RyanR

We usually circle back to the base and boresight on something at the airfield. On your way outbound, try to find something with the TGP. At 20-25 miles out, reverse and start trying to get the MAV's locked on to boresight as soon as the seeker will "grab" it. In the past, getting one missile per wing (so, two total) boresighted was all that it took to set up all 6 missiles. I haven't had a ton of experience with Mavericks since the latest patch fixed the issues that popped up with the ATP release. I still haven't had much luck with auto handoff, but I always use the TGP and a markpoint to get situated. -Ryan

Ground boresight is at least part of your problem. For months, I did exactly as you are: place a ground target and boresight before takeoff. When I started bore-sighting from altitude at 10 miles off, I was blown away by how the Maverick seeker looked almost exactly on target. Night and day. Another problem with auto-handoff is making sure the Maverick seeker is "zoomed" to the narrow FOV, with good contrast. That'll make it much easier for the Maverick to grab the centroid of the target. -Ryan

Other thought: the autopilot stays on with moderate stick input. Lots of new Viper people (myself included) instinctively start trimming when they're actually fighting the AP. Other than that, the F-16 just needs roll compensation for asymmetric load. -Ryan

One age old DCS question: Does the P5 beat the JULI? (We have the P5 for the F-1?.... I can't remember). -Ryan

Problem here is that the F-16 Litening pod isn't real. It was a placeholder. No actual pod can "see" that well, and ED says it's a mish-mash of technologies. On the other hand, the ATP is an attempt at reality. In other words, reality *is* the use case for the ATP. -Ryan

or! For the F4-U it's a total flip of the coin as to what way a switch/dial will flip. The F-16 is pretty good. -Ryan

Great idea! I did just this. I guess the question is if the "cage" button does the same thing for all Sidewinders. With the 9J, the seeker is uncaged only once you get a tone and only while the button is pressed. Release the button when the target is off bore, and you lose tone. This is just like the F-5.... which makes sense, since it's the same missile. Magic II seems to look at what the radar grabs. -Ryan

Cage and uncage has confused me for some time, as the manual and Chuck's guide don't go into it. What is the order of operations with the F-1. With the F-1, do you get tone and then uncage (as with the F-5)?.... or uncage first? Do different IR missiles work differently? Magic II seems to find things "automatically". -Ryan

Periodically it does say 20nm. Should be just 10nm.... or so I thought! -Ryan

The ATP does seem heavier (takes more to trim out the roll) and "draggier" than the old pod. The old pod is fantasy, though. -Ryan

There's a lot of neat features in the Hornet. Plus, you get carrier ops. And the Hornet can cheerfully fly much higher than the Viper with a loadout. As you say, they're both amazing modules. What you choose as your "favorite" really comes down to what fascinates you more. -Ryan

I take it back. Things are still hopeless. At best, other aircraft are translucent. -Ryan

I noticed this myself a while back! It helps a bunch! Put the flight path marker on the horizon once you get your "height" squared away. Tanker gives you speed in IAS but your HUD reads off in CAS. This is important. I remember wishing I had a radar gun to get the tanker's speed.... then realized that there's a very expensive radar gun on the front of fighter jets. Use this. The tanker is AI, it doesn't care it you lock it up (just don't blow it up!) in A-A or dogfight mode. The radar will then give you both the tanker's speed and closure rate (and distance!). Another trick that helped getting the mental picture was to turn head tracking off. This will let you use the edge of your monitor as you might use the canopy frame on another jet. Put a moderate ordnance load on the jet. A slick F-16 is really hard to refuel since it accelerates like crazy and then doesn't slow down. Rather than try to get your speed exactly right, it's OK to ping pong between the fore-aft position indicators with choppy throttle work. Practice is everything. And screaming into your headset. -Ryan

OK. I ran a repair on DCS, and made sure I didn't have any old nVidia DLL's swapping around or mods happening. Then, I got rid of forcing Preset K, and let everything run the "default". Spotting dots are back to 2pixels. Things are much improved. I think. As everyone said... there are now other artifacts happening. Thanks! -Ryan

Thanks for the help, All! Now I just need to remember all the places I force Preset K. There's the autoexec.... nVidia Profile Inspector.... and nVidia itself. I'll report back! -Ryan

Close ups....

If I pause DCS, I see a black dot. Unpaused,this MiG-21 is a translucent greasy stain. -Ryan

I splurged for the new rig. Big monitor. 5080. 150+fps. DCS is absolutely beautiful with all the settings maxed. Only problem: I can't see the bandits at all. Two miles away? Nothing .The bandits just get swallowed by the antialiasing. They're just a greasy streak until they disappear into the nothing. I've tried forcing the K-preset. What else is there to do? I'm back to where I was with my old computer. Thanks. -Ryan

I've not had this as a problem. Did you put the TGP back into slave mode (TMS-aft)? -Ryan

In the air. A-10 pilots would sometimes use other A-10's, per an article on the internet.... somewhere. While ground boresighting kinda works in DCS, IRL Mavericks drift during takeoff and when pulling G's. IRL, I'm sure pilots are briefed on suitable places to boresight (a town, for example). In DCS, this gets tricky since Mavericks may not "grab onto" a static map object, so that would effectively break the mission. In the ME, it would be best to build a little area near a town to boresight on the way to the AO. -Ryan

Thanks! I really appreciate the response. I'm not nuts. ED will fix it, I'm sure. Cheers! -Ryan

HTS is one of the best reasons to Viper. Also, CBU-105's. You can get your Supercarrier fix from the Tomcat. The learning curve for the Tomcat's front seat is pretty mild compared to either the Viper or Hornet. Though AAR in the Turkey is waaaay harder! -Ryan

Are we missing the vertical HUD steering cue for JDAMS and -103/105's in PRE mode? Or is it my memory flakey? Thanks! -Ryan

Fuel tanks are surprisingly low-drag compared to other things. -Ryan

Once the ATP is more finalized/betterized, mission designers can just limit the Litening pod entirely from the allowed ordnance. As it is, the ATP is probably real close to that point. -Ryan