Did you work on “Combat Helo”?
No, the AH-64D mod/addon for ArmA2/3.
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I helped with Combat Help but only on the artistic side. And moral support.
A lot of bad luck happened right there…
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So… I was informed today that I need to pick out $100 worth of stuff as a Christmas present. So I chose the F-14 and two aviation related books. 
Can’t wait to try out the Kitty as a long range bomber. 
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Conversely: Minus the Maverick, HARM, and Harpoon and DBS/SAR, all of what you list actually exists in the Tomcat on primitive form or another. The TID combined with the RIO’s Integrated Control Panel are essentially the mechanical equivalent of an MFD. The TID in normal operation is a direct precursor to the SA Page concept: it combines navigation and sensor information from the aircraft and rectifies it with external data link information.
Depending on the extent to which Heatblur has chosen to emulate systems rather than simulate them, I’d happily wager the F-14 is a far more complex aircraft than the F/A-18 on the inside. We’re talking about attempting to offer functionality that would be ground breaking in the late 80s in a fighter that reached IOC in 1972. From what little you can glean from the NATOPs, the amount of integration occurring between early digital and analog computers and devices is ridiculous
I don’t know the level to which HB is attempting to actually model that, or if it’s instead just black box in/out, but my point is attempting to realize any aircraft of sufficient complexity is a massive undertaking. That goes for the F-4, the F-14, the F/A-18 or what have you.
I just finished listening to episode 3 of the Alert 5 podcast, which includes the Heatblur interview, and came away very impressed with both the team and their vision for the DCS Tomcat. Much is revealed.
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So… what about the intruder?
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That’s what I’m saying… Intruder alerts have gone quiet again
You could say that update news is a direct relationship to the tadpole’s speed
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My home alarm sends me these regularly. I wish I knew what they mean. And where my stuff keeps going
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Does “what have you” = F-111? 
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As in “what have you DONE with my 111???”
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In real world terms, this is true; from a coding/scripting standpoint, the Bug is a fair bit more complex to implement.
Practical example: in the AH-64A, the targeting system only had to track on sensor set and run a LOS routine on those targets visible by that sensor for a given visual distance. Once that’s done, we only needed to watch the current target and track whether or not it was visible to the sensor and whether the laser was still hitting it. That was the extent of the sensor suite, really; even though it tied into the IHADSS, the gunner’s ORT, and the pilot’s VDU (his TV), there wasn’t a lot of extra stuff to track.
In the AH-64D, the system changes because we also have the TSD, which integrates the entire sensor suite, including the RWR. So now in addition to finding visual targets, we also have a radar, as well as a detection routine for ADA that might trip the RWR. So we’ve gone from only caring about visual targets, but the targets we’ve already seen, the targets the radar has seen, and the targets that have tripped the RWR. That all comes together and gets put into a database that must be continually maintained. This leaves a lot more going on under the hood than the A, and that’s just with sensor systems and targeting alone, nevermind stuff like moving map displays and navigation (believe it or not, these were big deals in ArmA).
In that respect, because the Bug has to be able to do more stuff – especially with air-to-ground – coding and scripting wise, it’s got a hell of a lot more complexity. The F-14, while mimicking some of the capabilities, doesn’t have to worry about JHMCS and integrating that with missile seekers, radar modes, and the targeting pod. Further, MFDs are a royal pain in the butt to code and script in comparison to analog instruments.
I was sure glad to have figured out how to do a moving map display, but it would have been far easier to duplicate the same system I put in on the Fitter, which was just a series of waypoint coordinates in a sequential array, where the instrument in question only had to point an arrow toward the next waypoint and the distance. The data that a digital MFD puts in place makes things a lot harder, doubly so when your MFD has to do all these other things on top of that!
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https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?s=7e1acc8d930958272a87d8ee81d98031&p=3719863&postcount=208
Community doing the normal over reaction over Tomcat release dates…
Instant gratification, I suppose. With what Heatblur has shown thus far, I’m not sure why there’s any reason to doubt them, and given typical modern software release dates, I’m also not sure why everyone instantly assumed that winter = December.
The F-14 will come, sooner rather than later and I’m pretty sure within the next 4 months.
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Honestly, and I’m not being sarcastic here, waiting for these modules is in many ways more fun than actually playing them. Hell, its one of the reasons I get on here every morning and check for new updates. It feels like forever ago when they were teasing the f18 at E3 or which ever convention it was. Waiting for and watching the update videos for the hornet kept me entertained for many months. Now I don’t even care to fly it that much.
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From the standpoint of someone trying to get a free “product” released, no one is harder on crunches/due dates than the team itself. When you miss a target because of some arbitrary reason like a bug that just popped up or the artist’s hard drive bit the dust, it raises a level of frustration that goes beyond what the audience feels like when a date comes and goes. I suspect that Heatblur really wanted to make it this December for early access, but they also don’t want to deliver something that has a critical problem the moment everyone gets their grubby paws on it. It’s pretty damned embarrassing to release something and then find out something big has absolutely ruined how it works, giving you a black eye in more ways than one. Throw money into this issue and now instead of enjoying your short vacation over xmas, you’re at the computer trying to chase down code or correct some art asset. Not fun.
Given what has been said by Heatblur today, I strongly believe that we can now relax a bit and look forward to next month and plan accordingly.
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I don’t go on the ED forums very often. I just read back through a few pages of Comments on there regarding the f14.
@nicholas.dackard I really feel for you. You shouldn’t have to put up with that nonsense.
That was borderline painful reading.
Keep up the good work. With the excellent air show videos and 4 ship showcase videos you can see its going to be a quality product.
I can wait. It will be worth every minute waited and every penny spent.
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My gods… Sometimes I really hate people…
Uhmmm actually… People in forums.
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