Gunthrek

Links point to .zip files that include the campaign and mission files. Not sure why you'd be getting anything word pad related.

You can open the mission file and extract them from the KNEEBOARD folder if you wish.

Made a four part flight school campaign for the Hornet available from the DCS User file website. This campaign is distributed as is and will NOT be updated. Block 1 - Navigation: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3342223/ Block 2 - Air to Ground: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3342224/ Block 3 - Air to Air: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3342225/ Block 4 - Carrier Operations: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3342226/

Thanks! I may look into live voice actors in the future.

Greetings! I've been working on a four part flight school campaign for the Hornet, mostly because while the provided lessons give you the mechanics of how to do a task, it doesn't really provide you with a lot of context, and I really learn better when things are in the flow you'd normally use them. The campaign is nearly complete and I'm in the final testing phase, is fully narrated with a natural sounding AI voice, and takes you from zero experience all the way to ground attack, air to air, and carrier ops. It has about 37 missions, each focusing on an individual function of the aircraft, but approaching it holistically to get you in the habit of taking off, navigating, managing weapons, etc. Each of the land based missions require you to execute a Case 1 recovery at the end to get you comfortable with it before moving to the carrier, complete with trigger zones to detect if you made a good trap. With all the time and effort I've put into it, I'd love to see about getting it posted on the web store for both ED and Steam, but I'm not really sure how to go about doing that. The standard search engines haven't been very helpful in that regard. Any information would be helpful. For anyone interested in the campaign itself, I have videos of pretty much every lesson over on my channel. Just head over to YouTube and search for Gunthrek and F/A-18 Hornet Flight School. They're all in playlists, so should be easy to find. Once I finish the remaining QC and figure out a sales platform, I'll try to remember to update this so those of you who want to try it out can find it. Thanks!

So after some research, I learned how to set snap views and they seem to work fine when I press the Win+Numpad key that was saved to the associated slot. The problem is that it only stays looking at that view while holding the key combination down and returns to the previous view when I release it. I tried the "snap view toggle" option using RCTRL+Numpad0, but all that does is do a bit of a zoom in and the snap views still work as if I'm in normal view mode. I tried using just straight numpad keys in that mode per the suggestion of another post I found, but there's no response. I imagine I'm missing a part of the setup, or there's an associated keybind I'm missing?

I typically ALT+TAB out of it once the splash logo comes up, but no matter how many times I do it, it's like the software is trying to center the mouse on the screen...regardless of whether it's the active window or not. I have to keep tabbing out several times until the main menu loads. Even then, every once in a while the mouse will go haywire for a couple of seconds if DCS isn't the active window. It's the only program that does it to me, so I'm assuming they're trying to do some kind of mouse relocation or something, but they didn't limit it to when DCS is the active window.

It would be much appreciated if the developers could look into the code and figure out what it is that requires the mouse be grabbed while loading the game. It's super frustrating to be trying to do something else while waiting for the menu to load, only to have my mouse cursor snatched away from what I'm doing over and over. Thanks!

I finally stumbled across a sort of answer for this, though the answer kind of disgusts me. Apparently the stages are intended for stepping through the campaign, and the missions window is for providing a list of missions that are to be selected based on the outcome of the previous stage. So if I understand it correctly, you're only going to do one mission per stage, and if you put more than one mission in a stage it bases which mission you play on the score from the previous stage. So you might have one mission that is available if you scored a 60-70, a different mission for 70-80, etc. I suppose this is intended to allow for diversity in playthroughs, which is definitely cool, but it's a bit frustrating that there doesn't appear to be a way to create blocks of missions the way I was hoping it worked.

Greetings, I'm a bit confused by the campaign builder. I'm trying to create a campaign with four separate stages, each with several missions. From the UI, it seems like I should just be able to create a stage in the upper window, name it, and then add my missions to the lower window. However, when I do this, clicking the restart campaign button cycles randomly through the missions. I'm also not certain how to mark missions as complete so they advance the campaign. My understanding is you add an "END MISSION" event and mark the player's coalition as the winner. This seems to work in the mission editor to actually end the mission, but then when I try to run it in the actual campaign after building it, the END MISSION event doesn't seem to trigger at all. Is there a good tutorial on how to use the campaign builder, preferably with tips and tricks to avoid some of these things that seem like bugs, but are probably just not understanding the mechanics of the builder? Thanks!

Gotcha! Thanks for the help!

Will do. I've been looking through those pages, but I can't find anything that deals with trigger zones created in the ME, so I'm also unsure how to proceed. I don't suppose you have any insight into referencing cockpit switch states?

This is precisely my problem, lol. I definitely tried searching for things, but all I ever get are completely unrelated topics. Funny thing is that I read through and completed the tutorial you created as the first thing I did when I decided maybe I should give LUA a look, but you stopped short of showing how to reference a trigger zone that has already been created in the ME. I'm not really looking to get into anything super complex with the coding. I want to place units and triggers in the ME because it's a GUI, then rather than using a million triggers to step through mission tutorials, I'd like to just detect certain states and pop messages up on the screen. So for cockpit related things, I'm using the I/P push button to step to the next tutorial part. I'd like to be able to detect when the button is pushed and have a specified variable increment to the next step so the next block of text and voice is displayed. It would also be great if I could pop up blocks of text when the aircraft enters a named trigger zone from the ME so I can just do it all in the script file. I think this is all I'll really need for the entire training campaign I'm developing, and I really don't want to do hours of research to do two very simple things.

Are there any guides out there that show how do to very basic things without requiring a deep dive in to full LUA? I realize that most serious programmers have a strong desire for people to learn the basics before dipping their toes into coding, but I'm a "learn by doing" kind of person, and to be perfectly frank it's a little frustrating to be expected to read through hours of material when all I really want to do are a few basic tasks that only require a few lines of code. I'm literally just trying to detect a player aircraft entering trigger zones and use a local variable to step through audio/visual instructions for a tutorial series I'm creating for the F18. I'm also using a button press in the cockpit to step the tutorial forward to display the next instruction. I've been doing all this with triggers in the ME and it works fine, but it's just so onerous to do it that way, especially if I need to go back and make corrections...or worse add a step to the process, which requires manually going back and reassigning each and every value to make it work. I'd love to be able to just use Notepad++ to make adjustments and then reload the file rather than having to painstakingly go back through each trigger to redo something when I realized I left something out or made a mistake. I've been trying to use AI to get code snippets, but I think the biggest problem is I don't understand how to access DCS global variables, and I keep getting the "attempt to access global X(a nil value)" message. The AI is useless for troubleshooting, and I haven't been able to find an answer after searching around on the internet. Is there some code I'm supposed to include at the beginning of a script, or in the mission editor as a separate script file, to give my local script access to all the standard DCS items? So I guess my questions are as follows: 1. How do I give my script access to the DCS global variables so I can access things like units and cockpit items? 2. How do I reference a trigger zone, and what is the procedure for detecting when an aircraft is inside it? Do I need to use coordinates, or does DCS track that and I can just compare the aircraft to the trigger in some way? 3. I already know where to find the values for cockpit items in the F18, but how do I point to them in the code and store them in a variable? Thanks in advance!

So this is not a question about recentering my headset. I have that set as a keybind on my HOTAS. This is a question about the actual physical position of the POV from the VR perspective. I've noticed that the VR recenter key always makes me feel like I'm looking slightly to the left, and I've also noticed that the HUD shows more empty space (margin?) on the left side than the right when I close the opposite eye. When I look straight down, I also get the impression I'm not actually completely centered in the cockpit. All this seems to indicate that my POV is actually slightly to the right of center. Is there a way to fix this? The View Recenter option isn't adjusting anything like it does in 2D mode.

I think I've discovered a rather interesting quandary for my specific situation. My monitor is an ultrawide 1080p that I bought for work purposes that just happens to be pretty good for gaming. I've been gaming for more than 20 years, but I've never bought a monitor that had a higher resolution that 1080p, which I'm sure is causing me to miss out on a lot. On the other hand, most of the games I play don't really benefit from super high resolution, so I'm not sure if that's even true at all. At any rate, maybe it's just a trick of my mind or my older eyes or whatever, but I'm actually not able to make out enough details to ID ground targets any further away on my 2D monitor at max graphics than I am on my VR headset at a playable resolution. They still just look like little squares (even zoomed all the way in) until I'm basically right on top of them. I'm sure this is a product of my relatively low monitor resolution, but it's kind of weird that, from a tactical perspective at least, I get absolutely no benefit from switching to 2D, even though the overall visual clarity is much better. The only real benefit is that everything close up is much sharper and cleaner on my monitor than in VR, which means the MFDs and cockpit labels are nice and crisp, while in VR it's barely readable without zooming in on it. So it's kind of a choice between a nice, clean cockpit or the feeling of actually being in the aircraft. Kind of weird how specific situations can create parity in what should be completely different spheres.

Still trying to play around with OpenXR, mostly because it's the only way to get relatively clear visuals out of the MFD's without having to zoom. - I don't have diagnostic tools, so I'm not sure where the bottleneck is. I've never been able to afford to buy the latest generation of parts, so I'm usually a generation or two behind even when building a brand new system. Obviously more money would solve a lot my problems, lol. - The Pimax software only has increments of .25, so I ended up at 1.25 while on OpenXR and it runs at fairly ok frames. You can just tell it's stuttering and the screen sometimes struggles to keep up if I turn my head too quickly, but it's definitely playable. The MFD at 1.25 is barely readable without zooming in, and 1.5 isn't really noticeably better. At 1.0 it's about the same blurriness as SteamVR, though SteamVR is generally much more blurry all around. At least with OpenXR I can read the switch labels pretty clearly without zooming. - I've gone back and forth with Motion Reprojection and haven't really had any noticeable difference either way. Low latency and Pre-rendered frames were already set to what you suggest from previous attempts to optimize prior to the 2.9 release. - The Pimax software includes foveated rendering, and I have it set to max. I'm also running PimaxXR Control Center, which is supposedly the program I'm supposed to use for OpenXR implementation on my headset. Not sure if it has all the same options as the toolkit, since it doesn't include a toggle for foveated rendering, but I figure the Pimax software covers it. - My FOV is currently set to small on my Pimax software, which basically does the same thing. A large portion on the sides of my headset screen are blacked out. So with my PD set at 1.25 using OpenXR, Motion Reprojection on, and Foveated Rendering set to max, I get a reasonably playable experience. It's just not very smooth, though I certainly don't expect any better with the hardware I have. Switching to OpenXR answered my original question about visual clarity, as it provides quite a bit more visual clarity than SteamVR, even with the PD turned all the way up to 2 (which I can do on SteamVR and still get no stuttering even with relatively high settings). It's clear OpenXR is doing something different, but it's a noticeable performance hit.

So I tried the settings listed above and they work pretty well. Then I downloaded the PimaxXR tool and ran it with OpenXR, and the clarity improved quite a lot...at the expense of a nearly unplayable framerate. I definitely don't have the hardware to run VR at anywhere near a nice visual quality, but at least it runs at relatively acceptable levels through SteamVR with most of the settings turned up and the PD set to 1.5. I suppose at this point I just have to wait for a hardware upgrade to get any more out of it.

I'll give it a try.

Yeah, that's what I've been doing. I can get decent results with the Pimax software set at 1.5 and SteamVR and DCS left at 1.0. I just didn't know if that was direct resolution manipulation, or was doing something else. I'm not sure what settings most affect visual clarity...nor do I really know what's possible with my headset. At the same time, I'm running an RTX 2060 Super, so I'm not expecting stunning visuals. Just trying to get as good as possible since the 2.9 update seems to have drastically improved performance from what I had before. I'll play around with 1.75 or 2 for the Pimax software and see what I can get up to before it becomes annoying.

Thanks for the reply! I wasn't sure if pixel density directly related to resolution. Is 1.0 supposed to be the native resolution of the headset, or does it correlate to something else? I'm using a Pimax 5k headset on Steam.

Greetings, I can't seem to find information on whether it's possible to adjust headset resolution. My understanding is that the resolution in the game settings is just for your monitor, not for the headset, so does the software just use the headset's default resolution, or do I need to set it somewhere? I'm only able to get a certain amount of clarity with the in game settings. Also, does SteamVR already have OpenXR included, or do I still have to download a separate software to get the benefits of it? When I go the website and click on the SteamVR option, it just takes me to the Steam website. My prior research suggested avoiding SteamVR was best, but if that's no longer applicable then I'll look for other ways to make improvements. Thanks!

The OpenTrack software would be solely used for the headtracking part, making it like I just have a 2D monitor strapped to my face. As far as I'm aware, playing DCS in non-VR mode requires an external program to do headtracking, and OpenTrack has an option to use the SteamVR protocol to take the accelerometer data from the headset and convert it into a TrackIR type signal, which can then be fed into DCS for headtracking. I've used this successfully to make my headset move the camera around in game on my monitor, but it's very awkward and uncomfortable if you can't wear the headset properly, and you can't because it makes you blind if the image isn't being mirrored to the headset. Now, if you're suggesting there's a way to do VR mode in a way that removes the VR component and just renders everything flat like it does on my monitor, then I'd be very interested in learning how to do that. As I said before, I can run the game at max settings with no problems on my ultrawide monitor (granted it's only 1080p), so I have to imagine I could keep my settings turned up pretty high if it's not having to render the frames twice.

We can speculate all we want, but until I'm able to test it, that's all it is. Without a program that does what I'm suggesting, there's no way to find out for sure.

Agreed. That's why it would be used in conjunction with OpenTrack to get the head tracking. You can use the SteamVR option in that software to use the head tracking in the headset to move your view around. I just need something that will put the image on a flat plane in the middle of my view, removing the strain of having to render the scene twice for parallax, then I can use the OpenTrack head tracking to focus on whatever it is I'm trying to look at. Peripheral vision is only for noticing movement anyway, so having a reduced clarity outside the sweet spot is no worse than in VR except that hopefully the spot I'm looking at is getting close to the detail I see on my monitor rather than just having to put everything on minimum just to get close to 30 FPS.