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statrekmike

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Everything posted by statrekmike

  1. I was clarifying my original position because there seemed to be some confusion as to why someone might want access to parts of the map that cover specific bases and such. Obviously this isn't a long-term issue since it has since been clarified that the limited scope of the map is an early access thing and will not reflect the final product (the entirety of Afghanistan). Still. I wanted to answer that specific comment since it missed the point I was making originally. Again. I want to make it very clear that the post that the other user was trying to mischaracterize was made before there was clarification of what would be early access and what would be in the final product. It would perhaps have been a good idea to include something to the effect of "After early access, the map will be expanded to encompass the whole of Afghanistan". I am not going out of my way to find negativity here. I just politely wanted to give my opinion and when another user decided to characterize that opinion as something else, I clarified.
  2. The Persian Gulf map is set up in such a way that one can (with some minor bending of reality) create Coalition/NATO focused missions based off either an appropriately placed carrier or an airbase that such forces could actually work out of. The early access portion of the Afghanistan map allows for neither and is more suited for helicopter operations as a result. There is a specific subset of DCS players that won't care either way but considering the realism that Eagle Dynamics is going for with the modules, it makes sense to also want maps that allow those modules to operate in at least mostly realistic contexts. Both Syria and the Persian Gulf maps are very well designed in this regard. They allow for quite a bit of versatility when it comes to realistic mission design. In contrast. The early access portion of the Afghanistan map will be similar to the Caucasus map in that it is basically impossible to make even a semi-convincing/plausible mission that isn't entirely devoted to either helicopters, Russian made aircraft, or perhaps L-39s.
  3. At the risk of sounding overly critical. Is there any long term plan to expand out to Bagram? At the moment, the map doesn't really offer much in regards to GWOT era aviation and since ED has put so much effort into airplanes like the Hornet and F-16, it seems odd not to give at least one of them a viable staging area. This is especially the case when you consider the historic weight that Afghanistan has when it comes to modern combat aviation. Without a viable spot for a carrier or Bagram airbase. There isn't really any room for even semi-authentic GWOT combat flights in anything but perhaps helicopters. It is going to be tough not to think about that when it comes time to pre-order.
  4. Considering that ED has a history of providing options to compensate for the difference between real-life and common flight sim controls, providing a option to get rid of the deadzone is perfectly logical and I would even go as far as to say it is absolutely necessary. That way, the minority of players that have high-end force sensing setups can get what they want and the majority who don't can actually enjoy the module fully as well. There is really no logical reason not to provide such an option considering that it just isn't reasonable to expect everyone to buy a rather uncommon force sensing stick base just to get rid of that obtrusive deadzone. DCS already places a lot of demands on players when it comes to buying equipment, there is no need to add another layer to that.
  5. There is nothing really stopping anyone from simply looking up a diagram of a real-life aircraft's stick and throttle as a guide. One doesn't need to rely entirely on others for this process and thus waste a lot of their own time.
  6. It is important to understand that for DCS's (very) dedicated public multiplayer community, it isn't really possible to do realistic scenarios or even semi-realistic aircraft selections on a per-team basis simply because DCS was never built for a balanced multiplayer experience in the first place. It's very underlying DNA just isn't compatible with the kind of balance you need for that kind of thing. As such, those who run the servers and those who make the scenarios for those servers have to find ways to artificially compensate by implementing their own balancing measures. This is also why you are not likely to see terribly realistic "PvE" scenarios on public servers either. That scene demands a certain level of accessibility that doesn't really allow for a whole lot of strict realism. In a lot of ways, DCS's public multiplayer scene is a ENTIRELY different world when compared to the private sever (for organized groups) co-op scene and the single player scene. A lot of the logic one would apply to co-op or single player missions to make them more realistic or authentic feeling would make public servers less viable. The PvP servers that have the same planes on both sides are doing that because they want a artificially balanced experience for the sake of a fair fight. That is obviously not going to be important for every DCS player (it certainly isn't important for me) but it does mean you need to go into that scene with very heavily adjusted expectations in regards to realism.
  7. Seeing the username of the redditor who kicked off that exchange really brought me back to the big reason I stopped bothering with Hoggit (and reddit in general to be honest). There are better ways to keep up with what is going on in DCS without having to deal with the usual social media nonsense.
  8. Has there been any forward motion on this issue? At the moment, the module has kinda been grounded for me since this is something that actively interferes with normal mission requirements. Hopefully this is something we see a fix for in the next Open Beta patch since I am eager to really start flying it.
  9. To piggyback a bit on the excellent post above. It is also important to have some perspective in that unlike a real combat pilot, we are not going to typically be focused on a single aircraft. DCS has a lot of different airplanes with some wildly different control schemes. If you are the type of player that uses a lot of modules, it starts to get VERY impractical to try and have a bunch of different binding methods across all the different aircraft. It makes learning and using the aircraft harder than it really should be. Again. Real combat pilots don't need to bounce between various, entirely different aircraft like we in the DCS community tend to do. It makes good sense to have a general method of assigning controls across a range of aircraft. Obviously there are going to be special considerations here and there but a lot of stuff can just go in the same place every time.
  10. This is really the kind of thing that will need a hotfix as soon as possible. It is a major problem.
  11. Yeah. A minor issue overall but it does look quite distracting when on the ground, that is for sure.
  12. Yeah. This is a pretty massive bug that pretty much eliminates the jet's high(ish) altitude interception/CAP ability. The more details we get about this, the better.
  13. I just experienced a alternator 2 failure while cruising at about 35,000 feet and going mach 0.8.
  14. Look. I am going to be a bit blunt here and say that versatility isn't really the issue here. The F-16 module as it is right now (and especially as it will be when it is feature complete) is VERY versatile already. That said. No aircraft in DCS is going to be ideal for every possible role and sometimes the weapons cleared for use on a given aircraft are not going to match up with some arbitrary gameplay level requirement we might want to personally impose. Eagle Dynamics and the various third party developers are not really beholden to whatever fantastical scenario a given player can think up. DCS World has always been marketed and designed as a pretty realistic combat flight sim sandbox and that means that while there are a lot of aircraft modules that cover the entire gamut of possible mission types and roles, no one aircraft is intended to excel at everything arbitrarily. Choosing the right aircraft for a given mission or part of a mission is part of the job of a DCS mission designer and that will inevitably mean that sometimes we don't get to use our favorite module for EVERY possible job. It is useful to look at it like this. Since Eagle Dynamics is developing DCS World as a pretty realistic combat flight sim sandbox, it makes sense that like in real life, you really have to think of each aircraft as part of a larger "airpower ecosystem". Even the most modern real-world multi-role aircraft is going to have individual strengths and weaknesses and as such, military planners and those that develop doctrine will plan missions with multiple aircraft types involved as a way to offset those weaknesses and fill any capability gaps. A DCS mission designer needs to think the same way. That is the whole point. If you want to deliver a single warhead from the longer end of stand-off ranges, you need to understand what aircraft module will do that for you and build your mission accordingly. If you are dead-set on having F-16's in said mission, there are plenty of ways to integrate them in supporting roles. It falls on you to creatively find ways to fit realistic platforms into whatever fantastical scenario you can dream up.
  15. Hopefully someone from outside the community. I don't begrudge Youtubers and community celebrity types for having voice roles but it would be nice to not have every voice in DCS be one of a handful of popular Youtubers.
  16. If we go by that as a rule, you wouldn't be able to review a great deal of what is out for DCS right now. I don't say this out of cynicism or to convey snark. It is just that a lot of DCS modules are not 100% complete. Additionally. Every DCS developer has to deal with the reality that releasing a early access product for money will naturally lead to reviews in order to help people make more informed choices. In many ways, the reviews that are more coherent and reasonable (and not just angry gamer outrage stuff) are the ones that lead to better early access releases in the future. RAZBAM is charging for the map right now and prospective purchasers have the right to know what they are getting for their money.
  17. I gotta admit that I am really confused at this notion that Wags tutorials are "too long and don't get to the point". If anything, they are exactly to the point and don't waste any time on anything but directly describing what to do to complete a specific procedure. No time is wasted on anything else.
  18. So a big thing to keep in the back of your mind as you fly the Su-25T (or even the other version of the Su-25 that comes with the Flaming Cliffs 3 pack) is that it is best seen as a sort of Russian equivalent to the A-10 and as such, it will have a similar focus on ground attack, anti-tank, and CAS. It isn't a dogfighter. It isn't going to be used in air to air combat. Any air to air capability it has is (like the A-10) purely defensive in nature and really only will be effective if the attacker makes a lot of mistakes and leaves you a opening to attack. If you want air to air combat, the Su-25 isn't really going to give you that experience in any meaningful level. Also. The Su-25 does not have a radar. In regards to stalling issues. The Su-25 is a heavy airplane to begin with and the more weapons you carry, the heavier it gets. This has a direct impact on your speed and maneuverability. If you are experiencing a lot of stalls, you need to have a lighter touch on the controls and not turn so aggressively that you stall the airplane. You will also have problems if you overload the aircraft with weapons. This is a pretty common mistake but if you look at real-life images of combat aircraft on missions, they generally carry a lot less than you are likely to see on a DCS public server. Finally. Viewing targets is a complicated topic but there are two things to think about that might help. 1.) While it isn't listed in the minimum requirements, DCS really does require some kind of head tracking of some sort. In my own experience, the only really viable long-term solution is IR LED based tracking (outside of VR but that only really matters if you own a VR headset to begin with and have a system that can run DCS in VR at a worthwhile level). There are face tracking options if you only have a webcam but even in the best possible circumstances, face tracking has a lot of problems and a lot of limitations. IR LED based tracking is a lot more reliable and is possible to do on a pretty tight budget. You can build your own setup (just look up "DIY IR headtracking" on Google). You can buy a inexpensive setup made by a small company (like Trackhat or Delanclip) or you could get TrackIR itself (which can get pricey). 2.) It is easy for us simmers to get really fixated on using the various targeting pod, datalink, or other related sensors to find ground targets but in doing so, we only really make things harder for ourselves. Since the Su-25 is a close support aircraft first and foremost (like the A-10), a lot of target spotting is going to be done with your own eyes since the sensors on the airplane are not really meant for searching wide areas for targets and instead are more about target designation once you have spotted them with your own eyes or with the help of some other asset (JTAC or the like). To be clear. Spotting targets by eye isn't easy. It is a skill that needs to be practiced and developed. At first you will struggle to find targets but as you start learning what to look for, it gets easier. Obviously IR headtracking is a big deal here since struggling with view controls while also trying to fly and spot targets by eye isn't going to be very pleasant.
  19. It is a issue because it isn't just CBU craters that are bugged. It is craters in general. It just manifests faster with CBU's because they produce more craters faster. Perhaps it is better to put this in practical terms. Last night, I created and ran a mission with my group that involved a large artillery barrage. That barrage created A LOT of small craters and as a result, looking at that specific area of the map through the targeting pod of the F-16 turned the sim into a slideshow. It was the same thing that causes the CBU framerate hit but it took longer to manifest since they were created over the long term via a artillery barrage as opposed to a few CBU's. To bring this back to the Apache. If you are on a server where people are shooting a ton of rockets in a general area (which isn't unreasonable), you will also encounter the same crater bug. This will be a bigger issue on larger-scale public servers where you might have a wide variety of munitions being used in a given area by a lot of different players. In faster, higher-flying aircraft you can get out of the performance impact area pretty quickly but in a helicopter you are not so lucky. Either way, this has been acknowledged as a crater specific bug (and not a CBU specific bug) and apparently it has been fixed in a upcoming build.
  20. At the risk of sounding rude or pushy, I do seriously hope a fix is coming soon since this very, very easily qualifies as a game breaking issue and will only become a more visible, more controversial problem as the Apache comes out. This kind of thing should be a very high priority because it impacts one of the most fundamental aspects of the sim.
  21. Again. I think there is a misunderstanding of what I wrote. the "clarification" I was asking about was for Heatblur to specify if they were talking about "2022" being a generalized date for more info or if it was the release window. At no point did I ask for any kind of definitive release date. I don't do that, doing that is generally pretty dumb in the DCS scene because there is seldom a real answer to give. Thankfully. Heatblur quickly put up some new posts shortly after I posted that did exactly what I was hoping they would do. They clarified what "2022" meant.
  22. My post has nothing really to do with how it will release, if it will be early access, or what early access will mean in that context. My post was about clarifying (for the sake of getting ahead of inevitable rumors, wild conjecture, and feverish hype) if "2022" means some kind of module release or if it is just a placeholder date for a more fleshed out announcement with a lot more detail (in comparison to the teaser we got today).
  23. Might not be a bad idea to kinda clarify (even in the most general possible terms) what the "2022" really stands for here. Are we talking about the year of a more fleshed out, official announcement/overview or are we talking about an actual early access release. If it is the former, it might be a good idea to get ahead of any (perhaps inevitable) fever-pitch hype/conjecture/guesswork turned rumor by the community.
  24. To be bluntly honest, I think that award would probably more rightfully go to something like the A-10C module or even the F-14 module in terms of not just simulation accuracy but also overall polish and workmanship. The Harrier module isn't bad but in the grand scheme of DCS modules and when one puts all personal bias for the aircraft, the module, and RAZBAM aside, it still struggles to meet the standard set by the A-10 or the Tomcat module.
  25. I have read that book a couple of times now and to be brutally honest, I think it serves as a great example of why you shouldn't just trust stuff you read in military memoirs at face value. Hampton's whole thing about the HARM's effectiveness isn't exactly wrong but it isn't exactly right either. He makes it VERY clear throughout the book that he doesn't really place a lot of value on the idea of suppressing a SAM site. This makes sense. His job is to kill the sites and since the HARM isn't really meant to actually do that, he obviously won't care much for it when other weapons better suit his specific mission. If he were in squadrons that favored SEAD specifically, I strongly suspect his rather strong opinions would have been different. Hampton obviously knows a great deal about flying Wild Weasel missions and like every other pilot's memoirs I have read, there is obvious pride taken in that specific role. I think of it like this. If I were to sit down and watch a marathon of old Discovery channel Wings episodes, I would hear a great many pilots say how their various aircraft were the most important, their specific roles were the most important, and their fellow pilots the most talented in their various branches. Not all of them can be 100% right. Hampton took great pride in his specific job and that comes through in his lack of regard for weapons that are not really designed to do that job. If the HARM were as useless as Hampton makes it out to be, there is a pretty good chance that the Navy and Air Force would have long since moved on to another weapon system. SEAD is a major, high-profile role in modern air campaigns so it isn't exactly something the USAF and USN can afford to slouch on. If you read his words about the HARM carefully, you can tell that his issue isn't so much that it doesn't do its job, it is that it doesn't do his job because they are obviously not bombs or mavericks. He has a lot of romanticism for the role he played and while that is totally understandable, it also means that one needs to be careful and not just take any one single pilot's words as law. What Hampton doesn't really talk about in his book is that sometimes all you really need to do is suppress the SAM. Sometimes you don't need to kill the entire site to complete the larger mission. I would even be willing to bet that a few HARMs suppressing a SAM's radar allowed him to get in close and kill more than a few SAM sites. To be clear. I am not saying that Hampton is wrong. I am saying that he is right in his own very, very specific experience as a DEAD focused combat pilot. Obviously he is extremely experienced and extremely well trained but that doesn't make him immune to making ego-fueled hot takes that don't give the complete picture to the reader. His ego is very, very much on display in that book so it isn't exactly a surprise. I am sure that a pilot who largely shot HARMs in their career would write a similar book but would also have a pretty different take on the HARM missile as a whole. Likewise. I am sure that a general in charge of a larger air campaign or even dedicated mission planners would have a much better "high-level" understanding of how each weapon fits into the overall airpower ecosystem.
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