Bashibazouk

I agree that an option for rapid/pre-aligned would be nice. When learning how to start a module, it's helpful to not have to wait for a long align process, at the moment we have all or nothing (as in hot start) and we don't get the choice with purchased campaigns, although I await the designers choices when/if the KA50 II campaigns are updated. Maybe they'll give us hotstarts to sidestep this longer alignment process? BTW, I don't do multiplayer, a (hopefully temporary) eyesight problem precludes me flying anything where I can't have dots/labels at the moment but I can imagine it might be frustrating for some, people with less time, for example, who have to sit on their hands for nine minutes before going through the startup procedure. For me, it's just a bit dull and I don't like hitting the time acceleration too much. For me, the ideal would be three choices - cold cold engine but battery on and aligned (maybe the precision align - I understand that with this full alignment the INU takes longer to drift so this choice would enable fewer INU updates too). hot.

Thanks. I did some testing myself and couldn't discern a difference I could pin on the wattage. I set three EWRs, set them up to be GCI (ground AWACs basically, using the info given in this thread) and used the following for power in the frequency setting parameter - EWR Eyeball at 1W EWR Moonbeam at 10W EWR Whiplash at 100W I did get differences in response, but that may be because of differences in distance between the targets, the stations and the plane, an F16. I used TU160s and Mig29As for targets. I probably should have set the EWRs up very close together rather than spread out along a baseline as I did. Sometimes I couldn't contact one or two of the EWRs, but again, it didn't seem to be a function of the wattage, rather the distance. This quick test is far from scientific. An article on military radio I googled said a portable radio might use 0.5W and one in a vehicle 5W but an EWR station, by it's nature, is gonna need range so would be higher than this, I assume. Still, maybe this makes no difference in DCS. I'll just put it at 100w, as I've been doing, and have at it.

I have a question - when setting the frequency in the second parameter in the advanced waypoint actions list, what is an appropriate setting for strength? I've been adding a zero to make it 100 watts but I'm not sure how this affects the result. I might do some testing, if I get a spare half day, but don't hold you're breath. Hopefully someone knows so I don't need to run a test.

Thanks for the suggestion - I'll try slowing down to see if it makes a difference, but I suspect it's more likely I have a mod that's interfering with my binds. Your clarification is very helpful, thx: Glad to know it's working OK. I had a feeling the problem was my end as no one else had reported it. EDIT: one other possibility, as this sort of thing has happened to me one before, IIRC. It might be that I need to just reset and start from scratch with binds as on one occasion, I'd setup my binds and an update confused the input files. I was getting the red duplicate alert, even though I didn't have anything duplicated. A reset fixed that one. Maybe I'll try resetting everything first, and if that doesn't work, try a start with no mods - if it works, install half the mods, then a quarter etc until I've found the culprit. I might do this in the future as the problem is annoying but certainly doesn't break the sim or my enjoyment, and the process is rather lengthy. All that said, I really do like the F1!

I have a question-suggestion - The autopilot keybinds don't seem to all work, so I need to hold the key on my HOTAS, then use my mouse to press the second key required to start the AP. I'd like that second button A to be bindable. It's in the list, but doesn't work on my machine. If this is a result of some mod I'm using, let me know and I'll pull my head in. cheers, BB

I'm using a T1600, so a cheap stick but more to the point, not the same one as the OP. I've been experiencing sudden roll movements in the Viggen, and for the life of me, I don't know why. I assume it's not a bug, this is an established module, but maybe I'm hitting some button? I didn't change the trim (deliberately), was climbing at around 400k - slow, I know. Then the roll started, to the right for me. Aileron roll, uncommanded. I sped up to 550+ but I was still holding the stick to almost fully left to keep me level. I tried trim and it helped a bit but obviously wasn't the issue. I restarted the mission and the same thing happened. Restarting PC now. Curious problem.

Thanks, M. Gunhead. Indeed, it was the Edge 540 mod causing my Mustang to zip it. Your comment saved me an hour or two diagnosing via removing and replacing mods. Much appreciated. To be clear to the next person who's Mustang doesn't have 50 cal sounds from inside the cockpit but can hear them when jumping outside via F2 - removal (temporary in my case) of the Edge 540 acrobatic plane mod fixes the problem completely.

Thanks. I thought I'd worked it out (uninstall and reinstall again) but still having problems. After I've 'locked' the TPOD, when I uncage the Mavs the seeker flies off to one side. At least I have some contrast/image on the screen now, so I assume I was struggling with some conflict with a mod or something as the uninstall/reinstall of the harrier seemed to fix my main problem. I guess I'm gonna do some training on the lasers now, by the sounds of everything, the IR mavs are just problematic with the harrier. I don't have this issue using the Hornet or Viper, though. Mind you, I haven't tested recently. Thanks for your input.

Interesting. I've been having a hell of a time with the IR mavs on the Harrier and I use a T16000 stick. I wonder if it's the stick? I certainly have been finding it hard to get keybinds to work with this, one solution that sort of works for me most of the time is to make sure I only have one bind for a command, including axes. I thought I'd fixed things by doing this but I'm still having problems with the binds from time to time, although it does seem better. My biggest issue at the moment is I can't see anything useful on the Mav screen, it's very dark with only hot smoke showing. No targets etc. I have to dive at the target, spam the TDC down button I've assigned (I use button 3 on the throttle) and eventually, when I'm under 2 miles from the target - which I still can't see on the screen, I need to eyeball it in the HUD - I get the 'in range' notice and the mav fires. Then I have to pull out of the death dive I needed to get a lock. Naturally, this only works with a passive target that's not shooting back.

I've been trying to get the harrier mavs to lock for a couple of months now. The image from the mav is really really dark, I can see smoke fine on the IR image, but seeing actual targets is nearly impossible - I've tried making the targets move a few metres in case it's something to do with the engines being off by default since a recent change, but no dice. The only way i can get them to lock is to eyeball it in the HUD (using the VV marker), get the mav square icon in the right place, dive straight at the target and keep clicking the TMS down/lock button on my hotas. Eventually I'll get the 'in range' text on the hud and the mav will fire. By this time, I'll usually under 2 miles and aiming straight for the target in a suicide dive. Naturally, this is useless for anything that shoots back. I've spent most of this time trying to research how to use the mavs, so I'm sure I do have the correct procedure (post the changes last year). I've uninstalled and reinstalled the harrier twice, which improved things once, for a single lock, where I could actually see the target on the screen but since then the screen is very dark, except for smoke (as in a smoke marker or a previously destroyed vehicle). But since then, it's back to the almost black screen. I've given up a few times and come back to try again but I think I'm at the end of my tether with this now, and gonna give up for good.

I just wanted to confirm I'm still having trouble with the Mavericks on the Harrier locking. That's when the screen isn't black. Ok, I get that it's working for most people but I've seen scattered reports of it not working. Rather frustrating, and yes. I'm doing everything 'by the book' and by that, I mean the updated book from about 6 months ago. I'm tired of uninstalling and reinstalling the harrier to get it to work, as I said elsewhere, I'm giving up on the harrier. I have other modules I can learn. I'm writing this just so anyone else having this intermittent, somewhat rare, but real problem doesn't think they're mad or useless (sorta where I'd got to before I found the scattered reports). It's not you, it's a conflict somewhere, maybe with some mod or other. Anyway, life's too short to spend it second guessing my procedures anymore.

Correction - I seem to have a bug??? the Maverick display was black. I read up about this problem, uninstalled and reinstalled the Harrier. It worked for the first Maverick, after which it just went black again. Ok, I'm exhausted trying to learn this thing, it's going back into the hangar.

Just over the last day, in fact the last few hours, the Harrier has started to finally click. Deephack's streams convinced me to persist (talking about how much fun the Harrier can be) and although I'm a little frustrated that it was so frustrating I feel that I might be over the hump. It shouldn't be like this, though and it's a shame that it is. If anyone ever wants someone with experience in UI/UX to help them with a tute or similar drop me a PM. UI/UX is User Interface/User Experience, by the way, two disciplines in online production with some overlap. Digital production has become almost as arcane as military aviation when it comes to opaque acronyms it seems :D UI and UX are key parts of 'user-centric-design', the basic philosophy being if a modern interface or system is hard to use, what with all the tech and experience we now have, it's the fault of the designer, not the user. Neither of these is my main thing but I have done a lot of work in this area with specialists, mainly in 'hands-dirty' management. Yes, I'm well aware that management should not be hands-dirty but reality begs to differ. Anyway, I'd be more than happy to help someone who would like an external party to give a formal-ish review of their stuff before it goes out into the wild.

I've been tearing my hair out because of the out of date tutorials. YouTube is only helpful IF you know when the most recent changes happened, and IF you make sure the video you are watching is post that date, and IF there's a video with updated information that exists at all. I love the format and completeness of the Harrier training missions and I understand that perhaps there's enough information in them to keep them around but.... there needs to be some way to indicate that a particular lesson has outdated elements. I love DCS, I have a ton of respect for BD and have bought all of his campaigns. Still, there is a fairly big usability issue with DCS, outdated training with no indication that it's outdated or which particular lessons may or may not still have useful information is one part of this. The UI in general, although very slowly improving, is just awful. I have to remind myself how much trouble I had just making my way around the sim when I first started. Like everyone else, after a lot of frustration I have come to understand how the interface works and in what places I need to be wary that UI elements don't match accepted conventions. As another example, in the ME one has to regularly select the link-to checkbox when placing a static element on a ship. Surely this should default to the nearest ship when placed in the middle of the ocean? Even if there was some scenario when we wanted an aeroplane or person to sit in the water as ships sail past, I don't think this happens. IIRC, they just sit in mid air. Anyway, a range of small elements like this combined with outdated docs/tutes and some really weird stuff (it's understandable how this weird stuff happens once you know the history of the feature, but coming at it cold is a head scratcher) makes DCS one of the strangest systems I've used short of some really weird vertical business specific stuff, and that was over a decade ago. Perhaps it's not a bad thing that tyre-kickers are put off? I don't think so, personally, but when you look at the toxic nature of a lot of the War Thunder community (for example) perhaps having the persistence to power through all these problems is an apprenticeship of sorts. Again, I don't think so, but maybe that's the thinking? If not, I would humbly suggest a UX/UI person or small team going through the sim would add a ton of value, mean fewer people tried the free version and left in frustration (leading to more module sales) and it would make our virtual flying only a chore in as far as 1960s etc interfaces were a chore to the real pilots As I intimated above, after a while we all get used to the oddness and quirks and don't notice them. I had an awful experience when I first started and I suspect it's the experience new users have now. The planes are complicated enough, the application user interface infrastructure would ideally be intuitive and closely follow established conventions so we're not learning at two levels at the same time.

I've been trying the training and some of it appears to be out of date. Menu items on the displays don't match and following instructions doesn't give the results stated, I understand there may have been some critical changes to the UI since these were made. The training missions themselves appear to be fantastic, some of the best in the game, but in some ways are currently worse than useless in places as the quality makes one assume the problem is on this side of the monitor. I'm still not 100% sure it's not me and I'm just having a series of senior moments, but I don't think so. I've managed to work my way through lots of other modules but the changes here appear to be a bit more crucial to procedures I want to learn. Particularly the TPOD, use of the SSS and TDC. I've basically hit a dead end, so I'll try to read the manual (first time) and Chuck's Guide (again). The first run through always leaves holes in my understanding but I normally hope to just power past these holes by doing. It hasn't worked with the Harrier, I suspect because the changes have made the videos and articles I watch and read out of date as well. This isn't just to moan, I'm saying all this in case anyone else hits these problems. Hopefully we'll get some updated content in the not too distant future.

Finished, apart from the Port Novo mission I mentioned above. Excellent campaign.

I'm not very good but I managed to get past this mission (after more than a few tries!). The key for me was to ignore the waypoints, head straight towards where I expect I'll meet the F5s, stay below them and duke it out. I lost two bombers but while the F5s were concentrating on them, my fighters took them apart. Well, sort of. I also lost 2 migs. But still. My struggle at the moment is the Novo port raid on the columns. Not due to the enemy, the Mig keeps freaking out and either shooting towards the sky until it stall and spins, or noses straight down into the sea/ground. I haven't had problems with the Mig21 and the autopilot system before but for some reason, the mix of required altitudes (3k+ for bombs), weight and trying to economise on fuel I hit the limits of the 21's envelope. I'm skipping it as after 8 or so tries, I'm just not prepared to spend the whole multi hundred kilometre trip white knuckling the stick as using the autopilot is sending the plane crazy. Maybe it's because I'm struggling to climb to 3k without afterburner at more than 600K? Either way, life is too short. The next mission is fun, I'm currently paused in the flight to the new a/f after a great dog-fight with 4 phantoms. BTW, I dropped one of the SARH missiles for another R60 as I never had time to use more than one BVR before the furball in the 2 previous tries.

Wow. I'm so glad this is a bug. I've decided to go back and learn the A10A in detail before I start on the A10C. My thoughts are that if I 'get' the way the plane works, i can concentrate on the detail with the full fidelity plane and flatten the learning curve a tad. This approach (learning the simpler planes first) worked/is working for me re fighters - but the A10A is shaking like a bugger, it almost gives me motion sickness with a tracker, it must be hell in VR. I've tried slowing, and it seems to improve somewhat under 190 knots, but the thing is already a sitting duck for AI SAMs etc. I've been checking to see if I have flaps/gear down, if I have too much ordinance etc but nothing seems to fix it. I would have been disappointed if this were a characteristic of the plane, as I said, I'm really pleased this is a bug that will be fixed. I'll leave my Thunderbolts until the repair I suppose, I have the Apache to learn anyway EDIT: don't get me wrong, I'm a simp for DCS and make allowances all the time, this is just a story not a full-on whinge. Just that this bug hit me when I was spending serious time in a non-early access plane for the first time so I assumed it was me screwing up!

Fantastic Mod. I thought I wouldn't really need it as I've spent the years learning all the key commands but for certain actions it's incredible. Also, it's the best way to learn the cockpits of the FC3 planes - sure, there are diagrammes in the manual etc, but having the actual button in the actual cockpit while flying is priceless.

That did the trick. I was using about 17 deg flaps and using differential throttle to take off as instructed by a well respected player/creator. I'm sure it worked when they did the instruction but I ignored it, used a tiny bit of flaps, a whisker down starboard aileron - based on guesswork, really - and didn't worry about the throttles. I only have a single axis anyway, so it was quite a faff to adjust them separately with keybinds to select port, starboard or both engines. So, I went back to the Jericho default mission and had no real trouble taking off at all. Maybe it was a little more work than it used to be, maybe it took a little longer but it was nothing like my poor attempts before the last post. Thank you again for the info, that's all it took for me to relook at what I was doing, to stop trying to do it the way it worked in the past and...voila! My lovely Mozzie is once again the terror of the virtual Third Reich occupation troops in France!

thank you! I'm not going crazy, then!

Not sure what I'm doing differently but I've lost the knack of taking off. For the first couple of weeks it was a dream, I couldn't understand what people were saying about it being hard to take off. But something I'm doing differently - and rather annoyingly I don't know what it is - sends me into a crab and often a ground loop as I attempt to recover. Also, I'm getting that engine boiling thing again. It's frustrating because I have no idea what I'm doing differently, I was confident I had this one. The care with which I have to avoid the engines boiling makes it very frustrating in the first place. It takes me forever to taxi to the runway, gingerly keeping the RPMs below1200 except for the occasional push to get the damn thing moving ---- now only for an engine to boil anyway and then the plane freaks out on take off. I think I'm going insane! I can take off in all the other warbirds, almost in my sleep these days, and I was like that with the Mozzie --- until this week. Arrrgh. EDIT - Hmmm. I watched a few videos and may have picked up some behaviours that don't work for the way I take off. That's all I can think. I'm gonna switch planes for now, I'm not going to have any hair left from tearing at it if this goes on...

My not-so-deep research, mostly Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_Blitz) revealed what I said above, plus a couple of street names in there. When we discovered the shelter in the back garden I became curious so looked it up. I moved down from London and, like most London-centric types (even though I was an immigrant there originally too :D) I was unaware of most of the regional Blitz/es, apart from the well known like Coventry and (I think?) Grimsby being the first place to be used as a test for a type of delayed action incendary. This last one is based on a poorly remembered article I read once and can no longer find. Apropos of that, am I the only one who is finding the internet harder and harder to search for stuff in these days? So much rubbish, so many scams. BTW, the Mozzie has been everything I'd hoped for. I did have tempered expectations, given the early access but what's still to be finished seems to mostly be the multi-crew part and the pathfinding/direction finding stuff for the radios in the 'boot' (the bit behind the seats). It's so much fun, and flies like a dream. I do love the other warbirds but the Mozzie seems to be the easiest to fly.

Yup. I've been waiting with bated breath this week. Really looking forward to the Mozzie and the updated Channel. Fingers crossed my home town (Brighton) has been added to the map. Not the end of the world if it isn't, but it would be nice. We have an Anderson Shelter in our back garden and what is called the Brighton Blitz, a mini Blitz which was nothing compared to other cities and towns throughout the world but awful for the inhabitants, I'm sure. A Dornier Do17, separated from its formation, dropped 100kg bombs on a theatre, killing 50+ and an attack by FW190s, strafing and bombing the streets, killing a few dozen, were two of the low-lights.