Frostiken

One problem I've never gotten over is the 'perfect' setting for pedal curves. While on the ground, NWS is extremely sensitive, to the extent that it's almost impossible to control the plane while on the runway, which requires very, very fine adjustments. This forces me to set up curves. Unfortunately, curves aren't a great solution, because this will also alter my rudder authority, so I'm forced to compromise. Ideally I would keep the NWS curve very low so that through 95% of the range of motion, my level of control is very slight, with perhaps only the very end of the pedal 'full rudder' for making the sharpest turns. The reason I can't do this is, of course, because at very fine curve settings, the rudders have very little effect on the aircraft. This forces me to an uncomfortable compromise, with very little yaw authority around the deadzone for NWS, and higher levels at the edges. What this means is that there's a fine point where both my rudders and NWS are completely out of tune. As I cross this threshold, my NWS becomes more and more sensitive, making it almost impossible to control, while the rudder becomes less and less operative. This forces the player to dedicate half the pedals curve to NWS for sensitive movements (staying on the runway) and the other half for rudder, which isn't an ideal solution. Would it be possible then to actually associate NWS with its own axis? Since NWS and rudders are essentially mutually exclusive (you only use NWS while at low speed on the ground, so there'd be no real control conflict)? This way I could dedicate the rudder axis to properly control the aircraft with the pedals while in the air, and once I land and drop speed enough to engage NWS, it turns the nose wheel with the levels dictated by the axis associated with it, which would be set up for very fine maneuvers. Of course, if you really wanted the same curve for both, nothing would really stop you from just putting the same values for each.

Yeah, curves are essential for yaw but I don't even like them that much. Curves just don't work too well, esp. for NWS. They're fine for fine adjustments but there's always a part where suddenly you start applying a LOT of yaw (since it's a curve). If you adjust the curve to compensate you risk making the high-end of the curve unusable, which means you're artificially limiting your yaw authority. There's not really a solution to it but to find something tolerable. I hate when I'm making yaw corrections and then I'll cross the threshhold and suddenly I'm applying WAY too much. What would really be nice are two different yaw settings, either toggleable or one just for NWS and one for rudders. That way I could have super-fine pedal control on the ground while maintaining full authority in the air.

Did he reset the engine fire handle?

When I was learning the sim, there were only two major control things to keep in mind: When you left-click a switch, it simulates your hand flipping it up or flipping it to the left (not many of these exist...). When you left-click a knob, it simulates your hand turning the knob counter-clockwise (ie: 'turning it left'). Don't think of it as how the knob is implemented, but how your 'hand' (the mouse) interacts with the cockpit. So when I saw these radio knobs, I expect to turn them left to advance the frequency. Maybe this is due to my real-life background with these kinds of things, but was an annoying hurdle I had when learning to fly without easy comms / radios as I'd always advance the frequency in the wrong direction. If you put the DCS: A-10 radio in a real cockpit, the pilot would be baffled, because whenever he tried to turn it left, the frequency would go down. To me it was about as backwards as having a random switch in the cockpit work by flipping it up with a right-click instead. You're supposed to turn the knobs in a counter-clockwise direction to advance the frequency up, but they've programmed them backwards where you seemingly turn them 'clockwise' (which is what a right-click means) to advance the frequency.

+1 More than once I tried to get to the IFFCC menu and accidentally turned the whole system off. This was mostly when I was learning the A-10, but again, these are all things that wouldn't impact a veteran, yet ease the learning curve of the game somewhat. Even for someone who does know the jet, if it stops them from doing something stupid that you wouldn't have a problem with in real life I fail to see why it shouldn't be implemented. I'll also add that aircraft are pretty idiot-proof in real life, specifically because of things like switch guards and safety stops. An example is the pod control switches in the F-15E - the switch has three positions: OFF / STBY / ON. There's a switch stop between OFF and STBY so that you have to actually lift the switch over it to turn the pod on / off. This stop inadvertent switch actuation, specifically turning the stupid pod off in-flight so you have to wait for it to time back in. There's no stop between STBY and ON because accidentally hitting the switch between these two states doesn't affect it a whole lot. If this had to be done because real-life pilots could make this mistake, how stupid could those of us be who are committing the same mistakes in a game where we don't have real control of our own hands and none of these safety devices actually exist?

Because it suggests that the knob is being turned the opposite direction that it really is. Regardless of whether it appears that the knob is turning the correct direction, my control interaction completely suggests that the knobs are installed backwards, that I'm in fact turning it in the wrong direction to perform the actual function. I don't know if it's a MILSPEC standard but in every aircraft I've seen, all equipment control knobs have the 'safe' settings all the way to the left, usually OFF - STBY - PWR, or in the best case, countermeasures: OFF - STBY - MAN - SEMI - AUTO, because fully automated is the most dangerous condition. Having the radio knobs installed backwards (which is functionally all they are in the game) is like having the radar control knob on the F-15 installed backwards, where it's the only knob in the cockpit you have to turn RIGHT to turn off, and turning it left puts it into the dangerous condition of emergency mode. ??? It's still fundamentally the same concept, turn left or right. The sim's action suggests they're installed backwards - thus they're wrong.

Once, yes, and it'll probably happen again. Given how simple it would be to fix it forever and would impact nobody negatively, I fail to see why not. Let me use another example: In-game, every time you right-click a knob, the knob rotates clockwise. When you left-click, it goes counter-clockwise. The only exceptions to this are the radio frequency knobs, which work completely opposite. This is something that should be fixed. It's wrong and inconsistent. Arguing against it because you're "used to it" is incorrect, because it doesn't change the fact that it should be fixed. It took me a few times to learn that the knobs were backwards, as I'd always right-click out of habit to turn the knob clockwise and thus lower the frequency selection, when you actually have to left-click to do it (which turns the knob clockwise). This introduces a minor 'learning' element that shouldn't have to exist. That the fire handles and, in fact, all other emergency handles can have catastrophic impact on your flight and will always be easy to misclick doesn't change the fact that myself and others have had this problem in the past and it could be avoided permanently in the future with an easy fix.

It's an entirely different motion in 'real life' to go from pushing a button to yanking an entire handle the size of your hand. You can't do it accidentally, and if you could, I guarantee you there would've been a redesign to make sure you COULDN'T. Expressing your opinion should involve more than strawman arguments and ridiculous statements that have nothing to do with the post in question. To respond with anything besides a well thought-out response is doing little more than wasting my time. I am not the only one who's accidentally pulled the fire handles which are conveniently located right next to the UFC, and while rare, it's happened more than once. That is not and has never been a problem in real life so why it should be an issue in the sim when it's so easy to fix is beyond me. I'm actually not even the first person to suggest that the fire handles have a delay or some sort of minor safety built into them, this is literally not my idea, just something I thought about when I accidentally did it the other day. So saying that "it ain't broke" is like telling someone "your leg is broken? Well mine works fine so I don't believe you, stop whining". It is absolutely nothing like 'accidentally firing a gun', because I don't click a mouse to do everything in real life. Also you may have missed his implication there, but he's basically saying anyone who misclicks the fire handles is clearly so stupid they would misfire a gun in real life and pretend 'it just went off'. There's no other way to interpret that.

That or the engine troop left a screwdriver in there :D

Really? Seriously? How does this feature hurt anything, or are you just arguing for the sake of argument? That's the worst comparison ever. Difference between clicking the '9' button and pulling the fire handle can be as few as a dozen pixels. If this inconveniences you SO MUCH, are you going to throw a ragefit if it becomes a feature? If not, why are you arguing against it?

So you're saying the next DCS module will have all of East Asia? Heard it here first :D

Hell the map can't even handle the addition of the Crimean region...

I'll also add that when you're inertial, the black box that shows up around the center will slowly expand the longer you're inertial to try to compensate for error rate. If you're inertial too long it will revert to ATRK and completely lose PTRK. This is something else not modeled in the sim IIRC since quite often the pod does magical snapping-to-lost-target tricks. Sometimes when I'm tracking people on the ground (locked onto their delicious, squishy heads), the pod will get stuck to things like AGE around them. Anyway, it's mostly minor stuff, I just want the magical crystal-clear zooming removed from the pod and the ability to track targets when I should be able to (ie: I can see them with the pod, no question).

It should go inertial when it can't see what it was tracking, regardless if it's masked or not. If a cloud, building, or superman blocks whatever IR blob-shape it was tracking it will go inertial and try to 'find' it again. If you're tracking a truck that's stationary, and a building goes between you and the truck and the truck moves, there's a good chance the pod will 'float' around a bit when it can see again and probably lock onto the nearest truck-shaped object. It's really not as smart as the game treats it though that's probably a design limitation, and as I said, PTRKing is mostly just optical, which is why you have the black box (in real life, the black box floats around and moves to band-box whatever hot-spot you've picked - if it's like, a fencepost or something tall and skinny, it'll try to box it all up... so later if you lose where the object is it'll try to box up something tall and skinny again). Inertial guidance is fairly unreliable just because it cannot handle moving objects very well at all. The poor pod does the best it can and I can't be angry at it for that, but in the aforementioned building example, it *will* tend to drift around once it's in inertial. If you're tracking a moving object and you lose sight for too long, you'll have some trouble reacquiring it properly... though for ATRK inertial works just fine. Also, if the building in question has truck-shaped IR signatures on, I don't know, AC equipment on the roof, there's a chance the pod can get stuck on it.

Masked, ie: 'M' on the pod. Should be able to PTRK a target just fine - afterall, it can track them *with* a PTRK into the masking zone, so why wouldn't it be able to assign a new PTRK?

I'm not sure what the point would be of inclusion of the A-10C and KA-50, that would really just imply that the product would compete against itself. Since LockOn is really quite simplified and fairly arcady (not a whole lot different from, say, Over-G fighters), I think it would be neat to have it a little more advanced, sort of a 'game mode' for the respective weapons platforms. Your strange choice of airframes aside, would be sweet. ED just needs to hire a new division, maybe using the oodles of money they got from DCS: A-10 :D

*Shrug* Personal experience. When you use the pod on the ground it's pretty much masked in whatever direction you point it. It's just an optical tracker so I can't even imagine why it wouldn't allow you to do so, since we've all been in situations where you can see something just fine but cannot track it without rolling way over. Maybe it's a ridiculous limitation of this particular LITENING pod, but LANTIRN and Snipers don't seem to have any sort of problem assigning PTRKs to things in the masking area.

Well, unless you're suffering from a SADL bug. Personally I would love an interactive kneepad in-game that would keep chart of all this shit for you.

Actually this masking behavior is inaccurate. The TPod can track things while masked just fine, since it's all based optically. As long as it can see something, it can be boxed-up. It seems to be a bug more than anything that when masked you can't designate PTRKs. Masking is there to inhibit the laser firing so you can't burn a hole through the bombs next to it.

Because aircraft represent the one piece of warfare equipment that can do the most overall, cause the most devastation, perform the widest variety of missions, with the smallest number of people (1). I mean, what else would there be? DCS: Abrams would be sweet since I can't think of any recent super-realistic tank sims, but it would still have to streamline some of it since it takes four people to make the tank work. The guy up front does little more than steer the thing around, so multiplayer aside, would you be able to do fire-and-maneuver tactics, controlling the gun and steering at the same time? Not realistic in the slightest, but it would have to do. DCS: Patriot battery? If it came down to it, I imagine ED would pursue a lot of things no matter how ridiculous they seem to us (DCS: M198 Howitzer?) since it wouldn't be 'for' the civilian market, but something like would probably not move very many copies so whether we'd see it or not... don't know.

Thought the same thing lol. 90s my ass, this is an A-10.

Fair enough, but in my opinion if you install a piece of software on your computer without attempting to even try to find out what it does, that makes you, well... I mean the only case could be made for Steam but it even gives you a link directly to changes when it updates. There's really zero excuse except simple ignorance.

Well most important to me is having the correct changelog when the patch does come out, since features get added and dropped, not knowing that something was changed in say, how GBUs are handled by the physics could cause confusion. This isn't too bad in this but in other games can cause a real headache, especially balance changes where it's unclear if it's a bug or not. Regardless... one thing that would be nice is a sort of 'special attention' page of the Patcher that will draw attention to particularly important changes. After the last patch where all the idiots came on here to try to figure out why EAC wouldn't engage, it's clear that too many people are NOT reading the changelog, so perhaps a special pop-up or semi-unskippable page that will detail the major control / functional changes only would alleviate some of it... ie: "Axis of engines sound was reversed" wouldn't be on there, but "Emergency handles now only actuate on right-clicks" would be, so at least SOME people who just blindly apply patches would realize there's actually a changes in the changelog :D In this case: - "The Shore" and "Devil's Cross" campaigns removed. These 3rd party campaigns are available on the File Exchange. http://files.lockon.ru/en/ - Magnetic heading indication in HARS mode was made functional. Excessive HARS attitude gyro precession was fixed. HARS Fast Erect button should work correctly now. - Manual MFCD power knob implemented. Must turn on during ramp start. - GAU-8 Clearing Cycle was modeled. If GUN ARM switch is set to OFF less than 2.5 seconds after gun trigger was released, GUN UNSAFE will be lit on Caution Light Panel. Gun will jam on the next fire attempt. Probably should be the big notes, though maybe not the last one since I imagine it's fairly rare that that happens.

Alright, how about a compromise: A] All emergency handles are immediately actuated with a right-click, but take one second to hold with a left click. or B] Single-clicking on a handle does nothing, but clicking both mouse buttons on a handle will actuate it immediately. I think I like the 'both button' solution the best, almost zero chance of accidental actuation while not consuming any time to perform. Of course, then we're going to have 1,000 threads of people going 'Y TEH HANDUL NO WERK?!' For what it's worth, I have no idea how terrible an engine fire in real life is, but engine fires seem to have, besides reduced power output, almost zero effect on things for a very long time. If you watch AI planes, oftetimes they'll take damage and keep flying with a burning engine. In one case, a Sukhoi of some sort took two AIM-120s and flew about fifty miles back to base with its engines engulfed in flames. I personally have never actually had some sort of fuel explosion from a burning engine, so I wonder what the engine fire modeling actually is, if there even is any. I imagined engine fires being a lot more dangerous than the sim seems, since as I mentioned, I usually don't extinguish fires for a while anyway since getting SOME power out of an engine is a lot better than getting NO power. As you said, you usually get a fire in combat and I need all the power I can get. Well to clear it up, I have no doubt there's something modeled, but it has never felt like a particularly dangerous situation to me, so maybe whatever modeling is there is taking too long to engage due to bug or design oversight. Or, maybe aircraft can fly with a burning engine like nothing's wrong... Regardless, due to the position of the A-10s engines, I imagine an uncontained fire wouldn't really do much damage anyway, since it's not like they're surrounded with vital wiring that can get burned through, or avionics parts or even major airframe components. As always the real threat would be the fire spreading to the tanks but does that even happen in-game?

That trademark is that of 3D Realms, right? Wait, didn't work out very well for them :D I hate getting these changelogs early because I'm always all excited and shit waiting for it :) Really can't wait for the ME changes. Also about the IFFCC BIT... anyone ever think about actually making the BIT interactive? ('Set EAC switch to arm...' etc.) Totally pointless and useless, but the very first time I ran the BIT I actually followed the movements around until I realized it went on without me.