jubuttib

According to Chuck's guide, the "Weapon System Mode Selector" is the knob that selects between moving, fixed, etc. modes for the cannon. This one. What you're talking about is the "Unguided rocket and Gun Pods settings" in the manual. As for why you'd want individual buttons instead of just left/right, it's the same reason as why the 3 position flaps on the A-10 map to a 3 position switch on the Warthog throttle, not just "flaps up" and "flaps down". You have a switch that expresses X number of specific positions, you want them to actually be used. If the in-game switch has 5 positions and your switch has 5 positions, there's nothing unrealistic about mapping them one to one. Additionally as for why you'd want for example a 5 position switch instead of a two way infinite rotary encoder, it's the absolute vs. relative selection. When you put a 5-position switch into a specific position, you KNOW that it's in that position, usually even by feel. Encoders have really bad habits of sometimes not triggering a button press, sometimes triggering two, etc. (or just the game ignoring a short pulse like encoders often use), they might not have super clear steps, etc. If you need to select a specific setting _right now_, a switch with individual outputs is way better. Kinda like in an FPS game, it's more reliable to switch between your weapons by pressing the number keys than it is to use the mouse wheel. Can't find a command for it in dcs-interface's lists that have many more things than are shown in-game, so I doubt there is... =(

OK, some testing results: First attempt with Huey: Success. Both me and my buddy (in different choppers) could get a lock on the signal (after tuning multiple kHz off of the claimed frequency), though a hill caused it to take a fairly long while before we got it. Second attempt: Failure, video link coming in a bit. We started heading for Craven Moorehead, using frequency 350 kHz, and found it easily. When we started flying it was directing us somewhere Northeast, while in reality the target was well Southeast of us. By the time we show in the video we've been flying for a fair bit, and the ADF is directing us to fly almost exactly due East (the compass on my screen is out of sync, pilot's compass was showing the correct direction compared to F10 map and backup compass), while the target was at that point almost directly South of us. Third attempt: Failure. Buddy left and I switched to a Hip to try it out. First time trying to ADF in the Hip (only bought it yesterday), so maybe I did something wrong, but I couldn't get a signal to a target a mere 25 km away, on mostly flat ground, no significant hills. Had the ARK-9 selected, both main and reserve tuned to the frequency, COMP mode on, and HSI mode on the MW/ARK-9 mode (switch to the left). Tried using the fine tuning knobs on both channels, nothing.

We're going there again tonight (last night's excursion ended up in my friend overspeeding after going over a hill and going into retreating blade stall, and me getting shot down by a dang AK...), for revenge! We'll try it out.

Hopped in last night to have a gander, seems cool! Did have a little bit of trouble though. I tried doing CSAR with the Huey, and tuning into the pilots' ADF frequencies proved problematic. Using the frequencies listed via the F10 comms menu I never got a signal, and when I just scrolled around with the tuning I did pick up some signals, but they seemed to always be other, permanent beacons on the map. No idea if I did something wrong or if things just weren't working properly.

For self-lasing sure, but the Su-25T can buddy lase just fine. Stay a bit further out while lasing while your wingman goes for the drop.

Man, many ways to skin the cat in this thread. Depending on the situation I use all 4 channels (so ALT too), baro and radio altimeters, route and descent modes, turn to target, everything it has on offer. I only use FD when I'm in situations where I want very specific manual control (and when I do I leave the main 3 channels on, but make sure altitude is disabled), so in dangerous areas where I need to fly complex paths, hide behind buildings or hills, and when employing rockets or the cannon on aggressive attack runs. I almost never turn the FD on when I'm taking off, when on route to somewhere, coming to a pre-planned stop, or when using standoff weaponry, and only use it during landings for specific kinds of landings. Normally when approaching a roomy landing area I let the autopilot do most of the work of coming to a halt or going forward slowly, and if I'm feeling particularly lazy I'll even put it on auto-hover when I'm above my landing spot and use descent mode to touch down... Most of the time I'm in it the heli is basically flying itself, I'm usually spending my time between scanning the scenery and working the Shkval and the ABRIS.

I mean many probably will. I'm sure there are a significant portion of people who fly the Shark currently because it's the the only somewhat modern attack heli in the game, rather than specifically wanting to fly it, but eh, doesn't really matter. The Ka-50 has its fans, and for someone who doesn't like working with an AI helper and focuses on SP (or doesn't have anyone to team up with) it'll still be the only real option even after the Apache comes. I doubt it's really a question of "it's too old", there are plenty of people who'd want to have an original AH-1G HueyCobra, and the Ka-50 is a spaceship compared to that... A Ka-52 would be stonks though, even if personally I'm rooting more for an Mi-28 before it...

Personally I'm more surprised that even the Su-25T doesn't have laser guided bombs, despite all the TV and laser guided weaponry it does have access to. Agreed that having access to them would be nice, I think the only guided bombs that's for a pure REDFOR plane (so not counting the Jeff) right now is the KAB-500kr for the Su-25T? That combined with the CCIP and CCRP pippers on them being seemingly a bit off/inaccurate (CCRP especially) does hinder their capabilities for bombing missions quite a bit. SEAD, DEAD and anti-armor? Easy peasy, many tools. Accurately bombing stuff? Quite hard.

And Norwegian is a language, whereas Danish is a speech impediment. (Hello almost neighbors to the South West! I can't claim to really have a leg to stand on either, I speak Finnish...)

AH-1 Cobra would be something I'd really like, especially with the Kiowa being worked on. But I think it's kind of a "sure bet" eventually anyway, so not voting for it. Out of the "less likely" pile I'd really love the Mi-28, but as Silver_Dragon says it's unlikely it'll ever happen... =( But if the Denel Rooivalk had been in the vote I'd have voted for it IMMEDIATELY. Oh damn I completely blanked out on the WZ-10 being in there. THAT'S the one I'd want, though you're entirely right it's highly unlikely to be possible in any way, shape or form.

And December is a _target_, not a guarantee.

Can confirm that we've seen this happen online, the HSI gets stuck for the operator when doing a cold start. If I leave the seat and then get back in when the heli is running, it usually starts working.

I have tried this a few times on my end, and haven't really noticed a difference myself. Using the controls overlay the AP channels also appear to all be off when Petro takes the controls anyway, though I'm not sure if this is a realistic representation of what happens. The control inputs are shown, but all AP channels remain centered and static.

Thanks! Haven't been able to find it yet for whatever reason, but I shall try, try again. Still in the EU region right? Would narrow it down somewhat. EDIT: Or, well, Europe region at any rate...

Hello hello, just wanted to ask if this server is still active and using the same IP address as before (94.23.215.203:30108 was mentioned)? Ran into this via the "Virpil collective honest review" video, and the heli missions you guys have seemed really cool. I haven't been able to check havoc-company.com (which was listed on the YouTube page) nor have I been able to connect to the server today using the above IP address, so was wondering if something has changed, if it's possibly down, or I might just be barking up the wrong tree altogether.

Shame. Not that it would have been an exhilarating ride anyway.

Relates to the above point, the auto-hover will try to keep you steady even in wind, but it might run out of control authority. Trimming closer to a hover helps with this too.

Fair, it could be caused by the yaw channel, but I don't think it's supposed to, since none of the other channels seem to affect trim from what I can tell.

The problem is that the yaw autopilot channel was fighting against it (it was trying to correct to the right), and turning the yaw channel off didn't actually return it to center. So I'm thinking it's something else, or a bug in the current implementation.

To my understanding the "do this" parameters for the autopilot are set either when turning the channels on, or by using the Trimmer Button. Hold the trimmer button down, and when you let it go the heli should try to maintain whatever the flight parameters were when you let go. What about the 4-way trimmer though? Currently at least if you use it a lot, the autopilot kind of ignores it, and tries to go against it. Lets say I wanted to slow down a bit by lightly raising the nose using the trim backwards command, the autopilot will try to push forwards to counteract this. Is this as intended, and correct? I guess no-one ever claimed that the 4-way trim functionality is tied to the autopilot system in any way. Would just have been nice if I could use them co-operatively, rather than them fighting against each other.

Track file (larger than 5 MB): https://anonfiles.com/Hf3058R1u3/Hind_mystery_death_zip Just confused as to what happened here. My random damage is off and I don't think birds were in the mission (might be wrong about that one), and as far as I can tell I didn't cause damage to the heli while flying around engaging targets. At the end I was flying in a mostly straight line towards an aircraft carrier, intending to land on it, gradually using trim back and collective to slow down in a very gentle way. Suddenly my left engine catches fire out of nowhere. I start to prepare for an emergency landing, and then my right engine seems to go out as well, and shortly after my rotor blades snap, and I plummet into the sea. This was very confusing to me.

I noticed this today while practicing a bit with the Hind, for some reason the rudder trim on the Hind has a tendency to drift to the left over time, or during some maneuvers (can't identify which ones though). Over the mission I noticed that the rudder didn't always come back to center when I let go of my rudder pedals, and I had to reset trim to get everything lined up again. I must have done this at least 3 times during the mission, but it kept happening. NOTE: Rudder trim is OFF in my special settings. This also happened to my friend yesterday when we tested the Hind in the same mission, but in multiplayer. When he came back for a landing, he found that he couldn't get the rudder all the way to the right, and had trouble keeping the Hind from spinning on the way down. He also has rudder trim turned off. Checking in Windows, the actual functioning of our rudder pedals seems to be fine, they centered the same as ever, and reach both 0 and 100% inputs, so no issues there. The Hind is the only aircraft in DCS that has given us issues like this so far, across FC3, A-10C II, Ka-50, UH-1H, Gazelle, F-16C, JF-17 and M-2000C. Track file (too big to fit as an attachment): https://anonfiles.com/Hf3058R1u3/Hind_mystery_death_zip Named as "mystery death", because I saved the track file for what happened at the end, where suddenly my engines caught fire and my rotor blade broke minutes before reaching the aircraft carrier I was intending to land on, without any real cause that I could see.

I can see it now: Missions to take down enemy electrical infrastructure, but all weapons are disabled in the heli...

On the hover situation: This can easily happen if you engage auto-hover while not already trimmed for a decent hover. The auto-hover functionality uses the normal autopilot systems, and as such is limited to IIRC around 15-20% control authority, i.e. it can only use about 20% of the range of the cyclic etc. that you can. Sometimes this means that if you're not already near a hover trim, the AP system can't move the controls enough to maintain a steady hover. If this happens, push in the trim button, try to get as close to a stable hover as you can, then let go of the trim button. If you're already near a stable hover, the AP doesn't have to work as hard to maintain it.