JEFX

ah... that is possible, because I noticed with my single players experiment missions this morning that the Wingman did not report air contacts all the time like in Liberation but it did, yes, for SAM for example... even when it had himself shot a HARM towards it, a second before impact it 'discovered' a contact (and it was the very same SAM that was about to get smashed by himself)... strange... will take a look at it in Liberation and single player again... thanks by the way do you know how to contact them (who?), I would have several suggestions for them... I tried and looked through the github website but I am not sure how to proceed to contact the right person?

USING (stupid) AI WINGMEN (as efficiently as possible) in DCS: LIBERATION I have been making some experiments with the (pretty stupid) AI wingmen since I play DCS: Liberation in single player all the time at the moment. For a while I contented myself with planning as efficiently as possible other flights to the best of my knowledge and dispensing with AI wingmen altogether… (flying a single aircraft group). But I decided to investigate the possibilities a bit more and here is what I found making some experimental missions, if it may be of any inspiration to some of you. There are a few radio commands that seem to work better than others with AI wingmen (they don’t work all the time, but they are somewhat better then all the others)… In terms of managing their stance, position, etc… the commands HOLD POSITION and REJOIN seem to work pretty well (they will break these orders only if they detect an enemy airplane close to them, I am not sure how close, but something like 12 NM or so). This means that we can bring 1 or 2 wingmen and have them wait at specific points or distance from the threats, mission goal, etc… Better, it is possible to order them to HOLD POSITION individually (wing 1 or wing 2, etc.) HOLD is the only way I found to order them NOT to attack anything at random… Another order that is pretty handy is COVER ME when I feel that there are some air threat close by, or if I am painted by enemy airborne radars, then the AI will attack the bandits that are threatening me. (by the way, ATTACK MY ENNEMY does not seem to work very well at all…). Then, there are the specific combat orders and those that seem to be working pretty well are: ENGAGE BANDITS, ENGAGE AIR DEFENSES and ENGAGE GROUND TARGETS although, if there is a SAM around, they might not engage ground targets (even if ordered) and go for the air defenses). Based on those experiments, I decided to try a new approach to my missions in Liberation. (I still need to do more experiment within Liberation and will report here). I plan the mission for my own use (with no extra waypoints, holdings or ingress…) and add as waypoints many targets that I wish with the ADD WAYPOINT function. I bring 2 AI wingmen with me (because the first level of the radio menu has only room for wing 1 and wing 2) and give them a mixed loadout of A-G, anti-radiation and A-A munitions (it can even be slightly different for both, therefore they can become specialists but they both have AA missiles)… Quickly, in the heat of the mission, I can use the HOLD or REJOIN orders to use them or have them wait, and I can order any of them to ATTACK AIR DEFENCES or to ATTACK GROUND TARGETS, and if there is some air opposition then ENGAGE BANDITS and if things get really bad, COVER ME… When a task is completed, I can order them to HOLD or REJOIN again so they don’t get stupid and engage anything on their own… When I feel they are getting low on gas I can order them to RTB so we don’t lose to many planes… This way, playing Liberation becomes really fun with AI wingmen. The only annoying thing is their constant calling of contacts (which I have not found yet how to disable…). If anyone knows how, I would be very glad to hear about it... a few hours later: I just made some experiment with Liberation and having TWO wingmen is completely impossible and useless... they get so saturated with contacts and so panicked by all the threats that they ignore all my commands and I end up spending all my time trying to get their attention... no point... Tomorrow I will try my idea with ONLY one wingman and will report...

@Taz1004 Sorry to bump this topic but I find it very interesting and, unfortunately, nowadays it doesnt seem to work? I am having a blast in single player with DCS : Liberation but I get so much annoyed by the AI wingman contact calls (repeatedly...) I tried your solution but even if I put -- in front of the relevant lines in the common_events.lua file my wingman still blasts his calls non-stop? any advice? Thanks

@Wood Yes, it was single player and Yes, AI wingmen are a bit useless. One of the things I like to do with them (usually only one, armed for AA), I bring him along for the ingress but order him to orbit a little way out of harm, I turn his radio off (in order not to hear the constant warnings about enemies 150NM+ away...) and I pursue alone until I feel AA danger, then I call upon him (Attack Bandits), and that it does ok (so so ok...) but at least I have more AA firepower like that. These strategies are for single player of course... I must say that I wish I could play the same kind of mission with other people in multiplayer but I find it hard to start... Once I played some BMS with a couple of very welcoming guys and it was a blast, but in DCS I dont know where to start and how to get into it... Not to mention that I have a crazy RL schedule so I cannot commit to a group, let alone a squadron of any kind...

I have to share with you guys... I just played one of my favorite/best mission in DCS (of all time.. and I do play since 2003...)!!!!! I am currently playing DCS: Liberation Operation Blackball (Cyprus) (around mission 5)... I took off from the carrier at 5 AM with one wingman and a mixed load of Mavs and AA missiles (self-protect OCA strike!) against Lanarka AB. It was dark, completely dark, and carrier operations were nocturnal and illuminated. The first 45 minutes were very exciting because, after a 20 minute ferry flight to the west, I managed to wreck some elements of the SA-11 protecting Lanarka and I downed a couple of MIG-29 that were vectored to me by the AWACS. My wingman downed a pair of SU-34 and I ordered him to RTB (before he crashed because of dry tanks...). At that point, the sky was barely starting to pale a bit, with some red glow on the horizon... My last MIG's chase took me way out on the ocean and I was pretty far with little gas remaining... With a very nice sunrise and pretty pink clouds, I decided to try and make it to Gecitkale (an airfield that we captured quite early in the game because it was guarded only by an SA-8 and a few tanks...) I landed at Gecitkale with 400 Lbs. of gas... phew.. ...to my surprise, there were several Tomcats landing there at the same time (very immersive!). By that time the sun was fully up and it was daytime (I had been constantly adjusting the cockpit lighting in the last half hour...). After refueling and rearming, I took off from Gecitkale and asked the AWACS for a picture. He directed me to a vector 50 NM away and I started my climb towards it when I noticed some bandits right in front of me (a pair of MIG-29s unseen to the AWACS) that were getting in position to shoot me down... It was a close call, and my heart was racing with the surprise but I managed to splash both of them... After a while and no more bandits close by (anything the awacs was giving me was more than 150 NM away and I didnt have the fuel to get there and back), I started back towards the carrier, about 100 NM east of my position. I did a climb and save fuel kind of profile (FPAS page on the MFD) and was directed to a Case I recovery by Marshal. After one bolter (grrr...) I successfully grabbed a 3-wire and parked, secured the FA-18C and opened the canopy to take a breath... Several ground targets, several AA kills, many close calls, an emergency landing on a divert Airfield, and a very pretty morning with sunrise on beautiful low clouds... And while I was parking and securing the aircraft, many Tomcats trapped in my back or executed their breaks overhead... So many unplanned beautiful surprises... This is why Liberation is so great!... there is no way to replicate this kind of pleasure with a canned self-planned sterile, mission-editor style mission.... I love DCS: Liberation!

AI wingmen are useless in DCS... not only they call 'ejecting' all the time as you said, they saturate the radio constantly with their Godly detection range ...

Personally I like to set the default to START IN FLIGHT so that CAP (especially ennemy) start in the air. I then change the friendly start to Runway, Warm and Cold with a variety in order to make things more random... Of course, I start my own flight from scratch (COLD) and in this way, the picture looks much more alive when airborne... Anybody can answer my question about balance of forces in PACIFIC REPARTREE ?? an experience with it? By the way anyone know how to reach those who make them? I could give them a suggestion? THanks

OK, just a bit more info. I have been doing some experiments (watching the F10 MAP at Time X 10 just to check...). I tried the same thing with the other naval campaign around Cyprus, Operation Blackball. The same thing happens at around T + 35 minutes, the Kuznetzov and the Moscow start sending volleys of anti-ship missiles towards our carrier and fleet, but now the balance of forces is much better and we (AI ships) manage to kill all the incoming missiles with ship defense (SM-2s)! Strangely, I let the mission run for 2 hours (accelerated) and the enemy does'nt send any more volley? This campaign is much more playable because of that... But I still feel that the other one (Pacific Repartee) would have the potential to be a REAL naval campaign, which would be great with our Hornet and Supercarrier (please, whoever made it, could you balance the red naval forces better please?)

Hi all, I dont know if it is the same for all of you but since DCS-Liberation 5.0, we have a couple of very nice Mariana's scenarios to play with.. there is one I found particularly promising: PACIFIC REPARTEE It is a naval only battle (no real ground forces) and a lot! of naval forces. The ideal (perhaps) situation for a great FA-18-Supercarrier campaign.. But... It is unplayable (for me at least)... At a certain point in the mission (around 00:45'') the enemy carriers (there are many) and main destroyers start shooting swarms of anti-ship missiles (P-700 Granit , etc.) that are MUCH more effective than our Harpoons... they manage to severely damage or destroy our ONLY carrier (which is our only base of operation here!)... I even tried launching at the start of mission 1 a very strong 30+ F-18 offensive against the closest 2 aircraft carriers (Liaoning-Kuznetzov...) but our Harpoons get exterminated as well... I tried many strategies, even tried to give the enemy half of our initial budget... but to no avail, it seems unplayable... Anybody succeeded in playing it with pleasure? any hints?

Actually, my point is not only about the Hornet cockpit, but rather I am criticizing the fact that in DCS, AWACS calls use TRUE north when this is clearly not the case in the real world (with proof from real fighter pilots)... I know that we can customize the instruments in the Hornet cockpit to show True headings (HSI data page).. In usual latitudes of our theaters, we should get AWACS calls in Magnetic and all instruments in the cockpit should be the same (now there are some discrepancies, some things in true some in magnetic...)

Hi all friends of DCS, After many years of (loving) relation with DCS, and more recently with the Hornet, I feel like it is time our DEVs take action and solve this problem please!!!! If you look at it just from a logical point of view... or even better : from an aviator's perspective.. the discrepancies between TRUE north indications and calls and MAGNETIC indications in DCS dont make any sense... I have raised this flag several times in the last few years, wrote many posts, but still nothing has changed... How is it possible that, in the US NAVY's Hornet, when asked for BOGEY DOPE, our AWACS (E-3 or E-2) responds with vectors in TRUE north??? in Nevada that can be off as much as 14 degrees... This is NOT REALISTIC in any way... In aviation, (at least in the West) when ATC or other agencies are asked to give us vectors, they always respond in MAGNETIC... This is even worse when one considers the various instruments and systems of our (fantastic) Hornet... HUD heading, HSI heading, RADAR and SA BULLS indications, etc... there is no coherence between all these and many of them are in TRUE heading... and some are in Magnetic... Just to make 100% sure (even though I was totally confident in myself) I sent an email to Vincent 'Jell-O' Aiello, founder of the Fighter Pilot Podcast and former F/A-18C pilot... I asked him if there were anything in the Hornet cockpit that would show in TRUE degrees and if the AWACS were calling BRAAS in TRUE or MAGNETIC... he answered this: Yes, to the best of my recollection everything in the Hornet was magnetic. BRAA would be in MAG! Now I find that this has been going on for too many years now... I know that the TRUE/MAG thing can be different in Russia, or in other parts (Eastern?) of the world, but we are talking here about US Navy's F/A-18C Hornets, from USA's (super) carriers, talking to USA's AWACS (dont mistake me, I am not from the US, I am from Canada...) they should all speak to each other in MAGNETIC heading... Otherwise, building a mental picture of your posit, where you are going, where is the enemy, where are the bogeys, etc... becomes totally not intuitive... you always have to mentally subtract or add 6, 11 or even 14 degrees to your picture. I REALLY would like if our DEVS could look into that problem and FIX IT PLEASE!!! In the Hornet Cockpit, EVERYTHING SHOULD BE IN MAGNETIC HEADING! When we call the AWACS, EVERYTHING SHOULD BE IN MAGNETIC HEADING! (ED, can you please acknowledge?, all my previous messages about this went unanswered...) thanks JEFX

OK I will pick this up in a new thread, because I have fresh info...

On the F10 map, one can see that the bandit is 347 degrees for 28 NM, the small difference is because I have used active pause to take my pictures and the bandit had moved a litlle (again in True, since all maps are in True, including the F10 map). I find it impossible to build a strong SA picture when one DDI is giving a TRUE BRA and another one a MAGNETIC BRA.. Furthermore, on the radar page alone, on the top line, there is my heading (magnetic of course) and on the left, the position of the bandit relative to the Bullseye in... TRUE... just side by side... that doesn't make any sense no? or am I missing something??? thanks ED, keep the great work, the Hornet is fantastic! but please, do solve this strange behavior that is against all rules of normal (western at least) aviation.. JEFX

Here is an example of the problem... I have a target at my twelve O'clock that is datalinked to me by the AWACS behind me. On my RADAR page on the left one can see that it is marked BRA 346 degrees for 29 NM, which is in TRUE north (compare with the screenshot of the F10 map just in the next post) and which is the BRA that the AWACS just told me on the radio when I asked for BOGEY DOPE (I still cannot understand why AWACS would give its BRAs in TRUE, but that is another matter...). But on the SA page on the right DDI, the same Bandit is marked BRA 335 degrees for 29 NM !!! with 11 degrees substracted (therefore exactly the Magnetic bearing)...

Nobody from ED can explain please?

YES! I am a pilot (despite a modest Private Pilot with a modest Cessna) and it is the norm...

This is still confusing... Just made an experiment in the Hornet (latest open beta as of now, 2.7.7.15038) and I have put one bandit in front of me and an AWACS somewhere orbiting afar. I made a waypoint the BULLS (AA waypoint) in the HSI and my HSI/DATA/AC is still in MAG (by default). If I ask the AWACS a BOGEY DOPE he will give a BRA in TRUE degrees (and YES, it makes a big difference in Nevada, with a 12E degrees!) If I ask a PICTURE, he will give a BULS call in TRUE as well (as one can see looking at the F10 map in game). The AA radar is picking up the target and when locked it gives me a BRA in TRUE but... the SA page has the target's HAFU with datalink by the AWACS and it gives a BRA in MAG !!!!!! I see the BRA in MAG on one display and the BRA in True on the other (with a clear difference of 12 degrees...) this is becoming a bit confusing and I cannot believe that in the heat of battle, a fighter pilot would have to calculate the Magnetic Declination for some instruments and not the others... Again I quote Vincent 'Jell-O' Aiello to whom I wrote about the Hornet (see above) and he said about the various displays in the cockpit: 'everything is magnetic!'... Anybody from ED can shed some light on this please? thanks!

SOLVED! I had to uninstall not only WMR for SVR but Windows Mixed Reality as well from Windows 10... Then, I started from scratch the installation of my G2 running WMR Portal and then I added WMR for SVR and everything worked fine!!!

Thanks Bearfoot... but I did already reset the environment and it was already on best visual quality... But the problem is not the tilted view anymore.. by uninstalling and reinstalling WMR for SVR I got a very nice horizon... No, what I see in my headset is the default view of the mountains in the far horizon of SteamVR or the 'room' of WMR portal, and when I launch DCS I see that it is displayed ion the main (square) window and in WMR window on my flat screen, but it blacks out in the G2 (and Alyx is working correctly)????

Anybody has had this kind of problem? I have played DCS with my G2 for months now and it was fine. Today, I found the horizon was strangely VERY tilted (lower on the right side), both in the main DCS menu window and ingame as well... I tried all I could and nothing worked until I tried something I read on the forum : I uninstalled WMR for SVR and reinstalled it. I launched DCS and the main menu appeared and LO not tilted anymore, yes! BUT... The minute I launched any kind of 3d rendering (a mission, an instant action, anything), the G2 becomes black... Even when I quit DCS, my G2 doesnt return to the WMR portal 'room', it stays black... I tried with MSFS2020 and it is the same thing... I tried quitting WMR and starting it again, and yes I could see the 'room' in my G2 and launched ALYX no problem and it played fine... I returned to DCS and I could get to the INSTANT ACTION menu, I could choose a mission and when the progress bar gets to around 80%, it blacks out in the G2 again... Any help will be welcome, thanks! JEFX

Hello G8R I just had the same problem recdently (VERY tilted suddenly), and I uninstalled WMR for SteamVR and rebooted and reinstalled it and LO, no more tilted horizon! Give it a try. JEFX

Hello I am using a HP REVERB G2 and when DCS is waiting for a couple minutes (lets say I am tweaking some parameters in Liberation campaign), it always automatically quits to desktop... very annoying. This doesnt not happen in Alyx or MSFS2020 for example, any idea? thanks JEFX

oups pressed enter too early... continued: SteamVR global settings: 90 hz Motion Smoothing ON Resolution per eye 100% (3160x3092) SteamVR DCS specific settings: Motion smoothing: force always on Custom resolution multiplyer : 80% (as per your suggestion in your guide) override world scale 115% (I always felt the cockpit looked like toy aircraft, too small...) DCS latest openbeta 2.7.2 settings Pixel density 1.0 MSAA x 2 A lot of HIGH settings, I can post later what do you think?

HURRAY!!!! I have been disapointed since the beginning with VR because I thought I could never look on the side and not see double... NOW IT IS GREAT, that did it: force motion reprojection (I had no idea that this control panel existed (OpenVRSettingsUX.exe !!!!) Thanks so much!!!!!!! now for the performance (which stays pretty solid at 45 now and I have MSAA x2) SteamVR Global Video settings : resolution per eye: 100% (3160X3092) SteamVR

Thanks for your help speed... I just went back to your guide and I realize that when I looked at it at first there were so many concepts and terms that were new to me that I skipped many things... But for now I do have a small interrogation... I looked really well and in my usual \Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common I dont have a MixedRealityVRDriver folder... oups, while I was typing this, I did a search and my computer found it on another drive in F:\steamapps\GAMES\SteamLibrary etc... will give it a try, thanks!