Heatblur F-14 and Forrestal Update

Screw that. You should see all the shade I’ve been throwing at @Aeromechanical’s beloved lawn dart. If we ever get DCS: F-16 that grudgematch is going to get biblical.

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Not sure what there is to debate yet- it looks like Heatblur did their homework! The Tomcat was a beast to fly and it looks like they’re really paying attention to the details in order to try to capture as much as that feeling as you can in a flight simulator module.

Definitely hope they go into more gory details on the model in further videos…

viperwins

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How @Aeromechanical sees it:

How the Internet sees it:
Final Jeopardy

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I dunno what you’re talking about. The F-14 is 15G capable, can do a Cobra and once beat Chuck Norris in karate. Any attempts to disprove this will be considered a declaration of war

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Now we are cooking!

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I haven’t even gotten to the part where the AIM-54 is capable of Warp 10 and shot down Mir in the 90s.

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…Now that I think about it, there was that one story about how an F-14’s hydraulics broke down so the pilot ripped off the joystick, pulled out the popsicle sticks from his mid-mission snack, and rigged up the flight controls like a marionette.

If we can’t do this in-game I’m not buying the module. Period.

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22 seconds into the video; me: I want it! NOW!

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Woohoo. Everybody board the hype train.

Well, it looks like it’s not less accurate than F-14 FD managed over 20 years ago, so that’s a plus.

Especially when so much other stuff from 90s sims has FAILED to be even reproduced, let alone bettered, in the intervening decades. Yeah, I’m looking at you Longbow 2. Looks like crap today, but still offered the most exacting replication of the 64 ever made. That Gunship! aberration is, of course, omitted.

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One of the most difficult parts of developing the F-14 is developing your AI RIO companion- JESTER AI. For Jester, we want to make sure that the AI feels as lifelike as possible.

We have begun work on the AI’s “Human” behaviour model, which will simulate the RIOs current task, visual focus and detection abilities.

JESTER will move his head to look at exactly where the switch/indicator being manipulated or used is in the cockpit, and thus will not be able to scan the sky at the same time. Thus the RIO will have significant difficulties with visual detection when under heavy radar workload, as his head is buried in the DDD and TID screens.

The RIO has a focused viewing cone of roughly 30 degrees, and a peripheral vision field of roughly 100-130 degrees. Inside the focused viewing cone, the RIO will more quickly detect targets, while detection range and speed is significantly reduced in the peripheral vision. We also account for the sun, the horizon and line of sight (JESTER will not see through mountains or clouds). Thus, the RIO might even notice contacts in his peripheral vision while manipulating radar controls, but at a much lower chance than if actively scanning the sky, and thus using his focused viewing field.

Making sure that the RIO is bound by realistic human limitations is in the very foundation of our work, and it is important not only for immersion, but also to maintain appropriate multiplayer balance.

Below are three screenshots showing the system in action!

In the first image; Jester is looking straight ahead and has seen both the Carrier and the aircraft in the distance (yellow markers denote detected units).

In the second, he is looking down into the cockpit and manipulating one of the backseat controls.
In the third, he’s looking at the locked targets, the dropped flares and has also seen one of the fired missiles. Note that the second missiles has not yet been seen by the RIO.

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Me gusta

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Look out for a future article by Mudspike Guest Contributor @discobot :robot: . We sent him over as the best entity to interview JESTER. :slight_smile:

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Hi! To find out what I can do, say @discobot display help.

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Captain Kirk meets Mr. Gutsy…

@discobot will you be my navigator?

Talk to me @discobot

oh man @dicebot is gonna be pissed. Also good on leatherneck for putting so much work into this feature. They could have easily made it a menu or some shortcut keys.

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