MeerCaT

Just a quick note to say that I have several buttons on my X52 setup as 'modifiers' within BlackShark. It is possible to configure any keyboard, mouse or joystick button as a modifier. Just click the "Add Modifier" button and the rest is fairly intuative, as ar as I can remember. Oh I think I remember one small 'quirk' being that one of the buttons (I think it was "OK" or "Add") on the popup dialig box was visually represented as being disabled when in actual fact it was enabled/functional.

It's a good point that I've been meaning to raise myself. When the victory condition is triggered I know that a small "Mission Succeeded" message pops up for a short time in the top centre part of the screen. However, I do not know of anywhere you can refer to in game to view the current status of the mission progress (in-progress/succeeded/failed). In the heat of action it is very easy for that little message to go unnoticed when you have your face buried in the TGP display seeking out targets, or navigating through the 107th system page on the CDU, or trying to fish out half a falafel sandwich from under your right pedal that you dropped during that last "SAM inbound! Engaging defensive!" manoeuvre. In Black Shark 1 I remember the 'View Briefing' command would display a simple text box indicating mission progress as percentage complete. But no such indicator, as far as I know, exists in Black Shark 2 or A-10C Warthog. This would be especially useful for those times when your friendly AI comrades inadvertantly completed your mission goals before you had even finished suiting, booting and getting your bird to the party; and then proceed to spend the next 45 mins searching for your target bridge, wondering why you can't seem to find it amongst all these broken bits of bridge the enemy must have cunningly left lying around to throw you off the scent and thwart your dastardly plans. ... ohhhh wait.

Good find. "...Pilot heat..." - ah bless, keep the pilot nice and cosy. I love how they took off from the taxi road and not the runway, without even noticing. And here's me shouting at people who don't use their indicators on roundabouts. Imagine working at an airport with these guys in charge of a plane!

Sadly what was suggested by dillio is a separate issue to the one I am experiencing. I am still unable to use the mouse to move the camera (even in the external views!) I cannot think what is possibly causing this, but it only happened after upgrading to v1.1.1.1 The POV hat on my Saitek X52 joystick is mapped to camera movement and this DOES work fine. It is only the mouse that is not working for camera control.

I'll try it when I get home, but that sounds very promising. Excellent find! Thank you very much.

Thoughts and suggestions much appreciated: 'mouse look' is not working for me in the v1.1.1.1 patch. Camera Horizontal = mouse_x Camera Vertical = mouse_y Camera Zoom = mouse_z There is no movement or response from the camera at all when moving the mouse (when not in 'mouse-clickable-cockpit' mode, of course). This is using my original key config saved from the previous version. I have tried mapping mouse_x/y/z to Absolute Camera Horizontal/Vertical/Zoom but I don't think these 'Absolute' options are intended for mouse input - the result was a slight twitch in the direction of mouse input followed by immediate return to centre. What could be different? Thanks

oooh, nice idea if that's really possible. Steam does kind of 'get in the way' occassionally. The full install of A-10C v1.1.1.1 is roughly 4.5 Gb The two patches I need are about 3.5 Gb collectively. So I can save myself 1 Gb download by going the patch route (if it works for the Steam installation, which it may do since the BS2 upgrade did). However, thanks for the good idea if/when I ever reinstall Warthog again in the future.

I'm currently downloading the patch(es) so I guess I could find out in due course, but I would just like to confirm (before potentially wasting 10 hours or so download time) that the patches available on the DCS website are compatible with the Steam installed version of A-10C Wathog? Also, related to this, the version currently available through Steam is 1.1.0.9. So I believe I must first download and install patch 1.1.0.9 - 1.1.1.0 And then download and install patch 1.1.1.0 - 1.1.1.1 Each of these patches being almost 2Gb, so that's 4Gb total patch from 1.1.0.9 to 1.1.1.1. Is this right? That's a lot of work you guys have been doing! :-)

Wait? WAIT?! No, no, no, no... That's what God invented [Ctrl]+Z (time acceleration) for.

The first mission file (BFT01 - Ground Handling: http://files.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/38337/) appears to have gone AWOL from the DCS website. ("Element is not found") I am guessing this is related to the comment "Pending Moderator Approval"? Just thought I'd confirm. @Sabre-TLA: Muchos Kudos(...os) for the incredible amounts of time and effort you must have put into all of this. Consider my hat doffed.

Don't forget about the [Right-CTRL]+[Return] (default keys) command to bring up the control inputs graphic in the bottom left corner. This is a useful tool to see exactly what inputs are being produced by your controllers. Use it to check the evenness of your brake inputs during landing. Maybe useful.

I am not getting sucked into yet another 'T' discussion, but... It is my own personal belief that cheese is the single best foodstuff in the world. On a complete tangent, however, I also believe that the behaviour difference many people (myself included) experience with the T mechanism is largely, if not entirely, due to the enhanced and/or more detailed weather/air physics model in BS2 In much the same way that weather now greatly effects the flight path of Vihkrs (and probably rockets - I wouldn't know since I never use them because I am horribly bad at scoring with them), I think the same principles are at play when it comes to the effect on the aircraft and therefore the inputs made by the autopilot systems. Remember: never talk Religion, Politics or Trim. ...esspecially Trim!

I experience the same to-and-fro stick motion on the ground too. I haven't noticed any such effect while in the air so I'll go with the ground wind effect theory. Also, on the original topic: I second the motion about using autopilot for level flight. For me, the trim is mostly useful for maintaining a constant bank for circling an area while setting up and targeting weapons. Another point to note is that the trim mechanism appears to be analogue rather than digital. By that I mean the inputs produced by a press of the trim hat are directly proportional to the length of time the button is held (even during a 'quick click'), rather than having some fixed minimum increment value you might expect form a 'digital' system.

Just a small typo in the the Tooltip text for the JMR power switch. "...Countermeasrue"

There are a couple of things I have accidentally done a few times (due to them being mapped to buttons on my joystick and throttle (collectve) controllers): - emergency auto pilot off - turns of all Autopilot channels so you lose all computer aided damping and stabalisation aids - free rotor turbine thingy-wotsit - in all honesty I forget what this is for, but on the collective there is a switch that controls something to do with the engine power that gets translated to the rotors. It has two modes: 'Normal' and 'Free'. Accidentally nudge this into 'Free' mode without noticing and you'll soon see an otherwise unexplainable loss in power that makes it more difficult to control the aircraft. Combine any of these with a strong wind and you might get some pretty funky flight dynamics kicking in.

It may not be the shiny packaged product you are looking for, but if a desire to have a DVD version stems from broadband/Internet download trouble then I'm sure some kind hearted soul in your country wouldn't mind burning the installation files onto a DVD or two and posting them to you (for a few dollars to cover the cost). I wouldn't imagine Eagle would have huge problems with this distribution method since the files are all freely available from their website; for those lucky enough to have a substantial enough Internet connection - something I know can be a problem for people in relatively remote areas such as many towns and villages in your homeland of New Zealand (and many other countries).

I couldn't agree with you more. I totally support the money that is spent in the armed services for the preservation of allied lives. (The legitimacy and ultimate purpose of various conflicts aside...FIRMLY aside! So far aside that they have slipped off the end of this obviously flat earth) Without knowing a thing about life in the armed services I can pretty confidently guarantee that some money is being what could be considered as 'wasted', but I don't begrudge those small amounts. All workplaces everywhere have some degree of wastage and that's fine. It's all part of living in an imperfect human environment. Even in my cosy, non-life threatening, air conditioned office I can see that money is being wasted in places. Hell, I'm employed for a start! Blue, you get me man! I could cry. :cry: (Or poop. I'm not sure which; one invariably leads to the other) Note to self: push tongue through cheek next time, not just into cheek.

Well now, in the current financial climate do we not think that kind of wanton disregard of resources is a touch irresponsible, no? But no, you have a fair point. You can't take them with you to the 'better place' I guess. A SAM in the hand is worth two flares in the bush. Or something.

12 flares in one complete sequence seems like a lot. That only lets you repeat it 10 times before needing a reload, and either you are much better at staying out of range of that pesky SAM guy, or you enjoy repeating the back and forth trip between frontline and base 14.5 times per mission. (The 0.5 is from when you get halfway back to the frontline before remembering you left the bath running in a hope that the enemy would decide to make love not war and you can knock off early for the day with a nice hot bath and a white russian on the rocks (cream, not milk))

Excellent number. The Kamov random number generator couldn't have produced a better one! But more importantly, what was (is) your favourite retro game?

Don't talk to me about that damned egg! Stupid-headed, rolly-polly-loving idot of an embryo. What a blast! Who doesn't love a bit of chucky? The only computer software I have ever encountered more fun than the eggster was the Kamov Countermeasures Dispenser system. I do love random numbers. I can sit for hours clicking those big 80's buttons wondering to myself: "ooh what arbitrary number of flares that has no logical meaning or reference to anything else will I get this 3-digit combination?" Jet Set Willy!

Yes siree bob! You have to keep those land-lubbers happy - you wouldn't want to get them upset and have them load you up with potato tubes instead of Vihkrs. Or as they once did to: a missle tube that fires out a little flag on a pole that reads "BANG!". Oh how I laughed during the subsequent evasive manouvres. 512kb!! You were living the dream my fellow! My Amstrad CPC 464 (green screen) couldn't give me any more than a beastly 64kb. (Begs the question what the leading '4' was all about in the model number - here you are dreaming of the dizzy heights of 464kb only to be left dangling in the breeze with a mere 64kb) Too much tagent?

Funnily enough 512 is my favourite too! We can be countermeasures brothers. (...I don't know what that means. But it probably results in you buying me cake) However, I have recently learnt that, for reasons best known to Kamov, they decided to implement the value 5 in this context as 12! (and 7 as 15) [http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=82577] Looks like someone in the countermeasures dispenser software development team at Kamov got himself a new random number generator for his birthday! No seriously, there's a fairly reasonable reason behind it. Just a shame they chose the very number I wish to use as the one to represent a more popular (...apparently) value.

I'm a big fan of randomness, but how utterly bizzare! Why such a random combination of values I wonder? (Gotta love the Russians! :)) Oh well, thanks for clarifying.

I like to have my countermeasures dispensed at a rate of 1 every 2 seconds for X number of times. The countermeasures programming code for this is X12 (where X is any value 0-9) This set up works fine for all values of X except for 5 and 7. "512" - dispenses a total of 12, instead of the expected 5 "712" - dispenses a total of 15, instead of the expected 7 Is anyone else able to reproduce this? Or have I misunderstood something?