Koriel

I mentioned orphanages, and it was not in jest. I seriously thought I read someone else using the word orphanage before, but couldn't find it once I started looking for it. And dunno why, perhaps because I have kids and love them more then life itself, I would never joke about something like that. /edit @Gary, below was my suggestion.. only later I read that you already came up with it.. (great minds and all that :) ) And to talk about a solution, well.. get someone in russia who can collect all the dough and transfer it to an orphanage? That way it goes directly, and won't get snapped up by "officials". That raises the question again who?. Perhaps ED could volunteer someone seeing as we all raise the sales in Russia without hurting the future sales in the west. ( That last bit is my guestimate :) )

Final setup Ok, I know I said I wouldn't bother.. but then I thought "D*rn, I should be able to get it to work", and I did. c:\Program Files (x86)\1C\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\Config\MonitorSetup\2Monitortest.lua I had to fiddle in order to get the whole ABRIS on the screen. It would lose the upper line, and no matter what I did, I couldn't lower the input by reducing the y coordinate. In the end I reduced it's vertical size a bit from 768, and slid my 15' monitor up by just a few pixels under windows. et voila!

@Maddog011, you're the MAN!!! Hello all, First of all, thank you Maddog011. I made it work. Initially I didn't think I could, and then it turned out not to such a big deal with your instruction. I run Vista x64 on a 22' (1680x1050) and a 15' (1024x768), I have an ATI 4870x2, and run DCS BS in windowed mode. It took a few tries, but now I have it setup as follows: c:\Program Files (x86)\1C\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\Config\MonitorSetup\2Monitortest.lua c:\Program Files (x86)\1C\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\BlackShark\data\scripts\options.lua and now it looks like: Initially I wanted both Shkval and Abris on the right, but couldn't get it just right and don't wanna spend time on it now as I can zoom in quite easily on the Shkval when needed. Might consider a 2nd 15' for that. This how it looked then Now I need to get some people together to fly.. :) Maddog011 rep +1

Someone mentioned an orphanage in this thread? To forestall a " I want DCS BS too, can you buy me it " response.. an orphanage in Russia ( or elsewehere ) is always a good and worthwhile cause

Talk about Ubermodelling... have you seen that AK47 in the truck? And yes I know, but forge it the whole time..

Some more screenies

Yes, but then in a virtual room which can hold dozens of people. You can also chat privately if you so desire..

Guys guys... There is an IRC channel available for DCS Black Shark.. very easy to find people to fly with. Use that to meet up with people and then connect to any voice chat server ( teamspeak / xfire, whatever ) http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=32900 Koriel out

2x a completely new Computer, so with upgrades in between on the Hardware side already approaching 6 or 7 times. ( Minor upgrades, new HD, more RAM ) And I have a reputation for doing reinstalls... sometimes a few a week until I have got it "just right", and then sometimes none for a month or 3-4. Last Month I have reinstalled 3 different flavours of Windows about 7 times.

I disagree, it's engine is old. it uses the upgraded engine from Flanker 2.0 which was released in 1999. So since it's release the engine has received a few upgrades, the AI I am talking about it stil severely lacking. If I recall correctly, the way the AI behaves actually resembles the way it did on Flanker 1.0. So since Flanker 1.0's release in 1995 the AI behaviour I am talking about has received hardly any attention. The graphics engine DCS:BS is using is a rebuild one from flanker 2.0 form 1999. So actually the only thing that DCS:BS can boast about after 3+ years of development is 1 (one) very accurately modelled helicopter. Ok, I am exaggerating just a wee bit, but you get the drift. A lot of things have received just minor enhancements. And one of Flanker's big drawbacks, an empty world is still one of DCS:BS's big negative points. Unless I am one of the few that cares about stuff like that ED really should pay attention to this. One of the reasons people still fly Falcon 4.0 ( any flavour you want ) Is it's total immersion in an active lively environment. I was hoping DCS:BS would have improved upon this, sadly it isn't. Mind you, I still like DCS:BS. If only because it's the first realistic sim to be released in ages. And I do hope future builds will improve upon the areas I find lacking, but seeing as they have been present in earlier sims since 1995, I don't have a lot of hope.

What's with the AI behaviour ? This is something I have looked at since flanker 1.0, the way the Ai behaves in normal flight. I made three missions. 1. A Hind coming in for landing: From a distance out it starts a slow descent towards the middle of the airfield. Then it joins very abruptly a very close in downwind. Turning final it extends its gear and then flies all the way down the runway at about 100m to make a rolling touchdown at the end of the runway. Then it taxies off and goes all the way down again to park at the apron next to the touchdownpoint of the runway he used. here we see something not very smart, why fly all the way down the runway while he parks next to the beginning? It's because All AI a/c vacate at the end. No matter what. 2. 4 Ship Flankers and 4 ship MiG23 coming in for landing... - Quite a ways out all the flankers extend their gear and make some turns.. When they are on final 2 continue and the other two go in full AB and make some turns again... 1st pair lands, and comes to a halt at about 30-40% of the runway. #1 slowly contnues to taxy to the very end, #2 stops (!) and after a little while follows #1. At the same time the 4 ship MiG's is coming in, they do about the same as the flankers, and 1st pair lands, followed by the flankers second pair. Suprisingly the flankers come in while the MiG's are still taxying.. and they land in sequence !! ( finally) 3. Mig 29 coming in to land at about a 90 degree angle to the runway. I ran the mission twice with an 180 degree chance in wind direction. Fortunately this time around the MiG schose the right runway! Improvement ! Observations, there still is no semblance at all of any structured traffic pattern for landing. ( years and years ago I already send in a proposal to make it go a bit smoother). AI uses AB indiscriminately. Runways is occupied for way too long, traffic should vacate the runway ASAP. When there is some real action going on you might have a dozen or so a/c coming back for recovery, and a dozen going out again. I hope that for future engine enhancements they are going to think about things like that. Falcon4 already did a way better job 10 years ago.. I am a bit dissappointed in this area. I like to build missions with some activity around you to give it a semblance of a "active and full" world. Sadly the way the AI behaves now makes it a joke, and using AI to create a busy environment is not possible.

Thank you, actually using the Shkval in cockpit works well for me, I just use a zoom dial if I need it. Was experimenting with it because I usually want to try everything possible, whether I am going to use it or not. And since I am running Vista X64, I have gotten used to the fact that some things just won't work on my system. ( Nothing serious, and for other things I am running a XP Pro Virtual machine) But When I have time I will take a look at it.

Yes you are correct, NORMAl and HIGH are available. I used water=1 on advice of a friend. I really don't like the water much in LockOn / BS, way too shiney. I fly on a regular basis, and water NEVER looks like that.. so turning it down seems like the next best thing.

Its certainly worth every ruble/dollar/euro theyare going to ask for it. I already have a copy, and was thinking about buying some more from russia, to give away/keep whatever. This ofcourse being a seperate action from buying the english version with a nice manual. Like someone said earlier, there is a lot of legacy stuff still in DCS:BS, poor graphic performance with flares and stuff. The engine could really use an overhaul. When I have time I will look into AI behaviour. This has always been a sore point in flanker2 and later. It should be interesting to note how helicopters behave now. From what I recall they behaved very stupidly. One other thing I noticed, and Mark can perhaps shed a light on that, we both fly. When you get winds from ATC or the met office, they always give you the wind in a format like 270@7kts, meaning the wind is FROM the west at 7 knots. In the editor when I plan on some wind I have to use the wind pointer in reverse. Nothing major, it's been like that for years, don't like it though. BTW, found another graphic glitch, landed the chopper on the Kutznetsov at night. With only my rotating beacon on and looked at it from the outside.. The deck was not illuminated, but the side of the ship was !!.. When I getback home later I will attach a pic here.

Heh.. not a review remember.. :) A very good question, a remark is easy to make, but now that you ask.. I was looking for something that could tune down flares, that's the only one for graphics now, and for sounds I wanted something to turn up the cannon sounds in cockpit. And for axis control something to smooth them down a bit. Options screen is not really lacking all that much, sometimes it's the engine behind it that determins what you can and can't do. But I was under the impression that a lot of items would be configurable, just glancing at the list I felt that there wasn't all that much to choose from. Looking at them again and thinking about it, I can pick out a few things, but not a whole lot. I'll change it.

Not a review, but some quick and early observations Initial impression was very good. Nice slick interface. I won't make a full review, just some observations. At first start I didn't have any sound.. Opened up skype and called a friend, can't remember exactly when, but sound came on (initiating/during/after the call) and has worked ever since. Options: for some reason I expected to have a lot of options to tune. As you can see in the screenshots, there aren't that many, but after thinking about it, they seem to be sufficient.. Graphic options, same , In the lua files you can edit them, something I would have liked to see perhaps under an [ADVANCED] setting. But lua it is. The one thing that's very well thought out are the control/axis options. Takes a little while to figure out, but you can do a lot there. Initial feel when you fly, GOOD. Haven't done any combat, just flown around and did some target practise. Trim takes a little to get used to. Basically you maintain the attitude you want, hit T and let go of any control inputs. That way even hovering can be really easy. One thing that kinda bugs me is the sound. When I fire the gun, I hardly hear anything, or even delayed. explosions, 2 km away are audible though.. When you open the door and fire the cannon, you can hear it fine. I have flown a few times in an F16 fixed based sim, and when you fire the gun in one it's like someone is using a jackhammer next to your head. I was expecting a little more sound in cockpit when firing the gun, and the balance between explosions in the distance ( no time delay btw.. ) and the gun firing a few feet away is way off. Just did some target practise, placed some static targets on an airport and tried picking them off with a vikhr, some trucks blew up fine, some of the permanent vehicules and radar, nice explosions.. but then I fired like 6 vikhrs on a B52.. no damage at all, same with an A-10.. even strafing with guns ( and those large gunpods ), no damage.. Strange. Performance, compared to Lockon it feels more evened out, like it's averaged out more. FPS was around 30 with everything maxed out and water = 1 (lua file) in an single a/c mission low ceilings and rain. feels smooth. I have a feeling that it's performance should be better on my machine. When I launch some flares and I look at them, it's nearly a slideshow. Side note, my wife plays World of Warcraft on a 2006 laptop. She gets much better visuals and performance even on raids, when you see the mayhem there at times, I really wonder how some flares and smoke can bring FPS down so much. Would be nice to be able to tweak it down just a notch. There is a graphical artifact that is very noticable in the dark on the ground. Looking out of the left window, you see a white band running over the ground. during the day you occasionally see a tear in the same position. Dark is DARK btw, quite an improvement. All in all, I have a feeling BS requires some patching, certainly to the sound, but out of the box it's quit playable, fun and very challenging. It's LockOn with a nice chopper, improved interface, but you can still see the gfx engine from flanker 2.0 in there. I really hope they will make an update to the engine an priority for any future releases. A last note, second monitor is a 15', have not been able to get the shkval running on that. havn't really really tried yet, but heard through the grapevine that it won't work on Vista ( Now that's not very smart is it? ) Oh before anyone asks, E8600 3.33 @ 3.66, 8G Ram, 2x750G in RAID0, 4870x2, Vista x64, 22' (1680x1050) X52Pro with rudders and trackIr4 Pro with the clip.

I can say that would be a definate YES. DCS Black Shark should be released by feruari next year at the latest in the west, so go figure... And even i it's not released then, by then lots of people will have copies from Russia.

Good to hear EB, because when I installed and activated my russian DVD I had no idea what I was clicking, just saw the "2 activations" remaining message. Just to easy my mind a few questions :) : When I reinstall, and enter my serial on the same PC, I will retain my 2 remaining activations? What is the relation between de-activations and activations? // Reminder, Need to install russian language on Vista and take a crash course!!!

True, I believe that of all those leechers some download the game just for the hell of it, but most do it because they just can't wait. ( Bad affliction, I know, I've got it bad... ). Those that just can't wait will buy the game anyway. Seeing how many people upgraded their PC's to run this, bought a HOTAS setup and rudders, Trackir 4 with clip.. ( He! that's me !!! just paid 2000+ euro's for al that, ) You think they won't buy the game to save a few lousy dollars/euro's? I'll bet quite few would like both the russian and Multilanguage version, and are willing to pay top dollar for it. And what's suprising, or maybe not really considering the people who are torrenting BS, is that nobody has uploaded BS to usenet yet. People want it, but no-one wants to share it.

Downloading !!

It has been stated a few times now that they (ED) intends to release a new add-on every 9 months while upgrading the engine. Seeing as we had the first video's of the Black Shark more then 2 years ago, ED should be pretty advanced with it's follow up. But nothing has been said about the next model except that they are working an a few. This raises the following question: Can we really expect something by the end of 2009? Seeing as there is nothing definite in the works? No talks, no rumors, nothing!

I want all versions ;) Russian I have already, now for the international version.

From a translation service..:

Mmm well, it might didn't think about that. But then again rules are different in Russia, game doesn't need a rating there either. On the other hand, I don't know how things are in Russia, but when i want to buy a game in Holland I can go to various gameshops who will accept internet orders and mail the game. Isn't there a gameshop somewhere that does the same apart from Ozon.ru?

Or perhepas there is an enterprising Russian who can set up his own mail order service.. I know alot of people would pay well above the purchase and mailing cost for their copy of a russian DVD. Anyone?