Hellbat

First suggestion: When creating a new group, it seems that the unit names are inherited from the last group name (I'm sure this is a bug and has been reported before). It would be nice, at least cosmetically, if groups had a property, which by default was set but could be manually disabled, which automatically aligns the group/unit names. For example, if I change a group name to SA10_1, it would automatically set the unit names to SA10_1-1, SA10_1-2 etc, if the autonaming property is set. Second suggestion: This became apparent as I was looking at some fairly large mission templates developed by others. I found the skill was set to Average for several hundred units/groups and there seems to be no other way of setting the skill level than to manually select it for each unit in the group for all groups in the mission. This should be possible via scripting, but shouldn't be necessary since I would guess that most people who build missions probably use the editor exclusively. An optional property to align the skill levels of all units within a group would be nice. Third suggestion: I saw another suggestion regarding a group list, which I think would be great for large missions. Currently for the user list there are columns for unit type, skill, status etc. If these columns could be extended (user definable) to include properties such as group name consistency, late activation, hidden on MFD (or any other useful common property), the ability to modify properties of multiple units/groups simultaneously (via shift or control clicking) would be very helpful.

Issue is that for some reason I can't use TMS Up/Right to get point/area tracks after the RDR cursor has been touched. I've attached a track in the Nevada GBU training mission and initially when I first set CZ on Steerpoint 2 it seems fine and I can get point and area tracks, but as soon as I touch the RDR cursor it just starts drifting and after this point I cannot get a track. I do not have issues with the RDR cursor or TMS buttons elsewhere (e.g. dogfight mode, markpoints etc) and I have observed this behavior with the TGP in multiple missions. I recently did change my HOTAS (Gunfighter + TM F16 Grip + Cougar throttle vs TM Cougar before), however I have no idea why only the TGP is negatively affected. I have done a full repair to remove any mods as well as removed DCS.openbeta in Saved Games. Log is also attached. Edit: Seems to be resolved via adding deadzones to the RDR cursor in the controller setup. I don't fully understand why I don't see this behavior in either the A-A or A-G radars, but setting a deadzone of 2 on both axis makes it usable for now. TGP_Problems.trk dcs.log

This still seems to be an issue. Any chance of a fix in the near future?

Ahh, nice, I'm hoping implementation of these lights would be relatively straightforward.

I agree that modelling reflections/shadows of real light sources would get pretty intensive on the global scale, but I also don't think this is necessary. I think the performance hit could be minimized by only modelling reflections on the aircraft which is currently tanking once contact has been requested. I'm speculating here, but for such low-intensity lighting, surely it must be possible to only perform these calculations locally (in space) when necessary and to disable these calculations for units, which are 10+ km away. But as you suggested, maybe an intermediate step could be some simplified light sources to at least assist the player in the short term, while a more realistic solution can be developed.

I added these video/screenshots to another thread regarding night refueling, but after searching a bit I couldn't find a general thread about this. I'm pretty competent at refueling with any available light source (even the moon), but in conditions without external natural light sources, the only available reference is the directional indicators under the tanker. I can approach the tanker quite well with the three lights on the back, but once these disappear it becomes difficult to gauge speed and attitude relative to the tanker. The request would be to model the lighting on the tankers. The video below shows a fully illuminated F16C. Game (Open Beta 2.7.7.15038) with severely lacking external lighting: This is what I see in the cockpit: My theory is that better lighting under the tanker would provide additional lighting (even just the reflections) to the pilot to assist with night refueling. I couldn't find any videos from a pilot's perspective and I am not a pilot so this is pure speculation on my part.

I fly the F16C and consider myself to be pretty competent tanking (usually without disconnects) with any available light source (even a full moon), but I find it is very difficult in poor conditions at night. My stability comes from visual cues while under the tanker to gauge speed/attitude. With heavy cloud/night time, my only reference point is the directional indicators under the tanker and I lose all perception of space. I decided to see what video footage I could find and came across this video. I could only find footage from the tanker's perspective, but the F16 is clearly lit up and I have a hard time believing that the F16 pilot wouldn't benefit to some degree from the low lighting available to make out the shape of the tanker fuselage. Below some screenshots from in game: I think if the lighting under the tanker were improved and reflections of reflections were modeled, then it would be far easier to refuel at night.

Hi, Is there any way to prevent an external view of an enemy aircraft on the mission start screen? I've hidden them on the map and I've disabled external views of enemy aircraft, but it seems these only work once you're in the mission. I even added additional friendly aircraft, but for some reason it always defaults to showing the enemy aircraft. I've attached a screenshot. Thanks for the help.

Update: I thought I had an issue, but I think I got my script working. The set waypoint command appeared to be ignored since I had CAP aircraft engaging targets (I say appeared since I don't know if it set the waypoint, but the aircraft weren't redirected). By first setting the aircraft to weapons hold, they terminated their current engagement and then redirected to the correct waypoint.

Hi, Any updates (or approximate release date) regarding the F16 Syria campaign announced here: https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/245734-upcoming-campaign-for-the-f-16c-in-syria-quotthe-gamblersquot/

Yeah, I've actually used polygon zones to define some of my zones for group activation and they're pretty useful. It would be possible, but unfortunately it isn't really scalable; for my current project I'd have to manually define hundreds of zones, which I'm trying to avoid.

I've been developing a script to dynamically generate groups of ground forces and spawn them in random zones. I've run into the issue that some forces are being placed in the middle of a forest. While this is OK for infantry units, it isn't really desirable for larger vehicles, radar systems, SAMs etc. I'm still quite new to script development with DCS, but I'm struggling to determine whether an area is designated as forest or there are trees at a specific coordinate. I'm primarily using MOOSE and the only function I've found which sounded useful was COORDINATE:ScanObjects() which can return a SCENERY object table, but none of the objects I have found so far appear to be trees. Has anyone succeeded in determining the location of trees/forest or is this not currently possible?

I can only speculate about the gaming industry, but I'm part of an engineering team which delivers software to commercial customers and if there is a Q1 deadline for a test/final release version, this usually means the end of March. Of course, internally you plan for unforeseen circumstances so it is usually more or less ready by mid-March, but we'll have to wait and see. I'm also hoping they release the clouds on March 1

Thanks for all the input. I was playing with my Cougar base and just experimenting with positions for chair mounts and I rotated the base forwards about 15 degrees and pushing forwards on the stick felt much lighter than pulling back (e.g. probably only required half the force to push vs pulling). Did you notice any difference in the way it felt when pushing/pulling the stick? I would imagine a cam-based solution would be much more robust to this effect than just springs.

I generally don't often play the AAA game titles, but it seems most of them these days offer a resolution scale option, which essentially reduces the internal rendering resolution and the game upscales this to the monitor resolution. Sapphire Trixx offers a similar solution for games which don't natively support this, but this requires a Sapphire graphics card. I don't know why AMD doesn't have an option in its drivers for something like this. Anyway, the general consensus is that a combination of 85-90% downscaling (per axis) + AMD Radeon Image Sharpening produces negligible image quality loss (especially at 4K), but with ~20-30% performance increase. Is something like this difficult to implement? The jump from 1440p to 4K is quite ridiculous in terms of GPU power required, but it might also help those with lower-end graphics cards bump up a couple of graphics settings for the same performance or get more frames with minimal change in image quality. I think it would be a nice to have if it were relatively straightforward and fast to implement, otherwise it's not really a high priority.

Thanks. I'll try that. I used the sales e-mail address specified above.

I wrote to the sales team regarding an order including a standalone Gunfighter Mk.III base and was directed to place my order on the European website, which does not offer the standalone bases (as far as I can tell). Either this offer is no longer active or not everyone in the sales team is briefed with dealing with such requests.

I've been watching the prices over the last few weeks in Germany and they have been gradually going up again after it seemed like they were slowly dropping (in January). I would expect the prices to remain exorbitant until at least the second half of the year. AMD did promise to sell their cards at MSRP by the end of Q1, but they didn't comment on stock numbers and they've been pretty complacent about AIB pricing. I personally was keen on getting an RX6800 for MSRP, but definitely won't be paying 850+ Euro (50+% markup). If you can, the best advice is to wait, but if you "need" an upgrade (e.g. to power VR) then you might as well buy one now as I doubt it will improve in the next month or two.

I currently have the Cougar HOTAS and am looking to get a better base and mount this to a chair for improved ergonomics. I am planning to get the Monstertech chair mounts and I want the ability to be able to rotate the grip forwards. At first, I wanted the VKB Gunfighter III base, but I don't think this would give me the option to rotate the grip itself. This would mean that I would have to rotate the base if I wanted a more ergonomic position. This might be more advantageous as I could adjust the angle continuously, but I'm not sure whether non-horizontal mounting is detrimental to the internal operation or not. The VPC WarBRD natively supports the TM connector and there are 3d-printed tailpieces available, so this would allow the rotated grip with a horizontally-mounted base. However, would the shift in center of gravity (the effect would also be similar in the tilted GFIII base example above) produce a noticeable offset in the resting position of the stick, and if so, can this be effectively eliminated in software? To summarize, a few questions you might be able to help me with: 1) Would rotating the base by 13 degrees have any noticeable undesirable side effects? 2) Would the shift in the center of gravity (due to the angled grip) noticeably affect the operation of a horizontally-mounted base? 3) Is there any real difference between (1) and (2) (i.e. would one option be preferable)? 4) With regard to the two bases above, has anyone had any negative experiences with such a setup? (e.g. with nonlinear cams, it feels asymmetric in up/down pitch due to the offset center point, or if one base has a more notchy feel in the middle this might not be ideal since it is not longer in the center etc) Unfortunately, it's not really possible to test before buying and the above-mentioned components are somewhat expensive, so I'd like to make the most informed decision based on the information I can find.

It's happened about three times in the last 2 days and sporadically before this. I keep getting shot down by friendly AI AMRAAMs. I fly the F16C and this has previously occurred in the built-in MIGCAP (Persian Gulf) instant action mission, but more recently in user submitted missions, but I believe this is an AI problem and isn't mission related. It always seems to the a similar setup. A friendly aircraft is several miles behind me and then suddenly I get a missile launch and an M on the RWR and 5 seconds later I am dead. The event log confirms it was a friendly AMRAAM. I haven't attached a track as every time I play them back something different happens, and usually this occurs 15-20 minutes into a mission. Maybe others have experienced something similar? Update: In the last couple of days I've experienced this several times, but in a slightly different situation when I am merged with the enemy. Either the friendly AI just boresight their AMRAAMs or they don't bother with IFF; it is very frustrating!

My machine just updated itself last night with this new feature set. I had actually seen this thread and seen that most didn't have issues so didn't worry about it. Neither the stable nor beta versions work for me now. It just sits on the DCS loading screen even though after a few seconds I can hear music. I have a Vega 56 and currently have the November 2020 WHQL driver; I believe there are newer beta drivers available but nothing suggested in Radeon software. I have a few mods active in the open beta version, but nothing in the stable version, so it can't be mods. Update: running a full repair on the stable version fixed it, even for the open beta version.

Looks awesome. Can you give an estimate of the forces required at the stick?

It was definitely flickering, which is why it was so hard to capture screenshots. I've tried several times to reproduce this but haven't succeeded. I suspect it might have been caused by explosions. Whenever I shoot down an aircraft, I usually get some weird graphical glitches for 2-3s (black, orange, weird shapes etc.). It's pure speculation, but maybe there was an aircraft explosion in another direction and this was the consequence. I generally don't have such issues with trees.

No, I don't have SSAA enabled. I have MSAA 2x, AF 4x and most settings on High (except Shadows, Heat blur). It seems that at ~2.5 miles it transitions from an obvious black dot, which is there probably to assist in spotting at distance, to rendering the actual aircraft model, but it appears that there is a significant drop in contrast against the background.