LostOblivion

I agree with the thread starter. Albeit a much, much more advanced and to the absolute detail simulation than most other flying sims out there (FS, etc), it is not hard to learn how to start the A-10 and fly it. This can all be done in a few hours of fiddling with it. I don't really understand the comments people make to the new-to-DCS simmers wanting to try out the hog for the first time only to be faced with a wall of negative feedback of how hard it is starting the A-10 and flying it, having to read the entire manual, etc, because this is really not necessary, and flying the hog is really easy if you just put a few hours into it--like in any game really. What takes time, however, also for real pilots, is learning about how the systems work, why they work, and why you need them, what to do in certain situations, how to handle a bogey callout using the navigation computer and bullseye navigation, how to operate the ILS, how to and how not to speak on the radio with your wingmen, how to (most simmers don't need this) interpret weather conditions and handle your aircraft accordingly, how to make sure that the LGB lands on that IFV without blowing up the 83 civvies living in the building right next to it, etc, etc. This is what takes time, not the flying. The flying is easy. And even blowing stuff up in this sim is very easy once you've done it once or twice. Having said that, this is a throughrough sim, and if you want the most of it, and you probably will once you've become so proud from starting that damned pig successfully all by yourself, you will want to read up a bit on how to do certain things. Happy flying! Edit: Oh, and I played this sim myself for two months with my Sidewinder Presicion Pro before deciding to buy myself the TM HOTAS Warthog and a set of rudders, so it's not really a MUST to spend hundreds of silver to enjoy this game, although you probably will once you've become addicted. ;)

Hey, I don't quite understand why the Pinky Switch Center and Pinky Switch Forward positions would physically flip the collision lights switch to the off position, rather than just overriding the switch and disabling collision lights while Pinky Switch remains in these positions, allowing it once again to illuminate once the Pinky Switch is set to the Aft position should the collision light switch be set to the on position at this point. Are you sure it really is like this in the A-10? It makes less sense to me this way, because like it is now, I have to look away in order to look down to turn the collision lights on again every time I fence out, rather than just flipping the Pinky Switch back into the Aft position.

Can't see the vid. The URL is garbled...

A little ducktape and it's good as new...

Crap I know, but I couldn't resist... :P

Serial#: 06764 Location: Oslo, Norway

Landing on carriers, yeaaaaaaaah!!!! CALL THE BALL!!!

Yes. There are so many more aspects of commanding a ship than it is flying, and most of them are very boring indeed, so spending time making "realistic" features for ship sims is most likely not bought by consumers. Think about the different things a ship consists of. Different deck guns, torpedoes, anti-air missiles, sonar. All of these things cannot fit neatly into one cockpit commanded by one person, they'll have to spread it into several panels. One thing is sitting by one of several panels at a time, which would get incredibly boring in the end when not peeking in the F2 view, it would mean the devs would have to come up with some ingenous AI to handle the stations you're not on, and when they're talking about the difficulties of implementing a good WSO AI for the F-15E... It couldn't achieve the same amount of realism to say the least, as the current DCS titles. In the end, I wouldn't mind ED sticking to the pure flying perspective of the series, but they have to improve the ship models and "stuff that is on the ocean", especially should they decide to make the F/A-18 whereas they need a pretty convincing carrier AI and models. Also, when making carrier ops, I think spending time making deck crew will be very important.

They have mentioned afaik that this will be the ultimate goal of DCS.

It would be better to have Ground Crew, Rearming open a payload menu similar to that in the mission editor.

Hmmm, I notice the release button on your stick is white. Strange, as it's red on other hogs I've seen.

PM me if you wanna fly some multiplayer ingame with me and I can explain things you're not familiar with. :)

Can you post some preview pictures of all the replaced textures? :)

Some screens from the other day. :)

I hope it'll be the hornet. I really wanna do realistic carrier landings + a DCS fighter module is needed.

This would be that line FlyingBrick was talking about. Forgetting about magnetic/geographic heading for a second, this is where that perfectly straight line would go around the earth from an initial heading of 300 starting in New York.

I'm so glad they fixed the ground power "Hey, what are you doing?!" message, but as I rarely use ground power now that they fixed the power drop bug when switching to AC gen...:doh:

If you want the best experience, this sim should be accompanied with the Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog, but it does come at a price. If you're really into simming, then the hog is worth buying. I've flown the FS series like you for quite a while "back in the day", and I actaully had the same Microsoft stick as you back then, but once I tried out DCS with the sidewinder and felt the sim really kicked ass, I went for the hog. Oh the precision! Oh the feeling of metal to my hands! Oh the sound of the APU switching on as I flick the switch! The two week starvation period was really worth it...:joystick:

It's perfectly understandable why ED spent time making a game mode, as they surely wouldn't make enough income on the hardcore simmers alone.

For the love of God man! don't refund! :O

Ah nice, is the stock TT hog housing inside that box?

I'm wondering if this could be used when mounting the base housing onto a wooden plate on the floor and then use a rather long extension up to the stick itself. Is this feasable? I reckon the extension would have to be around 300 mm tall.

Unlike many airliners, speekbrakes or spoilers are not operated by an axis in the real A-10, but a two way switch on the throttle, right above the boat switch. I'd bet a real A-10 pilot would get a pretty good idea how much speedbreak he has out only by feeling how the aircraft handles when extending them.

God damn it! :P

Any way to switch off ground safe for gun and armament other than ripping off the gear and land? :P I wanna pull a 007...