EvilBivol-1

My personal apologies for the delays on this key element of the product. The English Mi-8 flight manual was one of my tasks, but as some of you may have noticed, I had been away for a number of weeks. This was due to a family issue. I am back at work now and making up for lost time and development. It's a rather big hole and will take a little time. Even my forum time is still limited as other priorities require more immediate attention for now. I hope we are able to release updates to the documentation and and training in the nearest future and this is certainly on my immediate to-do list.

Stick with it, EH, and don't feel like you need to rush to learn everything. It does take some time. Don't forget to just fly around, shoot random stuff, try out landings, and just have fun in between the "study" missions. Also see if you can get online with someone willing to help out. Learning with a buddy will make it go much faster.

We do plan on adding an English cockpit version for the Mi-8. However I cannot comment on how soon.

Если есть возможность мерить объективно, это лучше делать до релиза, чтобы потом меньше поправлять. Традиционно у нас проекты продолжают развиваться и после релизов, но все таки лучше выходить с максимально готовой котлетой. Другое дело, что может не стоит преждевременно быть слишком критичным к продукту, но проверять модель - пожалуйста. Кроме того уже предупредили, что динамику мы считаем достаточно готовой и серьезных изменений не планируем, с исключением ВК РВ. Если у вас есть интерес к тестированию, можете приступать. Как уже сказал PilotMi8, общие представления сказанные "в двух словах" для нас мало полезны (хотя и для них есть место). У разных людей разные впечатления могут быть, разные воспоминания личного опыта, разный уровень понимания темы (как, что настраивать в игре, как работать с игровыми джойстиками, как адаптироваться к отсутствию физической реальности, т.д.). В общем мы не против обсуждения модели и возможных просчетов, но нужны более-менее полезные данные для анализа.

We just added another Quickstart mission and a few new training missions are being finalized as well. Additional single missions, possibly some from these forums, are likely to be added, but not in time for the 1.2.7 release, which is considered final release for the Huey. However work will continue after and we do hope to provide additional gameplay content.

Are there any inconsistencies besides the left mouse button moving multi-position switches up in the case of ED's Ka-50/A-10C/P-51D and down in the case of BST's UH-1H/Mi-8?

As a matter of design philosophy, we generally don't "tweak" the model to compensate for the inherent limitations of the hardware (that becomes an endless question of how far you tweak and toward what type of hardware...). However such things can be accomplished using custom options, two of which are available for the DCS P-51D - takeoff assist and auto-rudder. Personally I feel that using such options within reason to compensate for hardware limitations and other physical drawbacks of flying the sim as opposed to the real thing is a perfectly good way to do it and I would encourage it. Not to argue, but just FYI, in testing the P-51 FM we looked at graphs of things like rudder deflection and, IIRC, rudder pedal pressure. This was for both takeoff and various flight trim settings. It doesn't mean we got it absolutely right, but certainly the goal is to be as accurate as possible. I am not a FM dev myself, but I believe our sim numbers match known real P-51 numbers very well across the board, though, again, I'm sure there may be slip-ups here and there. We value good testing and feedback. If you have reasonably rigorous testing results and reasonably reliable data of the real aircraft that conflicts with the sim, we're happy to consider it. We're well aware that despite our best efforts, errors and omissions are inevitable, but we do generally feel that generic personal impressions can only go so far in determining the accuracy of the FM. It's an important element, but it's a very human element and like all other human reflections may suffer from a large variation between people, place, and time.

10 minutes? Very unlikely that any player, especially a real world pilot who is coming with the physical experience of the real cockpit, real controls, real G forces, will have much of an accurate impression of the sim and its flight dynamics within 10 minutes. If you really want a "clean" test from a pilot who is new to DCS, you normally need to spend some time helping to configure the controls and "translate" the sim controls to his memory of the real experience. For example I've also had an A-10 pilot tell me that the A-10C in DCS feels too cumbersome, until I pointed out that he is flying a simple Instant Action mission where he is fully loaded with weapons and fuel, much heavier than what he is used to flying in the real world.

Not having the best HOTAS and TrackIR does take away a little immersion and perhaps makes it a little more difficult to remember all of the HOTAS commands and shortcuts, for which you will be using more keyboard commands, but I don't think it ultimately makes much difference in how long it takes you to learn the sim. It may only take a couple of days to get the basics down to where you can fly, shoot, land, generally do most of the essentials. Then it becomes a question of depth - if you want to learn the functions of each MFCD page and how to operate the nav system, configure weapon profiles, avionics displays, etc., that will take longer.

Having watched many real pilots fly the sim, it's often the case that's it's actually harder for them to adjust to the control requirements than it is for non-pilot video gamers, especially ones with previous flight sim experience. You're dealing with realistic handling, but without the realistic physical environment, and this can be a barrier to overcome initially. I would suggest that you ask your dad to take a little time to try to get used to the aircraft's handling. Turn on the controls indicator with RCTRL + ENTER, so he can monitor the position of the stick and approximately how much pull it takes (not much!) before the planes begins to wing over. If you do this slowly enough, you will begin to see and hear the warning buffet of the impending stall and, with a little practice, will soon be able to feel this without even checking the controls indicator. The other major difficulty is slip control. Slip makes it even more likely that you will stall when pulling the stick back, so it's very important to keep your eye on the ball and constantly adjust. The slip tendency changes with airspeed and power setting changes, so it is something that requires constant attention. I think that's all it is, really - minding the amount if stick pull and slip angles. Small inputs. It may also help a little to turn on the "Head movement with G-forces" option (or simply press LWIN+F1 in-game to toggle this on-off). This may give a slightly better sense of sideslip via the modeled head "bobbing".

It's already been fixed internally and will be pushed to public in one of the upcoming updates.

For the rotor in motion, the underlying physics are all modeled. In addition, starting with 1.2.7, the pitch and flapping of the blades are in fact animated based on the math outputted by the FM. This was mentioned in the changelog. You can get a better look at it by slowing down game time if you like. What we do not currently have is rotor flex animation or the teetering physics on the stationary rotor.

Yes, known bug. Thanks.

You're right, the feauture was marked "WIP" in the changelog. We anticipate having this completed for 1.2.7 final, although still subject to change.

Well, it was fixed. Will update the track again.

With "TrackIR Aiming" OFF, you should be able to aim using the [;] [,] [.] [/] keys, which you should also be able to map to a joystick hat or something of that nature.

No, you're right, LCTRL+LSHIFT+H currently turns off ALL hint displays, so there is no way to keep just the Crew Status indicator. Will be fixed so the two commands control each indicator separately.

Gunner Status panel is toggled with [LWIN + H]. The rest of the hints indicators are, I believe, [LCTRL + LSHIFT + H].

We are updating the combat and training missions now. Don't understand.

We are in the process of updating the documentation.

Added a more comprehensive Mi-8MTV2 changelog: Also, added to the UH-1H:

LALT+C toggles mouse-look on/off.

Added a more comprehensive changelog for the Huey:

Changelog itself is WIP, more items to be added.