Lonecrow66

I might jump in online but so far I'm limited to dumb bombs and mavericks, and of course guns. Aircraft to Aircraft comms I still have no clue how to use yet lol .. Don't want to totally embarrass myself. :) But I'm itching to get online. How do the voice comms work anyway between players in multiplayer? People using vent or something outside the game?

Most of it is RTFM. I've been reading and going "oh" I forgot to turn this on and that. It is just the frustrating part putting in the time to learn and slog through it all before you can start to enjoy it. I've had it for over a week now and I just finally tried my first combat mission today. Made it back alive parked and everything. So the prep time making sure you know the systems like the back of your hand is important. Problem is getting a proper hotas set up really. Once you get comfortable being able to do it all without having to pan and view to try and find stuff it gets faster. I REALLY need a track IR though. However whenever I get near the ground I get very long pauses to the point where it is almost unplayable.. that'll get improved I'm sure.

Yeah I saw that .. it wouldn't show me how to get in, twas because I had a different email address. I sent the proper request now I'll check see if I got in :)

Yeah I just discovered there even was an F10 map! Man I did my first mission for fun. The river raid.. talk about sensory overload. Managed to take out the first adn 2nd bunker and a few AAA but my TGP got knocked out and my right MFD which made me pretty useless. Couldn't use the mavericks I had left so I RTB. So I watch the reply, and it shows my A10 nosedive into the ground!! I was like WTF? Thats not what happened. Pretty exciting though. I really need to work on threat assessment somehow. I got riddled with bullets and the damage on the a10 was awesome. Even my right engine which I could see was hit pretty well with small arms, it would overheat if I had the rpms too high so I couldn't get the hog over 200kts. This is where the Saitek sucks. If I had the thrustmaster A10 I could at least feather the one engine back. I'll have to figure out a way to do this. When i tried to throttle it back the analog would just put it back up. Oh well pretty sweet.

Yeah like I said I followed the instructions on that page but it doesn't say the same thing. It just directs me to register on the forum which I did.. :) No tickets but I've emailed the admins 2 times. The 2nd time they were able to activate my access to the forums but didnt give me beta access yet.

FYI I did follow the instructions but it only told me to go and register at the forums which I did.. but still no access.

Can a mod help me out? I couldn't get any verification emails to go through to my yahoo account (probably blocking Russia) I changed my email and tried again and it didn't go through to me secondary email either. A mod was able to activate my account to post and reply but I don't have access to the beta forums.. where I guess a lot of the good interesting discussions are :) Can someone help me out?

Yeah I agree mic ... I mean the Black Shark looks awesome and has a lot of great avionics and weaponry but some of us just are not interested in simulating things that are not ours.. Hard to explain. More pride in flying stuff made in the USA etc.. As for that thread - and the other beta threads I can't get into the forums it wouldn't let me have access. Even thought I pre-paid. I couldn't even get my registration email to yahoo because I think it blocks anything from russia. If any of you know of a mod who can let me into the beta forums I'd appreciate it!

Yeah thanks I figured that out last night. I was able to get everything going in a mission but had a hard time with the CDU.. learning how it all works. I keep clicking the wrong thing and it isn't very forgiving. The actual direction / compass on the HUD wouldn't work but everything else did. Just had a hard time figure out how to get the MFD's to display stuff. Even though I downloaded and let the asterisks come up, it showed nothing in the weapon stores, but there were weapons on the racks. The actual mission planner is a little weak from what I could see. I mean I know they spent the majority of their effort in the actual SIM and aircraft itself, but we need a little more intuitive ordinance loading and configs and mission planning. Something a little user friendly I guess. I'm just struggling to learn. I've been reading the manual pretty well but I still have a LOT to learn! I can't believe how I can spend hours in the cockpit and barely even do anything, I'm having so much fun just working the systems..

Good point. How is the pausing going to be handled in multiplayer anyway? Like other games if someone pauses it .. everyone gets paused?

I know what you mean but you have to feel like there is some progress hehe. Like if we had 2 missions supporting troops holding a town, and we pushed them back I should be flying over the ruins of a town.. Dang guess I'll have to get the Thrustmaster or bind it to some keys to totally shut down the engines.. I was always good at memorizing key commands but this takes things to a new level of memorization..

Thanks for the reply Mic I haven't found the one with the ministick yet. Do you have a link handy? I searched and didnt see it. I also loved janes longbow. I actually like flying choppers. If DCS had made it an Apache in an interesting theatre of war then I would have bought it and any addons too. But because of the fact it was a Russian made ship.. many of us North Americans are not interested. I want to get into an Apache with fully clickable cockpits etc. Then another F15 sim, or F16. I know the F22 is still in flux really and a lot of classified data still so it is hard to make a realistic sim with that. A10 was a perfect choice. As for SLI yeah I have a GTS 250 and it .. kinda runs ok at 1400x900 but when you get close to any airport or any buildings or get low on a strafing run it bogs down real bad. I was going to get a 2nd 250 maybe because I have an SLI motherboard. But I saw a package of 2 460's for like $300..

I tried to move them past but I have a saitek x52.. it went all the way back and I can't click on the actual throttles to move them further back either.. Yeah but some don't have track IR so that is why I'm saying :) Dang.. what a lack of a feeling of accomplishment if you can't fly over the buildings you bombed last week?

I used to play ever sim out there from the C=64 up and was hard core into sims much of my life. I thought Falcon4 would be the holy grail until it was released way too early, and then was never really fixed. I left the arena disgusted at the death of simulations in the market. Even though I kept my eye on community development I still have not Finally I have returned because I have found something worthy of my attention. No more arcade sims out there. I heard Black Shark was heads and tails above everything else and I was intrigued but I am not really too interested in Russian hardware. Now the A10 .. what is there not to love? So I ponied up and so far I'm pretty happy. I'm also terribly lost. I have limited time to spend each night on the sim and sneak some time in at work reading the manual. Of course once you are in flight it becomes a pain because you don't want to pause to check out what to do. Pausing is for wimps! Ok so I have paused occasionally and I don't think I'll be ready for multiplayer any time soon! Starting to get a good grasp on the main functions of everything. Much of it was very similar to the old days. Just having to actually find each button and learn every key command is really time consuming. The tutorials are great and I practice them over and over so that it becomes ingrained in your subconscious where everything is and how to do it. I do have some questions though. I have not been able to get far enough really other than some weapons training. I have not flown a mission yet because I've still not even really looked into countermeasures or other important stuff. So far I can start up.. take off.. fly around.. navigate (Not even going to try and learn HARS) divert to an airport, use ATC and land safely. For shutdown, how do you actually turn your engines off? I've tried to find every single button (even clicked them all) I've cut fuel, power everything to the engines but they'd still keep winding! Is that a bug? I've turned every system off. As for most of you, I see you are all using track ir. I am going to have to buy one. But I have a Saitek X52 and someone did make a profile for it. However it is a bit confusing until I realized you are trying to simulate the actual A10 stick's hat features. This left out any way of actually changing your view and looking around zooming so I can click the right buttons. So I guess I will have to buy a track ir if I'm going to be serious about this sim.. If anyone knows of any dumbed down semi-simple X52 configs please do share!! Also why not replace the coolie that is used for trim with the 3 sliders (rotating) on the throttle instead? That way it could free up one hat for viewing. Now for missions. I have not got into a mission yet. But the one thing that drew me so close to Falcon 4 was the fact that it had a dynamic campaign. I mean there was so much going on you could just sit back and watch the war. This seems to be more of a scripted mission by mission old style sim. I don't like it. I think as far as we've progressed in technology there should almost always be some form of dynamic campaign system. But to get past all of that, I have one simple question - if I play a campaign, and bomb a non vehicle target (a building) and fly over it the next mission will it be rebuilt or will it be destroyed still? Possibly still even on fire? Those are the little touches that I need in a sim. They have put a HELL of a lot of work so far from what I can see into the actual A10 and its systems and flight model. But the actual combat and realism of the actual "theatre" is going to be another thing. Overall I'm happy to say I'm back and finally we are going to have a SIM worth spending oodles of cash and time into. Now my wife is pissed I've already bought a new desk, looking at a 27 inch monitor to go with my other 2 23inch monitors a couple SLI cards, track IR .. and maybe (if the price would come down) the Thrustmaster A10 setup.. The saitek just aint cutting it but its all I have for now. Sigh.. So little time so much to learn and do.

I've got 2 iphones.. that would be sweet having both MFD's there

Remember that UMF or UMV or what was it called in Falcon 3.0 ... it was an unmanned vehicle you couldn't dogfight and win.. EVER. I think there was even a UFO in Falcon 3.0 too

Yeah same here. I've done the tutorials many times and still trying to learn. Lot more topics I'd like to cover as well. Practice makes perfect. Air to air refueling would be a perfect tutorial. MORE MORE MORE tutorials!

I don't know but I'll try it tonight. You can definitely hear the wind when you lower flaps / speed brakes so I wouldn't doubt with no cockpit you would hear it really loud. When you open / close the canopy there is definitely a sound difference.