PoliticalPuffin

Hi there, I am working my way through this campaign and I am not only having a great time but learning so much that I am no longer thrashing myself with a birch switch in penance for my terrible, awful and woeful flying (to be accurate and honest that should read crashing) ability, or rather, lack of! In all seriousness, I am fairly hopeless with DCS. Nonetheless, I really enjoy everything about it. It is with this in mind that you may see why I continue to put myself through this. It occurred to me that perhaps it is a certain type of instruction that I am missing. I just need a certain something to help me connect what happens in my brain and what the outcome is at my arms, hands and feet. Then I stumbled on Baltic Dragon's A-10C Iron Flag Part 1 First and foremost, the instruction/teaching is, for me, exactly what I need. Perhaps I should have explained, I have ADHD (Combined) amongst other 'challenges'. So, I am fully aware that I need every sense input to be engaged in order for me to make sense of it. One of the other 'challenges' I just mentioned messes with memory. So, while I get my money's worth, so to speak (I can end up reading, watching, listening, smelling, touching and/or tasting something over and over to try to hammer it home). Not that I can't make sense of the manuals in DCS, I simply need other ways to absorb the information for it to make sense to me, and for me to retain it. The way this campaign does this is just spot on. While I know that 'Biff' is just a scripted character, the dialogue and the manner in which the lessons are put across see to make it 'natural' for the information to just sink in. As for the fun/enjoyment aspect, well, there's obviously the sense of achievement as I manage to fly the aircraft correctly, get it off the ground, back down again, turn correctly etc etc. However, it 'feels' as though it is some bloke from a squadron that has drawn the short straw and has to take me through my familiarisation. This will sound really weird, but the way the scripts work, you get the sense of how two strangers with something in common, actually interact with one another. The 'Biff' character is acted so very well and his dialogue not only makes sense in technical terms, it makes sense in social terms. The best part of all, in terms of interacting with 'Biff' is that there are times when he will say.....absolutely nothing! You know, the way real people that get to know one another do. Other packages seem to have to fill every second with sound. The use of silence makes the character feel real. For that matter, so far, all the dialogue, silent or otherwise, is authentic and has purpose and does not kick the arse out of it, having 'dialogue' that is worthless. I am loving this campaign, everything about it. Occasionally, there are hiccups with triggering, but I put that down to me doing something not right. However, this takes nothing away from what is the best training I have undergone, and is amongst the most fun I've had with a 'video game', ever. So, to close this out, thank you, Baltic Dragon. I am thoroughly enjoying my time in Iron Flag part 1. While I am not likely to achieve this, I think it very likely I will buy every single one of your campaigns, missions, anything you develop for DCS. Thank you and all the best to all the team that produced such an excellent and fun experience. Dave

Hi all, I am getting to the end of my rope with this issue. I am on openbeta and always have the latest update (at the time of writing it is 2.9 and change). I do not always get a totally blank mp server list. Usually, when I boot DCS and go into mp I get c. 25-29 servers. Although I haven't recorded the servers they are, I think they are from a cache that is chucking these server names, details etc into the UI. I think this because if I double click, or select and JOIN, I always get a dialogue, after some time, that tells me 'Server offline'. On occasion it will crash DCS but this has been a couple/three times. After the initial population of the mp server UI, if I then say turn off VPN and refresh, all the server details will vanish to be replace with a blank mp server UI. I have tried VPN off/on, VPN without ad tracker, with it. If there is a button/switch in sw, I have pushed it, clicked it, slid it etc, etc. I am now getting a bit brassed off with the situation. Apart from the fact that I simply can't join mp servers, I was trying to get better and elevate myself from expert at crashing to at least 'Generally $h!t as a sim pilot but has some good points' by joining a server that, God bless them, does real training for those that need that, and also even those beyond hope, like me I tried to join the server to join the training session but to no avail. It is beyond frustrating. If anyone has any knowledge or experience of what this could be and even just a pointer in the right direction, I'd be very grateful to you. All the best to everyone. Enjoy your flying...but more than that, enjoy flinging about virtual HW at each other Cheers, Dave (Puffin) PS balls, I totally forgot to mention this. I have, on occasion, without doing anything other than booting DCS, going to mp, seeing a wall of servers, been able to click and enter a server. This has happened twice in the past 6/8 weeks ish. As I say, I have done nothing, that I am aware of, to 'change' anything, but on these 2 occasions it just....worked I don't know if this is a significant 'Ah-ha!' moment for you clever peeps in the DCS world, but I thought I should mention it. Ta

Hi all, I am getting to the end of my rope with this issue. I am on openbeta and always have the latest update (at the time of writing it is 2.9 and change). I do not always get a totally blank mp server list. Usually, when I boot DCS and go into mp I get c. 25-29 servers. Although I haven't recorded the servers they are, I think they are from a cache that is chucking these server names, details etc into the UI. I think this because if I double click, or select and JOIN, I always get a dialogue, after some time, that tells me 'Server offline'. On occasion it will crash DCS but this has been a couple/three times. After the initial population of the mp server UI, if I then say turn off VPN and refresh, all the server details will vanish to be replace with a blank mp server UI. I have tried VPN off/on, VPN without ad tracker, with it. If there is a button/switch in sw, I have pushed it, clicked it, slid it etc, etc. I am now getting a bit brassed off with the situation. Apart from the fact that I simply can't join mp servers, I was trying to get better and elevate myself from expert at crashing to at least 'Generally $h!t as a sim pilot but has some good points' by joining a server that, God bless them, does real training for those that need that, and also even those beyond hope, like me I tried to join the server to join the training session but to no avail. It is beyond frustrating. If anyone has any knowledge or experience of what this could be and even just a pointer in the right direction, I'd be very grateful to you. All the best to everyone. Enjoy your flying...but more than that, enjoy flinging about virtual HW at each other Cheers, Dave (Puffin) PS balls, I totally forgot to mention this. I have, on occasion, without doing anything other than booting DCS, going to mp, seeing a wall of servers, been able to click and enter a server. This has happened twice in the past 6/8 weeks ish. As I say, I have done nothing, that I am aware of, to 'change' anything, but on these 2 occasions it just....worked I don't know if this is a significant 'Ah-ha!' moment for you clever peeps in the DCS world, but I thought I should mention it. Ta

Hi Gents, I can't tell you how glad I am to have found this post. I too get the issues that @kaiseracd reported above. I am not the greatest of pilots, to say the least, and so I assumed it must be something I am doing wrong. @=RAF=Armen sorry for this stupid question but once a fix is developed would I be correct in assuming that this will get rolled out with an ED DCS update? Is that how this works or will I need to download and install a patch, or what have you? Thanks to you both. I trust this finds you both well and doing fine. Cheers, Dave (Puffin)

Hi Antares_ I am having a similar, if not the same, problem as you. I have google searched to see if there are others posting about this and to see if there is a fix for it. Like you, I am using the latest open beta so it is very frustrating when going to those that should know how to fix the problem, ED, and their best suggestion is to ensure you are using the latest update I hope it is resolved very soon, but I would like to know what the problem is. Anyway, I hope you are still having fun flying in SP. All the best, Dave

Hi all, I think some of you are referring to the Mi24P 'Prequel' campaign, is that correct? On the briefing documents it shows that the helo is at 105% weight. However, the wind at T/O is straight into you at a fair rate. I've found that from the hover check, slowly pitching down gets you moving forward enough that eventually I can either just make it into 'clean air' and I start to lift, or the other way is to again pitch forward but do a lap around the FARP. As you very slowly pick up a small amount of speed you start to transition to flight and you gain some altitude relatively quickly. I am far from being expert at this. As you can see from earlier on I had to write 'helo' as I can't even spell helicopter Seriously though, what I'm trying to say is I am sure everyone reading this page is a far better pilot than I. I am quite awful but I found taking my time and gingerly making the small adjustments lets me get the helo up and transitioning to regular flight. I must also say that as I am a bit sh!t at all of this, I get a real boost of confidence and satisfaction making this work. I imagine real pilots have to make the aircraft operate at the edge of all the parameters and so it feels like an achievement for me to be able to do this. I hope this might help someone else not so great at the sim flying, like me. All the best, Dave (Puffin)

Hi guys, I'm so glad I found this thread. I thought I was going bonkers! With all due respect to ED, the 'sandbox' really needs their attention. I appreciate that selling modules brings in the cash but if the box in which those modules play is corrupted the enjoyability takes a nose dive, while frustration is in a zoom climb! Sorry for that aviation metaphors, but I'm quite a rubbish sim pilot so any opportunity to be 'involved' with the lingo makes this old man very happy Thanks again, all. I hope this finds you and yours well. Dave (Puffin) PS Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. I did mean to say that bugs and what not aside, I love this campaign. As I say, I'm not very good but the entertainment and an element of pointing someone like me in the right direction makes for a very enjoyable time in the campaign. Thanks to all involved

Hi JimmyWA, I seem to be having the same issue that you are describing. Did you ever find out what the issue is? I am assuming it is something I am doing, or not doing, but for the life of me I can't work out what that may be. Any info on this would be much appreciated. All the very best to you and yours, Dave (Puffin)

Hi all, Out of necessity I have tried various things in the editor. It's great fun but a bit frustrating from time to time. The thing I wanted to say was that I am always amazed by the generosity of the folk in this community, DCS community that is. I am sure there are a fair share of dicks but so far I have seen nothing but people reaching out and being met with kindness, sincerity and the help that they need. I guess I just wanted you guys to know that you are pretty great and I'm glad that my positive thoughts on the human race are, mostly, born out to be correct in this community. I wish you and yours all the very best. Thanks for giving an old man some hope that we are not all horrid, selfish, greedy so-and-sos. Cheers