DCS F/A-18C (Open Beta) Initial Impressions AAR

*Grinning * Oh, boy am I definitely looking at that…

Was too busy flying to get anything good enough for the screenshot thread.

She may not like pushing past the transonic, but the Bug will absolutely play right up to it. This is with 8x Mk-83s, on the deck, mil thrust.

Knowing your fuel state is going to become less a life skill and more a fetishistic obsession. The tanker was in an awkward spot and I figured I had enough to just jam it on the boat. One Bolter later and I’m landing with 230 lbs of gas. (these things usually have an accuracy of ± a couple hundred pounds). The FPAS page can’t come soon enough.

Overall it’s rougher around the edges than I anticipated, but it’s one hell of a platform to build from. The jet is beautiful, the radar is the most impressive sensor I’ve seen in any sim, bar none. The Powered Approach ¶ mode of the FCS is quite simply unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in a sim. I’ve grown cocky after years of FSX, Xplane and P3D. This jet wasted no time setting me right in my place (said place being the ramp). You will follow the IFLOLs and you will mind your throttle if you want to be successful.

ACM will take some getting used to. Years of the Eagle have taught me to enter the fight fast, and the Hornet’s FCS and engines simply don’t appreciate that. The -402s put out a enough thrust that above 400 knots the jet will happily maintain a 7G turn without bleeding airspeed: but that turn will be the size of Missouri. I’ll need to find some EM charts to form a cogent strategy, but the jet seems to appreciate the area around M .73 more.

There are some blemishes. The more data intensive DDI pages will sometimes wonk out. The store’s system doesn’t seem to update when you load new or different weapons after start up (they appear on the wing plan form, but aren’t selectable via the top DDI row). I’m going to have to look at the manual to see if some of the things the radar is doing is right.

But those are relatively minor. This is a spring board for great things in DCS, I haven’t been this enamored with the possibility since I picked up the A-10 back in 2011.

also real talk, is there a way to turn off that gosh darned moving map? The lack of contrast is killing me.

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Beg your pardon, what did you call me?!

A crumb bum

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:smiley: Ah ok. Thanks!

(But really, what’s IFLOL?)

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45 posts were merged into an existing topic: DCS F/A-18C Hornet Case I Recovery tips

Cargo planes for the AIM-7 instant action doesn’t pose much of a challenge, pretty happy with this shot though!

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Indeed. The back side of the power curve in this thing takes a while to bail yourself out of. Time you don’t have close-in to the ship. Definitely keeps you on your toes.

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I would like tha thank @Everyone for the screenshots- they’re all going into my “Desktops” folder! :smiley:

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Ran through all the included training missions last night, and I’ll plus one what @near_blind and @BeachAV8R said about the power curve - holy crap, don’t get slow in that thing on approach. I think I’ll be practicing the overhead pattern for a little bit - my first attempt at that saw me bouncing off the ground a couple hundred yards short of the threshold, but I still managed to put her on the runway. I’m guessing the damage model is also still a WIP.

If I’m in tonight, I’m looking forward to embarrassing myself attempting to bring her aboard the ship!

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I tried my first Carrier landing this morning (in multiplayer), hit the back of the ship, exploded and killed the other players parked at that end. Oops.

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Excellent !!! share the love I say :wink:

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Ha!

chipwich analogous tangent warning
Reminds me of the time when I was racing in a very large, 50+ driver, 24 hour online race at Suzuka. Our team, SimHQ, was lucky enough to be holding down a top 10 position about 4 hours into the event. Very serious stuff. My stint was going really well - that is until I somehow clipped my Audi’s LMP hood on a wall on the front straight. That, unfortunately, due to the vagaries of multiplayer net code, knocked about half the teams out of the race! A bunch of finger pointing, marshall’s paper shuffling, and a restart about an hour later got everyone going again, but how bloody embarrassing.

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That was you? Oh man… (Just kidding, I didn’t see it but you hear about these types of things all the time in Iracing.)

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Dont feel bad, Last night @AeroMechanical taxi’d off the deck into the water, which exploded me sitting there.

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Hey, someone’s gotta sew the chaos in the server.

Had a moment last night where I saw @Gunnyhighway shoot off the cat while @Navynuke99 and I were circling the carrier trying to set up a landing despite the turbulence pushing our jets around. Good stuff!

I’m pretty impressed by the initial release. Bugs here and there, but with a high number of fundamental systems that are up and running compared to what’s typically considered early access.

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For the record, I was flying in solo last night while I was talking to y’all. But I’ll be in tonight.

Yes, but it’s bugged. So no, not currently.

And yeah, the moving map is pretty awful right now.

its an early version, rushed in to tick a box. no worries. i put EW on that mfd.

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Having a blast with the ACM instant action missions.

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