F-14 damage model

I have noticed that the F-14 has a very tanky behaviour when it comes to the damage it takes from air to air missiles. I have been told that the F-14 damage model is superiour to others because it does not immedeatly explode on impact, but instead looses parts over time.

However, the way this is implemented seems a bit off. For example, a direct hit by a single AIM-120B or C will not disable the tomcat beyond combat effectiveness pretty much 99% of the time and often not even produce smoke. It is common practice for F-14 pilots in multiplayer to survive the deadly shot to then merge with the opponent and take him out with an AIM-9. A second 120 however will always damage it sufficiently.

This may not worry the ones who fly it in singleplayer, it may actually please them since they can survive engagements more often than in any other aircraft. However, for the very active multiplayer community, the majority of which does not exclusively fly it or has to deal with this problem despite not even owning the airframe, this is a game-breaking issue.

Are there plans to change this? Is this something ED has to fix (like the ghost AIM-54 that are created upon breaking radar support)? Is this something you could temporarily change until ED has fixed it?

I have noticed that the F-14 has a very tanky behaviour when it comes to the damage it takes from air to air missiles. I have been told that the F-14 damage model is superiour to others because it does not immedeatly explode on impact, but instead looses parts over time.

 

However, the way this is implemented seems a bit off. For example, a direct hit by a single AIM-120B or C will not disable the tomcat beyond combat effectiveness pretty much 99% of the time and often not even produce smoke. It is common practice for F-14 pilots in multiplayer to survive the deadly shot to then merge with the opponent and take him out with an AIM-9. A second 120 however will always damage it sufficiently.

 

This may not worry the ones who fly it in singleplayer, it may actually please them since they can survive engagements more often than in any other aircraft. However, for the very active multiplayer community, the majority of which does not exclusively fly it or has to deal with this problem despite not even owning the airframe, this is a game-breaking issue.

 

Are there plans to change this? Is this something ED has to fix (like the ghost AIM-54 that are created upon breaking radar support)? Is this something you could temporarily change until ED has fixed it?

Are you talking from the perspective of shooting them, or have you flown it yourself? In my experience after almost every missile I get hit with the engines flame-out and can't be restarted, it just takes 30s or so until it's dead stick so it's not as immediate as other modules.

Are you talking from the perspective of shooting them, or have you flown it yourself? In my experience after almost every missile I get hit with the engines flame-out and can't be restarted, it just takes 30s or so until it's dead stick so it's not as immediate as other modules.

I copy that experience. Every hit so far lead to hydraulics problems and resulted in an unrecoverable airplane. The experience is also that going to idle thrust immediatly and dumping more flares than Air Force One in the movie with the same name did not reduce the pK of incoming FOX2s :-(

Someone has to be the bad luck magnet!

I have not seen the pilot get killed either as much (if at all) as you would expect from a missile hitting the front of your aircraft. It never rips a wing off or anything. There is no way this is the desired, final result, right? The time it takes for systems to fail is long enough to kill the one who fired at you.

I have not seen the pilot get killed either as much (if at all) as you would expect from a missile hitting the front of your aircraft. It never rips a wing off or anything. There is no way this is the desired, final result, right? The time it takes for systems to fail is long enough to kill the one who fired at you.

*coughs* after playing with Flankers

Plenty of times I've got a wing or both of them ripped off after being hit by a missile.

In my experience, I sometimes survive a missile hit and lose control over the aircraft overtime or I go down immediately. However, I still think it can take more punishment than the others but I can't confirm that missile hits aren't leather to that thing. You maybe have the chance to fire your ordinance in pitbul before going down, but that's it.

Dunno what Tomcat you're flying, but in mine if I take anything bigger than an AA-8 my flight's over.

I don't have any complaints about it either, and that's from the perspective of flying the thing myself: plenty of times I've had my wings blown off, engine flame-outs, ...

https://i.imgur.com/hbavshZ.png

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https://https://i.imgur.com/LeFHT34.png

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https://https://i.imgur.com/BEY7gDY.png

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https://https://i.imgur.com/Edm6fDn.png

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https://https://i.imgur.com/i9EWxGK.png

The F-14 takes a frontal hit by an AMRAAM. The F-14 a few seconds after fires multiple AIM-9 and AIM-7 and shoots the shooter down. It then continues to fly normally for 3 minutes before disappearing (possibly blowing up). This happens all the time. In this case, the F-14 was not even smoking because of the hit. The reason why many F-14 drivers dont see this happening is because people have adapted to the problem and are now firing AT LEAST 2 missiles at once to ensure that this does not happen. I was not lucky enough to have a second 120 left here.

i think the fact that it doesn't blow apart into 6+ pieces make people think its "tanky" but really most of the damage is systems damage, the INS dies, the hydralics quickly drain, the engines (if not catastrophically damaged) cannot function correctly. One thing i have noticed is that f14 does tend to almost never be lit on fire; historically a lot of missile hits end in a fire that disintegrates the plane in the time following the impact. The end result is a much more realistic progression of failures and loss of control, rather than the typical video game explosion and fireball.

compare this to gunshot wounds in hollywood vs real life:

in hollywood the bad guy gets shot, flies through the air and is dead before he hits the ground. In real life most GSW's kill you over minutes or hours.

The F-14 takes a frontal hit. The F-14 a few seconds after fires multiple AIM-9 and AIM-7 and shoots the shooter down. It then continues to fly normally for 3 minutes before disappearing (possibly blowing up). This happens all the time. In this case, the F-14 was not even smoking because of the hit.

it appears you hit him with an aim 9, i'm sure you are aware smaller missiles do less damage. With a sample size of one its hard to draw any concrete conclusions from this encounter

Sure, damage over time. But full combat efficiency for three minutes after taking a hit to the face? Im not an expert, but it seems ridiculous.

@Zergburger it is clearly visible in image 2 that it is an AIM-120B. A similar thing has also happened in this years SATAL, where an F-14 after being hit once or twice ended up merging and taking out an enemy F-15 with an AIM-9... This is a common thing.

The time it takes for systems to fail is long enough to kill the one who fired at you.

If you read accounts from US Vietnam war pilots - who were flying jets that had systems of a very similar generation to the Tomcat - one thing that comes up time after time is that they didn't always realise how badly damaged their aircraft was until several minutes had passed after a missile hit.

But because they weren't playing a game their reaction wasn't to try to kill the platform that had fired on them, but rather to evaluate the damage and come up with a plan for getting home, or to a safe ejection area.

Until there is some sort of penalty associated with death or ejection over enemy territory in multiplayer ( what that might be, or even if it would be a good idea is another matter entirely ) you'll see virtual pilots focussed on killing their enemies rather than surviving.

I’ve taken a couple hits in the F-14 that've done less damage than expected, once or twice being able to turn on the shooter. The vast majority though end in substantial, mission-ending systems damage. Many of the times I’ve been hit have ended in immediate corkscrew into the earth (~50% guesstimate).

Honestly there are a lot of real life stories that reflect similar results. Sometimes a missile has a weak warhead (though this is almost certainly not simulated), sometimes a plane just gets lucky and survives a hit. The problem is that none of us have real life metrics to back up what should happen if a -120 hits an F-14 square in the spine. You feel the Tomcat is overly robust, I feel like it’s a decent approximation of the randomness of weapons effectiveness. As with all things DCS there’s plenty of room for improvement, but “game breaking” it is not.

In any case, the F-14 is way better than the Hornet was in its first few months, where any scratch on the paint equaled instant pilot death. That was frustrating.

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https://https://i.imgur.com/LeFHT34.png

 

The F-14 takes a frontal hit by an AMRAAM. The F-14 a few seconds after fires multiple AIM-9 ..

It does not look if it was a direct hit to the front but maybe a splash damage from the 120 exploding behing him or while passing. I was also able to dodge a Aim 120 like that, when you dodge just a short moment before impact and chaff while that, the aim 120 continues and passes the plane but still explodes in a short distance form the plane by it sensors.

This still gives you damage and is combined with a lot of problems. As others already told you mostly the RIO is stunned if not flying with a human, which may be stunned or hysteric also :megalol: ... the Radar usually always non functional anymore and the engines heavily damage stuttering and dying slowly or instantly. You may sometimes be lucky to be able to continue and engage the enemy fighter with Aim 9 or Aim 54. So this might also be the end for the enemy before deciding if you can go home with this badly damaged plane or if you need to eject... which you sometimes only know after some time, while the systems are dying over a longer period...

And yes the F-14 is a bit more stable then some smaller fighters, but this is bought at other high prices like maneuverability, a missing Fly by wire and a very good level of simulation...

Mirage or F-18 Pilots can pull their sticks as hard as they want, we can't in F-14. On some dog fight training we did around two days ago, i wanted to enter the close combat with a higher G-Pull and my Force feedback was disabled at any reason, so there was no more resistance and i might have pulled the stick a bit to hard while travelling in super sonic speed. Even the enemy who was with us in teamspeak asked me what had happened just as he passed, because he even had heard the cracking of our two wings inside his cockpit :joystick::music_whistling: ... so it does loose its wing and it also happends often when beeing hit by a missile, especially the ones bigger than Aim 9!.

Watched an AI F-14B take 3 hits from R-60Ms from a mig 29, each hit you could see more and more damage to the skin show up 3rd hit and it was done. Starts around +28 in tacview.

Tacview-20190609-105552-DCS-WFG Training Range 2.5.0.zip.acmi.zip

The cat I find is well a lot like she was commented on by pilots.. hard to kill with one hit but temperamental once she takes that hit.. we have this habit as others have pointed out of thinking oh aim120 instant kill because of movies etc. The thing is that's not the case Raytheon and the like might wish it was but it's not. We might, might see this effect happen more and more once the 'new' damage models come into play as well, but a lot of the time if we were talking real life this is what you are likely to find happens.

Missile is launched, pilot does everything he can to avoid, missile homes and either hits the airframe or proximities and either way explodes. Now depending on were that happens your going to have either a nice 'hole' made in your plane that is likely on a direct hit at least the size of a helmet or so, and then all the shrapnel from that, if not your going to on a pro hit be peppered with shrapnel.

Now if that direct hit was on a wing or structural member that is thin enough n under enough stress then yes you are going to see break up and bad day.. if it was directly into a fuel tank or a weapon system again bad day likely with a nice big secondary explosion.. other wise nope. Your like,y to find the bird flying still.... at least for a time. On the other hand the pilot who took the hit will either notice as many a combat veteran has a bang and then either nothing... because it hit in a non-vital space and he's birds like eh I don't care or he's gonna start seeing cautions or other issues pop up that make his life hell n possibly means reaching and pulling the lets vacate the office option.

The Cat Heat Blur have done seems to do s good job of this modelling, far better then some other jets, the Hog and viggen is actually the only others I think that really come close to modelling the way damage should happen realistically and on the hog even it doesn't do it 100%.. hits that shouldnt impact it at all will cause fuel leaks etc simply because the new damage model isn't in (and as far a we know isn't for the cat either). But i can say that 75% of the time a hit from 1 missile will leave any cat I have been in either as pilot or rio combat ineffective, normally because the Rios stations dead along with the radar etc. especially on a front hit, I've lost one or two engines and been dead stick about 2 minutes after and I hon3stly can't say how many times I have watched myself spin down on 1 wing until the rio punches us out. Often killed by a single hit from either: A player in a hornet or su27, or red ai birds or sams.

And no doubt heatblurs still tweaking the damage model etc as well I mean it's not 'released yet' either.. but to say it doesn't take enough damage, can not agree at all it's more that it takes damage more realistically on a systems level not just an arbitrary oh you hit 0 hp your boom.

Watched an AI F-14B take 3 hits from R-60Ms from a mig 29, each hit you could see more and more damage to the skin show up 3rd hit and it was done. Starts around +28 in tacview.

AFAIK the AI has a different damage model than player controlled aircraft. Unless they've fixed that your example isn't really comparable to those regarding PvP.

I've been flying the F-14 non-stop since release and when I get hit by a missile I have a good 95% chance of my engines flaming out and loosing hydraulics. You can run every emergency procedure in the book; she will not start up again. The other 5% of the time are when missiles only manage to get a little bit of shrapnel stuck in your wing or something similar. This is more common for medium/long range missiles like the AIM-120 since they usually have lower energy at impact and therefore aren't that maneuverable. Missiles like the R-73 usually either lose track and miss completely or they hit you smack dab in the pâté factory.

In my eyes the only issue is the lack of variation in the damage model for the F-14. Flame out and loss of hydraulics followed by the controls slowly freezing up is the only thing I've ever experienced in the F-14. Gets a bit stale after a while.

Just want to end by saying that HeatBlur is the best dev in DCS by a long shot and I'm only nagging because I care! :D

at least 90% of the time my INS is toast after the first hit... assuming I'm still flying... that means no more AIM-54's. And after that, I usually lose at least one engine, and about 50% of the time hydraulics go out within 20 seconds, and it's punch out from there... posting a couple examples of F-14's surviving hits from 120's or r-60's isn't really significant. As someone that's spent well over 1,000 hours in our 14, she does not like to be shot... and almost every time suffers battle ending damage or significantly reduces her performance / capability to the point that RTB is in order. I can count on one hand the times I've been shot and stayed effective in a fight.

Heres a quote by the pilot that fired the first Aim-120 shot and killed a Mig-25 Foxbat (a slighty heavier aircraft than the F-14). He described the moment of missile impact:

“I saw three separate detonations, the nose and left wing broke instantly, and the tail section continued into the main body of the jet, and finally one huge fireball.”

https://fighterjetsworld.com/air/first-u-s-f-16-kill-by-shooting-down-mig-25-with-aim-120-amraam/13095/

Meanwhile in DCS I've seen F-14s taking 120s to the face, sometimes didnt even start smoking and could still fly and shot back for several minutes.

.Impact;3956103']

Meanwhile in DCS I've seen F-14s taking 120s to the face, sometimes didnt even start smoking and could still fly and shot back for several minutes.

Good, it's about time the SPAMRAAM was neutered :D

.Impact;3956103']Heres a quote by the pilot that fired the first Aim-120 shot and killed a Mig-25 Foxbat (a slighty heavier aircraft than the F-14). He described the moment of missile impact:

 

“I saw three separate detonations, the nose and left wing broke instantly, and the tail section continued into the main body of the jet, and finally one huge fireball.”

https://fighterjetsworld.com/air/first-u-s-f-16-kill-by-shooting-down-mig-25-with-aim-120-amraam/13095/

 

Meanwhile in DCS I've seen F-14s taking 120s to the face, sometimes didnt even start smoking and could still fly and shot back for several minutes.

The problem seems to be with the tomcat's AI damage model being way too indestructible, not a player-flown jet. I too have point blank lobbed multiple 120s and 9xs from behind at AI tomcats and they all land safely in some cases.

Thanks for trying to “balance” the tomcat guys. For the sake of multiplayer that is. :music_whistling:

The problem seems to be with the tomcat's AI damage model being way too indestructible, not a player-flown jet. I too have point blank lobbed multiple 120s and 9xs from behind at AI tomcats and they all land safely in some cases.

The F14s I talked about were all player controlled aircraft.

.Impact;3957851']The F14s I talked about were all player controlled aircraft.

got it.:thumbup: