Dangerzone

Just spent a few hours in this thing. FANTASTIC! Turning off the SCAS operates as I expect (and is a bit of fun). Turning it on, makes it such a tame machine! My FM concerns were unwarranted!

The scripts\missionscripting.lua file in the program install directory. Commenting out certain files gives DCS scripting access to various OS functions. (Such as read/write to files, or access to different lua libries, etc). By default it is sanitized. (As in, stops any scripts from doing any harm to your OS, files, etc). But some scripts that we write or use require access to these. (Such as persistent saving of units in a mission, loading in templates during gameplay, etc), so it needs to be desantized (commented out). Every update re-sanitizes the script, and if we forget to desanitize again, it breaks our missions/scripts.

Oh seriously? I need to try this before it gets patched. Thanks!

What's your trim set to in your special settings tab under options before you load a mission? If it's set to use FFB, disable this / change it to 'instant trim', and see if that fixes your issue.

Worship? Not flyable? They're pretty extreme perspectives? What about the Kiowa's flight model is 'not flyable at all'?

Learning? I've got 3 decades of full time professional development experience behind me. I'm not needing to learn what I'm doing - but even after all those years, missing a symbol that I can't see clearly and spend 20 minutes trying to find 'where is the problem' still occurs. One benefit of working with others is to get a second eye. The amount of times I've had a fellow dev take a look and can see instantly what I'm missing (or vise versa) is countless over those years. ChatGPT can be a helpful 'second eye'. It's got nothing to do with learning, so I'm not sure why you're implying that. My comments re ChatGPT weren't limited to just LUA in that respect - I have used it for other languages as well, hence the memory leak and compiling references. Sorry if that was confusing - I should have made that clearer. Huh? How on earth are you coming to that conclusion from what I've written? I wrote most of my script from hand. I was mentioning I use ChatGPT as a 'second set of eyes' over my script after I have written it. If we want to talk just DCS - it has saved time because I have thrown my code at it, it has told me potential issues, such as a potential for infinite loops before I load up the mission, run the mission, and get to that part of the lua, or case sensitive stuff where I've missed something, etc. "Evil AI tool"? Maybe that's where your issue is with me using it? I remember people saying the internet is evil back in the day. Fact is - there are very evil things done on the internet, but it doesn't make the internet itself evil. It can be used for good, or for evil, it's just a tool. Just like a gun, screwdriver, car, etc. There are right uses, and wrong uses for it. All I have been saying is that ChatGPT is a tool. It can be used for it's strengths, just like anything - be aware of it's weaknesses/limitations. I hope that helps clarify.

I realise I've been looking at this entire thread the wrong way. All the negative critisisms in this thread is actually a strong endorsement for this model. I'm not hearing anything about systems missing, flight model being trash, etc. It's mostly pixel peeping. You'd think there'd be more to critisise. It's a bit like someone complaining that their new motorcycle doesn't have USB. Sure - for some people that might be the main thing, but for most others - it's a minor thing compared to everything else. If this is the worst thing to complain about, it means that everything else must be pretty smooth! Endorsement received! Now I'm looking forward to having some flights in this thing this weekend!

Cheers. Have now been told personally by another RL pilot that they think it's the most realistic helicopter flight model in DCS! That's a very strong endorsement for me! That, and the endorsement from the complaints about exterior graphics are all the recommendations I need. (I figure, if the biggest complaints coming out are about external textures, then it must be a pretty solid module. If it had issues, there'd be more to complain about than that ). Looking forward to getting to know this bird this weekend!

Thanks Maxsenna. When you say you disable core mods, and then reenable them again, is that using the DCS Updater, or OVGME, etc? For me, I don't have any mods in the core directory of DCS - except for commenting out the sanitization.

I'm very interested in the flight model and how the OH-58 behaves. Are there any RL pilots here? If so - are you able to comment on what you think of the flight model? I'm hearing a lot of chatter that PC have nailed this, and it's the most 'as close to RL' flight model that DCS now has for a helicopter. Is this true? What are people's opinions of the flight characteristics of this helicopter (as far as realism is concerned)?

I guess it depends on what sort of debugging. I find it helpful for the "What is wrong with this code" - especially for LUA and JSON tables that I've handwritten. I've also had it pick up potential errors in my code the compiler doesn't, such as potentials for infinite loops, or memory leaks, etc. It's not a tool I would rely on, but I have found it can increase the speed at which I develop because it's just an extra 'set of eyes' on some of my code. Sometimes it says stuff that's false, for sure. It can be handy if you already know what you're doing. If you're relying on it though for your shortcomings, it is indeed going to lead you astray.

I'll continue to buy DCS products. Why? Because I want to see DCS succeed and continue on for a long time to come. There is nothing like DCS that I've found. Where else can I lase a target in a helicopter and have an A10 come in and drop bombs in a hostile environment? Going back to a 'flight only' simulator without combat isn't an option for me. Every now and then I boot up MSFS for maybe 20 minutes and then I get bored too quickly. Give me DCS! I don't play any other games. I've got a beast of a gaming rig for one purpose - DCS. I know others have gone far beyond and have their simpits, etc. So, I'm certainly not going to abandon ship when there's no life raft. I understand all this is upsetting, it's a bad situation. I understand people wanting to send a message, so choosing to hold off on future purchases. I also understand the concerns of risk for the future, another reason to hold back on purchases. The sad part is, both of those could actually contribute to a self-fulfilled prophecy. If enough people are concerned about the future and hold back, that could cause damage where if otherwise people continued to contribute - the company could remain healthy. I guess I'm fortunate. I can buy modules and it's part of my disposable income, not the majority of it. If I lost access to the modules it'd be "drats", but wouldn't be a huge suffering. Strewth - some people will go and gamble and lose far more than a module's worth every weekend at the races or casino. At least buying another module I'm interested in contributes to supporting a product that I want to see continue and gives me a chance to enjoy it now, even if I don't get that in the future. Yes - I would be devastated to see the AV8-B go. But if it did - I wouldn't be devastated because I didn't get my money's worth. Maybe it's me just looking at it from a different perspective? I just see that I've enjoyed every bit and it was worth the money spent. Yes, I'd be disappointed that I couldn't keep flying it - but I'd still be content and happy I bought it initially to enjoy the experience while it lasted. There would be no regret's of my own decision. Although I get that's a bit different with the F-15. So, I'm aware that there are different priorities for different people. YMMV and all. Different financial situations, etc. I just hope with all this "I'm going to send ED a message" attitude, people don't end up cutting their noses off to spite their own faces. Strong messages have already been sent. I don't think ED is 'holding back' on solutions just 'because'. The mess has been made, the cleaners are here, and we just need to let them do their job instead of kicking companies while their down, and hope that enough people stick around to make it attractive enough for both ED's shareholders, and 3rd party dev's to continue working in this space.

Inverting the controls should resolve this, unless the axis has issues. I'm assuming you have other modules, and don't have this issue, just with these 2 modules? Have you checked to see if the axis is bound to any other device/axis on another gaming device as well that could be interfering?

If I recall correctly, most of what you have mentioned here, you mentioning previous in other threads watching youtube videos before release, so you were aware of the texture quality and animations. Why did you decide to buy immediately, and not even wait 24hrs after release - without first confirming that your concerns had been addressed, and then come out surprised and deeply regretful of what you purchased as though you did not have that prior knowledge? I'm also interested to know what do you think non-EA means? My understanding is that it's supposed to be feature complete. It doesn't mean it's perfect, without bugs, or with no improvements to come. There are many non-EA aircraft in DCS still being improved. I have the same expectation with this. I think the simple solution here is for a clearer understanding of expectations of what a non-EA module is supposed to have vs your perceived expectations. As someone who hasn't purchased yet, I was interested in your review. That quickly changed after seeing the way you've responded. The only concern remaining now from what I've read from you that is a factor is the damage module. And that's a legit concern. However the other comments and reactions you've given quickly have me questioning your "It's indestructible" claim and the credibility of the review, because of the perceived emotion and negative bias towards PC to start with. And if the damage modelling is truly flawed to the point of it being indestructible, why are you blaming solely PC and not including ED? This is as much on ED/DCS as it is Polychop if it's this bad. It should have been picked up on by DCS and the beta testers, and if it was, release should have been halted until it was fixed. If it wasn't picked up on, maybe you have discovered a bug in the damage module that hasn't been noticed before, and if so - I'm sure it will be addressed. It would seem that instead of "I will never buy again from...", a more reasonable approach may be "I will never buy again within x days of release". You may save yourself a lot of disappointment and pain from any dev, not just PC by simply waiting for a release in the wild for a day or two and seeing what is right and what's left to be done, especially if your expectations is higher than most, and if you've already picked up on issues prior to the release. The one thing I am interested in from you is how you go with your refund request. If you're really as concerned and disappointed as your post indicates with your 'never again' approach to PC - it would make sense that you regret your decision and want your money back. The best chance of that is to apply for an immediate refund not even 24hrs out. I'm interested to know how smoothly this goes, especially if you purchased direct and not from steam.

The Kiowa would have had far more uses if it was released when originally planned (well before the Apache). People would have learned it more, and I'm sure it would have carried on as a result. Obviously unfortunate situations out of the Dev's hands occurred that stopped this from occurring, but I still think the Kiowa can have it's place. Those who enjoy realism it fits into well for co-op. It's also another flight module to just enjoy for it's unique handling characteristics, and it's 'peak-a-boo' function that no other helicopter has. If you want a challenge, maybe use it with Apache's to take out 2 SA-19's. You might find that Apache's by themselves find this a more difficult task to keep the laser on target without getting shot down. All the video's I've seen so far have had T-72's or BMP's, or things that aren't a threat to an Apache from a distance. Go big, or go home I say. For those who don't mind sacrificing a little bit of realism for enjoyment - the Kiowa could be used as a good intermediate helicopter for armed CTLD. Adjust the script to allow the Kiowa to carry a crate for instance. Is it realistic. Well, maybe not. However it would give a unique place for this wonderful flight model in ongoing missions like pretense and open up more opportunities and uniqueness to this helo. I know for some this is heresy, so it's really up to what each individual group wants to get out of DCS. For me, I'd be working my hardest to design or change missions to ensure that this module (and each) has their own unique options/abilities so that everyone can enjoy all the modules that DCS has to offer.

Chat bots can be brilliant for assistance with DCS Scripting. However, not in the way that people want or think of it. I agree with the others that to use AI for writing scripting from scratch is a bad idea. I've tried, I've seen it do very stupid things, misunderstand, or more often than not, make up function calls that don't even exist. In that context, ChatGPT is like a salesman. It's great if it knows the answer, but if it doesn't, it'll make stuff up and sound just as convincing - and if you don't know what you're doing - you can be very easily fooled. However, the time of spending 20 minutes looking over a LUA table for a missing comma, or trying to find out why a particular function isn't working right is disappearing with LLM's. The ability to throw your script in and say "What's wrong with this script" and it give you numerous pointers can save a LOT of time. Plyers are fantastic if used properly, but can lead to disaster if you use them as a wrench. Socket sets are great, but you don't want to use them for tuning a piano. LLM's are the same. They have some very handy features that can be used - but use them outside the boundaries of their capability can lead to much time wasting.

You may be hoping in vain. This isn't an ED/DCS issue - it's a antivirus false positive issue, and it's a perpetual one. I don't believe DCS isn't the only game that's affected by a false positive for "Win64/Packed.VMProtect.AC" or "PUA:Win32/Packunwan" either (depending on what your A/V titles it as). If you do nothing, your best 'hope' is that enough people submit the file for analysis with your particular antivirus provider that the AV dictionary gets updated so it's not detected as a false positive. Note however - as soon as a change is made to this file (through another DCS update) - there is a good chance that the file will flag again for a false positive - so this will be a reoccurring battle. The only solutions I can see at present are: Wait for the A/V provider to recognise it's not a real virus. (As per above, this comes with a number of drawbacks). Add the whole DCS folder as an exclusion for virus scanning. (Many people are uncomfortable with this, and understandably so. For 'just' a gaming computer it might not be too bad, but if it's a work machine, or something you do banking on, etc - I would caution against this). Add the file as an exclusion for the "Win64/Packed.VMProtect.AC" or "PUA:Win32/Packunwan" variant. (If your A/V allows you to exclude to this level). For me, this is a good compromise between the two. You only add the files that are being falsely flagged to the exclusion list, and the exclusion list is only for the "Win64/Packed.VMProtect.AC" or "PUA:Win32/Packunwan" variant. The chances of these particular files (among many thousands) will be the only ones that are infected with a real virus - of a single variant (among many thousands of variants) is remotely small. The downside to this is that it does require you to do some work, and to have an A/V that allows adding exclusions to this level. Thankfully mine does (ESET). I personally aren't a fan of just going 'ignore' the whole DCS directory. I get why many do, and it's probably not a problem, but I think it does fall into the danger of "normalization of deviance". It could be argued that (3) may as well, but to a much smaller factor, and one that is managed, instead of a blatant "ignore it all!" for the DCS directory.

I think this is a brilliant idea. However it would require ED to implement dynamic spawn points - and I have no idea where they're at with that - so I suspect it's very unlikely that we're going to see this anytime in the near future. It would require dynamic spawn points to be made in a way that more could be be added 'on the fly', and locked to only a particular player as well (so no one else 'steals' the cow). (We certainly don't want any cattle rustlers in DCS) However maybe now is the time to suggest it as a feature request - before they get too far down the rabbit hole of dynamic spawning so they can design it in a way that would allow this functionality to fit in right from the start.

Is there a setting/function that allows us to permanently set the missionscripting.lua options after each update, and if not, could this be considered for a future release please? It would be nice to just be able to use this to update DCS, and not have to remember to go back into MissionScripting.lua each time to desanitize the settings - especially on servers.

Here are some factors that I've thought of. Trying to think if there's any more that need added: Performance (obviously ) Which combination will give me the greater performance vs total overall cost. Considerations need to be done in DCS, but also any other games or applications that may be used. (And this is one where YMMV is a great factor). Life expectancy & resell value. (Which one will I get more bang for my buck as far as time is concerned before I need to upgrade, and what sort of resale value (if any) can be obtained.) Lateral benefits - DCS aside - which combination will give me more benefits outside of DCS. (If running AI software for instance, or other non VR-games then the GPU may weigh in more than the headset). For me, DCS is the only game I play, let alone only VR game - so I need to consider other things such as video production, etc. Warranty period. I think with GPU's we can get 2 years warranty here, and potentially a third added on depending on who we buy from. With the Crystal, it's only 12 months - so there is the possibility that either can become a paperweight after their warranty period ends. (Heaven forbid), but when spending this level of $'s it's something that should at least be given some consideration. Release timing. Which one will be released first, and what will be the delay between the releases. This I think comes into the cost factor over time, as getting something sooner gives you more time, and thus less $'s / day total overall cost. I'm going to be watching very closely how the announcement, release and delivery times goes of the Crystal light - as I think this will be a good test/reflection on what we can expect in the future. Not sure what other factors there are that need to be considered? I suspect the performance combination will be the main one, but that will be difficult to determine beyond theoretical until real world tests are done.

Hmm... that then has me wondering. I was looking at the Pimax Crystal light to 'get me by', and then getting the Pimax Crystal Super down the track for the DFR. If the 5090 is not too far away (and is actually going to beat the Pimax Crystal Super) - the question I now have is: Would it be better to have the benefits of the DFR with a 4090, or would there be more benefits and performance gains using a crystal light with no DFR and just brute forcing the output with a 5090 instead?

Thanks for getting back to us with the cause. Renaming the DCS saved games folder should have fixed both these issues, as Tacview and the OH-6A mod areias I underestand it nstalled in the saved games directory. Were you creating a new saved games, and then re-installing these mods before testing?

Why not just go c:\ recursively?

I wouldn't hold your breath. It's been like it for all modules since grass was a thing and hasn't been addressed yet. I doubt ED is going to fix it now just for the Kiowa. As mentinoed above by ThorB - putting down a FARP is the only real solution in grassy areas that I know of.

LOL - normally I'd be with you. Actually I normally joke that the glass isn't half full, nor half empty, but as an engineer the glass is twice as big as it needs to be - a waste of material! But in this instance - them actually saying "2 weeks:tm:" on the video I think was a very big joke, in that they really are hoping to meet that 2 week deadline. It would certainly be great popularity if they did. The chatter of "A module was actually released in 2 weeks from announcement" would echo for quite some time. Considering that they also plan to release a fully featured, non-early access module - I think they have more chance of meeting their deadline as they would have been polishing the module for longer, and not just trying to get it to an 'early access' release status. It's one of the few times I find myself quietly confidently optimistic. Of course time will see, but I am definitely hopeful this time round, as more signs seem to be pointing to it being a real possibility than not.