Zenra

Indeed, so long as you see it coming. Turn off the exhaust and it is considerably more difficult (or it could be my aging eyes...)

This is an interesting observation, and not that I need any more of a "challenge", but you can change or even eliminate the smoke trail from the TOW alltogether by editing the weapons_table.lua (located in the C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\Config\Weapons folder by default). Look for the entry for "BGM-71D Tow" and change the line: { Name = TOW, --BGM-71D Tow ... exhaust = {0.9, 0.9, 0.8, 0.2 }; ... } I haven't worked out what each of the numbers means, but changing them changes the size, color and opacity of the smoke trail. If you comment out the line then the TOW has no smoke trail at all.

Are you talking about the enemies for a specific mission or about the various enemy units in general? The built in encyclopedia has pictures and some specifications of all of the equipment represented, and learning to recognize different units on the Shkval is an important skill to develop. Spend some time with the encyclopedia to learn what the units look like, and looking up units by name on the Internet will provide loads of real world information that by and large you will find faithfully modeled in the DCS world. You should also play the "Shooting Range" mission, which gives you the opportunity to start up, take off and navigate in a training environment. There are a number of already dead targets to practice shooting at with all the different weapons at your disposal, and it is easy to use the mission editor to add any units you like so you can practice on them in a training environment. The learning curve is long and sometimes steep, but definitely worth the effort - Black Shark is a great sim!

Unless this is a misprint you do not have enough free hard disk space to install...

1. Also, make sure the Intercom Source Selector switch (rotary knob on left radio control panel) is set to VFH2 to talk with the tower or Ground when you want to talk to the ground crew. 3. "Fly like water flows"; that is, stay low and in the valleys, and, as JLZ said, go slow and look for the bad guys when you enter enemy territory. Your eyes and the Shkval can pick out all kinds of detail if you take the time to use them.

You can check out zdXu's tracks HERE. Operation 404 has some nice flying and Ka-50 as a sniper type combat, and Operation Night Hunt is just what the title suggests.

I haven't noticed a "forward looking" tendancy, but if you have the ALT Hold mode of the autopilot on and have selected Radar Altitude as opposed to Barometric Altitude as the reference on the AP panel then the Shark will climb and descend with the terrain. Could this be what is happening for you?

@zdXu: Thanks for another entertaining and educational tracks. I really enjoyed both Operation 404 and Operation Night Hunt. I do have a question about PAR_KrasnodarPashkovsky.trk, though: When I play it I can only barely make out the cockpit, everything is so dark. I've tried to figure out how to use NVG but cannot seem to do so and also watch your track. CAn you shed some light on how I might be able to see what's going on? I travel a lot for work, and while I have BS on my laptop it is a pain lugging my Cougar setup all over the place and needless to say it' a bit impractical to set it all up in a commercial airline seat... Watching tracks is a great way to get some Black Shark in and it is instructive to see how others approach the missions. In Operation 404 I liked how you side slipped downhill and along the treetops to get into position while maintaining cover - some very nice flying that! @Frazier: It's been said elsewhere on these forums, but just let me pile on: I simply cannot believe the skill level you've achieved with the Shark - your demo video is absolutely amazing!

Thanks for the 1v1 mission. Your earlier results make sense and are consistent with what I saw experimenting today. I am fairly convinced the difference is NOT in the weapon or shell, since giving both the T-80 and M1A2 the same gun & shell (in my tests) did not affect the lopsided result. Now I am experimenting with some of the assignments in the tank lua files; certain waepon settings are made there. Do you know what WS[].omegaY and WS[].omegaZ do? What about maxBottom and maxTop?

Don't know what I was doing wrong before but the script edits I outlined in an earlier post in this thread are working now. I've run a few tests and following are my observations so far: 1. First, I gave the T-80 the same gun as the M1A2 - "WS_tank_gun_120mm". Ran the 50t80vs50m1a2.miz for a few minutes and find 5x T-80 burning and 35x M1A2 dead. Debrief showed both sides firing the "M256_120_AP" shell and shots fired by both sides were about equal (i.e., rate of fire looks equal, as it should be since it is coded with the gun info in the lua files not with the tank). What was interesting, though, is that the T-80s scored significantly more hits. This suggests the issue may be either with armor or accuracy. So... 2. I give the T-80 the same chassis as the M1A2 and run again. Results were the same as the first test, which was as expected because there are only very minor differences in the numbers between the M1 and T-80 chassis files. In particular, the chassis.armour_thickness is set to 0.080 for both. Now I am not sure what to try next. Could it be hard-coded or maybe in an ai script someplace? I had the skill level set to "Excellent" for all units on both sides, so I would expect the difference is not with the simulated crew. Why can the T-80 consistently score so many more hits compared to the M1A2 even when both are made to use the same gun and have the same armor?

I set out this morning to do some experimenting with the scripts to see if we might find an interim solution to this issue. I found what looked to be the relavent information in the following files: m1.lua contains the chassis specifications for the M1A2 m1a1.lua contains the weapon systems definitions for the "MBT M1A2 Abrams" tank t80.lua contains the chassis specifications for the T-80 t80ud.lua contains the weapon systems definitions for the "MBT T80UD" tank cannon.lua contains the definitions for the "WS_tank_gun_120mm" and the "WS_tank_gun_2A46" main guns used by the M1A2 and T-80, respectively shell_table.lua contains the definitions for the "M256_120_AP" and "2A46M_125_AP" shells used by the M1A2 and T-80, respectively Looking at the numbers it is not immediately clear what needs to be changed, but I found that even experimenting the way I had hoped would not work the way I expected it to. That is, as I changed the values in these files and re-ran the mission posted earlier in this thread by Ker_Laeda that pits 50 M1A2 versus 50 T-80 I could not get the results to change. I even took it to the extreme of making the T-80 have specs identical to the M1A2 in all categories, but the results did not change (i.e., in 5 minutes nearly all the M1A2 were burning while only a handful of T-80 were on fire). Does anybody know if maybe simply editing these files and reloading the mission is not enough to make the changes take? Do I have to create a new mission after making changes to the script files to try things like this? Thanks - I will appreciate any advice the group may have.

I must agree: damage modeling in BS is great, and there is lots of variety, too. My favorite when I first started flying BS was when I got to the runway and couldn't take off. I checked the outside view twice before I noticed the rotor disk looked smaller than usual - turns out I clipped them off taxiing too close to a bunker. And, sure enough, I move the view back along my track and there are the tips of my rotor blades lying on the ground! - a really nice touch... You must have at least heard something go "Bang"? No way for the pilot to see the tail from the cockpit, and there is no "Tail missing" EKRAN message. I wonder if the Laser Warning system self test would fail with damage like this (since one of the sensors is shot off)?

Have you trimmed the cyclic for the speed you would like? Edit - MTF beat me to it...

Pressing the target type DL button cycles each target of that type in memory only after selecting a wingman. You select the target type by pressing the appropriate DL button, then select the wingman (or all wingmen) to receive the data, then go back and press the target type button again to cycle through targets of that type in memory before actually sending the information. I have to admit that I do not know if you can do this if you have no wingmen - will have to try this out...

Mark, You might want to download and watch the tracks in this thread, too. Be sure to turn on the controls graphic (R-CTRL ENTER) and listen for the trimmer sound. They helped me understand trimming better and contain some good techniques for practice.

These tracks are great to learn from. I was particularly inspired by pingo's "air taxi" approach. His track, "Re Improved.trk", is IMO a beautiful demonstration of how the Shark can be controlled precisely. I am nowhere near his level of skill yet, but I have gotten into the habit of "flying the taxiways" with leftover fuel after missions to practice. Thanks again for the tracks.

Great - now I can cancel that Community Ed Russian class I'd signed up for... Thanks, Paul - I am sure a lot of people will appreciate the effort you've made here.

I've found this to be a very helpful thread - thanks to bigdog for starting it, and QuickSilver and pingo for the tracks!

Thanks for the link - this has some very interesting possible uses! Note: When I first downloaded and installed the program failed to run until I updated to the latest Jaza release.

That sounds like a good way to handle it, EinsteinEP - I need to try that. One question, tho: what do you mean by, "(you can download a joint pub 3-09.3 to get the full 9-line message if you want it to be by-the-book accurate)"? Thanks for the tip...

Thanks for the additional info, Gadroc. I just looked at a thread over at SimHQ where Teej provided a mini review discussing the feel of the buttons on the stick - sounds great - will definitely want the new version!

@Flim: Do you know if Foxy (Cougar Edition) can be used to program the upcoming A-10C TM HOTAS? Also, while I realize there are suttle differences between the F-16C/D stick and the A-10C stick, I believe they have all the same buttons and switches. That being the case, is the throttle quadrant portion of the new A-10C HOTAS system compatible with the Cougar stick? (i.e., can I save a couple $ and buy only the throttle part if I already have the Cougar?) Thanks for any info you have and can share!

Did you perhaps install the 1.0.2 patch over 1.0.1? I have read of some having such problems after doing so, but I did install 1.0.2 over 1.0.1 on my computer and have experienced no such issues. That is, the velocity vector still displays on the HUD at low speed (note that the HUD must be in Nav mode, not a weapon mode), and auto hover works just fine, as long as you comand it when at a low speed and with the helicopter well trimmed. There are a lot of nice enhancements in 1.0.2 - hope you get it working.

I do not know of any indication of fuel quantity left in the external tanks, but fuel from the external tanks is used first (fuel flows to the internal tanks from the external tanks as long as the external tanks have fuel), so once you start using fuel from the internal tanks you know they are empty. Since you will likely be using the external tanks mostly during your outbound mission route / ingress to target, you can probably use the ABRIS fuel planning to get an idea of where you will be when they run dry. You probably should lose them (jettison) before getting into too much heavy action anyway, even if they still contain some fuel. BTW, What missions are you flying that take so long?

Yes - on my system using default install options it is in the following folder: C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\Doc