wfox

First experiments last night with new firmware and 100% settings on all effects and 0% (disabled) centering spring and factory configuration of the grip revealed that the G940 joystick behaves like scenario 2 (see above) - way too heavy in my humble opinion, but still manageable to control due to the nice precision control area where FFB is minimal. But still it is almost hard to fly the plane when manouvering, which typically hapens when the plane is flown faster than it likes. It should not be the case all of the time and should be more a funciton of speed than a function of deflection of the stick. Trim works like in all sims - you trim while releasing the stick to central position by literally moving the stick to center (not by releasing the pressure) - which is not how it should work. For case 1 the stick is mechanically linked to the elevators and eilerons - which means that there is no way it can move back when trimming - this would indicate a mechanical failure. I do not know if this could be realised in the firmware though - it is more a funtion which should be implemented in the Simulator I guess. Just wanted to let you know. Will continue my experiments with lesser force settings and let you know best results when I am happy with it. Thanks again - the firmware makes a huge difference now!

I am late to the party, but First of all - thanks a million for fixing G940 firmware, Sir! I was flying with the original firmware for a long time (more than a decade) and always was not happy with a precision of that thing, but as a former glider pilot, I simply can not live without FFB (I still do not understand how one can trim properly the plane without feeling the load on the controls). Couple of days ago I accidentally found this thread and loved it! My firmware is patched and now I can do IFR III landings without autopilot!!!! (before these always resulted in the pilot induced oscilations and a Eject when tumbling out of controll followed with a lot of harsh words. ) Aiming in IL2 and formation flying is piece of cake now! Wow, this feels good! Now I am really keen to explore this a little further and make flying feeling almost real. I read before that you had a question about how it really feels to use stick on the real plane. Well, it depends. But it basically boils down to three kinds of sensor feeling. 1. All classic planes with no hydrolics - you feel everything that blows over the control surfaces, it is almost unreal how sencetive the feeling gets, especially with a lighter planes with large control surfaces. When on the ground - the stick moves with no resistance and stays exactly where you left it because controls are typically balanced. There should be no 'play' in controls, no slack of any sort - if you have any slack or play - it means trouble and failed checklist check. If you ever had Thrustmaster F16 with UBER gimbals MOD - this is exactly how it feels. When flying things change right away - you feel how fast you go, when you enter the termal, turbulence, you feel the ground effect and a prop wash if you hold the stick properly - no ham fists please. It makes for an excellent imersion even without the moving chair, especially in VR. The controls will get stiffer and harder the faster the plane goes, and in some cases could even over power the pilot (think WorldWar II bombers, when sometimes 2 pilots could not handle the controls in a dive and crashing). The saying that "controls get heavy in a dive" is quite literal - the stick feels like someone holds it and resists your commands. (First time I felt this during my first towed flight, I was absolutely sure that instructor was holding to the stick too tight not letting me do all the flying ) The force could feel like "centering spring" effect if the plane is not trimmed, but if trimmed, the stick will stay where it was when the loads were removed by trimmin. This is exactly why it is so easy to trim - you just hold the attitude and trim till you feel no load on the stick. This progressive build up of the force and lack of centering around the trimmed zone is the feeling I am missing now with latest firmware patch - but I am still experimenting with the simulator settings. I will try the recommended settings tonight by increasing all effects to 100% - now I am on less than 50%. 2. Newer planes with hydraulic powered controls (not fly by wire) - these kind of work like old cars with powered steering - when you loose power or not enough power goest to the hydraulic pump the controls turn stiff and almost dead, need a lot of force to move them. There is not enough force in G940 to replicate the stiff column of the business jet when not trimmed! It becomes a very physically exhausting exercise if not trimmed. I felt my arms and biceps for days after a couple of ours in the Bombardier sim and the real thing can get even worse. 3. New jets like F16, which I only tried once is a full motion sim. These are fly by wire and the stick there does not move! I've heard that it was invented so because of very high g-forces that pilots have to endure - when they faint - the hand slips of the grip and no inputs are given to the stick. This works exactly like Thrustmaster Warthog - the base is fixed to the piezzo sensor which feels the force and translates the inputs to the fly-by-wire system. I've read this is what inspired Thrustmaster to get rid of mechanical controls and switch to this setup (and perhaps brought the era FFB to an end). The disadvantage - there is no force feedback possible, other then via the vibrations of the body of the plane and g-forces (which are plenty there). Do not know about Su-27 or F14 or F22. Perhaps someone can shed some more light on these. But I will check about F35 next time I meet some old friends once we are allowed to meet due to COVID restrictions on gatherins nowadays. Other opinions are welcomed, but this is mine '2 cents' of contributions to return the favour to fred41 for all the hard work done!

thanks for the tips, Elwood_Blues! Although I am in Europe, will try to join you guys online. BTW, just tried to sign up and BSS214 site tells me that I have to register first, but I can not find out how. Pls, check - would love to join your squad.

Sorry, if this question was asked before, but I can not find the answer in the forums. My issue is that I have a rare Logitec G940 (maintained with love and tender for many years) and every time I get a new plane or even often after upgrades all my profiles are being re-set to the default factory settings which are unusable and take a very long time to re-configure. Is there a way to customise the default profile, so that all new planes and resets can rever to it? Thank in advance!

Hi Elwood_Blues and glide, thanks for sharing the insights! First of all - I am by no means an experienced mission builder. Just learning the ropes with Mission Editor and experimenting with Combined Arms package. And I am kind of struggling along the similar route and have a couple of special questions for you and community: 1) How did you set up the radio button? Is it in the cockpit controls section of the editor or via some kind of scripting? 2) Did you ever have a problem with the scores higher than 100? For example, if mission goals add up to the number higher than 100. This can happen in complex random missions where more/less groups spawn from time to time and Player scores more hits. I have this strange issue that by successfully completing my experimental mission based on edited default Georgian Oil War campaign with a high score > 100 I am presented with the same mission again and again. Any tips will be much appreciated! Perhaps I did not get it right or missing something and any tips will be much welcomed. and last but not least... 3) Which server are you flying on gents? Would be happy to join you one day.

I was not able to find this campaign in the list of topics here and dare to start this new thread here. (please, move to the correct subtopic if I did something wrong). When I was very young I really wanted to become a military pilot and as years go by, I have taken on a resolution to pay tribute to my childhood dream and play all the campaigns in DCS before I die (long live WFOX!) and after completing L-39 Kursant campaign and 'earning my wings', I posted myself overseas and following through this default campaign now. [as probably would have happened in the real life if I did follow my childhood dreams] It is pretty simple campaign and even can seem boring at times due to the limitations of the weapons and systems in default Su-25T but... upon closer examination, I came to a conclusion that despite the very basic nature of this default free campaign, it is great fun and perfect learning ground for mastering DCS, because you can edit the missions and campaign itself to your liking in the Mission Editor. But I managed to make it till the mission #10 (B3.2 in campaign terms) and I wonder if anyone ever completed that mission? If not, I decided to tweak the whole campaign starting from that mission and perhaps even make a multiplayer version of it. But before I do this, I wanted to check with respectable community if there were any mods done already by users whom I'd love to meet virtually and share my humble progress. Hope this thread does not die...

Glad to hear that your tracks are fine. I found in my cases that ground missions are rarely recorded correctly. I will open a case with DCS. About the movie rendering in Mission Editor - the main benefit is that you can render them with higher settings, which would otherwise will have too low FPS. For example you can turn on all effects and render in 4K with MSA 8, SSA and all bells and all settings to 100%. I think this is what DCS is doing when rendering their promo videos. About the map issue - I have no idea why your friend can not find the map. The only potential issue could be that your friend should own exactly the same map. For example Caucasus map is common, but Nevada or any other map have to be bought, otherwise they will not be available even in the TRK recordings.

There is one more tip which you can try and even might like it - do you know that Mission Editor allows to render the recorded tracks in High-Res settings with all the fancy video features turned on? Instead of switching video recording during the intense sequence, just focus on the mission and then save the track. Then, while in the replay mode, create a different versions of the track while focusing on the camera work this time. You can make as many different derivative tracks as you want. You can even take control and re-record a certain part! You can re-record the same track again and again with different camera views, and then re-render them later to you liking. Just remember to save them in a separate file each time you do so. Do not overwrite the master copy unintentionally. So, if you have a recording which works well, you can re-render it in many different takes, almost like in real movie studio with all the fancy video features turned on. It might take a while to render, but it will be movie quality stuff. If would be fantastic but NOW the real problem -- it is that TRK recordings do not work well on long and intensive missions in my opinion. Only short sequences will work as expected. Complex engagements will most certainly not work as intended. Hope DCS will fix that mission recording bug soon...

here it is -- very short and simple mission, but challenging enough to make you sweat. It is based on a take-off practice mission from Robert Sogomonian which I found on Youtube. This one is still work in progress. Just pick up your weapons and fly to 1st waypoint. The rest is self explanatory. Either destroy the softer targets or hard targets slightly down the road (if you can find them). Tip: lables will help. I will share it with community once I am happy by adding a bigger choice of mobile and stationary targets and editing the briefing. Still learning the tools since I did not use DCS in many years. Su-25T_ground_attack_advanced_mission.miz

100% agree. The damage modeling of ground vehicles in DCS is definitely bizarre, as well as mission recording capabilities. I can safely conclude this now because I also own the Combined Arms module, and I have tried this ATO B.P3.2 mission probably close to 100 times, analysing it from the different perspectives. I have literally driven through that mission in a T-80 and BMPs and watched recordings from the perspective of targets and attackers. Cases like KMGU example extend to other munition like a SMERTCH artillery rockets, MSTA 125mm HE shells or or even my Kh-29L hitting the area near targets (e.g. SAM launcher Avenger) in approximately 20 m from that HUMVEE and it survives! (common, Kh-29L has +300kg equivalent of TNT - it should make a crater that big, right?) Another issue is that recordings of the mission going completely wrong quite often, when direct hits are recorded as absolute misses on targets. I will collect more of these irregularities and post in new threads. PS1. BTW, that is one cool mission. With complex potential dynamics if tuned right... It's a treasure for the mission tweaker - I wonder would it violate the license if one tweaks and post the mission in the forum at some point? PS2. I even made a training mission to hone the skills necessary to complete that mission (will share if someone is interested to try it - let me know) How to you make the truncated versions of the TRKs? Is there a toolkit or recording editor I should use?

Yes, indeed! "Berioza" - is a radar warning system in the bottom right corner. (Looks like I also need a refresher training...) "Mercury" pod is the one! Actually it works well in that mission... I only wish it had 32x or 40x zoom capability, letting me to pick off all the SAM launchers from a safe distance and saving me, wingmen and support flights from doom of fiery death... Speaking of PBK-xxx-PTAB bombs - looks to me that this topic really needs a separate 'issue' thread. The more I experiment with it the stranger it looks. :-0

never had this problem either m8, and I fly Su-25T a lot nowadays. Even after updating to the 2 new patches over these days. Perhaps you are using some utility or exotic controls and custom settings or some other mapping? What mappings do you have in your control setup?

Yeah, indeed. In recording I was flying on approach approximately 50-70m high due to HV electric wires (ran into them the first time around). The recommended minimum drop altitude with KMGU is from 30m for PTAB type of loads following the data brochure from the manufacturer. But not enough for RBKs... the targeting piper does not even come to view... This mission looks like a fun challenge and due to campaign arrangement the mission changes from time to time. Sometime you have a radar illumination, sometime not. BTW, I flew one mission with Phantasmagoria pod and found that the radar sites are almost always friendly ones (there was friendly OSA nearby) and they do not lock you. But you gave me a good idea to let the support flights and wingnut to arrive first to act as SAM catchers! I am also getting inclined to do it in a boring way now - with the default loadout... while using SAM catching tactic you suggested and picking everything one by one with Vihr's. But you need a "Berioza" FLIR pod (or whatever it is) because of the mist in this mission - it simply does not want to switch to track (AC) mode from a larger distances without one. Hope you'll have fun and the effort was worth it. P.S. It would have been a realistic mission if it was possible to use KMGUs as should've been in RL... Two very low altitude dash runs from northerly direction following the color smokes by leader and wingman would have taken care of these two lines of tanks with like 50% success rate in seconds, but alas, the KMGUs are ineffective against M1s in DCS and RBKs are not enough to cover sparsely placed MBTs to satisfy the mission win criteria, and Avengers with Vulcans are pretty effective in large quantities too. P.S.2 Also, I have been experimenting with different RBK-xx-PTABs too. One needs a sizeable load (all 8 hardpoints) to produce dense enough coverage to destroy few closely set MBTs as I can see now. I was even missing some MBTs and even light armored vehicles by setting release interval to 0.2sec from 0.1sec in my test runs.

BTW, nice and clean job with these RBKs, Ironhand!

The mission ATO B.P3.2 in Georgian Oil War campaign. My lame run with KMGUs is attached. Feedback and tips are much appreciated. BTW, I loved your Flaming Cliffs video... very entertaining and educational at the same time. Su25T_Campaign_oilwar_10_bad_run2-ptab25ko.trk