Der F-14 Tomcat Diskussionsthread

... so wie Widowmaker (was auch noch mehrdeutig ist) ;)

Hach, die DCS F-104, auch so ein Modul auf das ich sehnsüchtig warte. :D

Jetzt aber genug der Wortspiele...

Hach, die DCS F-104, auch so ein Modul auf das ich sehnsüchtig warte. :D

Jetzt aber genug der Wortspiele...

Ich glaube du musst deine Rente einreichen um für alles Zeit zu haben was "demnächst" alles erscheint. Achso geht mir ja genauso, Sch...ße :megalol:

Dev Update:

The Road to Release

Running an Endless Mile

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

Und in kurzfassung ? Kein release ?

Und in kurzfassung ? Kein release ?

Was den Release angeht so war seine Aussage, dass die Tomcat garantiert 2017 released wird das Dümmste was er je gesagt hat und er schämt sich zu Boden. Aber er hat daraus gelernt und erstmal keinen neuen Release-Termin verkündet, aber gemeint wir sollten sie eher früher als später erwarten. Zum Großtteil soll die Tomcat bereits Early Access-Ready sein und es fehlen nur noch einige wenige Dinge wie z.B. die äußeren Texturen.

Danke :) das lässt hoffen :D

Ich hoffe es wird ein teurer Jahresanfang :) Also Modultechnisch gesehen...

F-14... check :D

Ich freu mich drauf. Hab zwar noch genug Arbeit mit den anderen Modulen aber... Was solls :)

Das wird wohl sommer bis zum early access :/

Naja:

So expect it sooner rather than later.

Ich persönlich rechne mit Q4 2018 für die F-14. Die einen Post vorher zitierte Aussage von Cobra übersetze ich für mich damit als Q3 für den Early Access;).

Aber es nützt ja alles nichts, wir werdens sehen. 2018 erachte ich zumindest als höchstwahrscheinlich für das gute Stück.

Ich persönlich gehe derzeit von Q1/Q2 aus :)

Kommt doch irgendwann eine F-14D???

Von Facebook:

Lantirn? LANTIRN!!! Supersonic Bombcat. No escort required.

Source

Cool bin gespannt :) ps hier mal das manual zum einlernen http://aviationarchives.blogspot.ch/2017/04/grumman-f-14b-tomcat-flight-manual.html?m=1

Die F14B hat irgendwann mitte der 90iger das LTS (Lantirn Targeting System) bekommen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LANTIRN#LANTIRN_and_the_F-14_Tomcat

Die F14B hat irgendwann mitte der 90iger das LTS (Lantirn Targeting System) bekommen.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LANTIRN#LANTIRN_and_the_F-14_Tomcat

So isses. Bombcat bedeutet nicht F-14D. Die F-14B (und A?) wurde auch später mit LANTIRN und A-G-Bewaffnubg ausgestattet und flig bis zuletzt (2006) neben der F-14D.

Wenn meine Quellen richtig sind:

F-14A mit TF30 gab es nur ohne Avionik Update -> 1974 Version

F-14B mit GE Triebwerken hat außer dem RHAW fast keine neue Avionik bekommen, die Heatblur einfügen müsste.

The F-14A+ also received the state-of-the-art ALR-67 Radar Homing and Warning (RHAW) system. Much of the avionics, as well as, the AWG-9 radar were retained.

Erst die F-14B Upgrade ("late 1990s") und die F-14D (1991) hatten komplett neue Avionik.

Ich hoffe wir bekommen noch TARPS für die F-14A!

Mit TARPS kann man in DCS nur leider nicht wirklich was anfangen.

Der absolute knüller für dcs wäre wenn die cat zum release von 2.5 kommen würde :o träum :P

Du sagst es :joystick: :D

Hab mir vorhin den Road to Release Thread von Cobra von letzten Monat nochmal durchgelesen, hoffe ja es kommen bald die Videos bezüglich Systemen, das würd mir schon reichen fürs Erste :D

Screenshots (Latirn) schön und gut, bewegte Bilder bringen aber einfach mehr feeling rüber :pilotfly:

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.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=198284

Laut cobra wird das latirn vorgstellt am 19 feb :O

Laut cobra wird das latirn vorgstellt am 19 feb :O

Laut Cobra wurde LANTIRN am 19 Februar vorgestellt. ;)

Not sure on exact timeframe for the next development update yet either.

 

We announced LANTIRN on 19th of February, FWIW

Ja, er hat sich vertippt. 19. Januar sollte das heissen. Da haben sie LATIRN vorgestellt...Vergangenheitsform ;)

FWIW: For what it's worth.

Und er ist sich nicht sicher bezüglich Zeitplan fürs nächste Entwicklungsupdate.

Eigentlich am 17.1. aber nun gut ... mal schauen was am 19.2. passiert ^^

Neues Dev-Update:

A Recent multiplayer testing session

 

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

Coop wird großartig!

Also mein Gutschein für den Heatblur-Shop wäre bereit eingelöst zu werden.:)

Ich wäre dabei.:thumbup: