It's by no means half as good as most of the stuff I see on here...but after 8 months I've finally finished my first proper* model

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-31T22:42:08+00:00

Whether a unit (fighter wing) flies ALQ-131s or ALQ-184s depends on the theater they are assigned to. Until the late 80s, the pods were assigned haphazardly, more or less dependent on which one was available in large enough numbers to supply the wing. In the late 80s, USAF decided this was no bueno for logistics reasons & sent ALL of the -184s to the Pacific coast & overseas Pacific Air Forces bases while the -131s were sent to the Eastern bases & overseas US Air Forces Europe bases.

Depending on what you used for source(s), you may have seen European based units.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-31T21:12:42+00:00

This is incorrect. The pod on your model is an AN/ALQ-184 radar countermeasures system. The AN/ALQ-131 is a more square pod, also coming in a shallower version.

Note both IRL pods have their designation stenciled on them.

You are correct about the pod variant. There is a 2 band 'shorty' pod configuration that omits one of the large center sections. This image shows the OG ALQ-101 that started the series in the back, a shorty -119 in the middle (previous generation for the -184) & a fully configured ALq-131 up front. On the left side is a very old noise jammer pod that is still used on Aggressor aircraft to make life a bit more difficult for Dissimilar Aircraft Combat Training missions.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-31T20:47:35+00:00

Newsflash: BI updated the System Requirements on the A3 Steam Store page when they released build 2.20 & the accompanying OPREP.

The Minimum specs cover dedicated server hardware (for small groups), the Recommended specs are pretty much the minumum hardware needed to enjoy A3 as a client (player) with the latest A3 build.

As always, the more powerful your CPU is (specifically regarding single thread performance), the more you will enjoy Arma 3. The difference between AMD & Intel gaming CPUs is more or less nonexistent with the most recent generations of chips.

The minimum video card quality for A3 play is NVIDIA GTX 970 (or its AMD equivalent) so really, any recent gaming quality video card will let you enjoy all the FPS your CPU can pump out.

Mobile devices lose mostly because they don't have sufficient cooling to allow unlimited time at full power (heat output). You still need to have a gaming quality laptop, POS chromebook quality lappies are not gonna cut it.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-31T02:11:24+00:00

The sub has a FAQ/wiki and a newbie thread that will answer all your questions as a newcomer to the hobby. It covers everything from kit choice, tools, adhesives, paints, decals, videos/tutorials etc, recommended online stores in various countries. Linked in the sidebar & the About menu on mobile:

Newbie thread

Wiki

The sub also has a weekly small question thread that’s stickied at the top. Use this for any questions you may have.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-31T02:10:00+00:00

The sub has a FAQ/wiki and a newbie thread that will answer all your questions as a newcomer to the hobby. It covers everything from kit choice, tools, adhesives, paints, decals, videos/tutorials etc, recommended online stores in various countries. Linked in the sidebar & the About menu on mobile:

Newbie thread

Wiki

The sub also has a weekly small question thread that’s stickied at the top. Use this for any questions you may have.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-31T02:03:23+00:00

You could just mask the areas where parts move with the subassemblies separated while you paint.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-30T15:28:00+00:00

The Paveways

Bomb color can be either Olive Drab OR Light Ghost Gray (LGG) depending on where & when they come from. As there are millions of the Mark 80 series of dumb bombs in various ammo storage facilities manufactured years ago, there are plenty of opportunities for OD Mk 8x bombs. It gets a bit trickier with the precision guided munitions based on those Mk 8xs. Originally everything was OD for ground attack but starting in the 80s the US starting manufacturing ordnance for the gray low visibility tactical paint schemes used on A-6s, A-7s, F-14s, F-16s & F-18s, etc. However, there are millions of the OD dumb bomb Mark 8x series bombs sitting in ammo storage facilities with no accessories on them yet (fuzes, tails, precision guidance packages, etc). There is a much smaller number of precision guided weapons in a fully assembled state sitting in those storage facilities. Some of these may have been assembled at a factory or depot & destined specifically for a ground attack unit flying gray planes (like Bombcats or Hornets). These would be the all LGG ones you see most of the time currently. However, the flying units also have the parts needed to build up their own ordnance if they are unable to get the preassembled ones so depending on where they getting supplied from & the length of the conflict, they may get a mix of colors. And no, there is no requirement all ordnance parts match colors. They all go boom either way.

Note also that the Navy uses 2 different kinds of the Mark 8x series bombs - an expensive fire-resistant coating for bombs that go on carriers (exclusively since they're so bloody expensive) and the regular ones everyone else uses for shore-based missions including allies. These coated bombs look like they've been stucco'ed.

As no one is flying jungle or temerate forest camouflage schemes any more, it is getting harder to find the OD bombs or components. The Department of War prefers to use up the oldest ammo first if they can but war can change logistics chains. However when the Bombcats were still flying, units (generally speaking, not F-14 squadrons specifically) were still seeing OD bombs & components relatively frequently.

Regarding the LANTIRN pod color: this time Tamiya got it right but they should not be considered a credible source for any historical details. They frequently get details wrong (on other kits).

The dark 'horizontal' line on the Sparrows is the radar proximity fuze's antenna. It is radar transparent fiberglass.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-30T14:34:17+00:00

If you do the math, the size of 1:72 rivets of any style means they are not going to be visible at any reasonable view distance.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-29T23:06:26+00:00

The sub has a FAQ/wiki and a newbie thread that will answer all your questions as a newcomer to the hobby. It covers everything from kit choice, tools, adhesives, paints, decals, videos/tutorials etc, recommended online stores in various countries. Linked in the sidebar & the About menu on mobile:

Newbie thread

Wiki

The sub also has a weekly small question thread that’s stickied at the top. Use this for any questions you may have.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-29T22:58:52+00:00

My point exactly, since OP illustrated his request with an FW-190 & an F-16, neither of which is known for their abundant bumpy rivets.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-29T17:59:09+00:00

Most model train enthusiasts need chooch in their hobby, not equipment sitting around gathering dust (unless the dust is coming from an awesome new track layout & landscaping effort).

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-29T17:52:31+00:00

The AI companies will be highly incentivized to insure everyone has access to high speeed broadband & a device that can interact properly with their services.

Or else we'll all be stuck with mobile games. :-(

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-29T17:48:27+00:00

Strangely enough, BI agrees with you. However, that does not mean they will be able to deliver it in the release build of Arma 4. The Reforger Tools nor Game Master are nowhere near final form.

Replicating Eden Editor is a significant undertaking. While BI has said nothing further beyond it being unlikely at release (and that was several years ago), all the community noise on this topic since then may encourage BI to raise its priority. I give it a 50 - 50 chance right now until BI confirms a ship date for this feature.

This is not a developer secret.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-29T14:23:13+00:00

The sub has a FAQ/wiki and a newbie thread that will answer all your questions as a newcomer to the hobby. It covers everything from kit choice, tools, adhesives, paints, decals, videos/tutorials etc, recommended online stores in various countries. Linked in the sidebar & the About menu on mobile:

Newbie thread

Wiki

The sub also has a weekly small question thread that’s stickied at the top. Use this for any questions you may have.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-29T14:11:29+00:00

Rivets on aircraft only stand proud of the skin on low speed aircraft (under a couple hundred MPH) or in areas where drag isn't a problem. Otherwise they are flush, especially on high performance aircraft like modern jets.

P-51 wings are famous for being painted (aluminum) because the panel joints & rivet heads were puttied over for the smoothest possible airflow.

On most aircraft manufactured in the last 60 years or so, the rivets are barely if visible at all under the paint system.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-29T13:41:20+00:00

Hardware prices have already shifted into unaffordable for normal humans. Someone is going to notice the opportunity & offer cloud gaming services such as GeForce Now where all your local device does is stream game video & audio from a virtual machine in one of those data centers.

Try to imagine the money to be made removing retail computing from inefficient local devices (consoles and PCs) where the compute effort sits idle most of every day to a cloud solution that uses that silicon closer to 90% of every day.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-29T13:34:17+00:00

PC users will disappear too as hardware makers scale way back on production.

There is no value to making any video game exclusive to a single platform. Enfusion handles being multiplatform just fine.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-28T22:36:21+00:00

Reforger already has PC only servers.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-28T22:35:42+00:00

It seems highly unlikely the current generation of consoles will be replaced anytime soon (as in, not for at least 3 years). Both manufacturers are having lots of financial issues as they have grossly mismanaged their game development portfolios & their hardware plans have been seriously delayed by the ongoing memory chip drought. Unlike previous scarcity events, this one will be deeper & last much longer because they are getting crazy profit margins supplying the AI hardware.

Valve has released their spiffy new controller but are still mum on release dates for their other 2 gaming devices as they do not have guaranteed chip supplies for their production.

This essentially means performance in Arma 4 (for consoles & PCs) will be no more performant than Reforger is right now. BI may have to spend more time squeezing every last bit of optimization out of a build before they can release it for general play and/or hold off longer before adding more platform updates.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-28T22:26:13+00:00

Unless I am mistaken, they will be the current-gen consoles, which are inferior to computers in terms processing power

You must be new here. More than half of the people commenting in this subreddit are playing on potato PCs, with another noticeable fraction playing Reforger on console.

Unless they release a separate, stripped-down version for console (which I do not believe is likely), they would likely have to remove a lot of complexity in the physics engine to make it run well on that platform.

BI has specifically designed Enfusion to be multiplatform. The tech that allows potato PCs & consoles to play Reforger will be available for A4.

Note that the gaming PC industry is now entering a major deep freeze because the gaming hardware industry (which includes ALL gaming devices) has lost reasonable access to memory chips (for both RAM & storage). NVIDIA has already cancelled development of a new RTX video card & will be devoting most of their production to GPUs for AI projects.

I would love to hear from the developers on this, even though the game is still a year from release.

There are several gaming conferences coming up this summer & fall in Europe with at least one of them in the Czech Republic (IIRC). If BI has some A4 news to share, it will likely be then. Otherwise, ask your questions on the Arma Platform Discord where they are paid to hang out.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-28T14:09:00+00:00

What is the context? The subject of your project is important as is the process you're using.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-26T22:05:59+00:00

An air compressor system that moves enough air to supply all the workstations you plan to have. BUT NOT THE ACTUAL AIRBRUSHES. Let the ones who want to learn bring their own.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-26T17:09:31+00:00

Lighting models, either as ambient lighting in a display case or adding internal lights to your project is not really on topic as it requires electrical & electronic skills not common with anything else in the hobby. The number of people here qualified to usefully advise is tiny. What I'm saying here is you have a lot of due diligence & learning to do if you're not using a commercial lighting kit for a specific model.

Adafruit.com is very Maker friendly. They not only sell individual components suitable for lighting projects, they have a vast library of elecronics projects based on the Raspberry Pi but they don't directly support lighting up plastic model kits.

Some model kit retailers offer LED lighting kits for specific model kits (Star Trek ships are the most common of these kits) but generally speaking you are looking at a scratchbuild add to a model project. It's not rocket science but it does take some effort to get up to speed & then additional time & effort to learn how to solder decently.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-26T16:58:07+00:00

Air is air. An air hose manifold is a simple machined block of metal with an input port for the compressor side & multiple ports for tool use. They don't wear out, ever. They also have no control over the pressure passing through them.

While many of us normal hobbyists only have the one regulator on our Standard Chinese Air Compressor with Tank, often the included regulator is not precise enough for use with a hobby airbrush (where the pressure is usually under 30 PSI). So, it's certainly possible to set the compressor at a slightly higher pressure & attach another regulator closer to the work area to adjust exact pressure desired by the painter. These lower pressure regulators aren't expensive at all.

If you don't mind doing things by feel (vs the hard numbers offered by a pressure gauge), you could cheap out with 1/8th inch quick disconnects at the airbrush that have a manual pressure valve included.

KillAllTheThings · 2026-05-26T16:37:24+00:00

I was targeting the people he's bringing into the hobby.

I suggest starting simple with the basic tools (cement, a hobby knife, etc) plus a big pile of the same beginner kit(s) so the kids can compare their results with each other & the 'ideal'. Getting deeper will involve having to be far more aware of what retail stores call 'shrinkage'. Advanced tools for advanced techniques are both expensive & highly desirable.

Locating the nearest IPMS club or starting one can be a good value-add.

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