mmaruda

Would it be possible to add a hook to the Mustang?

I have CH pedals, they work pretty good, but it's the stick that lacks precision. I managed to "hover" for 30 seconds today, and I found that the key is not trimming, or holding the stick in place. The trimmer is really useless here, when you need to constantly work with the stick. Without the precision of a very high resolution stick, you adjust the curves and the amount of movement needed for more deflection is way bigger. So trimming does not really help here. Anyway, I found the key to success is "pumping" with the stick - moving it back and left, centring and again... That got me hovering quite nicely. Landings on the other hand are near impossible. I cannot get this thing from a forward flight to a steady hover no matter what. I either end up in a vortex ring or start bouncing forward and back, but cannot really lose enough altitude to land. The only way to set her down is like plane - dive down, fly low, slightly flare and slide onto the ground. In most cases I manage not to brake anything, but it's hardly a proper landing.

Where is the auto-trim thing and what does it do? All I can see is autopilot options and central position trimmer.

Noticed this too, kind of irritating.

I'm not a real pilot, so I won't judge the FM, but as said before, the difficulty lies with the fact we don't have proper controls. I use a CH setup, so no fancy hall sensors and adjusting the curves doesn't really help much - it's just not precise enough for this helicopter. Some people mention that putting the joystick on a stool between your legs helps, since that's where the cyclic is in a real chopper. Anyway, it would be great, if there was an option to sort of dampen the controls for people without precise sticks - something like take off assist in the P-51D.

Has anyone also noticed that after the last patch the enigine primer sound and radio button clicks are gone? Is this how it's supposed to be, or it a bug?

I loved flying the Dora in IL-2 and hated the Mustang... The good old days have returned, only I cannot fly the Dora, so I'm dead meat. DCS is damn hard.

I have watched them already, everything looks smooth in theory. :) Anyway, I'm getting the hang of it. Flying is not that hard, you just need to wave the stick like crazy all the time. I did a few circles around the buildings in Tbilisi - cool, very manoeuvrable, feels awesome, but my hand hurts like hell. Hovering and landing is a completely different thing. It's impossible for me to hover (sort of, no one in their right mind would call it that) lower the collective and set her down - either I have too much collective and climb, or I just lose lift and fall like a rock. It seems the only way to get her down is by diving in circles around the place where you want to land, slow down in the last few seconds to below 20 knots and land the damn thing like it was a plane. Anyway, I am past the phase of despair and currently going into the "I'll learn it, someday maybe".

How is it even possible for you guys to fly this? I can get off the ground hover for about 5 seconds before I am all over the place and that is it. Level flight is ok as well as turning and such, but when it comes to slowing down and landing it's always a crash. I feel that the controls are way to sensitive with my CH gear. I tried adjusting the curves but it's even worse, can't find the sweet spot. Any tips?

Pics anyone? I'm stuck at work till late evening. The anticipation to get home and throw money at the devs is killing me.

Outerra owns big time! I just hope we will see a proper sim on the engine at some point.

I'm no expert in the matter, since I only have my track since December (worth it!!!), but when I was buying mine, no indication of 6 coming was seen and as far as I know things haven't changed. That said, it does not really matter what kind of tracking device you use, you just got to have one. Seriously, the ability to look around with your head is the best thing in sims since joysticks were invented. If you are short on money go with Freetrack or FacetrackNoir. If you can afford TrackIR though, go for it. The sooner, the more time you will have to learn to use it. :) The only reason not to get one ASAP is waiting for Oculus Rift, which looks awesome, but so far there is no telling how it will work with DCS.

Since I have little money left till the end of the month, I'm more than glad to wait. Make it as polished as humanly possible and take your time - ED fans are eager to buy new stuff, but they also appreciate hard work and quality content - out patience has great limits... At least mine has, when I'm broke. :)

IT helpdesk agent here. My job involves answering a ton of e-mails and copy-pasting stuff into the system with the occasional call to technicians here and there. Kind of a a failure, if you consider I have a master's degree in British literature, but it pays the bills and leaves some for financing my sim hobby.

LOL Dream on. As for the Alpha - Arma 3 runs much better overall than Arma 2 and as for the engine, look at DCS - it's the same exact case. Performance issue and bugs are present in World just like they plagued the original Lock On. The reason Bohemia does not write new engine is exactly the same why ED does not write a new one and same goes for choosing Cryengine or Frostbite - they may look good but are useless in terms of doing stuff that Arma does - realistic infantry combat, ballistics, autonomous AI and a 250km2 landscape without having to see the loading screen every 5 minutes, the editor... I could go on. Bohemia is not a big and rich company, they make do and what they do is pretty impressive and most fun. Your arguments against Arma could easily be applied to DCS, but somehow people here understand how things work in sim development and that it's not as easy as "let's make a new engine". ED announced Nevada how many years ago? And when exactly is Edge coming? And Greece sucks? At least there is a new map. With DCS the whole Edge/Nevada/new 3rd party maps thing has grown to be a new Duke Nukem Forever. Somehow though, people overlook these things because they understand that it's not easy to make a simulation game - we wait patiently for anything ED gives us and support them by buying the stuff, because we understand how this business works. Well guess what? BIS is in the same business and they are the only ones who managed to make a game where 100 people can play coop on a single server with an infantry company, a couple of tank platoons and pair of Apaches and Harrier providing CAS. Comparing Arma to Battlefield is just like comparing World of Warplanes to DCS. Sorry, but you are just being unfair. Also, it's just an Alpha. ;)

CPU should be first in line - I had the same CPU you have and it did not cut it. Switching to an i5 2500K did the job. A new GPU would also be in order for that resolution. Titan is overkill IMO - aim for something like GTX 670 with a lot of vRAM - texture memory is crucial for DCS.

You can adjust your curves in the TIR software to alleviate the issue. You can also get contact lenses...

Stop it with IL-2 already. It's a descent classic old sim, with good physics for the time it was released. However it's not a study sim and has some flaws like the fact that it does not model surface pressure and the resistance the pilot faces when pulling on the stick properly. IRL it would require epic strength to pull on the stick hard enough to stall a plane diving at 600kph. In IL-2 the virtual stick travels as fast as the joystick and control surfaces travel with it. Maybe with FFB it's different, but flying with a normal joystick is equivalent to having hydraulic assistance of some sort.

To me this looks cool. Reminds me of good old CoD 4 before the series went to the gutter. Than again I never much liked Battlefield. I hated the first one because of the railgun-like sniper rifles and the movement and shooting mechanics of BF2 always felt odd to me, I bought it eventually when it was cheap as dirt but only to play Project Reality. BF3 was not bad if you could stand the DLC and DRM stuff and find a well balanced server (rare thing for me, if I want good pings). Eventually I got bored in it after playing an hour of the last DLC. Compared to the stuff that you can have in Arma MP, they should be ashamed of even using the word "battlefield" in the title. BF4? I might buy it for that over the top single-player, but if multi is just BF3 with ships or some other vehicles, it's gonna be boring. They either need to go Arma or Planetside with it... Or DCS! ^^

Go for CH! Warthog is not that versatile, if you plan on playing anything besides the A-10, also very expensive and there are reports of failures. X52 is a good entry level HOTAS, but since you already consider more expensive stuff, no need to waste money on something with less functionality, when you will feel the need to upgrade at some point. That leaves CH - all it lacks is analogue axis on the throtle and maybe a dual-stage trigger. Sturdiness-wise, it's rock solid and feels unbreakable. Sure there are reports of breaking but nowhere near as many as with Saitek or TM. If you need a versatile HOTAS with solid build quality, there is nothing better.

What is the damn point in hating on IL-2 here? For the time it went out, it was the most realistic prop sim, period. It still has a pretty descent FM if you consider how old it is. To my mind, the FMs in IL-2 and DCS are quite similar. Obviously DCS is more advanced, but the Mustang feels and acts very similar in both sims. Those of you who compare and say IL-2 "tastes like cardboard" need to go out and catch some fresh air cause you might as well be hating Quake 1 cause it does not look as good as Crysis. Oleg's FM was state of the art sim tech 12 years ago and it is still impressive how it withstood the test of time. I'm fairly certain without IL-2, we would not have the Mustang today. Now, that said, what Jcomm showed in the track if probably the most important difference between the two mentioned sims - in DCS, you have a better feel for plane and you can react in time, in IL-2 if you screw up, you stall and you cannot do anything about it before you fall low enough.

Looks to me like you are trying to chase the boom, there were moments in the video when you were almost there, but instead of keeping the plane straight and waiting for the boom operator to do his thing, you wanted to do it yourself. On the other hand, my attempts look the same, don't get discouraged. It's an ungrateful job flying the A-10C - it eats up your time and take months before you can go owning stuff. Also, when you finally make it, make sure to do a video and post it here, so we can all congratulate you, making the hard work even more rewarding.

Alt+C switches mouse look on.

The tap method is supposedly what real Black Shark pilots do. It can cause bumps, because if you make too rapid and drastic changes to the flight parameters, the AP overcompensates or something. As mentioned before, you need to make your control curves smoother. As for the hold method, someone wrote that it's not advised as in the real helicopter, hydraulic pressure is released from the cyclic and it becomes floppy (not sure this is right). Anyway, one major problem with the hold method for me, is that it takes longer make precise manoeuvres and it's less comfortable when you trim with your thumb (more muscles are flexed when moving the stick).

They didn't think to hire me, I guess. :D