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Stearmandriver

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Everything posted by Stearmandriver

  1. Don't worry at all about "authentic looking" for a HOTAS. Unless you've ever flown a real F-18, the reality is that you'll never know the difference ;). I simmed for years with the cheapest Thrustmaster HOTAS out there, one they don't even make anymore, even their cheapest current offering is way better. I used that HOTAS to sim with aircraft I do fly in real life, as well as many I never will... and had plenty of fun. I have a Warthog now and yes it's much nicer in terms of precision, but... this is a video game. It's about having fun. I'd recommend not letting the rhetoric of the hardcore faction convince you that you need to spend massive amounts of money on top-end hardware to have fun. I can attest that you absolutely do not. Now, after playing for a while, will you start to wish for "better" this and "more" that? Of course... what's a technology-based hobby without feature-creep? ;) And then, you'll have the experience to effectively prioritize what is worth it to you. My other recommendation: really do look into head tracking. Track IR is the best-known "brand name" solution, but there are many others. Delan Clip offers a complete kit for cheaper, or you can pick up a PS3 eye Webcam and some LEDs and use freeware Opentrack software for a solution costing less than $30 if you like to tinker. There's even a smartphone app that uses your phone camera for face tracking and works with Opentrack that people rave about on Reddit, for real cheap. But SOME kind of head tracking is an absolute game change in terms of immersion - even for simple flying, but especially for combat. But in the end, you should decide what's fun and how to do it... don't worry too much about anyone else's opinions, including mine. :)
  2. Well, I've done the same thing for about 25 years now. Also done some blue water sailing, and I remember nights so dark you - literally - could not see your hand in front of your face. Have you ever flown over the ocean lower than the 30s, down in the haze? On a moonles night, there's no light source at all. Where would any light come from, to show you a horizon? On a dark night... it's just not there.
  3. I've had intermittent problems with the probe light. When it works, it works well. And I agree, nav lights can act weird as well. BUT - DCS has the best simulation of flying at night I've ever seen in any desktop flight sim. It IS dark on a moonless night over the ocean. I mean, it's black. That glow you find in other flight sims is what's unrealistic. There should be no ground or water, no sky (down low in the haze; up at altitude you'll have stars), no visible horizon... nothing. Just black. DCS gets it right and I sure hope they don't change it!
  4. All I've noticed with the supercarrier is that if you arrive overhead and other aircraft have already broken the deck and are in the pattern, you won't get a Charlie like you said (which if I understand correctly isn't really fleet procedure anyway, except during CQ?). But if you remain in the overhead stack, after those aircraft have trapped, all of a sudden you will get a "Charlie". No idea how it would handle dozens of inbounds at once though; I have a feeling you're on your own to find a deconflicting altitude.
  5. Believe they were the A... the cluster variant.
  6. Right turns are approved as well? So there's no protected side of the radial?
  7. That's strange - I played with JSOWs for the first time yesterday. Used several As in PP mode and each one was a direct hit?
  8. Thank you. I figured it was something along these lines, but good to have a real explanation.
  9. If I'm understanding correctly, the issue isn't so much the amount of time updates take, but the fact that ED seems to be applying a different priority list to these updates, after asking their customers how things should be prioritized and then claiming they were going to do that. The Hornet flight model is a great example - they asked how they should prioritize things and received good data... then ignored it. They further stated that the flight model update would be out... several updates ago. The upshot is, the broken ground effect specifically significantly impacts the way that one flagship module - the Hornet - interacts with another flagship module - the Supercarrier. Pass grading is broken because of the spurios AoA reduction just before touchdown. Is ED legally required to honor customer requests or provide accurate estimates of bug fixes? Absolutely not. Are they ethically *required* to do so? Not really... but at some point, there's a question of what's good business practice. Requesting data from your customers and then ignoring it is probably not great practice, and does not encourage participation in future data collection. Missing previously issued release estimates for long-standing bug fixes without any explanation or updated estimate? Probably not great practice either. Sure, things crop up and release dates slide, we all know that... but a little transparency / explanation would go a long way. ...And especially when the bugs in question have been existent for, what, a couple years? And the priority has been placed on new weapons with often redundant capability, instead of making the thing FLY correctly, as noted earlier. Of course a video game is never *really* going to fly like an airplane, that's true of any desktop sim and even the multi million dollar level D sims we use at work, but something like ground effect being reversed is kind of egregious. Pointing all this out is not whining. It's providing honest feedback on how many customers view this issue; that's something most businesses would be interested in hearing. Now, people do get overly emotional and express these things in unprofessional ways sometimes, with personal insults and wild punctuation, and that's childish. But there IS a fair point to be made here.
  10. If the JTAC smokes the targets, you can visually designate the smoke with the HUD pipper; that'll be close enough for the bomb to see the laser.
  11. If you want to give yourself an advantage until you get more comfortable with the functionality of the pod in LST mode, fly at night and turn on your night vision goggles. You'll be able to visually see the laser beam, and that makes it a lot easier to point the pod at the end of it. Along those lines, a question I've wondered about: if the laser is visible in the NVGs, shouldn't it also be visible on the pod imagery when the pod is in FLIR mode? Or do they work completely differently?
  12. There's something called viacom that allows you to use voice commands for radio calls and other things. Also, you can bind the ball call to a button if you fly the Hornet. It's in the controls menu as "hornet ball".
  13. I believe the flight model bugs in question were recently voted the TOP priority for fixes, by the community themselves, right?
  14. Yes, there. I wasn't sure if citing the doc was ok here, but that's what I was reading too. It does say you can vary the pattern as necessary, and so I imagine you could do standard rate turns if you wanted to, but the example that's presented as standard procedure seems to say to fly half standard rate.
  15. Or... just use your rate of turn indicator, as that's literally all it does ;). So the pertinent document for real world CV ops training seems to present a 6 minute pattern as "standard", while noting that this can be modified as necessary. The example pattern presented consists of "two minute turns and one minute legs". The only way that equals a 6 minute pattern is if the meaning of "two minute turns" is that each 180 degree turn takes two minutes. Thus it seems that what we're looking for in Marshall is a HALF standard rate turn, anyway?
  16. One other thought: did you enter a waypoint elevation as well as coordinates? I've seen the pod do weird things like that with no elevation entered.... if you just waypoint designate without specifically setting an elevation, the pod seems to use your waypoint elevation, which is usually thousands of feet in the air. Conversely, if you just enter an elevation of zero, you're probably looking below ground. You need the the MSL elevation of the ground where you want to look. You probably already know this. Took me a bit to figure it out lol.
  17. I do believe that you had trouble reproducing this; that's the nature of intermittent problems after all. But you can very easily see on the video that this definitely DID happen to me. You don't have to take my word for it. It's been a bug as long as I've been using DCS - the Hornet refueling probe light is unreliable. Starting cold vs warm made it more reliable. It had seemed to me that a recent update had fixed this, but I'm just letting the team know that it obviously isn't all the way fixed. Again, no subjectivity - you can see the proof in the video. I'll keep you updated if I see it again... thanks!
  18. Hmm, that is possible. I've never used uncage to put it in this mode and didn't know that would happen. I didn't intentionally hit it, but couldn't say that I didn't accidentally do it. Thanks for the heads up... if I see this again I'll definitely try toggling uncage.
  19. It's intermittent, as it's always been. I've flown other missions on the latest update that it worked on... but this time it didn't.
  20. I know this was previously a bug but thought it had been fixed. Saw it last night though. No refueling probe light (after a warm start on supercarrier). On video here, at 00:53:00 Download track here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KCiys3eOa1fuApluZbLDqZalkKo1x95g/view?usp=sharing
  21. Hello, In a single-player mission, engaging 2 separate groups of 2 bandits each, saw some abnormalities with the second group. With an AMRAAM selected and L&S target designated, and even once transitioning into STT, the HUD symbology never displayed the NIRD. The target designation diamond appeared, but the large segmented circle remained on the HUD, instead of the NIRD. Launching in this state resulted in an immediate "lost" indication. You can see it in this video, at the 30 minute mark (transition to STT occurs at 00:30:20). You can clearly see the radar tracking a target in TWS, and watch it transition to STT, but the HUD symbology never changes. Track barelyl exceeds the size limit for attaching, so it can be dowloaded here. Same track as another reported bug, but yes this is the correct track file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KCiys3eOa1fuApluZbLDqZalkKo1x95g/view?usp=sharing
  22. Rate of the turn indicator in the Hornet is either on the EADI page, or below the mechanical standby attitude indicator. I've been curious about this though: in the civilian world, what we call a "two minute turn" is a turn that takes 2 minutes for one complete 360 degree circle; thus, a 180 degree turn takes one minute. However I've seen written guidance that suggests a "two minute turn" in Marshall actually means 2 minutes for 180 degrees of turn; in other words, a HALF standard rate turn. I'm aware that as long as you're in the protected area of the hold, the pattern doesn't really matter... but does anyone know for certain what's considered standard here? We usually cap our bank angles in airliners at 25 or 30 degrees AoB, which is less than standard rate at 250kts, but I don't imagine tac jet guys care much about that.
  23. What a crazy thread. Guess it had run its course before I came to the forums; first I've seen it. I don't like it either, and I think ED should create an in-game option to turn it off as well... but listen, doing it manually really is almost as easy. I mean, it takes like 30 seconds. As someone posted earlier: It DOES pass the IC. You literally have to replace the word "val" with the word "false", and press ctrl + s. One time. (Ok, and after an update). Your choice of course if you still want to not use the module you paid for, but it is easily the single best implementation of naval aviation ever realized on a desktop sim. It's certainly worth using.
  24. When I've seen this, the gun was left selected. Going into the Stores page and unboxing the gun has worked every time.
  25. Isn't it easy enough to raise the default view position in Track IR? Just look down a little and hit the key to re-center your view. Then when you return your head to a neutral position, the view is looking up more. Personally I don't want that as I like having the panel in my scan, but seems easy enough to achieve with headtracking if that's your preference. I also have no problems with the HMD as is; I always use it in merged fights for either the ACM HACQ mode, or off-boresight sidewinder shots. Works great. Only thing that annoys me about it is we can't yet use it to create (or even see) a ground target designation. ;)
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