Faelwolf

I just think of it as suite DCS-I or DCS-II :) There are always going to be classified systems that we can't have in the sim that belong to a certain suite. ED is cherry picking what they can to give us as much as possible, but even then certain parts of the systems we do get are also missing for security or contract reasons. It's still the best you're going to get for an A10C sim, and a far cry from the old "A10 Tank Killer" days, for sure. Personally, I don't want certain hostile individuals to know the full capabilities of the A-10C, and especially it's vulnerabilities and limitations. So I am quite happy to let those sleeping dogs lie.

Yep, you get both. I think it's mainly out of concern for backwards compatibility with old missions, though in time I don't think we will see V.I get much use other than nostalgia or period specific missions.

I thought it was interesting that the HMCS panel was placed to the rear of the right panel set, rather than replace the TISL panel that was removed. Is there another panel there in the RW aircraft, unavailable to us perhaps? Seems to me to have been a good spot to place it rather than have a blank plate there now. I'm thinking of putting it there in Helios for convenience even though it isn't necessarily realistic.

Last I bothered with rockets, they were weak even for what they were intended for, couldn't even be used for antipersonnel. With the lack of splash damage, and a weaker modeling of the initial blast to boot, I doubt these will be of much use. Unless they've fixed it, but I haven't heard anything.

Back to the OP's original question. In it's simplest terms, LOS is Line Of Sight. Can you draw an imaginary line between your reference point (you, your aircraft, a sensor or other device within your aircraft such as the radio) to the object in question (a target, another friendly aircraft, a communications satellite, etc.) If you can, you have LOS, if it's blocked you don't have LOS. It has nothing to do with distance. During the day, we have LOS to the sun unless there is something in the way, like clouds or smoke, and it's 98M miles away. At night we don't have LOS because the Earth is in the way. LOS is important for more than just targeting. For example, radios are, for the most part, LOS dependent. The curvature of the Earth, among other things, will block a radio signal unless it is relayed. This is what makes satellite communications so important. The LOS between your radio and a satellite is much better than point to point near ground level. That satellite has a much broader reach than any normal radio can have as it sits so high up that the entire hemisphere beneath it becomes it's LOS. So by using it as an intermediary, you can contact any other radio in the satellite's LOS more reliably, and with much less power. Your radio won't have LOS to the other, but the satellite has LOS to both of you. For targeting, LOS is simply, can you or your sensor "see" the target. Slant range is a distance to target, regardless of LOS, they are not the same thing. LOS is not the same as visual range either, there are weapons that can fire at targets you personally can't see (BVR, Beyond Visual Range). It's really a geometry issue, not a visual one. LOS can be interrupted both visually or by interference with a sensor. A camera can be masked by part of the aircraft, clouds can block your view or interfere with a radio wave. Some fat dude can step between you and that hot redhead in the bar. Anything that interferes with your ability to draw that imaginary line to the target. Some defensive systems are designed to disrupt LOS, such as smoke generators, radar jammers, flares and chaff, and so forth. Again, anything that breaks that imaginary line.

Yes TISL, not ILS, sorry for confusion, it's been a rough week LOL!

No one seems to be willing to speculate, so I'll jump in. Not an official opinion, but I think most of the implementation should remain the same, you can drop/ignore ILS panel, pick up the ARC-210 and JHMCS panel, and should be pretty close to GTG. It's my understanding of how the system works that anything the same between the two modules should be the same when exporting, too. I plan to start with a copy/paste, then edit. My setup is pretty straight forward though, TM Warthog and Helios to a touch screen monitor, YMMV especially if running a home cockpit or something, but I suspect the bulk of the exports will remain the same either way.

Safe to assume there be an early access pricing period like the other modules?

Certainly some new training missions, at the very least for the new features.

If it's handled like the supercarrier was for owners of the F-18, you will be able to pick it up quite cheap with a double discount when it goes into pre-release. SC cost me ~$20 IIRC. (I paid so little for it that I don't really recall the exact amount, it was so trivial). Given the upgrades, I won't mind spending a small amount to get it. Even at full price, it's about what I would spend just to take the wife out to dinner and a movie for one night's entertainment, often less. Given how many years now that I have been able to enjoy the original module it has come out to much less than a penny a day. Even adding in the upgrade cost it remains under 1 cent. That's a pretty good price in my book.

I use it as a modifier so I can double purpose some switches for convenience.

With TAD as SOI, use thee DMS to zoom out a little bit on the map in EXP mode to bring it back. IIRC in EXP mode the 5/10 map zoom isn't available, so it goes into symbology mode (the black screen with info). The maps are what they are, and there are actually only a couple of them, and you zoom in and out to a point before it switches to another map. The maps are only intended as a general guide to where you are. SA is more dependent on the MK-I eyeball and experience. In the current state of things, you are not going to see NOTAM info like no fire zones, etc. on the TAD. The closest you are going to get are waypoints in the overlay, and you need to make sure you understand the mission briefing to know which waypoints, if any, are in a no-fire zone, etc. I don't know of any map that is detailed enough to really show urban areas in fine detail, etc. that is on the TAD. You can always make one for the kneeboard if you need, but SA is more of a heads-up than heads-down thing when you get down to it. The map isn't going to show you an upcoming target, or an enemy aircraft starting to head your way, etc. I have found though, that for SA in regards to what info is available on TAD, that EXP mode is the way to go, having North always on top is less confusing. You may find this helpful:

What's the story of the JF-17 install anyway? Is it just a free week or was it part of a module purchase? I saw it available as an install when I went to install the PG map, but don't recall it being part of the map or carrier module. Info on all this has become a little scattered lately it seems, I keep finding I missed something in Reddit, Discord or Facebook.

What you are encountering in Navy planes is mission mindset. In time of war, the Navy is not going to generally be operating from land-based airfields, they are going to deploy carriers. This is a holdover from WW2, and back then they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century to even have carriers and Naval aircraft. But for projection of Naval power, carrier groups are still the way to go. In the 20's and 30's numerous tests and demonstrations were shown to the Navy proving the power of Naval aviation, and they grudgingly built a few carriers, mainly at the insistence of congress. It is documented that the Navy attempted to sabotage some of the testing, and downplayed the rest, BTW. They really wanted to stick with those big battleships! WW2 proved that aviation was the way to go in the modern age, and now the new generation of Naval commanders are all about carrier groups as the primary projection of Naval power. Land-based naval air stations are primarily for training in the Navy's view, let the Marines forward deploy on land for combat ops. (This is pretty much they way they did it in WW2 as well.) So a land-based ILS system is seen as not particularly useful, and the money can be better spent elsewhere. Military procurement is a dog fight in congress, with each branch fighting for it's share of tax dollars, and often military appropriations are tied to congressional pet projects, so money has to be taken from operations to fund those, in addition to the usual budget cuts, etc. Witness the F-35 debacle. Now that Space Command has been authorized, there is another dog in the fight, though the Air Force is going to take most of the beating on that, with personnel, bases, and equipment being transferred over, and reductions in appropriations for the USAF. The Navy will see some cuts, too, as there will likely be cuts across the board in some amount to balance spending on USSC. So with a carrier mindset, and reduced budget looming, it is highly unlikely that land-based ILS will be installed on any Navy aircraft, unless some major incident occurs to force it. Then most likely it will be only installed on land-based training aircraft (and will likely be the source of the incident if it happens.) That being said, let's all take a moment to acknowledge the poor Coast Guard, who are already being practically sent to sea with a can of beans and a roll of duct tape, who are going to get hit again when they already are the red-headed stepchild of the armed services. :)

Just a tip for the OP. I believe you can still transfer your Steam DCS modules to ED and play without Steam. Go to your profile page on your ED account (just create an account if you don't have one already) and you will find a button to bind your Steam account to ED. You then have to log in to Steam and authorize for data to be shared with ED. A quick search will give you several guides. As I have always ordered direct through ED, I can't advise you further, but it's worth taking a look at IMO. Future purchases can be made through ED, and get rid of the Steam overhead, as well as keep Steam from taking a bite out of the money.

In my experience, the tanker does give you a warning, it tips it's wings a bit before making it's turn. No radio call, you have to watch for the "wing wave".

OK, for background: My touchscreen I use for Helios just stopped working recently. Monitor seems fine, all tests and checks say it should be working, but Windows 10 just isn't seeing the touch input at all. Went through all the support websites out there, did all the things, no good. It was past time for me to upgrade to a better touchscreen anyway, so I did, and that eliminated the "your monitor is broken" conclusion all the support sites gave me. Come to find out, there is a registry entry, that is not "native" to Windows (unless it's been added in a recent patch I don't know about) that turns off windows accepting touch input. It won't come up in the normal searches for the problem, I stumbled upon it on a tablet site, in reference to a different issue. So, I thought I'd pass it along here, and maybe save someone going through all the aggravation that I just did. It seems this sometimes gets added to Windows by 3rd party software, usually a mouse or keyboard driver package, or OEM on some Windows tablets, that is designed to be used to turn off touch input if the touch screen is acting up, or otherwise interfering with the mouse or keyboard. In my case, it was there, and it was set to "disabled" so Windows happily ignored my touch input, and just as happily reported that nothing was wrong when I ran through the tests. I recently added a new gaming mouse, and suspect it's the culprit. ***WARNING*** If you do not know how to edit the registry, do not apply this fix yourself. If you do not know what you are doing, you can really mess up your computer by messing with things in the registry, and will have to re-install Windows from scratch to fix it. Any registry edits are at your own risk. The entry you are looking for is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Wisp\Touch Look for a line called Touchgate with a value of either 0 or 1. 0 is "disabled" which blocks touch input, and 1 is "enabled" which allows touch input. It's as simple as changing the value. So, if your touchscreen just ups and stops registering touch input, and especially if it's after adding a new mouse or keyboard, check there first, it might save you a lot of time and trouble. I don't recommend removing the line, (though in theory it should work) as it will likely just get re-installed in the registry the next time the device that put it there updates, or by another peripheral you may add in the future.

CH quality control and customer service went downhill a decade ago, so that cruise control is apparently set to "who cares?". The last CH stick I bought had so much slop in it that it was unusable. It appears they switched to a pot with a smaller diameter post, but made no change to the plastic connector, so you had to take up the slack before you got any input. It was bad enough that several videos and blog posts were made showing you how to take it apart to fix it. And it took a pretty much full disassembly. I contacted CH about it, and basically was told it was my problem. I had to go through Amazon to do the return, they refused to even RMD it or even acknowledge the problem. I used to be a big fan of CH back in the day, and back then, they deserved it, but I can no longer recommend CH at all.

Considering the forum and thread you're in we might be a little biased, but yes, you're missing out,! :D

Space Cadet, I've gotten A10C to hover a time or two, and I'll agree that it's not very good at holding altitude when you do! :)

I think that the announcement was a multi-year plan as well, the "beyond" gives them quite an out. But if they get Hornet and Viper to at least 90% complete, and give us half of the core improvements we are hoping for by year's end, it would be a banner year for ED, and I don't think we'd really have a valid complaint (but that isn't going to stop some). As for the surprise aircraft, if we are starting a pool, put me down for the F4E.

And if PAC is on, the nose will pitch up when you open the refueling door, be ready for it. Opening the fuel door disables PAC and autopilot. (unless it's been changed in some update) Not that master arm should be on for refueling anyway, but if you forget, she'll remind you in a hurry!

Two weeks!

There was a rumor floating around (rumor, as in no hard proof) that Thrustmaster has/had a F-18 throttle in the works, to go along with their joystick handle, possibly to be sold as a package like the Warthog for the A-10. That was quite a while ago, haven't heard anything about it since, but who knows? The Warthog was a collaboration with ED when it was developed, and I noticed that Matt Wagner has a blurb on the TM web page endorsing the stick handle, so lightning could be striking twice. But TM is being pretty tight-lipped about it right now if they are. If they would bring that out, along with a stand-alone USB Cougar throttle, they'd have the big 3 covered pretty well, but logic and market savviness hasn't been TM's strong suit. Haven't heard anything about F-14 support from Thrustmaster at all at this point. They've had enough of a head-start on the F-18 that if a throttle is coming out, it could come this year. But for the F-16 or F-14 I don't see that happening, TM has a history of excessively long lead times. That's if they are working on any of it at all.

I put it in with my OvGME files, to make it easier to keep after updates. Frankly, anything I have to (or want to) mod goes through OvGME, saves a lot of post-update time and annoyance. My update sequence is pretty quick and simple, OvGME> uninstall mods, update, OvGME> install mods, fly. Since I'm on the subject, I'll add: I also keep each mod in it's own sub folder, and have the repository folder separate from the sim so the updater will leave it alone. So if something changes that breaks a mod, I can just skip the install of it until I find the new fix. A sort of "don't put your eggs in one basket" policy. Clicking 3 or 4 items in OvGME is not difficult, and saves having to go in and hunt for something that gets broken in a stack of mods just to be able to fly again. This also allows me to use some mods offline that would cause trouble in a MP server, should I ever have one that does that. I can quickly uninstall for MP play, and put it back afterwards. I highly recommend this program, it makes life in DCS a lot easier. Link: https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/OVGME