159_Archer

Mostly A2G although I do like a bit of air2air action. I am longing for DCS to have a good, reliable helo-transport system in place -such a shame to have such nice helos available and they sit there awaiting use sometimes...

Multicrew Mi-8 -and all helos actually- would be very welcome indeed. I love the Hip and so do others in our squad -so MP helo ops would be popular -just so long as they work reliably of course.

^^^Oh good -I must admit I completey forgot about the 'un-assigned' countries - will correct that one immediately. Thx for the info.

Having used the Insurgents option in the past for mission making as oppostion groups, I thought I'd start making a new mission with the Insurgents as the opposition -except I notice they are now gone! I take it they were dropped to allow more nations into the mix? Shame really, as they were useful to have and they fill a 'non-specified' enemy slot which no other nations do (you can make them the bad-guys with no possibility of offending people) -any plans to get them back? Please! :pilotfly:

Been a while since I last used S-8 rockets from an Mi-8 so I can't advise on whether that's about right or not. BTW which type of S-8 are you using and are you stationary or on a run? I do however fly the Su-25 and fire them from that regularly -and I try to fire at R-max to lessen the chances of being shot down, which is probably not much different than 1kmm and my experience is that if I use 80 rockets against trucks at that range that I'd expect probably around 5 kills and a little damage to others. I will try a test if I remember soon to see the results and get back to you.

Well, it all seems to work fine now -I left it a while, did some mission tuning, and re-sent the mission -works NP. Might have been an internet glitch or maybe a problem in-game.

At the 159th squad we have a dedi and run the Caucasus map fine on it. We have just installed the Persian map, but when I tried to join it I immediately have problems. The ping is much higher (Cauc' 235 Vs 480 Persia) and when I eventually get in game I cannot choose a slot -only join as spectator. I tried to rejoin and the 2nd attempt could not even get that far -my game crashed and the 3rd attempt the screem hung loading -but no seeming crash of game. Does anyone know if this is some aspect of the Persian map or perhaps our dedi needs more memory (it is getting on now). Dedi info; I5-4690k @3.50Ghz, 16GB RAM, Nvid GT730 Thx Archer

This issue is still present -it only happens to me (so far) when dropping multiple bombs -and also only the 1st salvo not subsequent ones. Any chance of this being fixed and thus saving xxx hundreds of wasted munitions?!

Oubaas, can I ask why you think the Persia map is good for Helos? I don't question your statement, but after buying Nevada and being disappointed with the out-lying areas I feared that the Gulf would be the same. Are you referring to anything in particular in the map or all of it? Thx Arch

In the latest openbeta notes there is the line; Dust and smoke atmosphere effect added to Mission Editor As many who work with the ME will know, we have had the ability to have smoke and fire placed into missions via picking the effects option, but not any of the other listed effects -so far as I could work out anyway. With the above mention in the OB update I assumed that these might work now, but have so far failed to get any to do so -does anyone know anything? Must admit I don't know anything about the option to attach to unit and whether that's important or not. Cheers, Archer

As for how long, well we regularly re-start it, although it can be running for days at a time. We do all the regular checks and maintain the dedi pretty well. As for how much RAM it's using, that tends to go up as the mission runs -until there is no spare. I can probably get hold of better info from the machine itself. Players can vary -but ATM squad flights usually have around 7 in game for 2 hours is the norm.

The 159th has run a dedi server for some time now and we are looking around seeing if we can improve things, mainly because we are having some performance issues with missions and because it appears there might be better options out there now. Currently, we have our machine co-loc at Corespace in Texas, -the current specs of our machine are I5 4690k CPU @ 3.50 Ghz with 16GB RAM and nVid GT730. We are finding that we seem to suffer from memory leakage, although since the advent of DCS 2.0 it appears to 'come-and-go' -but we cannot seem to pin it to anything in particular, and wondered whether it might be our system? Could any other squads/groups out there relate to us thier experiences and any advice they might be able to offer? It has come to our attention that it is possible to 'bid' on renting machines to use as servers such as from Hetzner in Germany -an ex-squad mate says this works well -anyone any knowledge of these set-ups? One further thought -there doesn't appear to be much info available about the upcoming DCS server mentioned here-abouts -does anyone know anything useful in how this will affect any mission-hosters such as ourselves? Thanks in advance for any help -it will be much appreciated! Archer 159th CO

I have been building a 'repair the Kuz' mission, and testing has proven that most cargo types appear to be OK when dropped on her -although the big oil tank did sink through to the hanger deck when dropped once!

IIRC they were taken out because the Su-33 never actually carried them. Was a shame because they were certainly a popular weapon amongst '33 drivers -especially in the 159th GAR.

It isn't actually all that hard to make a fairly simple mission -but I do admit things aren't necessarily obvious in this sim. I was going to start and write here what to do, but I think it'd be easier if you want to, I can meet you on our squad's TS if you like and talk you through it?

Not an expert on this feature but it works only in the openbeta ATM and you need to click on the tank icon on lower part of screen. The 2D object only shows when you are zoomed in close. I noticed that it appears to slow the ME when first you use it -not sure yet if this lag continues as I haven't really used it yet. EDITED BTW I believe this feature only works in the openbeta as yet?

Hi IL2000, nice to see the enthusiasm for some serious ME building. Not wishing to be negative, but as things stand 2.5 is not a lot of fun to use for mission-building as it's still in beta. some of us in the 159th GAR have got stuck into the ME and built biggish missions, but keep running into issues. With each update released we have found some things fixed but then other things get broken. Might be best to start work but not get too complex until it's all (hopefully) fully sorted, otherwise it can be extremely frustrating (speaking from too much experience!). Hopefully we'll have it right before much longer. As for mission ideas, we have tried to push the helo troop/sling-load thing along as that would be brilliant to have in mission and supported by fast-movers. Great fun to be had there.

That's interesting to know -BN do you know if there's a limit on speed with SL's? I can't see a helo being able to go all-out when it has something dangling around underneath it on a rope... :pilotfly:

Doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong -if you loaded them OK it should be just a matter of landing somewhere and calling up on the menu to get them to unload. You could perhaps try with 4 x 4 groups to see if 5 is a problem? I will try 5 myself later today if I get time. EDITED. OK, I did try 5 groups of 4, and they load and unload OK. Although now I find the groups will not respond to control via F10 -and yes I have enabled 'pilots can control units' or whatever -I know they did respond as I have managed to do so in this same mission with these same troops every time I wanted to in previous usage -odd stuff...

What I get if I put -say- 6 infantry to load, is when I call them to load all run towards the helo, and 4 get on and the others always stop. The helo can then take off and UL them, but they don't respond when dropped-off. Same with AI, I set it up for either a Huey of Hip to take 6 and 4 load, the others stay! Interesting that you have no probs. I wonder if it's something to do with weight or what-not? I have tried half-fuel and no armour (on Hip) and no different.

I haven't flown the Huey in ages -but I do know going too fast with a SL in the Hip means your load will start getting a mind of its own -as it surely would at too high a sspeed in RL? I limit my load-carrying speed to under 150kmh (around 100mph) and have no trouble.

I have tried experimenting with this in the last few days. I find that you cannot have a group of more than 4 infantry to transport, but you can have multiple groups of 4 that will all load. I have loaded 4 groups each of 4 infantry into my Mi-8 and flown to no particular spot and disembarked all of them OK. They are all then controllable. So, If you want helo transportable infantry (not tried MANPADs as yet) make groups of 4 and you should be OK. I admit I have not fully tested this in MP (hosting on another dedi) but will do so ASAP. I have found it possible to use AI helos to also move and deploy infantry -you need to enable the infantry to be transportable and allocate them to a helo which itself is enabled for transporting by having embark and disembark points made up.

Also, there are videos showing Warsaw-pact aircraft such as MiG-29 and Su-25 landing on roads. It would indeed be great if we had the option to set-up a FOB. Which leads me to ask about the 'grass-airfields' available in the static list; they appear to have airfield attributes but are not working so far as we in our squad can tell during tests. Seeing as they have been made (we assume for WW2 logically) will they get finished -or do they work already with WW2 planes only or in future? It would be great if they worked with AC that in the more modern era did/do use FOBs on roads. It would open up some interesting mission possibilities.

I have -at differing times in past release versions- tested out ECM effectiveness with 410 pod only though. I cannot be sure that things are the same but I can give a quick summary of what I found. Against the 'best' systems -S-300 and Patriot- they were pretty useless, which is probably right considering you're carrying a relatively small device against a very powerfull ground based system. Against such as Hawks and Buks, they seemed to allow you to get a little closer, but all that happened then is you had less time to react because you're closer to the launch site -which was not helpful I found -and the pod didn't in anyway I could see, decoy incoming arrows. TBH I never thought to test them against SHORAD stuff, although I know someone who says that they are pretty useful against these -I need to test this out. To give you a summation of how I currently use them -I don't bother! I prefer to save the weight and that certainly has saved my AC when I have used speed and manoeuvreing to successfully evade SAMs.

Funnily enough I was testing one of our squad's members missions last night, and I fired Kh-58's which appeared to track onto an S-300 but were shot down by the '300. I then fired my Kh-25mpu (4 of them) and they appeared to 'vanish' somehow -I say that because it was a night mission and we didn't see where they went, but they didn't last more than a short time -too short to have flown to target or to have been shot sown. Something not right it seems. We can confirm that the S-300 wasn't visible in game either -it was there, but not viewable!