Wychmaster

Actually I did: I have never fired a 50cal in my life, nor any other mounted machine gun, only some assault rifles. I can imagine that it is really hard to aim, when you are driving over uneven terrain. But unless somebody who actually fired a 50cal at a chopper or something comparable makes a statement here, we can only guess. I won't argue that the AI certainly cheats in ignoring some real life limitations of the weapon systems that you mentioned. But it is not godlike as claimed. If they shoot a lot, you might get hit. Maybe the percentage is higher than in real life but if you give the AI time to fire 200+ bullets at you, there might also be an issue with your approach, don't you think? The biggest problem in my opinion is that the AI sees you instantly, reacts instantly, has no fear of dying and partially ignores LOS blocking terrain. Not the overall accuracy. Agreed, but I didn't had much problems when doing that, only when messing with AAA units. I can test it and post a track if I have the time. Just to get a solid base for a discussion.

I like modern MBTs, favouring the Abrams, Leopard 2 series and the Merkava. Though, on the shooting range, pure fun-wise, nothing beats the Tunguska

I agree that the AI sight is a big problem. It gets more problematic the closer you get to the ground. I am playing a lot of Combined Arms and you have to design missions extremely careful to be fun. If a T-72 kills you with a laser-guided AT-11 even though 2 forests with dense vegetation are between you and him, the fun gets killed too. However, the accuracy of the units is not laser like. I was under the impression myself, until I had a discussion in this thread: It mostly boils down to the AI being able to spot you extremely fast and seeing you without any problems at any weather and light condition. That might give one the impression the AIs aiming is godlike, but it really isn't. Also note, that many modern vehicles have good optics, FLIR and targeting computers. If you hover for too long over the same spot or fly in a straight line, you are basically inviting a tank to shoot you down, and it is not particularly hard if some constraints are met. ^^^ I think this is a good summary. I think the problem is that most DCS pilots are used to fixed wing aircrafts where you kill your targets from long distances with enough reaction time to go defensive in case a SAM shoots you. Doesn't work for choppers. Recon is key to survive down in the mud. I think it mostly depends on the mission designer to always keep in mind how threatening the assets are that he uses. A Tunguska or MANPADs can still "be fun" if used wisely.

I would guess so. Wags mentioned somewhere that the cold start video is probably the last one before the release. According to this post, we are still missing 6 mini updates: So when we see George, its time to get exited. Based on the current update pace and how things went during the Hind release, I would expect 3-4 weeks from now until it drops. My bet, Wednesday 16.04.2022. (originally I said friday until I realized thats a bad day for a release )

Yeah, that's why I put it into quotation marks. Still trying to catch up with all the terminology. Thanks, to confirm my suspicion So to my understanding, the Nav point as acquisition source sets the range for the computation and the LOS cross sets the elevation. Then the rockets are fired in a way so that their ballistic trajectory crosses the LOS at the calculated distance. If you aim shorter, which is actually less distance, the rockets will impact slightly above the LOS cross because the "calculated" impact point lies somewhere below the earth (cause the LOS distance is shorter than the actual calculated distance). That's about right? Well, I never said it is part of the calculation. But it indicates in conjunction with the I-beam in which direction you need to correct your azimuth. If both are aligned, the azimuth is correct. Again, that's the way how it was demonstrated. Also, according to the video, headtracker and I-beam do not need to be aligned with the LOS cross. They weren't in the video, still the rockets were pretty close to the LOS cross. The azimuth difference seems to be caused by the side movement as described in my initial post. It should also be possible to align all 3 by just flying with a non-centered ball.

Additional note: The jittering seems to be caused by the stabilizers. When turned off, I can't perceive any jittering. So I guess the stabilizer correction that counters the rotation of the chassis (initiated by the AI) is somehow delayed to the next frame.

Well, that seems to be the case for "coop mode", but not the "nav range mode" that was shown in the first two attack runs and that I was referring to. Also Wags mentions the headtracker being the azimuth reference for nav range mode at the beginning. Watch the video from 6:16. At 6:46 he says: "... we are gonna be using that as our primary reference for aiming in azimuth..." Additionally, if you look at the symbols the moment he shoots (~12:53), the I beam and headtracker are aligned, while the LOS cross is right of them. The missiles impact point is still more or less where the LOS cross was when he fired. I am not a real Apache Pilot and can't tell how it works in the real thing. I can just repeat what was shown in the video and how it seems to be implemented in DCS right now. Maybe @Wags could enlighten our confused minds. Also I am pretty sure we will get an explanatory video from Casmo soon

Maybe I get some things mixed up but here is how I understood it: By selecting waypoint 2, he sets the target area. I am not sure if this step is mandatory for rocket employment (to calculate ranges?) or if one can skip that. Have to rewatch the video if Wags mentions something. With your head, you tell the computer where the target is you actually want to hit. Now the part with aiming right of the I-Beam and Head-tracker: He is flying a "centered Ball". That means that the helicopter is constantly drifting right. He also mentions that earlier in the video. Why this happens is explained in this really nice video from our community member vsTerminus: Now because of that, the rockets will also have a velocity component to the right. So they will impact right from where the aircrafts nose is pointing the moment you push/pull the trigger. Or the other way around: You have to put your Nose left of where you want to hit to compensate for the drift. Since the I-beams alignment reference in this mode is the aircrafts nose direction, you have to align it with the head tracker. But I am not sure if you have to place it directly over the diamond. I guess you can also place it below or above as long as the I-beam is solid and aligned with the aircrafts nose. It's just easier to see if it is directly over the diamond. As I said, thats how I understand it. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Aiming the sensors at the target and use the laser to get a range.

AP rounds (tankers call them "Sabot" -> APFSDS = Armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot) are pure kinetic energy projectiles. The energy they have when they leave the barrel is "all" they got to penetrate tank armor. HEAT (High explosive anti tank) also penetrate using kinetic energy, but the energy is "stored in the projectile". On impact, a detonation transforms a steel cone into a hot metal dart with extremely high kinetic energy that pierces through armor. HEAT is just an acronym and has nothing to do with thermal heat. You can read about this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-explosive_anti-tank So because AP rounds are designed for maximal kinetic energy, they fly a lot faster and have a lower trajectory than HEAT rounds. HEAT has the benefit, that its kinetic energy is always the same while sabot rounds get weaker with distance. Which round to choose depends on the target and distance. Against armor, I have read somewhere that you use AP up to 3500m and HEAT above that. But in DCS I haven't really noticed AP getting that much weaker than HEAT on max range shots. Also, the higher trajectory and travel time of HEAT make it easier to miss. So I use AP against armor up to the max range where the laser gives me a valid firing solution. Against soft targets, you should always use HEAT because of the explosion effect. AP tends to fly through those targets without doing much damage. I don't know if there are any ground targets in DCS where this might happen, but I have seen it several times when shooting at choppers. They have much better damage models. Well, in DCS it is actually 5km and I think in real-life tanks they get even further nowadays. But that is something a real tanker might answer. Anyways, you should really get used to the range-finder, tracking mode, and mouse axis mode. I can't stress enough how important the combination of those three is to get good at gunnery. While the shots get a bit harder above 4000m, I have no problem hitting moving targets at 3000m while driving myself with maximum speed and I wouldn't think of me as a particularly good gunner. I just know how it works. So it might be useful to know how those "backup sights" work in case we get better damage models and the laser might be damaged or you want to shoot a heli without triggering its laser warning system. But apart from that, you should always "Laze and Blaze" I am not expecting any frequent updates, because ED has so much else to do right now. I am confident, that they will continue CA after some other projects are finally finished but I think we are talking about years. I also hope that we will see full fidelity tanks in the future Regarding the documentation: I think that CA is really a hidden gem and most people will actually like it, if they know how to use it properly. Therefore, I have started to write a vehicle guide to show people everything there is to know on driving and fighting in vehicles. Maybe I will also make a video series on that. Sadly, most content you find on youtube is not really helpful in learning CA "the right way". If you have any other questions, feel free to ask EDIT: By the way, I made a small mistake in y previous post. You have to use the imaginary line on top of the horizontal marks as elevation. Maybe that's why my first AP shot missed

Really? Com'on! This is a military sim forum. They are obviously talking about this beauty: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M61_Vulcan Noobs... Joking aside. I am really excited about the Apache release. Also hope multi-core, Vulkan and the dynamic campaign aren't too far away. Maybe some additional love for Combined Arms and I am more than happy.

Well, for a release in February its 1 Video every 2 days... (under the assumption that the cold start video will be the last before the release) If Wags manages that, I will sponsor the team a 10l beer keg.

With the recent chain gun mini-update, I am quite optimistic, that we might see it in the remaining 2 weeks of this month. Since the 28th is a Monday and a patch on Monday is rather unusal (IIRC), it might also be the 1th or 2th of March, but I guess we are finally in the 2 weeks time frame. (This is pure speculation of mine based on personal assumptions and the info we have )

I have some experience with Multi-Threading and OpenGL. Vulkan is still on my todo list but I have read some articles. So don't take anything as fact that I say about Vulkan. Also, since I am not involved in the code development of DCS, I might "overlook"/forget important aspects. This out of the way: The answer regarding framerate is as always: it depends. One important factor is the hardware we are looking at. There can be several bottlenecks like RAM, CPU, or GPU and the communication between them (bandwidth). All those pieces can also have their own internal bottlenecks as well and the question is which boundaries DCS is hitting on a certain hardware combination. So the total benefit might vary a lot from system to system Anyways, since DCS is currently more or less a single core engine, the biggest bottleneck is probably the CPU on almost all systems. Assuming that the CPU workload distribution scales well in DCS, you could in theory get a performance gain close to the number of cores you have. BUT you will most likely run into another bottleneck first (like your GPU getting to its limits). Speaking of the GPU. A current problem of DCS being single-core might be that the GPU stalls (does nothing) when the CPU is drowning in work. It depends on the CPU to tell it what to do. So if you are running large missions and your frame rate drops even though you are sitting in the desert, it is because the CPU isn't able to keep the GPU busy. This is where multi-threading support will make a huge difference. On the other hand, if you fly on an empty map with nothing going on, multi-threading will most likely not help that much here because we can assume that the CPU workload is minimal and it has plenty of time to feed the GPU *[1]. Now getting to Vulkan. To get the maximum frame rate, our GPU needs to be running 100% of the time without waiting for data. It also shouldn't spend any time on anything else then stuff related to rendering *[2]. To my knowledge, Vulkans main benefit is that it gives you much better control over the GPU and also supports multi-threading. Older APIs like OpenGL could only be used inside of a single thread. The problem here is that you might want to do a lot of preprocessing for the GPU, but if you do that in multiple threads, you have to sync them with the "OpenGL thread" which almost always results in someone waiting and doing nothing. With Vulkan, each thread can communicate its results directly to the GPU. Regarding the control: Older APIs like OpenGL do some tedious setup stuff automatically for the programmer. The benefit is less code to write and worry about. The drawback is that the way it is implemented by OpenGL is very restrictive and most likely not optimal for your usecase, especially when we are talking about high-end engines. So Vulkan will help to keep the GPU at max and might get us some smaller performance boosts, but we are not talking about huge numbers. I would expect something between 10-20% based on the articles I read and under the assumption that the current engine is already highly optimized. The real deal will be multi-threading. But one indirect consequence of Vulkan might be that ED rewrites old legacy code more efficiently during the update process, which might also yield some more FPS. As far as I know the rewriting was the main reason for the "miracles" Vulkan did to some other games, not the API itself. Conclusion If you are mainly doing sightseeing in the Huey, I would expect moderate frame rate improvements. Maybe 10-30 percent. The real boost will come if you run a full scale war scenario with many aircrafts and ground assets on dense maps like syria. Ideally, you will have the same frame rate as on an empty map and the only bottleneck should be your GPU. *[1] This is not necessarily true in complex software like a flightsim with high end aerodynamics and system modelling *[2] it is possible that DCS does some computations on the GPU to take some workload from the single CPU

Thanks for the Info. Didn't find a report when I searched for it Anyways, good to know that you are aware of it.

@salsantana I have to check if what I am going to say is really how it works in the T-90, but IIRC you can adjust the distance setting of you reticle using the "pos1" and "end" keys. The horizontal line has to be placed over the correct distance marker for the ammo you want to fire. I will check it later and give you an update. EDIT: As said, you can use the "Pos 1" and "End" keys to adjust your calibrated range. Just bring the horizontal line to the correct distance mark. For AP rounds you need to use the marks on the left side. For HE, use the right ones with "O" below them. Don't get confused by the "H" of the other set of marks. It doesn't refer to HE. The letter of the currently selected round is also displayed in the black box at the bottom center. When you adjust the sight, you will notice that a set of horizontally aligned marks moves up and down too. Those marks help you with the lead but more importantly, the horizontal line through their centers is the elevation you need to use. For a static target put the intersection point of this imaginary line and the vertical line over the target and fire. In the images below, I fired an AP and an HE round at targets that are 3000m away. You can see how I aimed and were the bullets impacted. Note that there is some random dispersion. That's why the AP round was slightly off. The second shot hit, put I forgot to make a screenshot. If you don't know the distance, you can use the marks on the lower right. Bring them over your target and try to fit it between one set of marks. The number above it is the distance times 100 in meters. It is calibrated for tank sized targets. One thing to note: The procedure I described is the "backup". You have a laser range finder that automatically adjusts the gun elevation (default key "L") so that you you just need to place the center mark over the target to actually hit it. For automatic lead computation use "tracking mode" (right shift + L) and mouse axis mode (middle mouse button). If you move your reticle at the correct speed so that it stays over the target, the correct lead is automatically added the moment you press the fire button. So just keep the target under the reticle, lase and fire. Can't be any easier. Another important thing: If you want to use the "backup procedure" for any reason (like battle damage, which is currently not simulated), you have to reset the laser range (right ctrl + L). Otherwise you need to subtract the distance from your calibrated distance, but this isn't very accurate because the required elevation for 4000m isn't 2 times the elevation for 2000m EDIT2: The markings on your reticle line are the distances for your coax machine gun. Press "left control + space" to fire it (secondary weapon). In contrast to other tanks (western?), the coax can't be selected as primary weapon and thus, you can't use the laser range finder and tracking mode for it. But note, that the gun elevation is set by the range-finder and the coax is influenced by it too. So you have to reset the laser range first (right ctrl+L) when using the coax. Otherwise, the marks do not represent the correct distance. Also, watch out that a launch elevation is automatically added when you select the missile rounds. So don't use the coax when you have those selected.

Make sure that the "late activation" checkbox is unchecked for those units. Also, upload the mission or a track replay so that we can have a look whats wrong. I don't have this problem. Do you use any mods?

The F-14 has some disadvantages compared to the Viper or the Hornet. Most of it comes from much better situational awareness in the other fighters. You have no helmet mounted display, the HUD offers only limited information and the MFDs of the other fighters also help them keeping SA because of some nice pages. The F-14 is not able to carry the AIM-120s as an medium range option, which is more or less a fire and forget weapon (when it goes active). You just have the semi active AIM-7 which is pretty useless against an opponent with AMRAAMS. But you can carry the active guided, long-range AIM-54 as an alternative. However, I don't know how it compares to the AIM-120 regarding its probability of kill, but you have a range advantage and you also have the better radar. In a dogfight, the F-14 seems to do pretty well in the right hands, but she is much more challenging than the fly by wire jets. You can easily lose control if not paying attention. Overall I would say the F-14 can do well in PvP (havn't tried PvP with her myself) if you play to its advantages. Maybe watch some Growling Sidewinder Videos on YouTube to see what the jets can do in the hands of somebody who knows how to do it.

Have you tried connecting to one of your friends or a public server? Does that work?

Die Bo-105 wird mittlerweile offiziell von RAZBAM entwickelt und nicht mehr von Polychop

Thanks for the Info. I will test it this WE. The good thing is that it seems like they are working at least a bit on CA.

My cat isn't amused when I occupy his throne for my silly games I would have build something more permanent, but due to space restrictions I have to be able to disassemble everything after flying By the way, how is the "sticktion" on your damper solution? I found it too high if I tightend the builtin bolts on the collective so that it stayed in place in all positions. Fine corrections were a bit hard that way since it started jumping once you applied enough pressure to overcome the friction. With a counter weight, you can almost set it to no friction at all, but that is a bit too sensitive so I retightened the bolts to have just "the right amount". Now it feels really nice and smooth. Are you happy with the current amount of friction in your setup? Well, the one on the picture is more interested in cuddling. Worst thing about it is that he likes to jump onto my lap when I wear VR goggles and try to perform precision landings between buildings

If you remove the hardpoint from a chopper and switch the type to another helicopter without this option, you can not rearm it in the mission (if no loadout was selected in the ME). Do the following: - place an UH-1 on an airfield - uncheck the external hardpoint option - select client as skill level - change type to Mi-24p - do NOT change the loadout (it should be empty by default) - start the mission and try to reload If you click on the stations and create a custom loadout, everything seems normal. The crew confirms your request, but after a few seconds they say "rearming complete" without loading anything. If you select a preset, the station tabs stay blank. In case you set a loadout in the mission editor, everything seems to work normal again. If you switch the type back to the UH-1 (if loadout wasn't changed in the ME), you will see that external hardpoints is still unchecked. I attached a track and a mission file that I created as described above. Unfortunately, I can't see the rearming menu in the track but maybe you will see what happens in a dev environment. Otherwise, just try to rearm and see what happens. I have also tested it with an Mi-8 and Ka-50. Same problem. bug_hardpoints.miz bug_hardpoints.trk

Yesterday, BigNewy wrote that they are planning for end of february: Even if it gets delayed again, I think it won't be later than the Steam dummy date.

The current AI LOS is a topic of its own but I was referring to the fact that the AI LOS is currently not affected by clouds. If the smoke uses the same tech, it might have the same problems. Against AI, popping smoke would then be a bit pointless. But fixing it for the clouds is already on EDs radar.