Bashibazouk

Thank you so much. I did a quick search but obviously not a useful one!

Looks fantastic so far. I have a question, please do not worry about this Mr Reflected, I haven't gone and done proper testing myself (removing all mods etc) but I'm having an issue with the first active mission, Mission 2. I'm starting in what seems to be the 'wrong' P-51. It's to the left of the take-off runway in an open-air revetment, but I assume I'm meant to start in the second hangar to the right of the runway. By the way, the start of Mission 2 is fantastically cinematic. Just beautiful, but after I suspected something was wrong/I'd screwed up the campaign (choice here to be determined) I went straight on to the next one. So I've played Mission 3 which is just fabulous and where I got the idea that I'm starting Mission 2 in the wrong Mustang. Also, in mission 2, the Mustang starts with 100% fuel. Ok, if I've screwed the system with my mods, but in mission 3 the Mustang in what I assume is the correct position - next to the wingman, I'm starting with 94% fuel. Is this deliberate? Whenever I create my own basic, slightly idiotic missions I put no more than 68% fuel in to ensure the fuselage tank is empty for balance. If this full fuel load is as intended, then I'll shut up and just use the fuselage tank first. My question is, is anyone else having this problem of starting in the 'wrong' location, assuming it is wrong? If nobody else is experiencing this, then 'as you were' everyone, and I'll go ahead with the tedious job of removing mods. I made the mistake of adding mods manually, so it can be a process to ensure I have only official bits of software in the sim so I thought I'd be a little annoying and ask before testing the proper way. And the bonus question - am I supposed to reduce the fuel level to the 68%, or manage the fuller load? I didn't run out of fuel in Mission 3 after I asked the ground crew to drop to 68% (it was pretty close to the wire by the time I arrived back!) but I want to fly the mission as the designer intended.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help. I'm up to Mission 9 myself now - my first run through I must have screwed up entering the numbers for the updated target waypoint so I'll be re-flying as soon as I get a chance. I do have one suggestion, however. When landing and then parking on the previous mission, I parked to the right of the two F-1s already in the 'weapons hot' area (I forget the proper name) - that is, to the right from the orientation of the already parked planes, all noses in the same direction. No mission completed message. My computer crashed soon after this point, so I flew the mission again but this time parked to the left of the two F-1s and the message popped up. Yeah, probably teaching grandma to suck eggs, and the parking position has nothing to do with it, but it looked to me like my mission complete message didn't come up because I was on the wrong side of the two F-1s. I may be wrong, but if not, this info might help you.

Ok, yes. It is a senior moment. Because I set a steer/target point with the Mav bore sighting, the tadpole, quite rightly pointed towards that. As soon as I set the TGP to the steerpoint, everything fixed. D'oh. I'm only leaving this embarrassing thread in case it happens to anyone else! Full steam ahead and as you were, support team. Weasels Over Syria, here we come!

I'm sure this is a senior moment or something like that, but when flying Mission 2, Bait, the directions on the HUD (tadpole etc) to the next waypoint don't match what I see on the HSI or the F10 map showing the mission defined points. When I take off, waypoint 1 is indicated as 65 miles behind me (SW, IIRC), but the HSI shows it about 20-30 miles to the front and right, NE. Is this a bug, maybe from my mods, or something I've failed to do? I do recall seeing this before, I don't remember where but I assumed after a reboot that it fixed itself. Maybe I just did something right the next run through without realising it? Any help appreciated. There's a lot of start up with this mission, which is fine, the usual INS stuff and relatively long F-16 process and the Maverick bore sighting, but it's frustrating as hell to go through all this and have the tadpole pointing in the almost opposite direction to that expected. I'm really excited about this campaign, I've loved GPS's other and free stuff. But this particular problem is a head scratcher, I've restarted the mission 4-5 times, restarted the game 3 times and rebooted my PC but it's still not right. Maybe rather than quitting the mission in a fit of pique I should just continue and see if it fixes itself or I can play through without the tadpole being correct for the first couple (at least) of waypoints? I think I'll do another repair on the game, I did one not too long ago but it can't hurt.

As requested, here's my roll curve. My pitch curve is bog standard except with a curvature of 20. This roll curve here is the sort of thing I do whenever I can't get an easy fix with curvature alone. I don't like using saturation for anything except for targeting pods, which seem to require it. I know saturation is recommended by many 'flyers' who are much more experienced than me, but for flight controls, I prefer to be able to grab the maximum in an emergency but have most of my travel be effectively the same as if I'd used saturation to tone down the effect of the control. Maybe it's an OCD thing, I don't like the idea that I don't have access to the full travel as designed by the developers for flight! I have a low-end HOTAS, the T-16000, TWCS and pedals combo and despite running out of buttons on modules like the Apache (for the CP/G, anyway) I'm quite happy with how much control I can get, with the joystick anyway. But YMMV, not only with different/better HOTAS gear, but preference and how comfortable with the curves you are. I don't know if it means anything, but I used to be a pro musician back in the 80s and early 90s, so I'm used to quite small movements to get what I want, as if I was playing a musical instrument. And the T-16000 apparently uses the same Hall Effect sensors on the joystick as the much more expensive Warthog. I do notice the joystick is great, other axes are controlled by a potentiometer with a lever, and those are much less satisfying. The throttle/collective and pedals can get sticky sometimes. But I'm happy, and just as well - Currently I'm between incomes as my business was destroyed by Brexit (events marketing for car shows across Europe, mostly) so I can't afford anything new for a while This user curve shape, or close to it, was something I worked out for the rudder on the Spitfire and I use it regularly on Rudder controls as my pedals aren't that precise. It took a bit of getting used to for nose wheel steering but now I'm used to it it's no problem.

I had become used to the old flight model, which certainly didn't feel like a real physical body but could be worked with. When the new(new) FM came out - I'll ignore the weirdness of the in between one - I found it almost impossible to fly. It turns out I'd adjusted my curves etc to a quite extreme shape to deal with the original, and this made the new FM unflyable. When I started again and retuned them I found the FM pretty good. I can throw the Gazelle around almost like I used to be able to now, and although it does feel heavier, it also feels more like a real chunk of metal. One thing I am finding tricky is the 'sticktion' on the skids. Any crosswind as I take off and the skids will cling like glue, only to release and suddenly throw me into a fatal roll a foot off the ground. This doesn't feel right, with every other chopper FM, once I've taken most of the weight off the wheels or skids, there's barely any friction with the ground. I have to very very carefully make sure I'm facing into the wind and just the process of turning the chopper to face into the wind will often cause this sticktion to rear it's ugly head.

Do you have the main setting for the INS to start pre-located? I've not had any problems, but after I've tried the alignment process once or twice so I'm aware of what's required, I always go for the pre-aligned option on all my planes. I do the same with autostart. I'll go through it so I know what the process is, then I autostart on most planes. For immersion junkies, just imagine I told my crew chief to do the alignment before I arrived It bit me in the arse on an M-2000 campaign, where one of the tasks was to take a fix. I turned it back off for that one after I realised I'd actually turned drift off as well and this was breaking the mission logic! I am really enjoying all the free F-1 campaigns, but especially this one and it's sibling - they are wonderfully thought through and detailed work. Such a fun plane, it's a single pilot (ignoring the second seat in the BE for now) but doesn't have FBW. It flies wonderfully, and is mostly docile, compared to the Mig-21bis, for example. But it still requires me to 'fly' it, and not push past the limits.

Files gone. Never mind, I appreciate the effort. The official stuff is really, really poor. I suppose a bunch of it has been screwed up due to DCS changes, but really, if it's still for sale it should be updated, or at least links to up-to-date videos or forum entries added if it's too much work to change the missions. I only bought the damn thing a month ago. I just 'completed' the Eagle anti-ship missile tutorial. The plane starts in cloud that extends all the way to sea level and you're basically following instructions whilst staring at a light grey screen. It would be better off not having such a tutorial at all, the only thing it achieves is frustration.

Brilliant! I assumed the problem as raised by the OP was something to do with my system, I'd been moving mods in and out, rebuilding etc but, of course no joy :D. It looks much more realistic now than it did previously at night. Ok, it's not perfectly realistic, but it no longer looks as odd as it always did. Of course, I was half way through the Georgian Oil War Campaign and prior to this improvement, both this campaign and another user campaign I'm playing assumed the pod was usable during the day. You start missions with the pod installed. I can just swap the pod out, the problem is the missions have been setup on the assumption they were do-able with the easier spotting of the fake thermals of the old setup. With the overcast weather, the standard TV just doesn't allow spotting of nasties before it's too late and the Mercury can't be used as it blows out in daylight. Never mind. I can tweak the user campaign (either adjust the weather or move the SAMs, or downgrade them maybe) and I guess I'll just put Georgian Oil War on ice until the creator gets around to adjusting it. I'd rather have the change as it is now. I 'fly' the SU-25T when I feel like a quick and easy mission, so I jump in occasionally but fairly regularly so it's nice to know it's not a complete orphan of a product.

I'm really enjoying this one. I'm not so great at maintaining formation with the AI, but I'm getting better! Thanks for this, I'm about half way through - it looks like you've put in a lot of work.

All I needed was a nudge! I'm going back in, now I have a way forward. Cheers.

Ok then. Maybe I'm not flying low enough, I don't know if this is considered cheating (I don't really care at this point :D) but I might change the bomb fuse to the 11 second version so I can drop at tree height. My rocket shooting from just below the clouds on diving in is pretty accurate (after all the practice!) but considering the jinking, I don't think I'll be able to get bombs on target if I'm higher than about 3-5k feet when I drop. I wonder how often the longer fuses were used IRL? They almost feel like cheat mode after always being careful to not drop low enough to kill my plane Back into the fray!

Does anyone have any hints about avoiding flak when near the target in Mission 7? I've played it so many times, I'm getting pretty good at being successful destroying the target, but I get pantsed every time by that nasty flak. Typically one engine out which makes it difficult to complete the return, given the challenges that pop up. When checking out my progress on Tacview, I saw the AI wasn't having any more luck. I'm jinking side to side, going as fast as I can. I'm fairly low, lower than the mission parameters as the cloud cover prevents me seeing the target otherwise. Maybe the fact I'm dropping below the cloud a little earlier than I absolutely need to means the AA has a chance to get a bead on me? Is this even a thing with AAA of the WW2 variety (I believe it is with SAMs in more modern scenarios)?

Nope. Flew Mission 3 again, destroyed bandit camp, return to Fort 6, collected troops as instructed. Nobody is telling me about any mission. I get told to take off, then.... nothing. Sometimes audio recordings don't seem to come through, and I'll hear only one side of a recorded conversation. It usually fixes itself with a restart, but not in this one. Maybe that's my problem, I'm just not getting important audio messages? Anyway. I'm giving up. Thanks anyway. Life is too short.

Ok. I know this is something to do with my stupidity, or something I missed. When I get to Mission 3, Bandit Camp, I destroy the enemy with the row of tents (after the mortar bombardment). As instructed, I fly back to where the mortars are, land and pick up troops. Then....? I've taken off. No messages. I've flown back to the original FARP. The mission is a draw. I've taken a hint from the throwaway line about Fort 4, something about picking up troops for Fort 4 IIRC. I then tried setting the NDB to 1280 or 1240 (whatever the Fort 4 NDB is) fly to the beacon (where the needle flips, so I know I'm flying over the beacon, land at the Fort which I assume is Fort 4 and.... no further instructions. My wingman continues to circle above the camp with the mortars (Fort 3, perhaps?). What am I doing wrong? I've flown this mission enough times that I'm giving up and moving on. But I'm curious to know what I'm doing wrong. Thanks in advance for any help.

Really enjoying this one. Up to mission 3, really scratching my head with that briefing. Yes, I know it's realistic jargon but I don't have the 1000s of hours using the jargon to work out what the hell they're talking about - FINEX, Constructive Load (I think I can guess that one), poppin', 47K shot. I'll do a trawl through the PDFs to see if I can clear it up.

OK, at the risk of demonstrating a skill issue on my part, I have comments and questions from when I went to play this campaign again. With the updates to the Gazelle and the environment it's become unplayable. At my level of medium skill anyway. I know there will be some who might wish to prove me wrong by sailing through the missions, but someone at that level of skill is way beyond the average. Firstly, it's so dark in many of the missions, for example, one has a 5 metre altitude requirement over a choppy sea (and attendant wind) that no IRL pilot would ever fly. 5 metre max altitude over a 2-ish metre chop? Suicide. Also, with the removal of the UFO flight model, the Gazelle can barely get off the ground without dragging a skid, or tipping and breaking a blade, particularly with the moderate-high wind as set. To get through the occasional mission I had to unload most of the fuel. First question - am I the only one? I found this campaign challenging but do-able a couple of years ago. Second question - are there any updates in the pipeline? I understand the realism requirement to have night missions but I find them both boring and harrowing. Boring as all the work that went into creating the beautiful maps and environments is wasted and I'm staring at mostly a black screen with a cockpit overlay. With occasional views of a blurry green circle overlaid, which is so blurry it prevents me from flying instruments. Harrowing because without proprioception (gravity telling me which way/direction I'm facing) it's ridiculously easy to lose which way is up for a second. And at a <5 metre altitude, that's enough time for game over. Visual cues are the only cues we have, and with almost none I would imagine it's even more difficult than a real life attempt at a similar mission. With the HUEY I will often skip the night missions once I flown a mission once, or if I've flown a night mission in that particular campaign. Not because they're too difficult, they are usually within my skill level, but they're just dull. Even so, there's usually enough moonlight. With this campaign, all of them are night and many of them have no moon at all. I understand that I'm whining about having both realism considered (I play for simulation, not gaming reasons so artificially created challenge levels don't interest me) and less realism in that night missions just aren't fun - most of the time anyway.

Like many, I've been a little disappointed in Combined Arms. Not so much with the vehicles etc, and the newer maps have fixed most of the immersion problems. But I bought the formal campaign, and for the life of me, I have no idea of how to play it. I've watched some videos and read up but maybe because I was never an operational level officer, I just don't get it. However, I just played one of the default missions I hadn't noticed before, Watch and Wait (requires WW2 assets) and boy, that's the sort of experience I've been looking for. I don't know how long this mission has been in the game but I'm glad I tried it. Yes, it's quite basic, and there's a lot of hand holding but that's just what I'm looking for to understand CA. It would be great as the first step into learning how the official bought campaign is meant to work. I'm going to go through the default missions again and see if there is anything in-betweenish. This mission doesn't help with the operational stuff (pushing your platoons, CAS etc) and how to do that's still a huge mystery to me in DCS. I just don't know how that is supposed to work, setting tracks, ordering targets etc. It seems when I play the official campaign stuff, the units are doing their own thing unless I micromanage and a lot of it seems to be which AI sees the other AI first. And dammed if I can get the CAS to do anything other than fly around for a bit and land. This tactical-plus/operational level might be fun if there were something to explain the best way to do things, but I haven't found it yet. It might be me, but I do see plenty of complaints like mine. But I didn't come on here to moan, I came to praise that one mission I just played. That tactical Wait and Watch recon mission is just the sort of thing I was hoping for with CA. I can't play multi for reasons I won't go into here, so maybe the AI is why my experience with CA has been less satisfying until now. But more missions like the one I just played would make me feel I hadn't wasted my money and ED hadn't wasted all that effort into creating the wonderful models and workmanlike control system (this is not a criticism, I quite like the simplified interface for driving and fighting the vehicles) that often seems a bit wasted. More missions like Wait and Watch and I'd spend a lot more time in CA! EDIT - I just jumped back in. The other missions are the same as always. Where do I start? How is this played? Do I just jump in a vehicle? Which vehicle? How do I get the JTAC to order a strike? How can I be sure that the path I set is the best one without actually driving the terrain myself, the AI certainly doesn't seem to make tactical decisions to stop them getting nailed because they skyline themselves etc. Sigh. Never mind. I got overexcited by Wait and Watch but now my disappointment is back. The other stuff is just the same. Maybe I'm stupid, maybe I've missed the one or two key important passages in the documentation (I haven't read it all, it would be impossible for me to read all of the documentation for all the modules and maybe that's my fault for getting too many). But it would be nice to have some sort of guide or hand-hold about how to play the missions and campaigns with CA and in the shop.

Ok. I've improved things no end. It turns out my curves for the original Gazelle FM were very, very flat with a sharp rise at the extremes, I'd forgotten that I'd done that and didn't check with the new FM. The image below shows them how I've adjusted them now, with the red line overlay showing roughly how it was previously. I have User Curve on for this, I don't like setting saturation under 100 for any flight controls, so doing this gives me the same effect, except I still have full extension at the extremes for when I need it. It does require me to generally keep my stick away from the extremes except for emergencies, which rarely happen but I'm used to that. I did this originally for the Spitfire rudder, as I was told to reduce saturation but, again, I didn't like the idea of not having full control for those rare times. So, when I changed the curves to be less extreme, the Gazelle FM came into focus on my el cheapo HOTAS. It feels much better now, I don't roll wildly from side to side on takeoff, which I assume was happening as I needed more control, grabbed a fistful of cyclic and veered right into the extremes as the change from a moderate slope to a very steep one is quite sudden if you're not used to it. The whole chopper feels better now, I even get a sense it has more power for some reason. This can't be true, of course, but maybe the new FM is better suited to a more typical curve whereas the older one suited having a very flat main control area. null

I have a question. Firstly, I know nothing about flying choppers IRL. But after the update, to me the Gazelle is more sluggish and, paradoxically, more twitchy than the Huey. Especially before ETL kicks in. Is this right? Given the range of experiences here, I'm wondering if joystick might be a factor. I have a cheapo HOTAS (T16000 and TCMS throttle plus the pedals that came with the set) but I've managed to find every other chopper's appropriate settings so it feels right enough, so maybe I need to do some experimentation with curves/sat etc. The old Gazelle felt like an RC toy to me. But I could do plenty of work with it and quite enjoyed myself, as long as I ignored the suspension of disbelief with the UFO elements. But now it feels like a bit of a bus and that if I'm not careful, it's going to spin and drop out of the sky. An underpowered bus at that. Yes, I've reduced weight to 80% in ME and I'm still struggling to take off without the chopper lurching all over the place. Yes, a skill issue no doubt, but I don't have this with any other choppers. Anyway, the only thing I have to compare to are other modules in DCS and the Gazelle feels to me more like a Hind needing a diet than the Huey. I'd assumed that as the Huey is an early design that it'd feel more underpowered, and the Gazelle would feel like, well, a Gazelle (the animal). One of the reasons I enjoyed the old FM was because it was a bit arcade-y, and although I'd prefer it to be accurate, is it really less nimble than the Huey? I'm disappointed if the current power state is going to be the final one. Apart from the HOT missiles, which are close to unusable for me without autohover, the Huey holds its own for weaponry - it has more rockets although it has no 20mm and feels more fun to fly as a gunship. I can accept it all if its realistic but I was really hoping for a snappy, nimble gunship-lite for the times I didn't want to drag out the Hind or the Apache.

Just to be clear, when I mentioned the Epsom Campaign earlier, I meant The Big Show. Senior Moment, apologies.

One 'by the way' - I'm loving going through these Campaigns again. It's like they've had a layer of polish, in addition to the map updates. I'm about half way through the Kurfurst one, a couple of missions into the Spitfire campaign and, obviously, one mission into the P-51 campaign.

Nothing serious here, it looks like one static or vehicle is still where it was for Normandy 44 map. Location: Chailey Airfield Image 1 shows the result of too many ales the evening before Image 2 is zoomed out for location Image 3 is further zoomed [EDIT: images came out in random-ish order, Image 1 is at the bottom, Image 2 at the top and Image 3 in the middle] Truck is on the revetment of the second short parking space (between the two longer sets of three) on the south side of the '25' runway

Excellent. I'm replaying Epsom now. Fantastic campaigns the first time through and I'm really enjoying seeing the new map for my go-around. RANT - unrelated to Reflected's wonderful campaigns. I'm fed up with the AI. What is intelligent, artificial or otherwise, about ramming your wing/section leader? On take off or on landing I mean. Collisions in a furball are an expected hazard. But why would your wingman take off barely a couple of metres behind you, and if for some reason (like maybe it's the recommended procedure in a spit) you're not maxing out the throttle, or perhaps wind causes you to drift a little to the right, the wingman doesn't try to avoid... no, they just ram from behind. And if I don't tell them to stay the f away when landing, they try to land in formation, even if that means they land into a building. Surely a formation landing is something you would specifically have to ask for, not as a default? I'm at the stage where I don't care about them. I'll leave them to be picked off alone if they can't get away from bandits (unless there's a safe opportunity to get a kill, I'm not risking my virtual life for those arseholes). I don't even care if they run out of fuel, in fact -it means I can land unmolested for a change. I actually hate my artificial comrades more than I can ever hate the enemy - I expect the enemy to try to kill me, it's their job. It seems traditional now to hate tankers when learning to fly modern jets and I would prefer it if the buggers would let me know when they're about to enter a turn but at least that's a sin of omission. The warbird AI (when flying from behind you, I should add) actively rams or, if you try to avoid a ram, pushes you into a tree or somesuch. AI tanker pilots may be stupid but they're not malevolent. Don't get me started on Spitfire low climb speed. But at least I can make allowances for that fairly easily. RANT OVER Once I'm in the air, and if I remember to tell the bastards to hold position while I land, I'm really enjoying the Epsom campaign a second time.