Jayhawk1971

Are you playing in pancake, or in VR? Because for me, in VR, with the Vive Pro, details on the ground are almost impossible to make out, unless I'm very close to the object (maybe with a Varjo Aero you can, IDK). While the upsides of VR far outweigh the downsides IMO, one of those downsides unfortunately is significantly degraded visuals, compared to DCS's 2D details and visuals. I've made it to mission 7 while getting generally very good scores in each mission (100 on mission 6, for example), so in this campaign it is quite manageable by using the neutral dots (by employing the Viper's sensors effectively, and particularly because ChillNG made very good, thought out missions and provided excellent voice over comms!!), but you can hardly make out anything visually - very little contrast between object and background, at least not on my headset - so red dots do help a lot, again, in VR.

I believe that was the culprit in my case.

In the current iteration, yes, I suppose. The neutral dots are too blurry at long range, and hardly noticeable at closer ranges with my Vive Pro. This could be a 2.9 thing, though. The red dots have always been more prominent against terrain, and provided a good balance between spotting something, yet not knowing what exactly.

Yes, the comms are outstanding, providing feedback where the player could become disoriented or not sure whether he's flown far enough/ too far (mission 5, for example).

The hardest thing in the campaign so far has been me hamfisting the Viper's HOTAS. Especially the Mavericks: auto handoff being off (for me at least) has ruined many a good approach (and cost me some points for being late in destroying the target). One addition to the missions would be really nice: maybe with a future patch, placing an area (marked on the F10 map) with some ground units (say, "Jordanian army staging area") between waypoint 1 and the border of controlled airspace around H4, where the player could find some vehicles to boresight the Mavericks. I feel there's nothing on the ground at H4 far enough away to avoid the parallax effect? So, for example, player takes off, flies the departure until being handed off, then before reaching waypoint 1 to "start" the ingress phase, he can align the Mavericks without having to worry about flight plan or getting shot at. Also, +1 on optional labels. Would be nice for those with older VR headsets (red dots would be sufficient in my case).

Finished mission 3, but I think I might have run into a problem regarding a set of coordinates: One other thing that I'm not sure about: What a great campaign so far, lots of fun! As usual, I'm blown away by the sheer amount of work you invested into the documentation. Very immersive campaign, and I'm looking forward to mission 4. Oh, BTW, can we do an overhead break on landing (after receiving clearance from tower, or will that cost us points? I do suffer from performance issues on the ground on H4 (intermittent stuttering), and the tanker is jittering (known issue acknowledged by ED) but that could all be a 2.9 thing, so I'll wait for the upcoming hotfix from ED.

Have you turned the battery on? Fully, not just in the middle position. Leaving the battery switch in the middle position before asking for startup clearance will not trigger the F10 option.

Yup, server just kicked me out of the download. Had to start over. BTW, when will Ground Pounder's Campaign be available on the store page? Yes, I am that impatient......

Can't we just have Ground Pounder's Viper campaign now? ED has been sitting on it for what, a month now? It'll be at least another two weeks until the next patch. I'm bored to tears with DCS at the moment, I really would appreciate some new SP content to hold me over to 2.9.

...or Red Storm Rising!

Thanks. I'm glad there's nothing more complicated to it, as I have VAICOM dialed in just right, and I already forgot half of how I got there. So I'm happy to not to have to mess around with it that much.

Hi, I just got a 1TB 990 Pro, and would like to move my DCS installation over to that drive. Now I am unsure what to do with the VAICOM stuff. Do I simply point the program to the new installation path, or do I need to mess with registry or something similarly unpleasant? Or even a complete reinstall? I still haven't upgraded to the latest VAICOM version, either. Should I do that after I've moved DCS to the new drive? Thanks

I also would like to show my appreciation for constantly upgrading and tweaking your "legacy" campaigns. Both "Zone 5" and "Fear the Bones" are even more fun now with the new additions, for example less micro-managing Jester, and the hand signals! (re-flew "Hello Ivan" in the FTB-campaign yesterday, and the visual representation of keeping up foreign relations was very neat). Thanks!

Just practice formation flying! Once you can maintain fingertip/ parade on a reasonably stable lead without breaking a sweat, you'll find AAR to be much easier. After all, air-to-air refueling is formation flying.

I find the Hornet more annoying to AAR in than the Tomcat and the Viper. I have to concentrate more. The Hornet - at least with my controls setup - has a rather sensitive pitch axis. So don't even look at the stick wrong. Don't breathe on it. And certainly don't sneeze. The Mudhen also requires more concentration on the task of AAR-ing. Generally, I find that in the F-15E I really have to work more during formation flying (especially with the erratic AI) than in any other module I own (throttle management). Especially a decently loaded Mudhen (full tanks, two bags, 4 MK-84) going M 0.85 at 25K requires almost full military power, so it tends to jump in and out of burner. So, station keeping requires more work. In the Tomcat and Viper it's a breeze. I will check out what WinWing has in stock once the summer is over. I certainly could do with a better throttle setup.

What do you mean...you people?!

That is probably the problem. Seems like all bombs dropped in auto will fall long when flying straight and level. Maybe try again while in a shallow dive. Edit: on my first playthrough I encountered the same issue as you. Bomb went somewhere else entirely. Dropping while in a dive worked every time. Why it would even matter with an LGB, I don't know. Normally it absolutely shouldn't. But code is code and bugs are bugs. From the Patch Notes thread, June 22:

How do you drop? Do you fly straight and level?

I agree, switching to VR was like night and day. For pretty much every aspect.

Does Katie Sackhoff know?

Funny, for me it's the other way round. I find the Hornet to be a little too pitch-sensitive for my taste, making it a little bit harder to refuel in than the "chilled" Tomcat. The F-14 is very stable for me, but I have to admit, having a FFB stick makes trimming a lot (!) easier. So refueling in the Hornet for me is a more perishable skill than in the Tomcat or Viper. For me. from easiest to hardest: F-14 --> F-16 --> A-10C --> Hornet -> F-15E Strike Eagle. In the F-15E it's a little annoying to keep maintaining forward/aft position. You get a disconnect even if you creep just a little bit too far forward (second, but still "green", bar on the tanker's indicator). And if you drift too far back, it's harder/ takes longer to catch up than, say, in a Viper.

F-15 Strike Eagle on the C64. 1984-ish.

Yep, I've found that to be quite helpful, because my butterfingers are too slow to enter coordinates in real-time. Easting always get's me!