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Mouse

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Everything posted by Mouse

  1. I had hitching issues on my PC (Ryzen 5800X + 6900XT) and found it was some driver setting for the 6900XT that was causing it. I don't remember exactly, but I think it was (ironically) the Radeon Anti-Lag setting. You may also want to make sure you're RAM profile is correct in the BIOS, but that's a bit more of a long shot. For Intel you'll want to make sure XMP is enabled, and for AMD it's called DOCP.
  2. Helicopter trim has long been a UX issue for DCS. The solution has been acceptable but with the Apache its weakness has been highlighted in a few ways. I know people have touched upon various points I'm about to make, but I haven't seen anyone put it altogether in a single post. So I'll make an attempt and probably choke on it. (Admittedly I'm not going to read all 12 pages of this thread...) 1. The traditional DCS trim method has been removed from the Apache. In the Huey, for example, the "Default" trimmer mode would give you a brief window to recenter your controls before the trim kicked in. Last I checked, that timing could be adjusted in the Lua scripts as well. Restoring the "Default" option would probably be enough to resolve most issues people are having. (I personally came to prefer this method because it's less annoying than having my controls get locked out by the alternative option.) 2. Unlike the old "Default" mode, "Central position trimmer mode" allows controls to get stuck if you don't recenter them. Having the helicopter wait for you to recenter your controls is fine until you get task saturated, accidentally lock your controls up, and crash. I know ED says they're going to add a trim reset, but there are some additional, easy improvements to the trim system that can be made for all helicopters: 1. Restore the "Default" option for the Apache which gives the player a brief moment to return their stick to center before trim takes effect. 2. Place a timeout on the central position trimmer mode so that controls cannot get locked out for too long. This solves the main problem with this mode. 3. Allow users to edit the trim set time for "Default" and recenter timeout for "Central Position Trimmer Mode" in the settings menu, rather than making them edit Lua files. (This would be nice to have but I'd happily live without it if I got #1 and #2.) 4. Add an option to blend the trim over time, and make that blend rate adjustable in the settings menu (also a nice-to-have). The instantaneous trim that we have now is, in my opinion, the root cause of all the problems with trimming helicopters in DCS. Regardless of which option you pick, if you screw it up, you end up accidentally putting in a sudden, sharp input and unbalancing the aircraft, or your controls stop responding altogether. I admit this is a big ask. Interpolating two positions over time is easy, but I recognize there are additional layers of code and UI that need to support that. 5. Add aircraft-style trim bindings. I can already hear the screeching about this being unrealistic, but I disagree. These bindings don't represent something the aircraft is doing. They represent something that helicopter pilots can do very naturally with their hands. Pressing a button to command the pilot's hand to move the cyclic to a new center position that's slightly to the left is just as realistic as having a button that makes the pilot turn their neck to look slightly to the left. It's not at all unrealistic. As a final note, if you actually put a recenter timeout on the central position trimmer mode, it ends up being really similar to the old Default trimmer mode. The difference is that you gain control immediately upon recentering your control input or after a short time period, whichever comes first. I don't see why this couldn't just replace both the Default and Central Position modes. The only difference would be the delay time, which could be made adjustable by the user.
  3. When control is transferred, linearly interpolate the control inputs from one player to the other across a span of several seconds. This allows the player giving control to ease their stick inputs back to neutral while the other pushes theirs out of neutral. If that's too hard for some reason, you can simply treat the control transfer as if the aircraft has its control inputs trimmed to the moment of the transfer. Whatever input was applied at the time of control transfer is the new center position, and the new pilot can trim to a new center on their own time.
  4. Having two eyes in real life allows you to see around the stick much more easily. It's like aiming down a rifle sight with two eyes open. This goes for a lot of target-obscuring cockpit elements that are less troublesome in real life, but unless we can convince developers to use some very fancy transparency to emulate the effects of binocular vision, we're stuck.
  5. For high end rudder pedals, if money is no object, you might consider https://flypfc.com/?/products/rudder-pedals/
  6. I'm not sure "do you want (to allow) civilian aircraft?" is really the right question to ask. I think it would be wiser to consider DCS as a flight and military simulation product and ask what can be done to make it into a better product. Right now we have a market that is divided between products which simulate a combat environment (DCS World, the IL-2 series, Rise of Flight, Falcon) and products that simulate a civilian air traffic environment without any serious consideration for military simulation (FSX, X-Plane). If any of these simulations were able to bridge that gap, I think it would absolutely be a better product than the rest and would have my undivided attention for it. DCS and X-Plane are probably in the best market position to do that. I don't mean to discount the excellent work done by the FSX community, but DCS and X-Plane are both are being actively developed by their original developers with full access to the engine's source code and technical specifications. As far as I'm aware, the Flight Simulator franchise has been completely abandoned by Microsoft after the monstrous abortion that was Microsoft Flight. I think the better question to ask is whether or not ED should focus its precious development assets (time, money, talent) on broadening the scope of the DCS environment or not, because there is an opportunity cost to everything. My personal feeling is that it's something they should consider down the line, but first I would like to have a well-rounded stable of aircraft (high fidelity fighters for both red and blue, high fidelity ground attack aircraft for both red and blue) and a stronger ground combat environment (an AI that responds believably to cover and concealment), and a new terrain engine (which is especially necessary if DCS is ever going to try and broaden its scope). But my most immediate DCS wish is to be able to fly two-seat aircraft together with someone else; this is the primary reason I have not purchased the Huey.
  7. An i5 can be faster than an i7 for gaming according to the benchmarks I've seen, but if you are planning to record or stream your games then an i7 can be worth the investment because you'll be running extra applications in the background that can use those extra cores.
  8. Everyone acknowledges that there are real world hardware limitations for most if not all of the people flying the Ka-50 in DCS, or any aircraft for that matter. That means any software solution to our hardware limits is going to be a compromise. So far I've generally seen two options when it comes to realism in simulators: (1) Make it HARDER than the real world, for the sake of "realism" (with big fat quotes). (2) Make it "EASIER" (also with big fat quotes) than the real world, for the sake of comfort, sanity and fun. For some strange reason, people who prefer the first option get really bent out of shape when others ask for the second option to be made available to them. I'll never understand this desire to make things harder than they need to be, backed by the strange logic that it's somehow more realistic than (maybe) making things "easier," where easier might actually just mean more comfortable, intuitive, fun or whatever. If you prefer to work harder to make up for the fact that you don't own a real Ka-50, please don't force the rest of us to do so, and don't pretend your preference is realistic or otherwise superior. +1 for an option to unlink rudder from trim in the Ka-50.
  9. Another great simulation is Windhaven, I hear, only it's birds instead of jets. It's supposed to have very realistic flight. Also it has, um.... aliens from outer space and magic spells... what...? I don't know what kind of person could say no to geese that shoot laser beams from their eyes, but I know that kind of person is no friend of mine!
  10. Friendly fire is a real and constant risk. If you believe Wikipedia, for example, 4 to 5 times as many Coalition soldiers were wounded by friendly fire as by enemy fire at the Battle of 73 Easting. Your best tool for identifying targets is your local friendly JTAC, if available. You might also want to brush up on your vehicle recognition; check the mission briefing for threats so you know what to look for.
  11. I highly recommend Rise of Flight. It is free like DCS World is free, featuring the Spad XIII and Albatros V.
  12. I have a question about the scripting in this mission. When "Trucks in zone" triggers, Pig 11 is tasked to destroy the tanks incoming from the south and the infantry firing from the west across the river. However, when the infantry group "Forest Attack Units" is eliminated, then "Fire off Course" triggers and Ferret scolds Pig 11. Why does the player get reprimanded for accomplishing the task? Is this just for flavor?
  13. It is safer to use "part of group" rather than "all of group" in multiplayer because the latter will delay the whole mission if there is a player who is very slow or simply refuses to take off. It also lets two people game the mission: one stays on the ground while the other goes and gets into an advantageous position before the action kicks off. In brief, "part of group" punishes players for misbehavior while "all of group" potentially rewards them for it. This only applies to the bigger inside zone trigger. Or something. I'll figure it out later...
  14. Infantry need to be able to mount/dismount IFVs, trucks and helicopters as well as occupy buildings. Even without adding some kind of ground cover system--see infantry in Steel Beasts for a fair example--this would be one of the most meaningful updates we could see for Combined Arms. (The other would be proper line of sight and detection rules for the AI, especially with regards to forests.)
  15. I just watched this track. I can confirm that GAJ52's wingman does not engage or attempt to engage any targets, and that he or she is not crazy. :)
  16. I've been wondering if it would be possible to, ahem, "convert" Ace Combat campaigns to DCS/FC3. I just need ED to add flying aircraft carriers...
  17. Don't worry. I don't think anyone around here is going to judge someone based on the flight stick they use. And although a fancy HOTAS is nice, it's actually easy to operate the aircraft efficiently using mainly keyboard commands. I learned to operate all the HOTAS systems first on the keyboard, as I only had a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro at the time; the main barrier isn't the keyboard but the default bindings that sometimes require two keys to be pressed. Reworking those could make the keyboard pretty comfortable. The only other thing to work out is which commands you'd like to place on your flight controllers. That's down to personal preference, and it might change as you get more experience in the sim.
  18. The LASTE wind page is only an urban legend.
  19. Install it fresh on the new PC. Don't ever just copy software from one Windows machine directly to another or you're liable to run into all sorts of problems. And once you do things The Wrong Way, it's unfair to others to expect them to spend their time sorting it out for you.
  20. I read up on this in the DCS manual and then I read all the threads around here and now I have no idea what is true anymore, so I gave up. I think the LASTE wind page is just an urban legend.
  21. I have roughly the same setup, but my video card is a GTX 560 Ti. I run comfortably with all settings at HIGH. The *50 numbers (450, 550) for NVIDIA generally indicates under powered budget cards that are poor for gaming. An i7 will not help you even in CPU intensive games like DCS because *none of them can use all of the processor cores or hyper-threading anyway. Every time I see someone buy an i7 thinking it will boost their gaming performance, I die a little inside. Even if they did, it'd be like a 5% performance increase for 150% the cost over an i5. I have actually heard that i7s perform (very slightly) WORSE for gaming, but I can't confirm that. TL;DR: Put your money towards a video card. I recommend a GeForce GTX 660 or better, as suits your budget. Overclock your CPU if you want to too; the i5-2500K is great for that. *Except that exception that proves the rule that someone will undoubtedly mention.
  22. Something resembling Dangerous Waters (remember that game?) or Naval War: Arctic Circle would probably be pretty amazing for DCS.
  23. The waypoint following autopilot wants to follow the the lines between waypoints. It will return to that course before proceeding to the waypoint.
  24. There is a simple explanation for the AI's amazing snapshot abilities. It gets a lot of practice by playing against hundreds of us for many hours every day. If you played as much DCS as the AI did, you'd have a god-like aim too. :)
  25. F-19 Stealth Fighter. I was too young to play, so my dad would just put it on autopilot and I would watch and pretend I was playing. Maybe it doesn't count because I wasn't really playing anything, but it's the flight sim that got me on the right track.
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