jubuttib

I would have paid the ~10€ upgrade price just for the missile warning system (whether you use auto flaring or not). That's the moneymaker for me. It's easy to miss a single soldier with an IGLA standing somewhere in the trees (especially since you don't get any kind of FLIR), and in the past you used to just be doing your job merrily, and all of a sudden you were dead, with no warning. At least now you get a warning and a chance to do something. I also love this feature in the Apache.

You can still make them work, but it is a faff... =(

Yes, and the way to do it is how Tarres said. When the helicopter is placed in the mission editor, you can select the configuration in the right most tab (...). Selecting the 2011 version will remove the MWS and ODS, will put the laser warning system back, remove access to the extra pylons for the IGLAs, and probably some other things I'm missing. You still get the new INU modeling (for better or worse). Not totally 100%, you _can_ edit the files to use the BS3 instead, but that is of course a massive hassle for someone who just wants to use it...

Well the BS3 can be set to the "Version 2011" configuration with the laser warning system, no ODS, so that's normal.

Campaigns and multiplayer are probably the main reasons you'd want to keep it even if you could uninstall. Which I'm not sure you can, the BS3 installation folder is smaller than the BS2 one, they might be sharing stuff.

The fact that it has the IGLAs on would suggest it's the "Version 2022", so should have MWS. Or can you enable the pylons for the 2011 forcefully?

Hypothetical, but when we saw some of the early shots of the BS3, it was looking quite different, had the DIRCM eggs etc. Then the Russian govt got in the way, and things changed. It wouldn't surprise me if they're what's preventing a more realistic implementation, and ED didn't want the work on the systems to go to waste so added a somewhat plausible implementation. Just talking outta my ass tho.

I'm loving the update in just about every regard (I was fully aware what kind of a prototype frankenheli it was becoming, thankfully reverting back to BS2 spec is super easy), but the INU alignment when using Normal or Precision alignment, and stand-by ADI seem to be completely borked. There are several discussions about the INU issues, and I don't think anyone has yet found real consistency with it, right now the most basic accelerated alignment + manual heading correction seems to give the best results. That, or starting hot. Both drift a fair bit though (something like 1.5 km per hour of flight at 210 km/h is what I'm seeing when doing a figure of 8 pattern), especially when you're making harder turns (square pattern was more stable than the figure of 8 pattern, probably because of the less aggressive turns?). The backup ADI just drifts out of whack during turns, and no amount of resetting it helps. It's useless right now.

After testing rrasfly2's new method, which didn't work for me, I ran tests with a "start from parking, hot" helicopter with the "Normal Alignment with Gyrocompassing" selected in the ME, and wanted to compare that to the accelerated alignment. I also tested this on a figure of 8 pattern this time. Short story, didn't really see any real differences in accuracy between the two, both were much better than trying to do precision alignment yourself from what I could see. The figure of 8 pattern seems to make the INU drift more and faster vs. just doing a square pattern (the waypoints were the same, just the order was different). I recorded the PVI-800 self coords vs. the ABRIS self coords after each turn, and sometimes before as well, to try and gauge whether the INU drifts more when turning or when flying straight. Used the same website I mentioned a couple of posts before for measurements. Right now it seems that the worst thing for accuracy are counterclockwise turns, but honestly the whole thing is such a mess that it's hard to make any solid conclusions... Here are my notes. First is whether measurement was taken after/before however many turns I'd done, then how long I'd flown by then (approximate, not exact but close enough), what the heading was AFTER the turn, what the drift was at that point, and what direction the previous turn had been in (CW = clockwise, CCW = counterclockwise): Hot helicopter using "Normal Alignment with Gyrocompassing": After 1 turn, 5 minutes, E = ~100 meters CW After 2 turns, 10 minutes, SW = 333 meters CW After 3 turns, 15 minutes, E = 543 meters CCW After 4 turns, 20 minutes, NW = 841 meters CCW After 5 turns, 25 minutes, E = 1 021 meters CW After 6 turns, 30 minutes, SW = 1 218 meters CW After 7 turns, 35 minutes, E = 1 368 meters CCW After 8 turns, 40 minutes, NW = 1 540 meters CCW Before 9 turns, 45 minutes = 1 660 meters After 9 turns, 45 minutes, E = 1 563 meters CW Cold helicopter using accelerated alignment done using APU power: After 1 turn, 5 minutes, E = 732 meters CW After 2 turns, 10 minutes, SW = 623 meters CW After 3 turns, 15 minutes, E = 834 meters CCW After 4 turns, 20 minutes, NW = 1 116 meters CCW After 5 turns, 25 minutes, E = 1 273 meters CW After 6 turns, 30 minutes, SW = 190 meters CW After 7 turns, 35 minutes, E = 1 230 meters CCW After 8 turns, 40 minutes, NW = 1 229 meters CCW Before 9 turns, 45 minutes = 1 160 meters After 9 turns, 45 minutes, E = 1 529 meters CW After 10 turns, 50 minutes, SW = 403 meters CW Before 11 turns, 55 minutes = 414 meters After 11 turns, 55 minutes, E = 1 871 meters CCW And no, the drift going down from over 1 km to just a couple of hundred meters after turns 6 and 10 in the second test are not typos, I checked the numbers multiple times and they're correct as given by the game. (EDIT2: The difference was smaller at first, but every time the helicopter turned to SW, the error got smaller. Interesting.) EDIT: Also noticed that the autopilot has SEVERE problems making left turns vs. right turns. After it has turned left, it then tries to straighten the helicopter out, but uses so much anti-torque to the right that the nose turns hard to the right while the helicopter is still banking left. This doesn't seem to happen after right hand turns. Oh, and here's an image of what the flown path on the "accelerated alignment using APU power" flight looked like after about 50 minutes of flying:

Trying to test this right now, and am seeing a fair bit of drift within the first 10-20 minutes (around 1.3 km when comparing PVI-800 vs. ABRIS self-coordinates). Could you upload a video of how exactly you do your startup? EDIT: 2.3 km after 30 minutes.

Certainly from what I've seen the quick and dirty accelerated alignment is giving great results with fairly low drift. The positions of waypoints don't seem to be entirely accurate vs. ABRIS, but then again the PVI-800 is working with tenths of a minute accuracy, vs. ABRIS at hundreths of a minute. Using coordinates of Novorossiysk as an example, 1° of longitude would be ~79km, so one minute would be 79 000m/60 = ~1 317m, one tenth of that = ~131.7 meters, one hundredth = ~13.17 meters. So an offset of somewhere around 100 meters between ABRIS and PVI-800 doesn't seem too bad. (Please someone check my math and tell me if I made a mistake. I used LAT 44.712993418734854 and LONG 37.76625581947498, and this website to get the distance between the points: https://gps-coordinates.org/distance-between-coordinates.php)

In a pinch you can manually edit the files to include the BS3, but that's not really the greatest user experience...

Ach, to be fair what I meant was that it prioritizes emptying out the outer ones first, but does shoot from both. I have this image in my head of my friend's Hind in a recent session having like 3 rockets left on the outer pods, but most of the ones still in the inner pods. The Mi-8 also does things in a funky way, if you do small taps of the weapon release button it seems to only shoot part of a "burst" of rockets, and towards the end you might find that sometimes when you press the button it doesn't shoot anything, then you press again and it shoots a couple of stragglers, etc.

I'm almost certain, though not 100%, that it does exactly the opposite, firing outboard racks first.

Lots of discussion about this elsewhere too. Precise alignment gets out of whack real fast, while I've had near perfect results with just the bog standard accelerated alignment. Precise alignment after ~1 hour of flying with autopilot route mode, desired track mode. Accelerated alignment (with manual heading correction after INU alignment) after doing the same.

Also applies when you go MAP -> ERBL -> NAV, get stuck in north up. Gotta cycle through the modes with the right most button to get back to normal.

While we're on the subject of this, I would also appreciate an implicit T0 if neither T1 or TV Fix is being pressed. I did "solve" it for my own use case by setting up Joystick Gremlin to press a virtual button when I let go of the trigger, but would be nice if it was supported straight up. EDIT: Also fwiw, if we get the implicit T1 when TV fix is pressed, that'll save one button press for the Maverick, but you do kinda need the T1 binding when using the radar. So you might still want to bind it _somewhere_, even if it's not as accessible as TV Fix.

Just put it on anonfiles or something. FWIW I get the warning light popping up even during shallow turns when using accelerated alignment, and as you say I never get it with precise alignment. Despite that though the accelerated alignment drifts WAY less. I've also noticed that the backup ADI keeps going on the wonk even when letting the autopilot fly the helicopter, with fairly nonchalant turns. Sometimes during my testing it just went all over the place after only a couple of turns and never recovered, sometimes it actually managed to sort itself out after a full lap. Gonna also test what happens when if I fly a figure of 8 instead of constant clockwise patterns.

Startup videos for how I did my tests, "fast" and "Precise" with APU power. Precise without APU power is basically the same, except that instead of turning on the batteries etc. I just connect the ground power and turn on external DC and AC.

They did explain elsewhere that Wag's comments were about using what they've learned with Petrovich and George to make smarter AI wingmen for the Ka-50. So no, not a two-seater Ka-50.

The manual does say that you should only do the magnetic compensation when airborne, as there can be disturbances on the ground that affect it. FWIW I have had the magnetic heading correction work quite well without using double value. I'll try to record a video tomorrow.

Yeah, interesting question. I guess it could be similar to the Hind, which has microswitches on the pedals, you can push them in to tell the autopilot you're intending to change heading. Not seeing those visually in the cockpit but I guess it could in theory be a similar system? Doubt this would work for me though, since I have unsprung pedals, so they're _always_ pushed.

Haven't noticed this behavior, brakes have been quite effective on my end. =/

Yup, but since it wasn't mentioned in the guide then I'm not doing it for the purposes of the test. EDIT: oooh you mean in terms of drift, since the track doesn't actually show where the waypoints are... Gotcha.

Oh, and here are the tracks. Two runs with the 3 minute alignment with APU, one Precision with APU and one Precision with just ground power. And just for kicks, here are also the TACView files for the runs, put them up on Anonfiles due to size: https://anonfiles.com/D8Nf11N6y9/Ka-50_drift_tests_TACView_zip The 4 soldiers are there to mark the waypoints. Ka-50 INU drift test tracks.zip