BENVENUTO!

DCS-NEWS DCS: F-14A/B Tomcat by Heatblur Simulations

Gaanalma

Personale a Terra
Registrato
19 Giugno 2012
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11.843
Heatblur Christmas Melt!
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Heatblur Simulations is super excited to kick off our new Christmas Sales event, running from now through January 1st at our store: www.heatblur.com 



Grab the Legendary AJS 37 Viggen at -50% off or prepare yourself or a friend for the launch of the F-14A & B Tomcat, by grabbing or giving away our new Heatblur store credit gift cards!
These are also on sale through January 1st, and a great way to save some money off upcoming products and pre-orders!



We’ve also brought back the Viggen launch shirt! This has been a fan-favourite since we launched the Viggen.
After our rocky start as a seller of physical products, we’ve changed shipping carrier to avoid any future mishaps. Shipping is still free at Heatblur.com!

Shopping on the heatblur store goes a long way in supporting the Heatblur development team and  making our roadmap a reality.

We’d like to wish you all a merry christmas and a happy new year.
Thank you all for your support!

Heatblur Simulations


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The Road to Release
Running an Endless Mile



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Dear All,

The good news is: I still have all of my fingers. And after much deliberation, I’ve decided not to eat a sock.
Instead, I’ll write this post, and I hope it will be enough to sway you to put away your pitchforks.

Let’s quickly rewind to earlier this year.
We had just released the AJS 37 Viggen, the result of a super stressful development crunch, skipped Christmas(es), and lots of uncertain new technologies (some of which we finished, truly, at the last minute before reveal).
It was arduous and my shower drain still hasn’t fully recovered from the hair loss. Alas; we made it! Nothing could stop us now! Full steam ahead on bugfixes, new features and the F-14!

Having a relatively successful release can make you overly confident, however.
You become too much of an unrealistic idealist, and quite frankly, the arduous time prior to the Viggen’s launch was going to eventually take its toll. We didn’t know it at the time, but some of us were fizzling out, and standing on the gas pedal really doesn’t help with a fuel starved engine. In our post success hubris, I made the absolute dumbest statement I’ve made in, well, forever. Allow me to quote myself for ultimate posterity and shame:


The picard double facepalm is not potent enough to describe what a boneheaded PR move this post is.
There was a voice in the back of my head screaming from past (MiG-21) lessons learned, but pff! we just released the Viggen. Nothing can go wrong! Silence, ye bellowing hounds, I rebuked as I hit the Post button.

Funnily enough though, nothing really has gone wrong, per se.

In fact, it’s been the complete opposite.

Software development is an exercise in constant trade-offs and choices.
Some are hard to make, but the decisions that led us to missing our window this year were as easy as pie. It doesn’t make us missing our public projections any less disappointing however.

For the Viggen, we experimented with new development methods, and developed new and very exciting in-house workflows, some focused around laser scanning technologies.
After releasing the Viggen, we decided to put all of our new experience to good use. Our goal has always been, and will continue to be to raise the bar to new levels, and what better time to take a massive step forward than with the F-14?
We knew it would be expensive, in both money and time - but our choices this year have been made without any hesitation.

There are no shortcuts when it comes to quality.

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The results of this years events will not only be an aircraft with incredible simulation depth and accuracy, but an audiovisual experience that is dimensionally accurate down to the millimeter level, inside and out. The final results will speak for themselves, and we believe it will be the most accurate digital rendition of a flight simulation aircraft to date.

I could try a ham-fisted attempt to shove in ancient miyamoto platitudes of a delayed game eventually being good right about now, but I will stick to just mentioning that its core message aptly applies to DCS: F-14.

As clichéd as it sounds; the F-14 represents nothing less than a dream opportunity for our team. Moreso, it’s one thing to start a complex project such as this, but we believe we are in a unique position where we have the skill, new and cutting edge in-house tools and workflows, and a perfect blend of knowledge needed to make a truly outstanding F-14 experience.
Not just limited to one area of the module, but one which spans across the entire audiovisual experience, to the simulation depth of the FM and systems, and with Jester yelling at you over the ICS for screwing up as the cherry on top.

The bottom line is: the F-14 is intended to be the bedrock for the next decade of Heatblur Simulations. We can afford a delay, but we can’t disrespect the F-14 with an underwhelming release. In addition to this, the F-14 is integral to the technologies and methodologies required to complete our ambitious product roadmap, which is chock full of interesting and complex multi seat jet aircraft. I guess this is all also a long winded way of saying: if we were concerned only with revenue to development time performance ratios, we would have released the F-14 already. It wouldn’t have been poor, but it wouldn’t have been amazing either. And that is an abject failure in our eyes.

Most importantly however: I’d like to apologize to you all for keeping your hopes up for this year. It was not done in malice nor incompetence (biased opinion, I know, but we do try to be very introspective at Heatblur). We are very sorry. The wait will be worth it, we promise.

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The ultimate question becomes then, when? Honestly, we don’t know.
The aircraft feels very much like a complete product (despite the in-game aircraft still being the Chromecat) - but we need some more time to migrate in all of our new art assets, and brush all of the dust away. The FM is complete, and most, if not all of the systems are Early Access or close to Early Access ready. Our team will be entering 2018 high on optimism and success.

So expect it sooner rather than later. We know it’s disappointing not to have a specific date, but we’d rather not let you down again. And thanks to your continued patience, what will eventually arrive, will hopefully be an amazing product and experience. One which feels complete, high quality and exactly what you expect when you hear the name “Heatblur Simulations”.

In summary, do not be pessimistic about the question “when”. We aren’t, and currently, that says a lot. More importantly, we have not compromised our goal of trying to be the best, and we hope you find that equally as important as knowing when.

Now that you’ve been thoroughly bored; lets move on to some specifics!


F-14 Art

One of the biggest remaining items on the F-14 remains the completion of the entire gamut of visual assets.

The biggest task for the art team this year has been completely and utterly nuking anything currently in use from existence.
Every single piece of media, artwork, models, textures, indicator graphics, etc you’ve seen so far (with the exception of the new TCS and screenshots from a month ago) have been (or will be) thrown away and replaced by completely new, unassociated assets.

Witness Me! Bellows the Chromecat as it gets ground by the trash compactor.

The scale of this revamp effort was initially limited to bigger chunks of the cockpit and exterior. However, with our new sculpting and laser scanning based workflow, which we created during the Viggen’s development, this replacement effort has grown to encompass every single asset built from 2014 and onwards. We are confident that we will attain absolutely unparalleled quality in our work, and match the immersion of simulation depth with an appropriately advanced audiovisual experience.

Since about April 2017, our art team has been working double time and rebuilt the Pilot Cockpit, RIO Cockpit and Exterior Model in their entirety. This has been a monumental effort, and we undertook a temporary team expansion in order to handle the increased workload.

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Current tasks for the art team focus primarily around completion of exterior and interior textures. We consider this to be the most important step in the visual development process, and the F-14 is particularly labour intensive, with complex and interesting weathering patterns.

Our team is operating at peak efficiency, and we’re nearing the end stages in both interior and exterior artwork. Expect the eyecandy to start rolling in as all of our new assets are completed and tied together with the rest of the aircraft.

Another big task is of course our CV59-62 Forrestal Class Battle Group effort. While most of the art team is currently focused exclusively on the F-14 itself, we do not expect it to take long to wrap the carrier and associated assets. We’ve spent a few thousand man-hours on the Forrestal thus far; and have built the carrier to be future proof in terms of detail and accuracy.





Systems and FM

For some of the latest in-depth detail on the Systems and FM modeling of the Tomcat, I’d like to point you to our November update (Scan, Lock, Fire!) - available to read here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=196159

In general, most of the engineering team’s focus lies in the same areas as last month. Our work is heavily focused around completion of the AWG-9 weapons system, JESTER AI and currently, some of the more complex Nav and Datalink features (such as INS, Link 4 (both player to player and Player to AI).



Early next year, we will start producing in-depth gameplay videos of the aircraft. This will be a great opportunity for us to go into much more depth on the aircraft and it’s systems fidelity.

With all of this said however, we’re very excited to note that the F-14 codebase can be considered in a practically Early Access ready state. We consider the Flight Model essentially complete, with minor tweaks being implemented (particularly in things like the control dampeners). We’ve also been working on a brand new engine model that will power most of our jet driven aircraft in the future and tying that together with the F-14.

That said, owing to the large complexity of this project, the F-14 will undoubtedly launch with a featureset that is not 100% complete. This is especially true with components like JESTER, which we consider to be integral to our roadmap for the next decade, and will be receiving massive improvements over time.



These are the kinds of features that we will grow over time, and will transition naturally into future multi-seat jet projects. Despite this however, we feel very confident in how complete the aircraft currently is, and the depth of our systems simulation will match our effort in other areas of development.


[YOUTUBE]YqrZ-FQ0D9c[/YOUTUBE]



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AJS 37 Development Update

While most of your excitement currently revolves around the F-14; we’re still working hard on our post release AJS 37 roadmap.
We’ve recently unveiled some of the bigger, new, free features coming to the Viggen- such as the AI J-35 Draken. We’ve spent a lot of time building this aircraft to the same exacting standard as you’d expect from a flyable DCS module.



The Draken is an integral part of what we consider to be our AJS 37 Content Push.
The Content push for the Viggen primarily revolves and focuses around the two campaigns that we are working on, which will ship for free for the module. Both campaigns will be set in the Caucasus region, and one campaign will be a short 6 mission “mini campaign”.

Of course, the aircraft itself will be no stranger to expansion and improvements, both in and outside the game. Some of the major changes coming to the Viggen are as follows:

  • Major and minor bugs still remaining.
  • New, J-35 Draken AI
  • An overhaul of the cockpit to take full advantage of PBR BRDF (see F-14 cockpit samples)
  • Completely new exterior soundset, accurately recreating the sound of the Volvo RM8 as mounted in the AJS 37 Viggen.
  • New Caucasus Mini-Campaign
  • New Caucasus Main-Campaign
  • New in-cockpit pilot
  • Manual imagery and content completion
  • New Liveries, including fictional and JA-37 liveries
  • More Training Missions
  • New Single Player Missions
  • More new, secret content!

With these changes and additions, we hope that the AJS 37 will be considered one of the best packages of content available for $59.99. One of our prime goals is to make sure that everything we build is filled to the brim with content. The F-14 will be no different, and we have some exciting announcements to make with regards to the Tomcat as well.

Some of you have expressed concern that the AJS 37 will fall to the wayside with the coming of the F-14. The opposite is actually true. We consider 2018 to be a year where we consolidate both of our products, iron out any remaining flaws in both, and make sure that we can move ahead with a clean and low-intensity (upkeep wise) slate.


   


In Closing; from the entire team and very sincerely, we’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. This community never fails to make us feel safe in our investment of money, time and effort into developing new modules. We hope you’ll look past your disappointment of not flying the Tomcat yet, and stick with us as we wrap things up and launch.

For some of our team, this will be the first Christmas in a few years where we won’t be working over the holidays (as you can expect, Christmas 2016 was non-existant!). It’s been a long and tough year for us, with some amazing highs (Viggen launch) and super lows (F-14 deliverable date misses).

That said, the entire team is absolutely brimming with confidence and optimism. We believe we’ve built an amazing product, and we can’t wait to launch it.​




Sincerely,

Heatblur Simulations​




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Tournament

Pilota
Registrato
30 Settembre 2012
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3.414
no ma ragazzi... io non vedo l'ora di provare quel seggiolino!!!!!! Deve essere veramente confortevole!!!!!
 

Lornix

Personale a Terra
Registrato
5 Ottobre 2015
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1.839
Skycaptain ha scritto:
La butto li: per la fine del 2018, se va tutto bene.

non so perchè, ma secondo me prima. fine giugno?

comunque mi intriga più questo che l'F18, l'F18 lo vedo un po' troppo "facile".
 

Cag

Registrato
20 Giugno 2015
Messaggi
597
non so perchè, ma secondo me prima. fine giugno?

comunque mi intriga più questo che l'F18, l'F18 lo vedo un po' troppo "facile".

[ehmmm] [ehmmm] [ehmmm]
Facile...??
Dici... ??

Mah...
 

Gaanalma

Personale a Terra
Registrato
19 Giugno 2012
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11.843
Dear All,

Since our last update just before Christmas; the team has been focusing on hitting several major milestones in the F-14 project. These are actually some of the last major milestones to be completed prior to early access release, and they primarily involve the completion of the new, rebuilt art assets, and their integration into the existing codebase and aircraft.

While our main development branch is still occuring on the “chromecat” - we’re now very close to completing our work on several major visual areas of the aircraft and merging these together. While this feels like it has been a long journey; we'll be clocking in at just under a year to build the most detailed rendition of an F-14 Tomcat ever created (and perhaps, any digital aircraft ever!)

This has required the full attention of all of our artist resources and has come at great cost - but there is nothing quite like a Tomcat, and we need to make sure that we do the best job that we can.

This process is not yet complete and will still take some time, but we’re very excited to show off what we’ve been working on and are pushing ourselves to the brink to get it done. Once this is complete, we can finally begin to record in-depth gameplay videos from the F-14. You should expect with great certainty for these to start dropping sometime in March. There is a ton to cover!

Late last month we’ve also announced the inclusion of LANTIRN into our F-14, making the Tomcat a formidable Bombcat. You will be able to use a full gamut of guided bombs to strike targets. Somewhat contrary to it’s initial role in the fleet, the F-14 is actually a very potent ground attack airplane, and flying strike packages in a coop scenario is incredibly fun. The Tomcat has plenty of range, and can carry a large payload, while remaining combat effective. No doubt, it will be one of the most capable aircraft in DCS on launch. We’ve always been committed to ensuring that our products are packed with value - and the LANTIRN being a part of the DCS F-14 is a move in the right direction for that to be the case.

We've also continued working very closely with our SMEs (F-14A, B and D pilots) to tweak the final elements of our flight modeling and control systems. Every time we iterate over a new build with our SMEs, we get closer to achieving satisfaction with both our SMEs and maintaining consistency with our data. We really can't understate how satisfied we are with what we've achieved with the F-14 flight model.

Multiplayer is a big focus for the F-14, and for the Tomcat and other future products, we've written custom networking code to ensure that the multiplayer experience is consistent and smooth. Flying and fighting in the F-14 together is incredibly fun and rewarding.
Multiplayer is not only important for the aircraft itself, but also for all of our included content. The F-14 will eventually receive two free, full campaigns - one for the F-14A and one for the F-14B, of which one the -B campaign is currently deep in production. We'll be adapting both of these campaigns to work in Co-operative - something which no doubt will be a ton of fun.

Concurrently, we’ve been organizing our future roadmap and plans. While our main focus during 2018 will be the full completion of the Viggen and polishing the F-14, we’ll be ramping up production on our future product roadmap as well. Jester AI, Navy assets, and other advanced, in-house technologies will be integral to ensuring that Heatblur products will be one of a kind moving forwards.

Fret not over the lull in updates - in this particular moment - silence is golden.

As always, thank you for the support!

Heatblur

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Skycaptain

Personale a Terra
Registrato
20 Agosto 2014
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2.922
While we’ve already undertaken the development of an engine model with the Viggen, we decided last year to completely redesign this portion of our simulation framework, in order to create an much more in-depth and realistic simulation of a turbofan engine. This will also help us in recreating the P&W TF-30 engines for the F-14A, as well as other turbofan, turbojet, or turboshaft engines for our future product lineup.

The F-14B is powered by two F110-GE-400 turbofan engines with variable exhaust nozzles and afterburner augmentation.They are dual-rotor engines consisting of a three-stage fan driven by a two stage, low-pressure turbine and a mechanically independent, aerodynamically balanced, nine-stage high-pressure compressor driven by a single-stage, air-cooled, high-pressure turbine. Engine operation is automatically regulated and maintained electrically by the augmenter fan temperature control unit and by throttle inputs to the main engine control.


This new F110 model has been built entirely from scratch, incorporating many new features and improving the accuracy and fidelity of the engine simulation. The following components of the engine have been modeled based on actual F110 engine data gathered from various sources:

Air Inlet Control System (AICS)
The primary job of the AICS is to provide quality airflow to the engine in sufficient quantities to prevent engine operation issues. This involves a reduction of the speed of air entering the engine’s fan/compressor face. During this process, incoming freestream airflow is slowed and compressed. As a result, ram temperatures and pressures entering the engine are increased. On the F-14 this is achieved primarily by a system of 3 moving ramps per side that are scheduled based on flight conditions. During supersonic flight, these ramps are scheduled to move in a way that creates multiple shockwaves to more efficiently compress incoming air than a conventional duct would. The efficiency of the inlet’s pressure recovery throughout the flight envelope has been captured from real F-14 flight test data for use in the Heatblur F-14. Considerations for ramp actuator malfunctions have been made, which can include thrust loss and reduced stability margin (i.e. higher potential for compressor stall) if the ramps are out of their scheduled positions (i.e. high speed with the ramps in their stowed position…don’t do this!).

Augmenter Fan Temperature Controller/Main Engine Control (AFTC/MEC)
The AFTC/MEC on the F-14 is similar to a FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) in function. It schedules fuel to the engine and afterburner based on numerous inputs. It also provides limiting functions to prevent engine damage and reduce risk of compressor stalls. RPM, EGT, and acceleration/deceleration are all limited by the AFTC to ensure safe engine operation. Other AFTC functions include engine start control, asymmetric thrust limiting, automatic relight, and fault detection. Fault detection automatically switches the engine control to secondary mode in the event of core overspeed, fan speed signal loss and other abnormal conditions. The AFTC/MEC simulation on the Heatblur F-14 takes in probe temperatures and pressures from the AICS, Mach number, pilot throttle positions, fan and core rpms, and engine ignition status, and outputs demanded fuel valve positions. These valve positions correspond to fuel flows that will cause the engine’s core to accelerate or decelerate as demanded by the pilot. While the pilot can demand a certain core speed, the AFTC is also constantly monitoring other engine parameters, such as N2 RPM and EGT to ensure that engine design limits are not exceeded and engine damage does not occur. Essentially, the AFTC protects the engine from the pilot while trying its best to give the pilot what he/she demands. When AFTC failures occur, the AFTC/MEC model reverts to what is known as secondary mode, in which the MEC governs N2 speed based on throttle inputs, but protection features such as EGT limiting are no longer available. Be aware that engine stall margin is decreased slightly at low rpm in this mode.

Fuel Metering Unit (FMU)
The FMU consists of the system of valves and pumps responsible for carrying out AFTC fuel schedule demands. The AFTC outputs fuel valve position commands which in turn spray high pressure fuel into the combustor and afterburner when in use. The Heatblur F-14 model consists of a system of valves that open/close according to AFTC demands, as well as a shutoff valve for engine fires and automated shutdown commands coming from the AFTC. Failures such as stuck valves and clogged fuel filters may be implemented in the future.

Gas Generator (N2)
The gas generator is the heart of any turbomachinery. Its primary purpose is to provide hot, high pressure air to the combustor. This is done by reducing the speed and increasing the pressure/temperature of the incoming inlet air even further, which the F110 can do at a pressure ratio of in excess of 30:1. The gas generator on the F110 is driven by a single stage high pressure turbine. The gas generator simulation in the Heatblur F-14 is robust, with the speed and acceleration of the core determined by fuel flow from the FMU, the speed of air entering the engine, and the inertia of the core itself. The amount of fuel introduced into the flow by the FMU directly corresponds to changes in torque applied to the power turbine, which in-turn changes the compressor speed as it is connected to the same spool. Failures such as compressor stalls (core airflow disturbances) may affect core speed, as well as any failures of upstream components that affect the fuel flow, such as AFTC/MEC or FMU failures.

Fan (N1)
The fan on the F110 is driven by a two stage turbine, with a bypass duct that is mixed back in to the core flow in the afterburner section. The bypass ratio of the F110 is about 0.85. Low-bypass ratio turbofans such as the the F110 have the benefit of improved fuel economy at cruise speeds, while still maintaining very good high speed performance. This makes them excellent engines in fighter aircraft applications. The Heatblur F-14 fan simulation is driven as a function of core speed, with a given steady state core speed corresponding to a steady state fan speed. Any failures affecting the core will also affect fan speeds.

Combustor/Exhaust Gas Temperature Model
The combustor section of the F110 ensures that high pressure fuel flow is efficiently ignited, dramatically increasing the temperature and pressure of the gases before the flow is expanded through power turbine section. The Heatblur F-14 combustor/EGT simulation is dependent on the amount of fuel being introduced into the engine, which is determined by the AFTC/MEC and FMU models.

Afterburner
The afterburner on the F110 provides extra thrust by introducing additional fuel into the flow after the power turbine section. Fuel flow to the afterburner is controlled by the AFTC and AB Fuel Control (AFC), with its own set of high pressure fuel pumps that cycle fuel back to the engine boost pumps when afterburner is not in use. This ensures that high pressure AB fuel is available at all times to prevent thrust lags and surges when AB is initiated. The Heatblur F-14 afterburner simulation is purely dependent on available AB fuel flow and throttle position, with the extra thrust as a function of AB fuel flow and nozzle position. Failures to the AFTC/MEC, AB fuel pump failures, or exhaust nozzle failures will affect AB operation and performance. AB operation is inhibited when in AFTC/MEC secondary mode.

Starting System
The engine start system is a turbine powered either by a ground air/power cart or via a crossbleed start from the opposite engine. Ground power can achieve approximately 30% N2 before light-off. In our F-14 starter simulation, the ENG CRANK switches open pneumatic valves allowing the ground cart air to begin spool-up of the core. As the core spins up, the MEC primes the engine with fuel and provides ignition and fuel control up to 59% N2 RPM.

Variable Exhaust Nozzle
The variable exhaust nozzle is responsible for controlling the expansion of exhaust flow downstream of the afterburner section. Engine exhaust gases at higher thrust settings are discharged through the nozzle throat at sonic velocity and are accelerated to supersonic velocity by the controlled expansion of the gases. Varying nozzle throat area controls fan stall margin, which optimizes performance. The Heatblur F-14’s nozzle simulation is dependent on Mach number, altitude, throttle position, weight on wheels, engine oil pressure, and AB operation status. Failures in the nozzle will affect engine thrust and stability.

We’re still working on completing our engine simulation. In particular some of the remaining items to be completed pre and post early access include the:

- Engine Oil System
- Bleed Air Draw Effects
- Generator Load Effects
- AICS Anti-Ice and Icing Effects
- AFTC/MEC Secondary Mode Effects
- Reduced Arrestment Thrust System (RATS)
- Asymmetric Thrust Limiting
- Afterburner Ignition System

Throttle Control Modes (Approach Power Compensator already complete)
Windmill and Cross-start failures and effects
Battle Damage Effects
FOD Effects
This new engine modeling will serve as a robust and deep base for all of our future jet aircraft simulation. An accurate recreation of the aircraft’s powerplant and all of the follow on effects is important, as it allows us to more accurately depict common F-14 flight characteristics, failure states and especially dangerous situations arising from engine related issues. These effects will become even more apparent as we simulate the TF-30 engines as found in the F-14A. Be gentle with those throttles!
 

Luke

Personale a Terra
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17 Gennaio 2015
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440
https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=205587

Dear All,

We’d like to wish you all a very happy easter weekend!

Since our last update, we’ve been working hard on finalizing several high level systems and fulfilling major milestones due in March.
We’ve reached many of our goals, but full completion of our March roadmap was hampered by a variety of factors, and a higher than expected non-development task loading.
None of these really come as a surprise in a dynamic development environment; but it does mean that we’ve had to burn the midnight oil and have had to spend much less time than expected on updating you on our progress - and especially so with fancy eye candy.

In detail, some of the progress made in March revolves around the following areas:

AN/ARC-182 & AN/ARC-159 Radios:
While these have been partially done for a long time, we’ve now gone back and brought these systems to full completion. Specifically, we’ve added:
- The ability to read channel presets from mission settings and set these presets in the cockpit.

- Synchronized remote displays between front and rear cockpits (each crew member only controls one radio, but receives readouts for both).

- Completed the intercom and audio warning system, including four independent sound amplifiers and volume controls for different sound sources. Not all tones are generated by default at both stations, but a crew member can listen to the tones from the other cockpit by selecting different sound amplifier.

- New failure states for each radios and associated transmission/receiving equipment.

One important aspect of DCS multiplayer is communication, and we decided to invest time into making the F-14 radios fully Simple Radio capable out of the box, with ICS, Radio transmission/receiving, pre-defined channels and KY-28 encryption all integrating with and communicating with SimpleRadio. Hot and Cold mic positions are supported for the intercom systems, and the SimpleRadio plugin functions are fully controllable through the F-14 cockpit.

Our hope is, that those of you running SimpleRadio in our squadrons and multiplayer environments will find the experience of transitioning to the F-14 smooth and painless, especially on the communication front. Special thanks to Ciribob, the creator of SRS for being supportive in ensuring smooth F-14 SRS support!

New F-110 Engine Model:

In late February, we revealed that we’ve been working on an entirely new, modularized jet propulsion model for the F-14 and future projects. If you haven’t read that update; you can find it here:
https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=203063

Since then, we’ve continued work on our engine model and integrating it into the F-14.

Minor engine updates include improvements to the afterburner fuel control and additional AFTC functionality.
Over the next few weeks, AFTC functionality such as RATS and Asymmetric Thrust limiting will be completed, as well as implementation of the last minor engine-related cockpit animations such as warning lights. After that, off-nominal cases such as flame out, compressor stall and battle damage will be added, essentially bringing the engine model to a fully complete state.

Major updates completed include implementing inlet spillage and lip suction (haha) drag effects based on real F-14 inlet wind tunnel test data.
This spillage drag/lip suction effect can be thought of as the force generated by air that the engine/inlet cannot ingest and must be “pushed” out of the way or around the sides of the inlet cowl, the profile drag of the cowl itself, and the friction drag of the air passing through the inlet duct and its interaction with the AICS ramp surfaces. Inlet drag is a function of mach, streamtube capture area, engine air mass flow (aka power setting), and AICS ramp position.

This drag data allowed the team to compute highly accurate installed net thrust, which in turn revealed that some previous FM drag tuning which slightly deviated from wind tunnel data was no longer needed. Level flight acceleration, fuel burn, and top speeds are now very close to published values.
Thrust is at the heart of any fighter jet - and ensuring accurate engine performance within a few percent of stated values is incredibly important to us.

We’ll go into much more detail on our engine simulation in upcoming videos.

New Kneeboard Functionality:

In order to facilitate the changing of various aircraft parameters while on the ground near ground crew, we decided to implement an “interactive” kneeboard to help you tweak these settings in a multiplayer environment. In particular; you can configure things like laser codes, M61 Vulcan gun burst lengths and KY encryption keys.
These settings will only be available near ground crew (or on the carrier) - and of course in the mission editor.

Navigation:
During the last month, we’ve entirely revised our modeling of the F-14’s INS (Inertial Navigation System) and associated subsystems.

This includes an overhaul of the INS (AN/ASN-92) and associated AWG-9, CSDC, AHRS and CADC functions.
In particular, we’ve also created an entirely new model for the IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) which will offer a far more authentic simulation of limited precision of the INS.

We’ll be elaborating on this system next week.

Tying in with the Navigation system is a lot of finalization work on the navigation features of the RIO-centric user interfaces in the rear cockpit.
The F-14 includes plenty of complex and useful navigational functionality that will allow you, together as a crew, to better strike targets and fly your missions.
Much of this work mirrors functionality found in e.g. the Viggen; but turned up to 11 and involving many more subsystems (such as A-A radar and TCS).

Sound:

As the Artwork development process for the F-14 begins to draw to a close; we’ve now begun the process of designing the final soundscape of the F-14 module, starting with the F-110 engined F-14B.

Both the F-14B and -A will use fully authentic sounds, recorded directly from the appropriate engine type.
We’ve also sourced real, in-service F-14 sounds for everything from canopy sounds, engine starts, avionics and anything else you can think of giving off audible cues during aircraft operation.
While scanning and researching the F-14’s we had access to in the United States, we took the opportunity to record practically every single switch, level or control in the cockpit.

While we’re fairly satisfied with the audio design in the Viggen module (bar some bugs!) - we believe we can do much better, and we aim to make the F-14’s soundscape, both inside and out, the best yet.

Here’s a quick, heavily work in progress video of the exterior soundsets!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXH44A_PDZQ

One of our main objectives in March has been to complete the tuning and tweaking of our Flight Model.
March has seen great focus on refining our low and high speed handling, and coaxing out unique flight characteristics at the edge of or beyond the standard flight envelope, such as aileron rolling reversal at appropriate angles of attack and lateral rudder usefulness at similar flight envelopes. It sounds like we’re repeating ourselves, and that’s because we are.
Tweaking and tuning a flightmodel is an incredibly time intensive and long process - hence it will likely continue right up until the day of release.

Getting the unique characteristics of the F-14 just right has required us to work closely with F-14 subject matter experts.
To date, we've had the pleasure of having worked with three F-14A pilots, one F-14B and D pilot, and three F-14 RIOs, in order to cover all of our bases.
Last year, we even flew over to the United States, to give a US Navy commander a hands on session with our F-14. The latest round of changes have been heavily based on feedback from our SMEs, and we have to tread the careful ground between maintaining performance figures reflecting the published documentation, as well as recreating the characteristics as described by our expert contacts.

Another big item on our list that has been worked on in March has been appropriate aerodynamic damage effects on the flight model.
Generally this is fairly straightforward - flight surfaces can be damaged or fall off, and the ensuing effects need to be appropriately modeled.
While straightforward, it is still time consuming, and this will continue to be worked on as we head into April.

In general, however, we consider the flight model to be practically release ready. This represents a massive milestone for the project and is the “beginning of the end” of 3 years of intensive flight modeling work. Strip away all of the avionics, radar, weapons systems, and graphics - and you’ll still be left with what can easily be called the crowning achievement of our F-14: the flight model.

The footage below is very raw and rough. It was originally intended to be a part of Episode II of the flight model highlight - but we’ve decided to just put it out as is instead due to a lack of time.
The aircraft is an F-14B equipped with our new F110 engine simulation. Enjoy a very dirty (Ew, Chromecat) look at how powerful the Tomcat really is, and some quick footage of low speed high altitude handling and subsequent acceleration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIElNFYyYec

Concurrently with everything else, work continues on the heart of the F-14’s combat capability; the AWG-9, TID and associated systems and subsystems.
There really is practically too much to list here, with work progressing on both AA and A2G functionality (though, the former, is practically complete from an early access standpoint).
Everything from targeting systems, HUD/TID/ECMD modes and readouts, datalink, radar, RWR, ECM, weapon combinations, LANTIRN, pylons/adapters has been worked on in March.

We’re again, confident in the F-14 launching in a very complete state. As ‘boring’ of a conclusion that is in an update like this - the depth of our simulation come release shall be excellent.

Much of the current work is also tied in with the aforementioned updates to our navigational systems and logic.
In the context of weapons systems, this is mainly relevant to datalink and target waypoints.
All in all - the F-14 as a development process is beginning to wrap up.
We’re late, but making the tough decisions last year to not only rebuild all of the artwork, but also to invest more into adding authenticity and breadth to the avionics and systems is paying off in spades. The extra time has allowed us to source new and exciting documentation that has filled any and all remaining gaps for us.

To give you an unfiltered insider’s look into just how much work goes on behind the scenes, here’s a look at just the F-14 code repository alone over the course of 10 days:

Major items remaining prior to release currently are as follows:
- Completing the new cockpit and exterior, and the merge of the release branch of the Tomcat (and deprecating the placeholder Chromecat - we won’t miss it!)
- Finalization of the new engine model, navigation systems and some other (relatively) minor parts; such as the ALR-67.
- Final tuning of flight model.
- Bugfixing!
- Brushing the dust away and preparing for the rise of the Phoenix by stocking up on champagne.

We presently believe that the next 90 days will see most, if not all, of these major and minor items to be resolved, leaving us within touching distance of launching.
We’re keeping our fingers crossed and our coffee pots plentiful.

As always, thanks for your support and patience. Apologies for this update dropping so late in March and still being based on the Chromecat branch; but we’ve had to prioritize hitting development milestones over sticking to our planned PR roadmap. We had hoped to update you before the very end of the month. I’ll leave you with one more video; this time of a simple valley run and CCIP (Or, Computer/Pilot as it is known in the F-14). Featuring your first few glimpses at Jester AI!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwwVwCmcvw0

Enjoy the F-18 livestream tomorrow!

Sincerely,
HB, F-14 Team
 
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https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=206097

INS.
ps 12 minuti di allineamento su nave  :eek:hyes:
 

Gaanalma

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F6aHIBX.jpg


Dear All,

Since our last development update, the team has been working hard towards the completion of the final items that we listed in our March update. We're making strong progress on all of these, and we're doing our utmost to try and complete as many high quality features for the F-14 as we possibly can. Later today, the team will be meeting to plan the last major push in features and development tasks required for Early Access release. There may be some quiet in the next month or two as we hunker down and crunch hard - but we won't rest until we are satisfied, so take it as busy silence in preparation for the coming rise of the phoenix.

All in all, we're incredibly excited to begin to reach the end of the beginning. Now that the aircraft becomes more and more feature complete, it's time for us to start going in depth on content. We're always been committed to ensuring that we launch of products with as much free, high quality content as we can. This includes e.g. campaigns and AI aircraft, ships and other assets. The F-14 will be no different - it will ship with two campaigns; one for the F-14A and one for the F-14B (A+). Work has begun on these, but they will not be part of the Early Access release. Early Access will however have Single Missions, Multiplayer Missions, Training Missions and Instant Action available from day one.

The objective of creating the F-14 campaigns was to create two separate opportunities for realistic gameplay that broadly exposed the player to the aircraft’s strengths and weaknesses, while taking inspiration from real scenarios.

DCS currently offers two combat theaters that are suited to the suited to the F-14: the Black Sea map and the Persian Gulf map.

We felt it was important to offer an included campaign that could be played by any DCS user who purchased the DCS: F-14A/B.

For these reasons, we chose the place the F-14B (as the F-14A+ operating in late-1990) in the Black Sea Map for its campaign. The F-14A will have a historically-based campaign that takes place in the Persian Gulf Map – taking direct inspiration from real deployments and combat events in the theater from 1987-88. This closely matches the timeframe of the module itself and the aircraft as equipped.

Below are overviews of the campaign storylines with the background leading up to the start operations. Effort will be made to include historically accurate airwing compositions and squadrons as part of the campaign.

Besides Campaigns, we're working hard on both announced (Forrestal Class) an unannounced extra content (aircraft & other units) for the F-14. On full release, we believe it will be one of the most comprehensive packages available for standard DCS pricing.

Enjoy the read!

Click the images to read!




 

Luke

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=145&v=a1CFbSZLDYY

Per gli amanti del gattone consiglio di ascoltare dal minuto 2:32
 

Gaanalma

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11.843
Se esce, esce in alpha state, giusto per iniziare a raccimolare un po' di soldini... la cosa positiva che uscirà scontato rispetto al costo di un modulo di pari caratura.
 
Alto Basso