Grievo

For me it's more for things like VR shaders that greatly improve fps, particularly around the dense urban areas on the syria map.

@BIGNEWY

*Carried from forum in triumph*

I just use voice attack for it mate. Tee it up so on the command "Drop" it does all the button pushing for me... A button would be nice, but we beggars can't be choosers!

Not sure if it's a bug or not, but in the Syria server around Haifa and Beirut, the hospitals all seem to be at or near capacity even when there's no one on the server. Bit frustrating when the next closest empty hospital is 130km away! Like I say, I might have just been unlucky the couple of times I've tried it out, but It's been on two occasions in a row, and I've never been able to drop off a rescue (4 casualties) at the hospitals in one town.

Any chance of getting slots to bind specific keys to the various ROE iterations for door gunners and copilot? The cycling makes it difficult to use with voice attack when flying in VR, and it would mean less reliance on the Crew Panel. eg. ability to assign a key for the right door gunner to return fire. A different key to go weapons free, and a different key to go weapons hold. doesn’t have to have keys assigned, just the ability to do so would be great. cheers.

Guys I've been playing this server off and on for a few months now and I absolutely love it. Previously I was more of an offline SP guy, but this is now my go-to when I open DCS. I would like to congratulate the team on bringing firefighting onto the server. I've been doing a lot of it over the last couple of days and it is very immersive. I have some ideas that I think would be great to be implemented though. - Is there anyway to implement the destroyed environment effect from the mission editor into the path of the fire? I.e. If it goes through a town, it would leave the buildings in it's path destroyed. Again, not sure if this is possible, or would be too resource hungry, but I feel it would add to the immersion and increase the desire to stop the fire passing through towns. I don't know if this effect works in the forests, but that would also be cool. - Many, if not most, UH-1H or Bell 205 Helitacks (And other "Huey" types like the 212's, 214's, 412's) operate single pilot, to reduce weight, from the left seat as that side is better for looking down, as you lean over your collective arm, rather than in the right seat where you'd have to lean the other way. Would it be possible for some or all of the firefighting hueys to be single pilot from the left seat? In terms of the SAR side, as I say, I'm a big fan. I do have some ideas for improvement of realism though. - Ropes. I feel like this doesn't quite capture the winching aspect of SAR rescue. I propose that instead of selecting a rope length, the aircraft have a set winch length, and anything under that a pickup would be able to be performed. Perhaps with the time for the hover required varying depending on altitude. So a Mi-8 could have a 300' winch cable, the Huey a 200' winch cable and the Gazelle no winch at all or a shorter one. Depending on what is realistic. I am happy to research this for the Devs if they like. - As the previous post said, I feel for the average pickup It would be better and more realistic to have to hover in one spot and the group moves to the winch. With more pickups requiring a different length of time. - I don't know if it would be possible that when you arrive at a winch rescue, there is a timer to deploy the rescue crewman, then you can move away, and then come back and there is a set time for each rescue based on altitude, and including winching back up the crewman at the end... Might not be worth the hassle, but would be more realistic. The only other suggestion I have is for the weather. Most of the time I play there is a strong wind. I feel it would be more challenging if there was a moderate wind with stronger gusts, rather than just the strong steady wind. Small point, but one I noticed. There was also talk of mods being allowed on the server. Upaut and Eight Ball have some wonderful looking mods, (including firefighting tanks for the huey as can be seen here: Addon Tents, Watchtower, UH-1-Cargo - DCS Mods - ED Forums (eagle.ru)) Perhaps they could be convinced to put together a single mod package that would implement a selection of these additions to make the server scenarios more diverse? While allowing a single mod to be installed or activated to play on the server. Just some thoughts to improve what is already a wonderful server. I absolutely love it. And none of these suggestions indicate anything that takes away my enjoyment from what you guys have built. Thanks for all your efforts, it really is brilliant.

Are there plans to re-issue the older helicopter modules, namely Huey and Mi-8 with updated cockpits and external models or similar, as has been done with Black Shark and A-10C?

I agree with this. It actually provides some cool options for very realistic MP missions. I'll happily have the E6B computer out and my head in the charts for some nice dawn raids on occupied France. Can't wait.

Hey Dangerzone, man I hated flying the Mi-8 for ages, kept giving it a go and going back to the Huey, but with the Search and Rescue Server I actually put a few hours into it and it’s actually pretty amazing. The variety in mission set is also fairly enticing. There’s some good propaganda “documentaries” about Russian helicopters in Syria, and the CSAR one featuring the Mi-8 gives some pretty cool ideas for misssions. Anyway. Stick with it and give it a chance. It’s a beast, but very capable once you learn its foibles.

1.) +1 on removable doors. Both cockpit and sliding. Pics of the DoS Hueys in the Middle East and Afghanistan show a lot of doors off work. Might jazz it up enough to make some nice DoS missions and campaigns in the Syria map. 2.) Two weapons pylon options, front and back. So I can fly a slick without all the bushranger sighting equipment set up in the front. 3.) Ground units such as stretcher parties, infantry carrying wounded. Would make a big difference for Mission editor scenarios. 4.) Infantry able to go prone. Again for ME. 5.) Disembarking infantry appearing outside the aircraft fanned out and preferably prone, rather than stacked up in a queue like they just got off the bus. 6.) And for the hail mary, a Hoist and visible troops/medics/cargo/winchops in the back, depending on the loadout, and shifting weight to go along with it. I'd also like to see, if not a HH-60G Pave hawk/MH-60G Blackhawk/UH-60 Blackhawk module, now we know apache is on the way, then a combined B212/412 Huey module. This will cover UH-1Ns, as well as a bit of a cover for 212 or 412 variants used by many militaries the world over, including the Canadians who give them funny names just to be clever.

+1 a good pilot body makes VR so much better. It's not that you notice its there, more that you notice when it's not!

Also, I'm not sure if this is obvious or not... Use the force trim button, a lot. A real helicopter cyclic is not spring loaded to return to center automatically, and at various stages of flight are in very different positions. For example, when I'm lifting into the hover, I move the stick back and left, and hit force trim. So when my joystick is centered, the cyclic is roughly where I need it to be for the hover, and I can make minor adjustments from there. as soon as I transition to forward flight, I press the cancel force trim button and keep forward pressure on the cyclic to push through the flap-back effect as the helicopter picks up speed, I can then trim an attitude for my desired climb speed. For level flight, set a power, find an attitude where you're not climbing or descending, and trim it off, you'll need to make very fine adjustments to maintain altitude, but it will make much easier. If you want to go faster, pull more power on the collective, and repeat the process. When coming from forward flight to the hover, I lower the collective, and cancel the force trim. The secondary effect of lowering collective is for the nose to drop, by cancelling the force trim it cancels out this effect, and when I am setting up my approach, I again trim slightly aft of center. It sounds convoluted, but it becomes second nature before long. There's a great channel on YouTube called "Helicopter lessons in ten minutes or less" It can really help you understand what's going on aerodynamically and make controlling the beast much less of a riddle. Pedals really will make your life much easier.

Fri I think you're onto something in terms of additional ground units. And I have some of my own additions to your list. I think it would add a great deal to the mission creating realm to get more, higher fidelity infantry models. such as; - Standard frontline infantry - Special forces style "operators" - Rear echelon "slung rifle" type soldiers for guys in the rear or around logistics convoys, artillery batteries etc. - A variety of eras and terrain types represented, vietnam/cold war, early 2000's, modern day, woodland and desert, snow etc. Also, a greater variety of models we can use to increase the realism and immersion of scenarios in the mission editor. Resupply, extraction or CAS missions would be so much more engaging if we had things like; - Infantry that can crouch, and go prone etc. Infantry that will fire and move, by going prone, firing a few shots and then bounding forwards a few metres and beginning again, as infantry attacking a position would do. - When exiting the helicopter, the huey for example, the soldiers appear prone, on both sides of the helicopter suitably spread out, rather than the conga line effect we currently have. - Things like stretcher bearers or infantrymen carrying a wounded comrade would add a great amount of immersion to medevac or SAR missions. This wouldn't have to be one model carrying another, just a model of a stretcher team would be great. - I'm not sure how feasible it would be to make infantry dig in, but certainly having models of infantry in foxholes, trench systems, machine gun nests, shell scrapes etc would increase the potential missions for all ground attack modules, not just our rotary wing community, far more realistic and varied. - Some form on natural movement/fidgeting for those models being watched through imaging systems such as that on the Ka-50 and Gazelle. For me these things would be higher up the ladder in terms of immersion than seeing the troops in the back, but that also would be great, especially if there were variations for carrying troops, extracting wounded/stretchers and that sort of thing. The potential is enormous, but the question would be whether the cost of implementing these things would be worth ED's time. I think the higher fidelity ground units would add far more value to the product for all modules, and would therefore be more worthwhile of EDs time than what's in the back of the Huey. But we can dream!