atsmith6

Are static object templates possible? I love that I can create groups and template them with vehicles, but I want to create a few bases and make them into templates for easier mission creation. However, it appears that static objects can't be grouped so whole bases can't be made into templates. Am I missing something here? Any feedback would be appreciated... Regards

Hi I'm new to mission building so please forgive me if I'm ignorant of the basics. I would be grateful if anyone could shed some light on the following two problems. FIRST PROBLEM: X: COCKPIT PERFORM CLICKABLE ACTION I've got a trigger event that results in a X: COCKPIT PERFORM CLICKABLE ACTION event. In this case it's to open the left and right passenger doors for the UH-1. It all works just fine in single player but in multiplayer, it only runs on the aircraft being run by the host. So for example. If I play single player and fly helicopter 1 (HELO1): 1. I land at the trigger zone 2. My doors open If I play multiplayer and fly a different helicopter (call it HELO2), then when the other guy in HELO1 lands in the trigger zone, then my doors on HELO2 open, not his, regardless of whether or not I'm anywhere near the trigger zone. The zone won't trigger for me anyway, as it's setup only to trigger for HELO1. Any ideas how I ensure that the doors of HELO1 open, and not the doors of the chopper that happens to be running on the server? SECOND PROBLEM: FM Homing Signals on Multiplayer. This seems to be a host is a "the only person allowed to get it" problem again. I create an infantry unit and for waypoint zero set the following actions: 1. Set Frequency (40.5) 2. Transmit Message("Somenoise.ogg", "", on) <-- set to loop 3. Hold <-- stop condition is one hour Now in single player I dial up 40.5 and I can home just fine. In multiplayer, only the chopper running on the server host can do this. Client choppers get no homing signal at all. Many thanks in advance

The simple answer to fix this is to be aware that as your helicopter transitions to hover the added torque from the sudden power change puts you out of balance. To compensate you will need to do the following things almost simultaneously: 1. Increase collective 2. Increase left pedal pressure 3. Move the cyclic left 4. Quickly trim to the new balance point Practice hover to forward flight (40kts approx.) then back to hover again a few times while baring this in mind and you should get the feel. I found that focusing on doing that while keeping my VVI as close to zero as possible taught me a huge amount and made the transition easier. That said, with a spring centred desktop stick that pivots just below your wrist rather than a cyclic operating down at the floor this is always going to be hard to pull off!

Thanks for the tip piXel496. Will definitely try it out :)

Hi I have an X-65F and have flown the KA-50 with it. There is an issue with mine that may be the same for you. The stick never truely centres. With mine, if I have my hands off, the input sent to the computer is very slightly off centre both up and to the right. This meant that the centre trimmer mode never gets a stick centred message. If fixed this by setting the dead zone to be just beyond the offset error in my stick, so when I was hands-off the drivers reported stick-centred to operating system. Also, the twist rudder on the X-65 is unworkable for me when flying helos (fine for planes). I unmapped the rudder axis from the stick and used pedals instead. I also eventually stopped using the stick centring trimmer mode for other reasons. Hope that's useful.

Thank all of you for those posts. I was particularly wondering about climb performance while strafing a convoy in the mountains and this pre-empted that question :)

Nealius, thanks for that. Will fish it out and start studying up. Much appreciated :)

Sabre-TLA, thanks a million for the links and reading suggestions. Can't wait to get reading :) Very much appreciated mate!

Hi Forgive me if this has been asked before and I've failed to find it. I come from a BMS background where there is a ton of knowledge about just about every phase of flight available. Specifically it doesn't take much digging and you'll quickly find someone that can walk you through all the steps of a complex attack against well defended installations. What's more is this learned gentleman can likely wax lyrical for hours about a hundred interesting points that will keep you alive when the unexpected goes whazzuuuup! Problem is the world of the 550kts & 5.5G in a CAT III fast jet with afterburner is entirely different to the world inhabited by our trusty Warthog. I find that when it comes to combat norms and procedures at 200kts and slow climbs I am completely lacking and out of my depth. Worse, I have no idea where to start looking for information about how to prosecute the mission this plane was built for in a professional manner (or at least pretend to in a convincing way). Does anyone have any suggestions regarding reading material that may help me head down this long and fascinating rabbit-hole? Any morsels of information would be highly appreciated. I derive great joy from flying online and "by the book" as it were, and in this case, I have no book... :lol:

Use it like a mini-joystick.

Make certain your air speed is right when landing, i.e. the AOA indexer only has the 'O' lit. If, at that speed, you touch down with the FPM just under the horizon line you'll not be at risk of any blown tires. I've tried coming in heavy and jamming the brakes on touchdown to try force a blowout on the nosewheel after touching down with the above parameters and the tires are perfectly fine. Tested on single and multi-player. Hope that helps

Where I've found the Falcon BMS sticky-switches thing for the mouse invaluable is using the mouse wheel to adjust rotating knobs. Means I can do it quickly and easily without pausing my trackir or changing zoom levels. The BMS cockpit does an excellent job at being easy to use at one level of indirection, i.e. using the mouse to click the buttons. My ideal would be what I call BMS ergonomics in the DCS simulator. When DCS finally gets a proper DCS level multi-role fighter I will be spending a LOT more time in it!

New product idea: Mini TM Warthog disguised as a home appliance that she does want around.

There are some videos on youtube showing Apaches firing at their targets. I was very shocked to see how spread out the impacts were compared to the impacts in BS. My subjective opinion is that while the cannon does cause the KA-50 to rotate to the right the Shkval + Cannon combo is very accurate in DCS. I'd even go so far as to hazard a guess that the system in the sim is more accurate than the real KA-50. Like I said, this after watching some Apache live fire on youtube. Any real KA-50 / KA-50-2 or KA-52 pilots out there to give a better view?

I'm a programmer by trade and we regularly re-factor our code to maintain quality. Basically when you write the code, or add a feature, then sometimes (or perhaps often) you will write the code a certain way or put in a "hack" to get it working well enough to release on time. While this may be sufficient quality for that specific release it may compromise the design moving forward. Whatever the details you then re-visit that code later and re-write / reorganise the code so that it once again fits in well with the design / quality requirements. The technique was formalised as a mitigating strategy against projects where code became so complex and fractured that they eventually had to be abandoned. So in short, when I see that someone is refactoring a piece of code, that is generally a sign that the programmers take their job, and more importantly the quality, seriously. Consider me very happy :)

Of all the wonderful aircraft in my DCS stable, the KA-50 is closest to my heart. Really love flying it :)

Hey I went through exactly the same with exactly the same hardware. Took some time to adjust but now it's second nature I have WAY more control with the pedals than I ever had with the stick. Practice and you'll see :) Hope that helps.

I put together a small mission that involved a KA-50 escorting six vehicles from Sochi to Adler. This was mainly for flight practice so the six vehicle group and the KA-50 were the only user added objects in the mission. When the vehicles came to cross the first of the two bridges south of Nov Matsesta, they simply bunched up and stopped, or bugged out is perhaps a better way to put it. I've included some images to show what happened. Note: This didn't affect the automatically generated civilian traffic that simply passed through the AI vehicles and proceeded over without any collision detection evident. Have a great day! A

Whatever the reason, I agree, please remove the zoom out. As a graphics programmer myself I cannot think of a single thing this would achieve beyond that Hollywood experience for new players. Perhaps the technical reason was a marketing person making a technical spec :P Don't get we wrong, I think this team are second to none! Lots of love from me for the most amazing sim-flight experience. I have and will continue to buy everything they release. I just don't like the zoom. It makes me wait... (hmm, could that be the technical reason?)

This thread really grabbed my interest as my approach was to deploy speed-brakes on touchdown due to the nearly non-existent wheel brakes at that speed. However, I just watched a few real life A-10 landings on youtube and they all had speed-brakes deployed (some full some less than half). None of these had weapons though so I'm wondering: is there a minimum landing RPM? If that's the case then if you're too clean you need to brake, if you have high drag weapons perhaps you need it less? The point about the red-flag landings being brake-free is what triggered that idea. Any merit? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

I personally prefer a high pre-load radius. The reason is that to me it looks like DCS does the loading in the main simulator thread. I make this guess because pre-loading high poly models like the Shilka causes severe stutter the first time it's loaded in a mission. Thus, I'd rather get the stutter before I'm in the action. I'm going to make another guess (more like go out of a very long limb) and assume that the new DCS graphics engine will load from disk in a separate thread, maybe even with a different CPU affinity, which should take care of the stutter to some degree or another. Please be aware that I'm NOT associated with DCS at all so everything above only represents a balance of personal speculation and hopes :) Also, I personally think the DCS programmers are very skilled. My experience with DCS always leaves me with programmer envy.

Thank you. Much appreciated!

Hi I'm busy creating a four plane A-10C mission. However I'm having difficulty placing the additional pilots into the flight in the mission editor. I can set the first plane as "Player" or "Client". But subsequent planes only have AI settings. Are we restricted to one pilot per group? If so, do I need to re-create the group and all way-points for each member of the flight if I want two or more players? Sorry if this is a silly question but I've looked for the answer and not found it. If I've overlooked it in the manual I've not realised. Many thanks!

+1 on the faulty twist pot.

Hi kainhall I've had an X52 Pro and now use the X65-F. Both are exceptional flight sticks and with both I felt that I got very good value for money, important considering the price. I behaved irrationally, spent like a trooper, and bought myself the Warthog HOTAS as well, also exceptional. After some time using both I find that for everything barring the A-10 I use the Saitek. Customising the buttons and hat switches in the Saitek is very easy and having multiple custom profiles for different sims is child's play. The only thing I prefer on the Warthog hotas is the feel of the throttle. The Saitek throttles are, and remain, a touch too stiff. Regards the rotaries on the X52 causing problems, mine worked perfectly from day one. The twist grip eventually failed though, hence buying the X65-F. The latter has been used by me very extensively and it's performed without a single glitch or hiccup. I must caveat that with the fact that I've read that others haven't taken to the pressure sensitive stick in the same way I have. It allows for extremely accurate and fine control but does take a while to get used to. The saitek sticks are by far my personal favourite in regard to what's available today. Given your price range, if I was in your shoes, the X52 Pro would be my choice. If you're a dedicated virtual pilot (or perhaps more accurately, OCD about sims like me, I'd strongly suggest saving for a while and going for the X65. Just don't over-spend like I did :) Fun, but very unwise of me! I sincerely hope that was useful.