not planned USMC Version of Litening TGP

Lemme just stop you right there ;)...

 

The Hornet was never supposed to be a USMC bird.

100% incorrect.

And here's the link for that thread: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3312683&postcount=1

If you don't know what you're talking about... Don't.

I recommend you take your own advice.

the ONLY fruit of your labor will be that ED, in the future, will not feature creep their products to appease the community

I fully support this to begin with.

Just stop.

Refer to my recommendation above.

Dear all a small update on this.

 

The Litening was added to get a pod on the Hornet sooner than later, it is based on available Spanish docs.

 

The ATFLIR is to come later, this will be based on US docs and will be the prime pod for this Hornet.

 

Remember that ED has to follow the rules, especially when we have professional contracts the hinge on us being above board. Again, thanks for the reports, but understand the path we are on.

I agree with other sentiments - this is a good explanation and would have helped at the start with the confusion over what we have and why it has some inconsistencies with other public sources.

IMO it shouldn't be up to the community to have to piece together evidence to figure out which pod we're working with. ED obviously knows what documents they're working on, this entire thread could have been avoided if they had said from the get go that the stopgap pod would be a Spanish Litening rather than letting people assume they were aiming to simulate an American one. Unless I missed somewhere where they've stated this before now.

So are we getting coordinates on TPOD?

I think the primary reason people are upset is the perceived lack of communication from ED. There's a lack of openness when changes are made and things that were previously promised suddenly aren't talked about anymore. We all understand that things change during development, we just want clarity. When ED doesn't give us that openness, it feels like we're being misled or lied to. I'm sure that is not ED's intention, but that's the perception.

If 6 months/1 year/ however long ago when the decision was made, ED had come out an said "Hey, we're still working on the ATFLIR. In the meantime, we have a LITENING pod that's based on a Spanish model. You can use it for Spanish Hornets, and its reasonably close to what the Marines use so you can use it for Marine ops, too. Sorry, for legal/lack of information/whatever reasons, we can't get you a full US Litening pod, but hopefully the Spanish one is close enough!" I can almost promise you that the vast majority of people would not have an issue with it.

EDIT: Also can we not get so caught up in this BS about modeling one specific plane and limiting weapons to that one airframe? I understand why ED have to pick a specific airframe for the avionics, flight software, and engines, but why limit systems to that one airframe? If a USMC, USN, Canadian, and Spanish hornet are functionally exactly the same, why limit the aircraft to just the ATFLIR and get rid of the LITENING pod, just because the ATFLIR is only used by the Navy? ED is obviously not going to make a separate module for each individual nation's airframe (that would be a stupid waste of time and resources), so why not give me the option of using this Lot 20 C model Hornet to simulate USN Earnest Will '88 ops (NiteHawk), USMC 2007 ops (LITENING), or RCAF 2003 ops (SNIPER AT)? Why must I be limited to one specific possibility just because USN Hornets didn't fly with a LITENING pod or fly past 2005 with a NiteHawk pod?

EDIT 2: And "Because we don't have documentation for it", "because we aren't legally allowed to", "because it's not cost-effective for us to spend resources on that" are all perfectly reasonable answers to that. Just tell us that at the time the determination is made.

To me I see no reason one can't use the information gathered from video recordings and then ask SME's if its accurate and then adjust as needed as more information comes out over time. It doesn't need to be 100000% accurate just i'd like the features on the actual US lightning such as the tgt coordinates and the N arrow. And this would fit more with the goal of the hornet which was originally just USN but then ED added the TGP that the marine core used.

While this discussion is pretty much done and over with, I just want to add that Im really surprised by the initial reaction of some people. While in the end the OP turned out to be sort of correct (We do indeed have a Spanish Litening rather then what the video shows (or claims) to be a US pod) the first reaction people have, to a random dude on the internet showing a random video and a few screenshots is; Good research! Without doing atleast some form of fact checking and/or research themselves. No discredit to the OP, but he admitted he threw it together in 30 minutes based of 1 or 2 videos. Personally I do not feel that classifies as good research, while in the end there turned out to be a form of truth in there. The reason Im saying a form is because we still cant (and probably never will) tell what exactly is the correct Litening symbology for 'our' Hornet. I can imagine (and this is just imagination here, as the word implies) that there is a lot of differences between years, Blocks, software updates to the Pod and/or the aircraft, operators (including USMC/USN differences) and what not. There is no way if you count in all those things that one or two videos on YouTube which claim to be from a certain time frame then automatically count as the truth for our Hornet. Just my two cents.

While this discussion is pretty much done and over with, I just want to add that Im really surprised by the initial reaction of some people. While in the end the OP turned out to be sort of correct (We do indeed have a Spanish Litening rather then what the video shows (or claims) to be a US pod) the first reaction people have, to a random dude on the internet showing a random video and a few screenshots is; Good research! Without doing atleast some form of fact checking and/or research themselves. No discredit to the OP, but he admitted he threw it together in 30 minutes based of 1 or 2 videos. Personally I do not feel that classifies as good research, while in the end there turned out to be a form of truth in there. The reason Im saying a form is because we still cant (and probably never will) tell what exactly is the correct Litening symbology for 'our' Hornet. I can imagine (and this is just imagination here, as the word implies) that there is a lot of differences between years, Blocks, software updates to the Pod and/or the aircraft, operators (including USMC/USN differences) and what not. There is no way if you count in all those things that one or two videos on YouTube which claim to be from a certain time frame then automatically count as the truth for our Hornet. Just my two cents.

Who says we didn't do our own research? You are making assumptions.

I indeed assumed that because you did not prove otherwise. I do not want to make you to prove such thing, its just something I noticed and thought was odd and wanted to get out there.

While this discussion is pretty much done and over with, I just want to add that Im really surprised by the initial reaction of some people. While in the end the OP turned out to be sort of correct (We do indeed have a Spanish Litening rather then what the video shows (or claims) to be a US pod) the first reaction people have, to a random dude on the internet showing a random video and a few screenshots is; Good research! Without doing atleast some form of fact checking and/or research themselves. No discredit to the OP, but he admitted he threw it together in 30 minutes based of 1 or 2 videos. Personally I do not feel that classifies as good research, while in the end there turned out to be a form of truth in there. The reason Im saying a form is because we still cant (and probably never will) tell what exactly is the correct Litening symbology for 'our' Hornet. I can imagine (and this is just imagination here, as the word implies) that there is a lot of differences between years, Blocks, software updates to the Pod and/or the aircraft, operators (including USMC/USN differences) and what not. There is no way if you count in all those things that one or two videos on YouTube which claim to be from a certain time frame then automatically count as the truth for our Hornet. Just my two cents.

Holy Moly, this is one display of ignorance only the masters of ignorance can come up with.. I hope this represents your personal opinion and not EDs. Sorry i don't know what the term DCS Ground Crew means on this forum, so i don't know your affiliation status.

You start off with stating the OP is "sort of correct", still refusing to acknowledge the OP is VERY correct.

Then you go on and call him "random dude".. While this "person" may be random to you, he is not to everybody contributing to this topic, i for one have flown with him many times as we've been squadmates before, and still am flying with him from time to time. And i am sure not being the only one here to do so.

Then you go on to diffarm the 30mins research he did. Well, he needed only 30mins of research to actually debunk the claim that we're getting a USMC LITENING, which was claimed by ED for months! What does that tell us about trustworthiness or truth about ED's statements made towards us, their community??

Yet here you are, attacking the OP and the community, closing your eyes not seeing facts and causal connections.

Then you follow that post up with:

I indeed assumed that because you did not prove otherwise. I do not want to make you to prove such thing, its just something I noticed and thought was odd and wanted to get out there.

...which really sounds like "i didnt ask you to prove, and i dont want you to prove me wrong, so i can continue to make assumptions." Good riddance, again i hope that reflects your personal opinion and not EDs, otherwise we would've reached a new low for sure.

You know what make me angry about this?

Is not what we will get. Its understandable if only docs available are those from Spain.

Its that ED mislead the users.

How hard can it be to comunicate from the start and say which Litening they had access, and it will be model.

This way ED, you are burning bridges with your user base. And most important, with those users that care enough to take time for this things.

And you got people taking interest and their time to point out things. Just to make this a better product. That is priceless.

Please ED dont push the limits

I want to thank to Swiftwin9s and others for bring this up, and as result get a clear answer from ED. Finally

Ultimate answer from anybody of ED, give us publicly accessible official document. I have been scanning DCS Lua code for some time, found many unrealistic things, some of them already reported, like AWACS and Hawkeye vertical scan limits. But these are OK-AS IT IS? Let's calm down and start to behave reasonable.

ED team, I DON'T WANT module based on official documents only. You will NEVER find all these data to every system to every plane, ship, vehicle in game. This is simulator game!

SA10 missile rocket engine burning time based on launch video of damaged missile? This kind of proof material is good? Really?

t_acc = 25.0, -- Corrected by https://youtu.be/7i-UMYNKwcU video

And those who post screens from videos of US TGP are .... ? Think about it.

Dear God people, you are making a mountain out of a molehill.

If OP used the search function he would have learned that the Litening pod was a stopgap between us having to enter co-ordinates of targets manually and the ATFIR pod.

There is no "betrayal" of the community nor any "burning of bridges".

Stop trying to make this a controversy and stop acting like spoilt children.

i for one have flown with him many times as we've been squadmates before, and still am flying with him from time to time.

There's your problem. You are letting emotions get it the way. Just stop.

There's your problem. You are letting emotions get it the way. Just stop.

That is not true. I never said we was best buddies. I said he is not random to me, like he is not random to others in this threat neither.

The real problem is ED misleading their community over and over again, be it unintentionally or not.

As i said earlier, now that we have a Spanish LITENING, i would open that "ILS replacing ICLS" can again, as the argument back then when people initially asked for that was clearly made:

"We are simulating a specific USN version, the Lot 20, and as such it only has ICLS, unlike export version like Spanish Hornets, which would have it replaced"...

I don't want that, i never signed up for a Spanish Hornet, and actually can live with the pod being Spanish and the aircraft being not given its only temporary, but am noticing that claims are always changed, and when you point that out somebody comes trying to defend ED, ignoring facts, just picking the one part to focus on... No matter how ridiculous things get.

So okay no COORDS? Check this video.

Best Regards.

So okay no COORDS? Check this video.

 

 

Best Regards.

Ah, but now ED will claim that the video is too recent :)...

Ah, but now ED will claim that the video is too recent :)...

Best Regards.

So okay no COORDS? Check this video.

 

 

Best Regards.

Haha, the plot thickens...

Just when we thought it was all over. :music_whistling:

What I don't understand is why didn't they just use the symbology from the A-10C pod? It's just a stopgap, after all, and already in the sim.

So okay no COORDS? Check this video.

 

 

Best Regards.

I really don't understand why ED resists giving us the ability to read off lat-long coordinates from the Litening pod. It's one of the most important features of a FLIR pod to enable it to do FAC(A) properly... one of the primary roles of USMC F/A-18s. But I guess we have to accept it was never the goal to replicate USMC Hornets to begin with.

RSharpe, even further - it's a "low hanging fruit" in regard of costumer relationship. The hornet is already a combination of a few different suites and branches... It's cool. No problem at all.

Adding this features won't hurt the realism and there are photos proving it's actually used in real life and not made up only for s to be happy...

ED - why do you so care about adding coordinates and the north arrow? It's easy and will add an important feature,capability and a gameplay option...

I really don't understand why ED resists giving us the ability to read off lat-long coordinates from the Litening pod. It's one of the most important features of a FLIR pod to enable it to do FAC(A) properly... one of the primary roles of USMC F/A-18s. But I guess we have to accept it was never the goal to replicate USMC Hornets to begin with.

Well, the originally stated goal was to replicate a US Navy Lot 20 Charlie Hornet, not even a USMC one.

The USMC one came into the picture only after they announced the delay of ATFLIR in favor for the LITENING, which is / was a whole different topic for itself.

I completely agree on the coordinates needing to be displayed, i guess it's FAC(A) with a JDAM for now, until ATFLIR arrives or ED change their mind.

Matter of fact, not just as FAC(A) but everytime you carry a LITENING you kinda need a JDAM if you want to create / pass WPTS currently. (MIDS/LINK16 updates might solve parts of that issue at least?)

What I don't understand is why didn't they just use the symbology from the A-10C pod? It's just a stopgap, after all, and already in the sim.

As it was much faster to produce than the ATFLIR, because the latter one needs a new rendering engine (which also will be implemented in the LITENING when ready afaik), and it already existed in the game, i thought this would be exactly what they'd be doing!

Adding some minor tweaks here and there maybe... Instead they apparently built this thing from scratch(?), but surely not because the Viper can carry this one as well... totally unrelated :music_whistling:

t_acc = 25.0, -- Corrected by https://youtu.be/7i-UMYNKwcU video

WOW what about that ED !?

SA-10 can be based on a launch video. But the litening no ...

Can I just mention that the burn time isn't even correct: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=248394