Jester
"You not only get a weapons system officer, folks. You get yourself an admin officer, you get yourself a flight planner, you get yourself a watchdog, and he carries a full array of maps and pubs."
Flying the Phantom is already a challenge in itself - doing that alone even more.
Jester is your AI buddy who can take the role of the WSO, so that you can focus on doing that pilot stuff.
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The Jester AI aims to be a functional AI radar intercept officer (RIO) for the Heatblur DCS F-14, enabling a multicrew experience in a single-player (per aircraft) environment.
He is fully integrated into the rear cockpit, controlling nearly all back seat systems with a focus on systems not controllable from the pilot seat. He is also modeled to take into account the limitations of a real human, meaning that his current head position, visual spotting range, and what his hands are doing are fully modeled. When controlling the systems at the RIO seat, he performs all actions that a human RIO would have to do.
To order/control Jester, a command wheel is used for quick access. This wheel is dynamic depending on the current mode selected and also on the current situation. Feedback to the pilot from Jester is via the ICS using a library of recorded audio, simulating the experience of having a RIO actually talking to you. Apart from acknowledging orders, he will also communicate pertinent information to the pilot depending on the situation.
Finally, in a multiplayer environment, a RIO joining a Tomcat in flight will find all controls at the rear seat in the position where Jester left them. If the human RIO disconnects, Jester will resume control of the systems in the configuration the human player left them.
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🚧 This section is under construction
Among his responsibilities are:
- providing assistance during take off, aerial refueling and landing
- assisting with navigation
- helping in operating the countermeasures
- operating the radar
- controlling the targeting pod
- spotting other aircraft and missiles
and more...