Marvolo

Missiles in this game are far easier to break lock than real world missiles. Yes they are old but the missiles in this game are past the age of stupidity and they will be very hard to lose. However jamming is incredibly underrated in this game. Even with HOJ there is a reason why just about every single aircraft from a well funded nation will fly out with incredibly expensive jammers every single mission. And there is a reason why despite numerous missile launches there hasn't been a NATO aircraft shot down by a radar guided missile for a long time. Also looking at the combat performance based on numbers alone is rarely useful - they ignore the fact that firstly no matter how good a missile is it can be defeated by terrain and secondly not every missile launch is expected to hit regardless of training. Poorly trained pilots will often fail to support the missile properly and/or fire at the wrong time. Well trained pilots will often fire a missile expecting a miss to force the target to react (though this is less of an effect with restrictive ROE).

Multi engine. Though these days I'm a cripple so medication prevents just about everything. Yourself?

Appreciate it, thank you. My thinking was both a short discussion earlier and the largest difference between Russian and American platforms being the missiles. It sounds like the logic is fairly similar between them all though I'm surprised the Russian missiles don't take a much higher altitude trajectory. Anyway as you say its OT so I'll leave it there. For the F-15 vs Su-27 at least on paper it seems that the F-15 can be competitive but with the relatively high corner speed and definite slant towards energy tactics it requires a far higher skill level to perform in a dogfight. The Su-27 is a lot more lax with its corner speed and with its high AoA and Archer missiles it has the potential to end the fight very early. Plus the HMS helps a lot with visibility too which tends to be a weak point of games vs real world. A great pilot will do well on both, but a good pilot will find the F-15 at a real disadvantage in the dogfight. However this is all on paper, I've had a few years off DCS and came back a couple of days ago. A lot has changed since then. Coming from primarily an F-15 the Su-27 really struggles BVR. The lack of active missiles makes a big difference and even on the Mig-29 the avionics and high workload affects performance. IRST is a huge benefit and its not surprising it has worked its way into modern NATO aircraft, especially with the advent of stealth though the timing seems more coincidence. The Alamo D provides something every F-15 pilot will be jealous of and helps with multiple targets, something the F-15 finds a breeze, but it certainly doesn't put it on equal terms. With the excessive effectiveness of decoys and the low missile range there is a very real chance that the fight will finish up close. In addition online tends to be a lot of single aircraft flying alone (in the past anyway). For those reasons even though I favour the F-15 its advantages are minimised and so the Su-27 feels like the dominant platform. Plus you can always sit low with IRST and take shots with the Alamo D like a dick, that never gets old. But coming from an F-15 the Su-27 workload feels extremely high even with AWACS and the HSD and I suspect thats why most F-15 pilots have their preference. A lot has been said of drop tanks vs none and personally I prefer the Su-27 in that regard. I would rather not take the performance hit and dump fuel when needed than suffer for the majority of my flight. However there is something to be said for quickly removing the weight, when ambushed or in range of a high threat SAM being able to get into combat instantly makes a difference and not having to decide between pre-emptively dumping fuel or risking an attack whilst a heavy. But of course a lot has changed since I last played so this may all be out of date.

I also used to fly. Its how I was taught and by and large its how I flew. Its also how friends in the commercial sector were taught and still fly. We're talking large changes of a degree or more persistent for a good amount of time, not dropping 100ft a few miles out where the aircraft has time to stabilise back on its previous decent rate and speed.

I wouldn't mind someone explaining how the various missiles work in game. The AIM-120, it sounds like the difference between the B and C is a longer range and no noticeable difference otherwise. Also, how does tracking and locking work regarding the AIM-120. Is there any difference between STT and TWS. Does the missile launch and follow a path similar to a semi-auto missile until it goes active or does it receive a number of updates to the target location and otherwise ignores erratic jinks. If so how many updates and approximately what location. When it goes active would I be right in understanding that it simply picks a random target visible to the missile regardless of who is locked and how. Ie two aircraft within 2nm of each other and STT on one won't make a difference. How does this all differ to the Adder in game? Are the grid fins modelled regarding manoeuvrability and drag or will it act similar to conventional fins? How does the Alamo act regarding manoeuvrability, dropped locks and similar? With a short 1s drop will it still go stupid or will it re-engage? Dropping lock with the target's wingman jamming will it engage the jammed signal? How does the missile path differ between Russian and American missiles, ie. will Russian missiles take a more ballistic path than American missiles or vice versa, or will they essentially take the same route? Does this differ at all from the Alamo D or HOJ missiles, would these take a pure pursuit path or do they still loft to some extent? How is missile logic regarding the ground (including SAMs)? All, none, or dependant on missile? Also will they impact mountains using barometric logic or will they still avoid, or is this dependant on missile again? How does this affect the terminal phase with a target well below the set altitude? I appreciate that nobody has all the answers and a lot of these are unknowns, but any information regarding the missiles would be useful. Also this is in game only. Real world missile behaviour is outside of the scope of my questions though, some people wish for those questions anyway. And slightly more on topic, how did you find the different weapons when trying the F-15? And did this affect your playstyle at all, or did you continue to fly it like a Su-27/Mig-29? Also what is your opinion on the HUD? One of the big things I tend to find is Russian pilots adore the radar placed on the HUD whilst a lot of NATO pilots find it irrelevant and really don't care for it so how was your experience there?

And that is exactly why controls are reversed that way. During a landing you are descending at a constant rate. The speed of your aircraft is dictated by energy in and energy out. Energy out is drag which is proportional to speed. Energy in is engine power and decent rate. Or speed=power+descent. Now if you want to pitch up ie. descend slower without changing the speed you need to balance the equation, lower descent rate means more power otherwise the speed changes. If you want to increase your speed you need to either change your power or your descent rate, but if you don't change your descent rate with your speed your angle of descent is going to change. Now nobody is saying you need to exclusively add power and who cares about the stick, but this is going to primarily be your control input and the stick will come under the general adjustments you naturally make. If you try to change your speed with your throttle the next step will be finding yourself high so you pitch down then finding yourself fast so you change the throttle. You are going to get the same effect in the end you're just going a whole long way around it. Now with a hud it is incredibly easy to instantly see any affects you might be making. Stick the thingy on the thingy, any movement and you can instantly tweak it. But in a normal aircraft you are going to find it a lot different, you don't have this instant indicator in your face that things are changing or you are low and so each change takes some time to observe. With that in mind making 3 changes becomes a whole lot worse than simply the 1 you are intending and the normal adjustments which are second nature.

Everyone is taught to reverse their controls for a landing, ie. throttle for angle etc as mentioned earlier. Absolutely everyone. While you might not be using it strictly as that by the time you progress to a real aircraft (be it combat or transport) every single pilot without fail will have at least heard of the concept "throttle for angle stick for speed". Anyway if you can trust yourself not to cheat just take an aircraft on any blank scenario and practice using the ils for repeated touch and gos. If you can't trust yourself then you'll need to do a little more work to set up a reduced visibility situation and it might take a little more work because you cant visually see how it compares to a high visibility landing but at least you will feel more comfortable in the real situation. Or just cover the top half of your screen and/or wear a hat so you can see your instruments but cant see the outside. Finally there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding here. An ils landing isn't a landing solely using instruments. An ils landing is a landing with REDUCED visibility (rather than no visibility) whereby you use instrumentation to stay on the glide slope and visually land when close to the runway (about 200m+ ish). You do not land with instruments alone. It might also help to remember that nobody is forcing you to land on that attempt, if you go around 5 times for a successful landing you've still done better than the person splat in the middle of the runway.

The opposite tack to mic is taking, well done for playing the game the way you enjoy. While I've always liked the complexity of hardcore simming, I recently tried DCS:BS in game mode. Having already learnt the hard way it was simply to play about with the game as a "whole" before going back to sim mode. However, I really enjoyed game mode and will definitely run a mission or two in it from time to time. My advice for sim mode - it can be VERY frustrating to begin with. However sticking with it for a few days makes things rapidly improve. It took me (with my tutorial-hate) 2 days to teach myself how to turn the a10 on. A further day failing each mission to sam fire and general inability to deploy weapons. now, 5 days after purchase, I am comfortably completing the easier missions with only the radio simplified. Either way, enjoy the game however you wish to play. If only my friends would try game mode to get over their fear of flight sims.