hopes for ARMA 3, that they lend some elements from War Thunders damage model. The clue is that in real life, the "hull" wouldn't really stop the vehicle until it looks like swiss cheese, which is after several hundred hits. The tank is usually killed way before it gets to that, either by : Crew Kill, Mobility Kill, Combat Effectiveness kill, Ammo detonation, Fires etc. Arma already does some pretty sweet penetrations for projectile ammunition, but I agree with you that the internal armor composition and internal components need to be revised for existing and future tanks if we want to see better Armored Warfare. My major gripes are: Too few damageable components in armored vehicles No HEAT simulation "HULL" damage deaths Like you've said. In the Biki, it states that even if the hit does not penetrate, the HULL soaks up some damage. Come to think of it, ricochets may actually be particularly deadly due to this mechanic. Imagine the following: A tank has 1000 HP (hull). 1. You fire a shot that penetrates the armor. It deals hull damage, and damages internal hitboxes. If either is critical, tank blows up. 2. You fire a shot that ricochets, dealing 200 hull dmg. It then hits the armor again and ricochets, dealing further 200 hull dmg. Lastly it penetrates armor and deals 200 damage, before stopping in the hull and dealing 200 damage. I am afraid that the current mechanic works like this. That each ricochet deals x amount of damage to hull, while in real life it would only "carve" a dent or channel into the exterior armor plates, but continue working as if nothing happened. Although it may seem like that happens ingame, it's a completely different matter if the game now considers your HP to be 80%. That means you can only survive 5 ricochets, even though they theoretically should do 0 dmg. And it gets even worse if the same shot ricochets multiple times. We should have a system where an actual ricochet deals 0 damage to the tank. Where a penetration below a certain caliber deals 0 - minimal damage to the tank/hull Where a non-penetrating hit at flat angles destroy the shell, there should be some "Kinetic energy calculation versus armor thickness" to determine if internal damage occurs (spalling inside). HE ammunition should also get a remake. First, a fuze setting (impact or microdelay), and secondly a penetration value. If the shell has impact fuse, it will explode immediately regardless of what it strikes. If it has microdelay impact fuse, it should first calculate penetration, then explode inside/beyond if it penetrates, or on surface if it does not. HE ammo should use a similar calculation to the non-penetrating armor hit for internal damage, but also deal splash damage to "external" modules. This would work perfectly in urban combat, where large caliber HE ammo is likely to penetrate walls and subsequently detonate inside the building. If BI would do HE penetration, it essentially means that all weapons could use penetration in arma. Imagine a GBU-12 hitting the roof of a building. If it's thin enough, the GBU may go straight through and explode inside. It would also allow for modders to create bunker-busting weapons. HEAT ammo simulation. Simplest solution is to have a "HE" round that spawns/produces a kinetic projectile upon impact. This warhead can be fitted to ATGM's, HEAT rounds, AT-launchers, AT-mines, AT-grenades etc etc. It would also allow for Top-attack or "overfly" munitions to work properly. All in all it is very interesting and I hope that we will get more advanced damage models for ground vehicles, together with better damage effects and ammunition types. I would strongly recommend that you download RHS mods and try the same experiments with their tanks. The armored combat feels way better in RHS, and they also have working HEAT simulation. Try the following: Use RHS Kornet Missile against M1A2 Abrams, switch to camera mode and "clip" inside the M1A2 and use setacctime 0.01 or something. Watch the impact. You will see, although internal modules are invisible, that there are multiple strikes against the inside of the tank and crew. This gave me enormous hopes because if modders can pull it off, BI sure can too! I hope they use RHS modders for Tanks DLC.

Been testing for a while now and I agree. Can't seem to get anything from a Tigris or Shikra lock. I agree it should work this way for Radar Guided Missiles as they are active homing and give "hints" that they are coming. And speaking of missile launches. Please get rid of the IR-seeker "M" symbol on the sensor HUD. One of the major advantages of IR missiles are that they are passive and incredibly hard to track from a maneuvering aircraft. Players should get a missile launch direction at best. For Radar Guided missiles that's a different story. They are much harder to shake but also emit constant radiation. The strength of the radiation can be measured and the jet can "Guesstimate" the distance and angle it is approaching from. For these incoming missiles I would suggest keeping the "M" symbol on the sensor HUD. Same. Always white for me. Do we have to activate datalink in object settings to get the colored symbols? Even if it's just for our own jet? I do not know the gimbal limits of the TGP on the A149, but it looks like a "Litening pod", and it should be able to gimbal towards the rear quite a bit, enough to let you land the bomb on target.

So I have a few things to point out about the ejection system! First of all, thank you for finally getting vanilla ejection seats! They were sorely needed for immersion and realism :) Now to the feedback! The seat does not work when you suffer critical engine failure/shutdown ("Eject" disappears from action menu). This is actually a quite typical scenario that the ejection seat was designed for! :) The seat does not self-orient in any way. You keep the aircrafts roll, pitch and yaw attitudes for the entire "flight" to the ground. Real seats will always try to orient upright, also they are normally designed with drogue chutes to stabilize so that when the parachute activates, the pilot will be moved in an upward motion from the seat. If you bail out with 90 degrees bank in ARMA, you will get parachute at 90 degrees which would mean that the parachute would rip you sideways and snap your back/kill you. There is an error in the sequencing. Only tested on F/A-181. When you hit eject the canopy is blown off, but after that the rocket motor ignites and produces a LONG flame that goes through the aircraft model. In real life, there is first a catapult (piston) that propels you out of the cockpit before the rocket motor starts. This is to avoid burning your legs off. So the rocket motor should realistically ignite as soon as the seat has cleared the cockpit. The least you could do is shorten the catapult seat rocket flame! The automatic chute deployment altitude seems to be at 150m AGL. Realistically speaking it is often closer to 3000m ASL, but then again.. gameplay! I would recommend lifting the deploy altitude to 300m ASL. This will actually penalize you for losing a jet, but also allow you to pick a better landing site/somewhere to hide as enemy forces are closing on you. It will also give the Manual Chute release a purpose - specifically if you know the seat activates at 300m ASL, and you are heading for a mountain, then you should probably pull the manual release handle :) EDIT: I tested on Shikra seat and it repeatedly deployed at 300ish. I got about 150m on the F/A-181 seat. All ejections from about 1000m ALT.

You are 100% right. It may look green from the front, but from the pilot's seat it usually looks like this: If you turn up the HUD brightness, you will actually start seeing a large green sphere that encompasses all the symbology. This is the HUD projector light bulb emitting light at full power. Only useful where the ambient light is very intense. You can see this effect in the image below:

This has already been suggested multiple times, together with increased terrain rendering distance in low quality. Realistic stall system requires an advanced flight model, which the devs have said will not be made for Jets DLC. Flutter and G forces are not modeled in this way either, and would require advanced flight models. Have you fired a 20mm gatling gun? I have stood next to one on a firing range. The M61 Vulcan. It does not shake your vision. It mildly vibrates. The air pressure from the muzzle blast cannot be felt inside the cockpit. So I would not call it capslock necessary! These are standard NATO pilot helmets. I actually have one. They are very outdated, but still work ok. However, by default these do not support Helmet Mounted Displays and as such they are not fit for use in the F/A-181. Why the Gryphon and Shikra pilots have helmets that support displays, I don't know, seeing that these jets have a conventional HUD. Here is an example of a modern-day Helmet Mounted Cueing System (HMD). It is actually a "mod" or Addon for the old NATO helmet.

So I have been playing around with the Jets DLC, and I noticed one major feature is missing. It is both extremely helpful to players and also very immersive. It screams "jets DLC" more than the Topgun soundtrack. It's a cockpit voice annunciator a.k.a "Bitchin' Betty". It plays a key role in alerting the pilot to danger or abnormal circumstances. I noticed when playing that even with the damage indicators in the cockpit and game GUI HUD, you have to constantly check these to be aware of any changes (damage). All advanced aircraft, such as airliners or military aircraft have a built-in warning system. It simply tells the pilots to shift their focus for a second to see what's going on. Now I know I've already begged you BI for Ejection seats, and my prayers were actually heard :D Thank you for that, but I think this would be the icing on the cake with minimal effort to implement! So here is my proposal: Add some sounds or female voice for the following events: Any "yellow damage state" followed by a "Caution! Caution!" or chime Any "red damage state" followed by a "Warning! Warning!" or chime A warning for low fuel A warning for low chaff/flare A stall warning/beep (when the speed indicator numbers usually shift to red text, this is hard to pick up in ArmA). I think terrain collision/altitude warnings are going to be too frequent in ArmA seeing that most flying happens way lower than in real life. Here are some warnings/cautions from F-16 for example:

So far, the only 'balance' seems to be weapon loadout. If you bring 8 GBU-12's then you can level a small village, but you are not going to shoot down many jets if they have AA missiles :)

Hello Laudi. I am speaking from an Aircraft Technician/Mechanic perspective (not engineer), but I'd like to make an attempt at fleshing out your point a little more regarding the COG/landing gear on the F/A-181 Black Wasp II I think you mean the gear is placed too far aft on the fuselage. The relation of main landing gear to rudder/vertical stabilizers really have no practical disadvantage other than during high ground speeds in the yaw axis. This is absolutely true, but following up on the previous comment, it is the aircraft's Elevator control surfaces or Horizontal stabilizers that are responsible for the rotation. Ideally the aircraft's CG should be a little forward of the main landing gear. This is because it reduces load on the nose landing gear, which means that the nose landing gear can be made smaller and save weight/space. It also prevents the aircraft from tipping backwards on the ground, which would be very unsafe and expensive. As for aerodynamic purposes, having the main landing gear so close to the elevators, means that the downward momentum is going to have to be very high in order to lift the nose up. Essentially, what happens during a takeoff rotation, is that the fuselage weight AFT of the main landing gear combined with the downward force of the elevators have to overcome the weight of the fuselage FORWARD of the main landing gear. The images you provided are very good! Although, I do not believe the relation between main gear and vertical stabs matter, they do reveal that on the two inspirational aircraft which the F/A-181 is derived from, it does show a discrepancy. Using just my eyeball and a makeshift ruler I have tried to estimate the Main Landing Gear's position on all three aircraft as a % from the nose. The F-18 and F-22 seem to have the MLG placed about 60% of the way from the aircraft's nose. The F/A-181 seems to have the MLG placed about 75% of the way. This is a noticeable difference, but it really depends on where the Aircraft's CG is, but as airspeed increases, also where the aircrafts center of lift (CoL) is. On both the F-22 and F-18 the MLG are placed close to the wings, and presumably also CoL. On these jets, CoL will have minimal impact on the pitch axis with varying speeds. However, on the F/A-181 most of the wing surface appears to be in front of the MLG. Therefore one may assume that as the lift force increases with airspeed, CoL will be ahead of the MLG and create some pitch-up force. This will relieve the elevators. For carrier takeoffs it is a different story, because the rotation doesn't really occur until the nosewheel has disconnected from the catapult at the very end of the run. It also brings the jet into high speed, and more control surface authority way sooner than during conventional takeoffs. Either way it is impossible to make any 100% educated claims because the F/A-181 is 100% fictional. We do not know where CoG is, or CoL for that matter. My take on this is that when they designed the jet, they wanted those internal weapon bays and had to move the gear further aft. I would therefore not be in the position to claim that there is something wrong with the 3D model, since it's fictional and a design choice. It may look off, because we compare it to real jets, but to re-model the fictional jet, in a futuristic mil-sim is a little much to ask IMHO. It would require them to re-do internal weapon bays, textures, animations and the whole lot. Just to throw in some extras. Compare the F-16 with a rather narrow NLG to MLG, and the F-35 with a wider config, more closely resembling the F/A-181: F-16 F-35A Feel free to add/correct anything that seems fit :)

+1 Good proposal, everyone is happy

Case closed :)

It could be convenient for certain scenarios (maybe an EAST jet that normally would not have a Maverick (Macer), but you want it to have one for your mission), but it will either be very buggy, unbalanced and unstable (no rules forced to munitions). Picture this : You are playing multiplayer, your default Buzzard only has 4 AA missiles equipped, so you decide you rather take an A-164 Wipeout and load it with only AA missiles. Now you are a flying SAM site. Also, when developing a jet mod, if there are no restrictions to munitions, you would get all sorts of clipping, and glitchy stuff going on. And you could get situations like the AH-9 having 24x Macers installed. All in all, restrictions are good. They help balance the jets out, and make sure that some weapons are only available to each side. At least that is my opinion. In regards to realism, there should be even more restrictions (weight etc).

This is known as Man In The Loop weapon systems. What we like to call TV-Guided missiles. They were more common before TGP's came into service, because they gave a "closer look" at the target before impact and allowed last minute adjustments. TGP's have completely replaced the need for weapon camera links where the release platform may always retain line of sight to target. Some cruise missiles and standoff weapons still have that feature so you can make final adjustments and/or divert attack in case of bad intel etc. So realistically speaking : No (for AA, AGM and GBU-12.) Gameplay? May give unfair advantage because you can confirm hit and assume target is dead instead of relying on sensors. It's almost like spectating the enemy while playing if you ask me. should be server/difficulty option IMHO.

That is exactly one of those greyzone abbrevations. It's easy to distinguish what an AP Mine and AT Mine does.... But what about HE Rocket and AP Rocket? Are they Anti-Personnel or Armour-Piercing? Always ends up confusing us.