aaronwhite

Yeah, definitely check out Wags' video on George for specifics on how the AI in the Apache/Hind works. Basically, you'll get a situational main mode that has options. So if you're in "flight" mode you might tap "up" on whatever key you've assigned (for me, it's one of the hats on my joystick) to tell George to go faster if you're in the front seat manning the weapons. You could hold that same direction to tell him to go to a new altitude. Then if you tell the pilot to slow to a hover, you can change to "Hover Mode" which gives you different commands. Now tapping up on that button tells the AI pilot to go up 10ft for each press. Holding it tells the AI pilot to move forward as long as you hold it, and similarly, right, left or back will move you in those directions as long as you hold it. If you're the pilot, you can bring up the George menu and in my case, if I have the menu up and tap up on my joystick hat, it tells George to look in that direction for targets. If he finds some, I can use up/down to move through the list, and then right will select the target I want him to focus on. Hitting left cycles through the weapons, and if I hold up it will tell him he is free to engage the target. All things considered, it works pretty well. It's much more hands on than if you were flying with a human, and it can be imperfect. One thing I've noticed is that the AI pilot won't dodge a missile fired at you...though that may be accurate with my flying and losing track of missiles coming my way. It's all still WIP, so changes are always coming. But it's improved a ton over the starting point, and I'm looking forward to see how much they improve it in the future.

Just wanted to add my thanks! I'd take this all as gospel just seeing how frequently I saw you motoring around on Rotorheads in the Mi-24!

I'll test it out tonight and report back. Thankfully, it's easy enough with the auto-hover to just park the BS and see what happens.

Hey, Flappie, I'll mess around with it tonight and make sure. I'll create a quick mission with below freezing temps and set a stable hover with the icing systems on and without just to make sure. Do you know if active precipitation is needed? I didn't have any precipitation in my mission I was throwing together from what I remember, but it's possible I had some light fog setup in the ME.

I actually had the same thing happen with the BS2, and figured it was just from the missile suddenly being rendered in the targeting camera.

Yeah, it was a bit of a "panic" moment, since I was about to start my day and was turning to just do a quick rocket run into a spot I knew had AAA nearby, so I was just going to do a rocket run and hope for the best. I just noticed I was slowly losing power and figured the thing might be icing up, but wasn't sure. I guessed it might be like the Mi-24, where Early Access had some icing issues, but wanted to check and see that I just didn't completely mess up the anti-icing.

Finally finished it up. If anyone wants to fly it themselves, it's available here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3329214/

I wasn't sure if it was still in development, but I was flying around in my test mission today, and it's -4C with no real precipitation or anything. Anyhow, flying around for a bit, I get the "use rotor ice" message, so I kick the anti-ice system on, with the lights above the HUD confirming as much, but then later in the flight I still end up suffering engine power loss to the point that full collective and cranking the throttles to max still wasn't enough to keep the helicopter in the air. I had previously been hovering just fine, with a fuel load that's probably around 40% by the time I get into the combat area. Has anyone else experienced this, or am I just missing something in my startup process?

Hours of work later and somehow it feels like a pretty minor update. But I've been working on it this morning, since I'm off work, and been lining up camo lines and tracking down details parts. Hopefully I can wrap it up tomorrow and get it uploaded. null

Nothing too crazy to post just yet, but with the Ka-50 III template being out, I'm starting on all of the liveries I've been wanting to work on. This is about an hour or so, off and on. First up will be a Ukrainian camo to match up with the ED Default Mi-24, and after I'm thinking about doing a digital camo version too. After that, I would like to remake my two Iranian Army ones and possibly try an Iranian splinter camo. We'll see. These new 3D models are incredibly detailed which makes for some heads bouncing off of desks trying to find random parts. null Edit: Minor Update: null

Assuming it's all mapped correctly, it sounds like you might have the trim mode that doesn't respond to cyclic movement until you've fully centered it. This means any time you click the trim, until you fully center the stick, other control changes will be ignored. This can be useful for people, but if your joystick has any play in the center axis, it can sometimes be tough to fully center your stick in the heat of the moment, leading to your controls being "locked". You might check that out, and try the other trim mode that instantly trim and requires you to physically adjust for the new trim position.

I haven't really noticed any issues flying with it. I've been flying the Apache and Hind a lot more lately, but jumping back into the Ka-50, I felt like I was pretty easily getting into stable hovers again, giving my Hind fits of jealousy.

I can't remember for sure, but I think you may need to "lock" the area to update the ranging as well for the map marker. I need to fly again today and see.

Yeah, my understanding is that the system doesn't necessarily detect that the missile is launched at you specifically, but simply notices that there is a missile in the air coming in your general direction. At that point, it pops the notification and then dumps the countermeasures if they are enabled. I don't know if the real world systems are more calibrated to ignore things or better detect if it's just a nearby object or an incoming missile, but I would guess that when it comes to countermeasures, they probably err on the side of caution and figure dumping flares for a non threat is better than holding them for a real one.

What a lovely skin! ;)

Glad to see the recent newsletter pretty much shows ED working to implement exactly what was hoped for with the CPG and callouts and everything. It's awesome!

This looks awesome! I loved the similar sounding environment in the Rotorheads server, but would miss my fixed-wing time, since the focus was obviously on helicopters.

Let me check and see on my skins. I know I painted the hubs, and the wheel bay should be a texture somewhere, I just can't remember where. I know I accidentally misnamed the roughmet for it and caused it to look weird for a bit.

Yeah, I have no idea how they plan to implement it, but it would be really cool if Petro had "line of sight" in a cone that was fixed wherever his head was looking, and attacks from outside of that area would go unnoticed, but if he was looking ahead and a missile launch came from your 11 o'clock, he could call it, deploy flares and then you could (hopefully) respond accordingly. Maybe even give the door gunner the ability to make call outs too? Then as you mentioned, if he's head down in the scope, his field of view is essentially gone, unless the unit you're attacking fires on you.

I was joking, but it is definitely awesome that he's open to doing that voice work! Great update, as always, Heatblur!

When will we get an update on the cloning of the real Jester voice actor so that mission makers can get their own 100% accurate voice for their missions?

haha, I think the name might be the same on there? Might be Actionhank, I can never remember. It's been a few weeks since I've been able to hop on and fly though!

It would definitely be a nice touch. Even if it was just something that was a toggle you could select in the options for "CPG calls out threats" or something like that. Similarly with the flares, it would be nice to have an option in the in-flight menu where you can say "Petro, launch flares for threats" and have Petrovich say something like "SAM launch, 4 o'clock!" and automatically dump the flares you had configured.

Thanks for the comments, Nineline! Great to see the work being done. One thing I was curious about, and apologies if it's been answered elsewhere, but is it possible that the Co-Pilots are going to get the ability to call out SAM/AAA fire as a bit of a RWR of sorts for the pilots? It would definitely be nice to have your co-pilot scanning (no idea if "CPG is looking at X-angle and only sees launches in this sector he can see" is possible) and call out something like "SAM launch, 5 O'clock!" just to give a little more situational awareness, especially being deep in the Hind's bathtub cockpit.

Haha, Aeria, I always think of you when I see Hind changes/improvements, purely because it feels like every time I hope on Rotorheads, I see you in the Hind just buzzing around and destroying things.