TacPack report for v1.1.6

[Deano1973]

Just an FYI Peter from a sortie last night at MODsim:

A generally successful night. CBY07 and CBY05 were joined over the North Sea by VLY02. CBY04 came on server, but has TacPack issues launching missiles with his Typhoon, so didn't join the exercise.

The key to the successful use of TacPack in JoinFS seems to be to have the "Auto Broadcast VRS TacPack" box ticked in JoinFS settings.

All three of us tonight were able to see and feel the effects of missile strikes on our own aircraft, and these seemed to tie in with the visual effects seen by the attacking aircraft. There appear to be two levels of damage suffered. At the lesser level, you get lots of warning horns in the cockpit, but no other effects and nothing visual outside the aircraft. The higher level of damage is total systems failure followed quickly by destruction. Your aircraft is engulfed in flame and you reappear at super-high altitude over the area, while other players see your aircraft model crash into the sea/ground.

The remaining unresolved issue seems to be persistence. Expended missiles remain visible visually in the combat area and in FSTramp long after they have been fired (effectively indefinitely as far as I can see). Likewise crashed aircraft seem to remain smoking holes in the ground indefinitely. The other problem of persistence is the warning horns after a lesser level of damage, which are as intrusive as they are meant to be, and persist for a considerable period of time before stopping.

Interesting that the medium range missiles appear to have - as in the real world - a minimum effective range. At one point tonight CBY07 fired a number of Meteors at me from fairly short range which simply flew right past. When he shifted to ASRAAMs my aircraft was destroyed.

I tried one guns attack tonight on VLY02, without success. As far as I could see the cannon shells did not persist on FSTramp. I don't believe that others used guns at all.

The "persistence" of missiles is a pain, but tonight's experience was vastly better than anything I've seen so far when trying to use TacPack and JoinFS together, so marks real progress. The key learning point, at the risk of repetition, is to have the "Auto Broadcast VRS TacPack" box ticked in JoinFS settings.

[Wood]

This is a great report. Thanks for posting.

Wood

[Peter]

Yes, thanks, Dean. That's good news. Certainly getting better.

Peter