RafaPolit

The Jester Wheel is giving a lot of issues in the first few hours for VR pilots. When many are concentrating in the Wheel, I believe the problem resides elsewhere: - The container window that can display the wheel, map and scratchpad, has a fixed size in 3d space - This window spans, in my setup, from around 45° left-of-center, to 10° right-of-center. It also goes really high up (maybe 45° of elevation) to an (in my opinion almost useless) 0° of elevation. This means that the window takes NO ADVANTAGE of anything below the horizon, making for a very small area to render - The HB offset, instead of displacing the offsetted boundary, displaces the INTERNAL components inside: so, the wheel is offset, yes, the manual is as well, but the rendering limit is soon reached and things start disappearing behind the boundary very fast - The UI Resolution configurable in the Special area is very unintuitive... it appears to be a combination of size plus aspect, which makes it impossible to tweak. In theory, for a particular height, increasing the width should keep the same rendering global size, but move the items to the left... but it's not behaving like that. - Also, the rendering resolution, in VR, inside that window, is absurdly low and text is rendered very poorly, which compounded with the font decision (which is really difficult to read, not sure what was the reasoning behind that), makes for a difficult to read text - Also, the option to render the Wheel where you opened it (as opposed to centered) is not respected AT ALL in VR - Calibrating all this by having to quit the mission and reopen it, makes for a SNAIL SLOWWWWW process. One tweak, two or three minutes to enter the plane to see it wasn't perfect, rinse and repeat. And that is for the wheel and its internal radial boxes... the questions from JESTER, which are rendered UNDERNEATH all this, need to actually get to an INS Alignment, taxying to be able to see if it actually fit. As "hunches"... - not sure if something here is feeding from the actual screen-size of the main config, which, in VR, has nothing to do with the size of the rendered window? - Maybe if the offsetting actually moved the "container" or "boundary" instead of offsetting the content (or have both?) could aleviate this issue, as well as providing identical controls for vertical positioning? - Why is this window prevented from rendering further down, wasting almost 50% of the available field of view of the pilot? Thanks for this marvelous module that flies beautifully... but this window is a really pain point at this point. Best regards, Rafa.

There is definitely an issue, Iron Mike has posted this in the HB developer shoutouts channel: Still, this doesn't really work. The controls are all but intuitive, the "window" where this items can get rendered is "fixed" in the world, and the HB offset only moves the ITEMS inside the container, which, when centered, make the manual an other items disappear. The 'container' (the area where this overlaid layers can be rendered) is, for me (Quest 3 with VD a Ultra and DCS VR multiplier at 1) is considerably offset to the left. You can see this by dragging the manual around and seeing where it "stops" rendering and disappears behind this boundary (which I'm calling window). When setting the manual resolution to around 1100 x 800, I get the round wheel PLUS (and this is important, because they were originally not rendering) the ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS that Jester makes like Alignment and Flight Height, Fuel status, etc. Once this is offset around 300px to the right, I get the wheel centered, but the manual is now clipped by default and needs to be repositioned. My biggest complaint is... Why is this "container" or "boundary" positioned like that and why does it have this "fixed" size which makes no sense and renders the content very poorly (no where near the capabilities of the headset). It also ends almost at the top level of the radar window, which sub-utilices almost half of the available field of view. It has been a very, very frustrating few hours just battling with this. Once in the air, the F4 is a dream to fly and feels like a "real airplane". The Jester wheel and manual placement needs almost rewriting for the ground up, in my opinon.

The repetition of the (custom A key) upon "seeing" with your head to an item does work. Everything else about the wheel: the degrees of turn, the disappearing boxes, the poor resolution, all are problems... but clicking again that button does seem to work. And the long press to close the wheel is a welcome UI change.

If you see the OP picture, 22K is high enough for fusing, and the F-16 is really not that great any higher than that, so I'm assuming this is not the case here.

I think it's more difficult to understand since the only possible part, as of first access, would be the southern one. So both purchasers of the "smaller" package and the "whole" package would get the same thing upon release, which makes it difficult to understand. Once the three areas are out, it would make more sense: I want to buy just area A, or just area B, or C, or all the areas. And, if you buy one and then want to expand, you can always do it, but it will cost more than purchasing the entire thing. Where I do agree it's even more confusing is that the price difference from one area to the whole package is not that significant, so going for the larger one at this point in time seems to be the no-brainer option. Which is probably the intended outcome from ED as well, which is also a good thing.

Happened to me today, with a GBU-12 and with the Laser not armed. Maybe that is something that could 'trigger' the LOW?

Thanks for this. The problem is that, if you jump ahead, then the Tanker is no longer reachable through the F6 menu, and, as you egress, you can no longer contact it, so now you need to restart the mission and start at RTB, instead of moving forward normally. Also, I did a take where I just moved forward and reached the carrier with what I had at optimum range, but now nothing happens between WP7 and 8, you don't hear the hilarious situation with Saint and the field (which is a masterpiece, I have never laughed out loud on a mission before), so there are more complexities around jumping ahead than meets the eye. I have had other issues like the Tanker just heading back RTB on the first refuel jump, after the friendlies depart him, he just turned south and I had to refuel while backtracking all I had already moved forward, no idea what caused that, that was a textbook "right" approach. But that's maybe for another report. At any rate, it's a great mission which is probably hard to cover all the cases. Thanks.

There's one additional thing that has worked for me now at least two times: If you move south-to-north, entering from the friendlies post and exiting town through the smoke of the JDAMed complex, and you do it right down the deck at 100ft or 150ft above the ground (this is, literally, at rooftop level) - and at mach > 1.0 although I haven't tested it slower - then the SAM does not fire, you don't get SMOKE's warning, you don't reply with "sh*t, that guy just shot a SAM at me", but as you egress to the north and climb up, you are called to the awareness of the car moving west, and all seems to advance as expected.

Thanks for the answer. No hurry at all, I hope you and your family all well and that the issues were not serious. So, I did disable easy comms for good for my entire DCS experience, I think I'm now to the point where that makes sense. And it works "mostly" as expected, but the first call on Radio 1 and Radio 2 comms check are wrong. Radio 1 comms check is made through radio 2 with a reply "check", and Radio 2 comms check channels through radio 1 with no reply from smoke.

I have been enjoying the map, and now that a few MP servers are starting to show up, a more lively environment makes up for a lot of the complaints we can see on the different review channels and local posts. One thing is, to me, really important to bring all the potential this map has: the mapping of the textures onto the the terrain faces is done purely as a top-bottom projection map. This works great for flat-ish surfaces, but when you have almost vertical fiords and steep mountain areas, this approach means that, in those areas, a single pixel of bitmap covers 90% of the vertical facet, giving the map a perceived "loss of resolution" on those areas. Those vertical faces need to have a different projection mapping in order to take advantage of the beautiful terrain resolution.

I find it funny (in the best way) to read your comment as: I am also 46, I actually had Microsoft Flight Simulator '95 for which I had a home made joystick. I did step away from the arena up until recently, but I have almost every module in DCS, all the terrains (even SA), all the extras: Combined Arms, WWII, Supercarrier. We are basically a very similar player in this environment. I have a different opinion on certain key areas: the downward trend, for me, consists in the actual business model which, in principle, favors developing new modules and not focusing on existing ones to iron out features and bugs. I entered the arena mainly as a WWII warbirds pilot, and the Br-109 had a bug that, if you were using MW50, you could not refuel. This is not a small bug, not being able to refuel in ground seriously limited your ability to do "serious" longer missions. The bug was there for around 3 years if memory serves me correctly. In the meanwhile they were busy selling spitfires, mosquitos, p-47s, and completely disregarding serious bugs of other airplanes. Like this, there are, literally, hundreds of bugs that exist there that linger for years on end and there is little effort (or manpower, or budget, or flow process, or intent... call it whatever you want) to fix them, but you get new modules all the time. That is my concern /critique to the model. It's in EDs beset interest to push as many modules as possible so people keep buying instead of finishing / fixing previous ones. The Super Carrier is a similar case: I bought the SC thinking it was the only way to do carrier ops in the F/A-18. This is my mistake, 100%, but since then I have read in FB dozens of confused people asking this very same scenario: if I want to get into carrier ops, do I need the SC? So there is an "overlooked" (to not say intentional) ambiguous confusing situation for new users that, "weirdly enough" favors people buying the SC even if they weren't sure they needed it. But, again, this is 100% my fault and decision. But, that happened 4 years ago and it's barely better than the one that is not paid for, has had almost none of the promised features, and they have new teams devoted to coding NEW carriers for the WWII scenario (which has also been grossly neglected) and the purchases we already made are not yet finished (or evolved in a reasonable pace... 4 years in EA is, although more common this days, not reasonable in any way, IMHO). And then there is the third party complications, specially with Razbam. I have at least two of their products which now are threated to never be finished. Even though they are third party modules, I still bought them from ED with a backing from ED that this purchase is backed by them, I honestly wasn't aware that it's a: if the partner drops out, we have no way of controlling that, you are out of luck type of scenario. So, as much as I enjoy DCS and love flying missions, campaigns and MP servers, to me and my way of assessing my purchase's value... all these things do take away from the experience and create this friction with new modules and, as time goes by, I'm inclined less and less to purchase new additions, as I don't want to wait 4 years to get a feature offered me for $60 discounted dollars at time of release. Still, your post has 13 hearts and 2 trophies, mine has 1. So, I would argue that more people here in the forums, feel more like you than they do like me. That's OK. Not everything is a good fit for everyone, and, as others have mentioned, no one has forced to buy anything. I would just echo what Marques suggests in a recent video about the new trend of selling products in EA with the promise of features to come: when purchasing EA products, buy them considering their current value proposition, features and consider if THAT is worth it to you at the moment of the purchase. Don't buy with the promised features in mind, because that could not get into fruition. With that said, and trying to get on topic with the current thread, I honestly don't think the Kola map is currently worth $56, which is more than most AAA games these days. I already bought it. I hope it, one day (hopefully soon) would be worth what I already paid. As is, in my opinion (and mine alone) it is not. I don't think I'm a new generation entitled whiner. Maybe to me, those $56 represent more than to others due to being from third world country economies, maybe I'm just a more negative person, yeah, it could be. At any rate I wanted to reply because yours is a very well thought post explaining your point of view without minimizing mine, even if different, and I appreciate that very much.

This is, more or less, precisely it, but as a whole ecosystem. I think that the entire ecosystem needs to be "healthier": if EA models are priced right, they have reasonable levels of evolvement at the time of delivery, if bugs are fixed fast and on a regular bases, if offered features are delivered within a few months of offerings... then the ecosystem is healthy and people are happy with investing money in EA modules, as they "know" that updates are coming, that bugs are being fixed and that, even at that, you already get a "decent enough" product. This would be the ideal scenario. ED and partners are, clearly, not here at this moment in time. If, on the other hand, EA products are almost un-usable at launch time, updates don't come for years, bugs linger for years on end, and prices are too expensive, then you get a very unhealthy ecosystem where people will not invest a dime on those products. Clearly, ED and partners are not here either! At all. That's why I still buy products. So, I am not pitching them as the "most greedy and unreputable", but there are some recent developments that have moved ED a little bit further below the line. I see like this: | Ideal Environment | | | <- we are here | Balance point where people no longer intrinsically trust ED | | | | Worst case senario I believe that the "arrow" is on a "descending" pattern, not on an ascending one. From what I read, I think there's quite a bit of people that believe the same thing. If you are not, I'm happy, and if not anyone else is feeling like this, then I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Another one of EDs idiosyncrasies: EA products are launched WITHOUT that, so they can capitalize on early sales to eager people like me that just jump into purchasing it. Again, a User Experience error in judgement, especially if they want us to buy into the EA model.

It's not like there is no options. You could also create a fully fledged campaign with thousands of voice recordings. It's not like there aren't workarounds. But when you spend about an hour downloading your new terrain on launch day at peek rush hour, and after having DCS blocked in downloading for that period of time (as you cannot keep on flying while downloading), and you finally jump into the menu and want to check out the map... no, you can't, you first need to create a mission for it. It's just not a good user experience. It adds to frustrations like dealing with the same old bugs and jumping into modules that have been in early access for ages or that are, at the moment, hung in limbo with no real light at the end of the tunnel if you are ever going to get more out of your expensive purchase, or maps that have almost no use and you purchased at full price. So, it's not Orbx "fault", it's not like there's no way around it... it's just another rough edge you need to sand before enjoying the game, and when this happens often and in increasing number of areas, it starts to eat away from the experience and the trust on the developers. It also affects the model of relying on Early Access models at *almost* full price with the promise of improvements, so people start to get weary and suspicious and reluctant to jump into it, just in case it turns out to be another Razbam or Super Carrier fiasco. So, again, yeah, there's ways around it, but it gives more things to complain about and it was an easy fix! Just do EXACTLY like you posted, and create Fast Missions for 5 or 6 key modules. That's all it took FOR THEM (or ED!) to do exactly what you mention and it would have avoided all the talk about that on here.

First time flying this mission... interesting to say the least. I got down by the SAM as well, I'll try other approaches. I did miss the GBU-12 as well (left it to the auto-lasing and it started too late, bomb missed... get really scared that there was no other way to continue with the mission, but did a strafing pass and it worked. Then I got the building perfectly (I know JDAMs a bit better) and then on the ingress of the show of force I got downed by the SAM. I'll repeat it, for sure, but since I nailed the A/A Refueling, I'm wondering if it is "Safe" to jump into that part at the beginning of the mission or if that will cost me points / logistics further down the road? Thanks.

I actually didn't and I really appreciate you answering in a helpful manner and not treating me like an idiot assuming that we are expected to keep tags of known bugs (which should honestly be resolved much faster!). This was honestly very helpful. That fixed my issue with the radios. The A/G radar was complete user error on my part, I apologize for that.

As simple as the title reads: the F-15E apparently cannot access the A\G radar, and making call on the Tanker (ensuring correct frequencies) yields no result.

I just did a quick flight. Most regions seem very deserted / green patches... the world is simply not like that anymore. I hope it gets refined over time. Where are the "nice areas" to fly around that you guys would recommend? Also, F-15E ground radar, and, apparently, radios are not working for me. Anyone else had this issue? Am I misconfiguring something in the ME? As a side note, even for an Early Access, launching this without a single instant action so that people can jump right in on the more "iconic" planes seems like a missed opportunity and would cause some friction as you cannot just "jump into the map".

I've had the oposite happen: selected Refuel (instead of RTB) but the Tanker is already landed and you can't refuel. Out of fuel and crash. Yeah, I think that time windows are narrow here: spend more time aligning, doesn't work, spend too long refueling or chase the bandit the "wrong way", you end up spending too much time and the tanker is no longer available. Still, everything else works... I still haven't managed to get a SINGLE Mode 1 ACL trap with Auto Pilot all the way to the deck. It just calls "bolter, bolter, bolter" the second I touch the deck, all with auto throttle and full CPL. I'm sure this is not at all related to the mission, I think this is probably a DCS thing.

Yeah, maybe it's not for everyone

That's the major problem of this delivery mechanism. Any new update of a very small unit requires huge download bandwidth. The entire development community uses GitHub to store repos like this. Maybe it's as simple as creating such a repo. You push changes to your assets to the repo, we download the new commits locally. Git protocol is "intelligent" enough to only download the differential, but it doesn't have limits, as far as I am concerned. Since your webpage doesn't have adds or other automatic monetization measures, I don't really see a downside to this approach. The DONATE links can be included on the main README file on GitHub. It makes everything open source, which your packages already are, and it can also help you upload faster instead of having to make huge files every time. You could actually revert to a "per module" model without sacrificing any workflow. I'd be happy to discuss further details and do test runs with you for this. Let me know.

For what is worth, following this post: I now have done two attempts, in MT, but with Auto Start once and then with Stored Heading INS alignment, and, it works! Smoke stays at angels 17, goes 55NM East and calls Tape's On as expected. The full INS alignment always ends up with smoke just going to Angels 1 and heading south. Maybe this should be included in the designer's notes in the briefing and / or PDF? Thanks to the community for this inputs.

Thanks Thanks so much for this! I have flown this mission now about 20 times (not exaggeration) Indeed, I tried two times now with Auto Start (not my cup of tea!), and Storage Heading on start instead of the full INS align, and lo and behold, Smoke stays at Angels 17 and calls Tape's On, perfectly when he is 55NM from WP4. Thanks again for this input, maybe this should be included in the designer's note on the Briefing and PDF?

I tried today with ST version as that is the recommended version by the author. No joy: “cut away” and Smoke just dives to Angels 1 and start slowly going south and then just lingers there.

Just to expand, I did a fairly fast refueling this time, one minor disconnect and back on the basket. Still, same problem: - Reach WP4, call on mother - We call the "split" call (sorry, don't remember the exact term) - Smoke breaks formation, dives steeply south and settles at about Angels 1!!! (that's right, one!) flying really slow... never gets more than 15nm of separation and never the tape's on call Could this be also part of the MT vs ST problems? Really seems crazy to have to play in ST, maybe I'll give it a go. On a completely unrelated issue (and probably not mission related either) I then do the Case III recovery (even if the mission is a bust, just to practice an get into the habit of good practices in the F/A-18) and everything goes perfectly smooth in CPL P/R mode right up to the deck, I touch down perfectly, and then it's always "bolter, bolter, bolter", as if I'm not garbing the cable with the hook. I do a fly around, no fly manually (as CPL is no longer an option) and I "manually land" perfectly grabbing the cable on my "manual" pass. Weird. Obviously this is 99% sure NOT mission related, but ED's issues with the carrier, but just wanted to mention as this entire mission (with the wrong radio calls I mentioned in another bug report) is really a test of one's patience and nerves! Thanks again for looking into this! Best regards, Rafa.