KLR Rico

I was thinking about this yesterday while flying the included F-86 mission where you fly top cover for a F-51 strike sortie. I think it would be fun to edit the mission to fly on the F-51 side of things.

Looks like there might have been a ppjoy conflict, I uninstalled it and it seems to be working OK now. I don't know why it'd do that though, since ppjoy wasn't selected as the output. Oh well, such is software....

Except that's what an extrovert thinking like an introvert would say. ;)

I haven't been in your shoes, but I'm pretty introverted myself. I don't think you should stress about the social aspects of piloting. On the bright side, you're going to be more inclined to stay back and study vs going out to party. ;) My personal feelings on socializing are pretty similar to yours, generally it bores me to death... however you want to talk about aviation or something else I'm passionate about, no problem at all. If you're cast from a similar mould, then I think you'd do fine in any branch of aviation, except maybe small charters and tours and stuff like that. If you do find your social anxiety overwhelming and a barrier to where you want to be in life, you could also consider medication, I've known several people who have benefited from it.

The smoke seems pretty good to me. All the engines from the era (and even modern derivatives) smoke like a mofo. Look at the B-52's and C-130's (particularly E's, with the -7 engines) for similar examples still in active service, and burning "modern fuel".

Personally I'm not too interested in CA, but I can see the utility in it. I hope one day it gets to the point that people with no interest in flying but prefer the ground vehicles seek it out as the go-to simulation (like the DCS aircraft are). Having people on the ground en masse would be a huge game-changer for online play overall. Something like Arma, but you know... *good*. :)

I've seen contrails cast shadows in the same way, pretty spectacular effect if you ask me!

^ Yes, that's pretty much my understanding. I had an FFB wheel hooked up with an FFB stick, and it seemed that the wheel's X axis (steering) was mirrored with the stick's X axis. I suppose this means that the sim sends out X, Y, (and perhaps Z) FFB commands to anything listening, without regards to the actual assignment. An X on rudder gets the same command as an X assigned to aileron. Effects between X & Y are definitely separate though, I was flying the P-51 once and got both ailerons shot off by AAA, the X axis went completely slack but the Y axis still had force. :joystick: I don't know if there is a FFB stream available for Z to make FFB rudders work, but in order to use it you'd need to either somehow change the way the device presents that axis to the OS or how DCS handles the FFB export to individual devices.

I watched the video with my Durovis OpenDive (<-ghetto rift, using a phone as the display), and now I *really* can't wait for the rift to come out... I'm seriously tempted to get DK2, but I only get one shot at the purchase (wife, and all), and I don't want to regret it when the consumer version comes out. Great review, thanks for posting!

Well, if it helps anyone out, I have an 8"^3 (~200mm^3) 3d printer that's usually pretty idle. I'd be willing to print stuff for the price of materials.

Makes me think of Ender's Game. :joystick:

Siegfried, I didn't spend much time tinkering with this, but I ran into it a while ago. It seems that in DCS all FFB devices share the same effects & forces, it's not split up for the appropriate channel.

All very interesting... I understood that separation was a way of leaving the fight, but there isn't anything to keep the enemy from gunning you down from behind, besides chivalry, is there? Also, if an aircraft signals an unwillingness to fight via gear or lights, is it expected that they're going to land at an enemy base, or are they free to return to home base? Milli's link seems to be pretty clear that aircraft are expected to land and the crew surrender as POW's.

I've noticed that the flap handle returns to hold when the key is released while the flaps are in an intermediate position (as expected), but when the flaps are fully opened or closed, the lever will stick in the respective position instead of returning to hold. Bug or feature?

I keep eyeballing the forum banner that says all the services will be down on September 1st... Why is everything, including the MP server, going to be down... ...maybe to get a facelift in celebration of the update to DCS WORLD 2.0!! At least that's what I've convinced myself, until the day comes and goes.

As we're probably all aware, the AI aircraft turn on their nav lights when they give up the fight and RTB. I'm curious, is this a real world way of surrendering (so to speak)? And speaking of surrendering in A2A combat, has that ever been done, or is every engagement a fight to the death? I couldn't find anything on google, but maybe I'm not wording it right.

I think that's the jist of it.

After a little bit of tinkering I got facetracknoir working pretty well in DCS with my PS3 eye and 3 point cap. The only issue I've noticed is that every so often the screen will flash with a different view angle. It seems random, not related to my head position or movement, but the different view only flashes for a single frame or so. At first I thought it was a gfx glitch because it looked like a random white flash, but after a while I figured out it was a randomly oriented cockpit view. I haven't really had time to troubleshoot it yet, but I suspect playing around with the point tracker settings might help.

Yeah, I don't see myself ever really being able to use it, I'm too impatient to wait for products to get out of beta so I can use it. I was going to use it on the F-86 since I ordered the Fw 109 and Fw 190 with my KS credits, but I guess it can't be used since F-86 is in beta still. To see if I was missing something, I tried to see if I could use the bonus to buy CA, but I don't see any option to apply the credit. I just don't get it, I'm afraid.... Edit: Oh, now I see there's a check box on the payment page to use a portion of the bonus credit towards the purchase.

I used my 2nd KS unlock on the Bf-109 yesterday in drunken excitement when I saw there was a downloads button on the aircraft page, but soon found out it was *not* available for download yet. No matter though, I was planning on buying them all in order of release anyway. :) This sums up my attitude towards anything that comes out for DCS...

One of the main reasons I prefer FFB sticks is because of the realistic trimming behavior, but the DCS warbirds have pretty good force effects. However, I think there's some room for improvement in all the aircraft. There is an excellent FFB program for FSX called FSForce. It allows control and tuning over the speed/control force curves, friction & damping adjustments, along with environmental effects like pavement bumps. I think something like that for DCS would be excellent. I have a Saitek X52 handle on the mechanics of the MS FFB2 which works pretty well, I also hacked a saitek cessna yoke with control forces provided by MS FFB2 guts, which has been working quite nicely in FSX. I won't ever go back to a spring stick, but I wish there were some good modern commercial products available. Until then, we'll just have to keep hacking existing hardware.

I guess it's time to check out the other offerings... I've been using a PS3 eye with freetrack for a few years now, but lately it's been crashing in FSX pretty frequently. facetracknoir's calibrate feature sounds good, I've always had strange effects where the view would flip around awkwardly at some angles, hopefully that'll fix it.

Definitely a CPU bottleneck... up until recently I was playing on a 2.5GHz CPU (albeit with 8 cores, for all the good it did :P ) and I had the same issues. It was frustrating because didn't matter whether I had the settings on high or low, if there was any significant action going on I was going to be flying in a slideshow, usually in the 15-25 range, but instant action missions were usually up in the 45+ FPS range. A few months ago I upgraded to a i5-4670K which has been happy to run on a 24-7 overclock to 4.5 GHz (air cooled). Now dips to 30 FPS are the worse I ever really see, and even those are a rare occasion, like a CBU-87 on a busy mission. For the most part it's 45-60FPS, more towards the 60 FPS side things. I highly recommend that processor, and it's relatively affordable if you re-use your GPU (which should be fine for DCS) along with some other current hardware. I was able to do my upgrade for roughly $600 (<- which took some sweet talking to the wife), but it was worth every penny.

I love the feel and trim behavior of a FFB stick, I couldn't go back to a spring stick... I think the MSFFB2 has the best mechanics, but as mentioned, the buttons are lacking. My solution was to hack together the MSFFB2 with a saitek X52. Now I have all the buttons I need with the excellent feedback of the MS stick. :)

I went from a 32" 720p LCD (super crappy), to a 1080p 32" LCD (Much better!) and when we got a new living room TV I took the 46" 1080 LCD for my pit.The size is nice and immersive, but the loss in apparent resolution (I sit about 3-4 ft away) and the ghosting (it's an older LCD) are the tradeoffs. I debate going back to the 32" sometimes... and I've also been keeping an eye out on craigslist for a decent plasma. I'm not in a terribly big rush though, I won't need a TV at all when the rift comes out. :) However, in the meantime, a big TV is the way to go. Depending on your viewing distance, I wouldn't go TOO big though.