Issues you may encounter when trying the F-4E for the first time, and how to avoid them. (2024)

Dear all,

gathering your questions and most pressing concerns and feedback from yesterday, we want to present you with a list of issues you may run into, when trying the F-4E for the first time, and ways on how to avoid them. We hope the below list helps you get started faster and smoother. Please spread the word!

Your Heatblur Team

Issue: My F-4E keeps pitching up violently although my controls are bound correctly.

Fix: This happens to non-FFB users who have FFB enabled in their MISC options. Simply go to MISC options and disable FFB and the issue will go away.

Issue: I am using VR and the JESTER Menu, Manual and/or Bombing Calculator are cut off.

Fix 1: It is an issue with the DCS VR implementation and an unfortunate combination of graphic settings. You can fix it either by selecting "use dcs internal resolution" in your VR settings or using our special options if you don’t want to do that. It is described further in this section of our manual:
https://f4.manuals.heatblur.se/dcs/special_options.html#hb-ui

Fix 2: As stated in the manual, setting the VR render window to LEFT or RIGHT eye without checking the "Use DCS resolution" box makes the Jester menu cut off. However if "Use DCS resolution" (fix 1) alone does not solve it for you, you can try to use the "BOTH" setting for the redering option. Jester menu should then be back in full, normal size and centered.

Fix 3: Found by Des 2-2 (thank you!): "an (easy) solution to the HBUI cut off at the bottom in VR issue: change the resolution of the VR mirror to at least 1920x1080. Many people set it below that in the hope that it frees up a little GPU resources."

Issue: I downloaded and installed via the DCS module manager, but when I spawn in the mission, it goes to the F10 map and only AI spawns.

Fix + EDIT: Going through the reports of the past few days and fixes that were found, most likely this issues is because your antivir program is either blocking HBUI.exe or one of our DLLs. We kindly ask you to add exceptions to these in your antivir program. This should fix your issue. If the issue persists, please make a report.

Issue: When I go to the mission editor, I do not see the F-4E.

Fix: You need to turn off the “historical setting” in the Mission Editor. It is at the bottom center, represented by a clock symbol. Click the clock symbol to turn it off.

Issue: My JESTER menu gets stuck.

Fix: If using head tracking and mouse at the same time, they can conflict. You can disable either in the special options settings for the F-4E. Moving the mouse pointer out of the menu fixes it, too. To close the menu you can hold the Jester menu button long.

Issue: My force feedback pitch and roll force seems very light or weak.

Fix: You have gain settings for force feedback in the special menu options. Note that you can increase them to 500%. Note that if both roll and pitch axis are set to the same value, the roll axis will have less force feedback force. This is intentional and true to the real aircraft, where the roll axis requires less input force than the pitch axis. Please adjust to your personal preferences.

Issue: It looks like the stick in my co*ckpit is lagging in comparison to my real stick.

Fix: The movement of the 3d model of the stick in the co*ckpit goes through a type of low-pass-like filter. Otherwise, it might look erratic and actually even less realistic. However, it doesn't represent the actual physical simulation of the entire stick simulation, and that means that the change of your input is instantaneously transferred to the controls system. Yet, that system runs a complex simulation that adds realistic inertia to the mechanisms that transfer your input to the power actuators.

Issue: I want to close the manual or bomb calculator, but it does not work.

Fix: You need to click with the mouse out of the manual or bomb calc window. If clicked into it, keyboard input is enabled and will prevent the close/open commands.

Issue: My co*ckpit appears to be very dark.

Fix: Please make sure that you have “co*ckpit Global Illumination” turned ON. If this alone does not help, our recommended Gamma setting is 2.2, so you may want to increase your Gamma.

Note: there is currently a bug that will load the co*ckpit darker on the second spawn. A third spawn should fix that.

Issue: My trim is not working on the ground, the stick is either full forward or full back and when I trim it does not change position.

Fix: This is correct as is on the ground. The bellows system pulls at the stick with increasing airspeed, while the bobweight system pushes the stick forward with increasing G. In flight and when you are trimmed out well, these forces roughly balance each other out naturally.

On ground however, the bellows measure airspeed 0 and hence do not add any force that would counter the bobweight system pushing the stick forward. You also will not see trim doing anything in that situation, since the trimming merely changes the length of the lever to which the bellows can apply force to the stick and do not move the stick around directly.

Issue: I cannot make sense of the controls indicator.

Fix: The big green diamond is your joystick input. The small green diamond is the neutral in-co*ckpit stick position - this is where the co*ckpit stick will reset if you re-centre your joystick. The orange/red diamond represents the actual co*ckpit stick position after taking into account all effects, including your joystick input, the feel trim system, force limiting, and blending. This position is transferred to the power actuators moving the control surfaces.

Issue: I have trouble getting used to JESTER 2.0 and the new menu.

Fix: We recommend giving it a few days to get used to it. Jester 2.0 is designed more proactive than JESTER 1.0, he scans the sky himself for example, he will turn radar on and off himself if landing or refueling, etc., and overall requires less use of the menu through the JESTER context action. With context action you can direct him to switch targets, lock them, unlock them in air to air, to lock ground returns for dive toss, and more.

We recommend to familiarize yourselves with the JESTER section in our manual in general, here: https://f4.manuals.heatblur.se/jester/overview.html

And with the JESTER combat section in regards to context action, here: https://f4.manuals.heatblur.se/jester/combat/overview.html

Issue: Jester has trouble finding targets.

Fix: While Jester searches the sky in a forward, primarily head-on, co-alt aspect of your radar, one still needs to consider the limitations of the AN/APQ-120 radar. It is not a search radar, and the detection ranges are very short. This means that with 2 bandits racing at each other, from detection to merge, your BVR timeline can be less than 45 seconds. IRL Phantoms were guided to their target’s general position with the help of GCI and AWACS units. The F-4E’s radar is also a radar that needs to be “flown” pro-actively. This means helping it through your maneuvering - or non-maneuvering - as much as you can. Look-up aspect is in general preferable, so positioning yourself slightly below the bandit helps. Some bandits with a smaller cross section, like the MiG-19 may be picked up by the radar at less than 20 nm. In short: try to use the radar more as an intercept radar than a search radar. Try to estimate where you targets will be, either through conventional SA building or through the aid of GCI and AWACS, and then position yourself for a successful intercept. If you want to dive deeper into the topic, we recommend Karon’s tutorials on youtube, from FlyAndWire.

Issue: I am encountering weird behavior, like some weapons not working, or even get a CTD when trying to host a server, etc.

Fix: This is likely owed to the presence of mods. As of now, the only mod we know that works together with the DCS: F-4E Phantom II for certain is the Community A-4 mod. Any other mod can potentially cause issues of various kinds. This is why we strongly recommend to disable all your mods, should you be running into such issues. ED is aware of the potential conflicts between modules and mods and will be looking into it. Please be so kind and understand that full functionality of the module cannot be guaranteed when running it with mods. Thank you!

A tip from user “Mederlock” to improve performance, if running into issues:

“A little tip that might help some people's performance: in the task manager details page, dcs.exe->set affinity->de-select the first core. If you check the DCS log file you can even see which of your cores perform the worst and de-select those specifically. You'll have to re-do this every time you launch the game or use a tool like process lasso to automate it on startup. I've heard a few reasons why this can help, [...], I don't really know the theory but it certainly helped my performance a lot, as well as several other people in the group I play with. Worth a shot if you're having stuttery or poor performance.”

Here is also a nice cheat sheet for WH key binds, made by Blackbird (as a proposal). You can also check out the control bindings guide in our manual here:
https://f4.manuals.heatblur.se/dcs/controls.html#binding-guide