ericinexile

This missile has made life so impossible for (the virtual Russian) me that I've begun editing out AH-1s and AH-64s in GOW campaign missions and replacing them with Georgian Mi-24Vs. I hate to cheat but I have not found a counter other than being lucky enough to be near cover. Sometimes beaming the laser source and getting below treetop level (thank god for fake trees) will spoof a few...but rarely all. My ATGMs are worthless against moving airborn targets. R73s aren't a Ka50 option. What's a non-fire-and-forget-weapon-possessing combat pilot to do? I really pity Russian helo squadrons should they face this missile in a future conflict where they don't enjoy complete air superiority. American attack helos have been kicked out of my sandbox. Good riddance. Smokin' Hole [Edit: I just learned that neither the AH-1 nor the AH-64 carry fire-and-forget ATGMs. Oh well I guess I'm just outclassed by the AI pilot, not the helicopter/missile.]

I've never used padlock. But I do find that if I designate a piece of empty sky and within a second or so get the badguy inside the box, the skhval will slave on him.

^^^^ What he said. Plus, sometimes its nice to keep Target Points called up on the PVI. But when you do the Shkval slaves to that point--which is of course the idea. Having the HMS up allows you to quickly point the Shkval elsewhere without clearing the TP.

^^^^ Of course I believe you. ED hasn't lied to me yet as far as I know. All of this stuff is complete magic to me anyway. I am amazed and astounded at the level of detail even in areas where few will notice or care. Yesterday my wingy flew under me while maneuvering to rejoin and my radar altimeter jumped! That happens to me all the time flying over the ocean. A completely unnecessary detail when all that needed to be modeled was the difference between helo and terrain with a simple algorithm correcting for any non-level attitude. But nooo, ED had to do it the hard way. It's an amazing attention to detail that sometimes leaves me shaking my head in wonder. As I said, LOMAC/DCS is an incomprehensible bit of magic running on my PC that in many ways, most ways actually, exceeds the realism of $20M simulators I'm forced to fly annually. It is probably in my wonderment that can be sourced my occasional doubt. Certainly the devs must be cheating?! Smokin' Hole

I want to steer this thread away from issues of turbulence and wind-correction. What I'd rather like to know about A/I flight modeling is how A/I aircraft perform when compared to their human flown counterparts. Do two identical planes/helicopters, one human-flown the other A/I, share turn-rates, climb-rates, max/min speeds, sink-rates, etc for a given loadout? If they do then the appearance of flying on rails or lack of turbulence reaction is irrelevant to me; although I would like to see control surface movement (heck, even Falcon 4 did that). Smokin' Hole

Tried this last night and it does work well. Nice one, Ethereal! But I really hate how the lack of a dynamic campaign forces us into this "toy soldier" mindset of battlefield creation and play.

Let's hope they removed a few trees around the real thing.

Sacred Cow? Holy Grail? (((insert smile here--doesn't seem to work with Safari))) I believe you, Yo-Yo, regarding improvements in some performance criteria such as wieght vs AOA vs turn rate. Nonetheless, the statement: 'For “Black Shark”, the same Standard Flight Model (SFM) will be used for AI-controlled aircraft that was used for player-controlled aircraft in “Lock On”' gave me the impression that an AI DCS Su27 would be identical in every performance aspect as the LockOn Su27 flown by a human player. That might be the case but it sure doesn't seem that way from my layman's POV. Perhaps my feelings are based on that fact that the AI flys so flawlessly and with such a complete lack of any random movement that it just makes AI planes appear hopelessly unreal. Now I have to go look up "stochastic" (((another smile))) Smokin' Hole

I'm sorry ED but I just don't see it. I set up a simple mission with a 16 m/s crosswind and watched a Su25t takeoff and land. Its flightpath was completely unrealistic and seemed quite similar to Lock On. I'm not saying that the TO and Landing were scripted, only that they appeared to occur with no consideration for atmospherics or aerodynamics except for a crab angle on final. In other words, they were nothing like what I would expect an aircraft flying with a Standard Flight Model to look like. Also, aside from flaps and speedbrakes, there was no control surface movement (which admittedly has nothing to do with the flight model but does help make A/I flight "seem" more real.) None of this is important now but it will be as more planes are added to the DCS environment.

+1

I hope they install a coffee cup holder and vanity mirror while they're at it.

This is about as nit-picky as they come, but... Nevermind, works well enough with the autopilot.

While what you say is true in part you still must work within the stiff limitations of your environment. The real Ka50 FCS was never designed with the X52 in mind. Watch the split screen demo video (not the cool Frazier track but the real video). I don't recall ever seeing the pilot press and hold the trim. He didn't need to because he was working with the real cyclic attached to real actuators which are in turn attached to real AP servos. By using the FD or by holding the trim, WE are overcoming our limitations to achieve as best we can HIS controllability. That's the ultimate use of a "study sim" IMO. Smokin' Hole

A score of 49% or less loses the mission and moves you back a stage (assuming that doesn't take you below Stage 1...In which case the Campaign ends). A score of 50% is considered a draw and scoring above 50% advances to the next stage (or wins the campaign).

Did they at least send your unit a case of beer afterwards?!

I'm with you there brother! After abandoning a buddy in the jungle on a Hash Run (no time to explain) I earned the moniker "Judas". Good thing DCS can't court-marshal.

Just so I don't look like a schizophrenic talking to himself, that was in reply to a post that was later removed by the poster.

Your intuition serves you well, kemosabi. Well, when I'm outclimbed by a Hip or chased down by my wingman when I'm cruising at 300kps makes me wonder... Looks like we have three flight models: 1) AFM: DCS Black Shark and Lock-On Su25(t) 2) SFM: Other Lock-On human controlled planes and DCS AI fixed wing 3) AI FM: DCS AI helos

Disregard. Found it. https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/index.php?end_pos=950&scr=default&lang=en#p3 Now, does it apply to AI helos? Disregard, found that too.

I've searched (without luck) all over the DCS website for a "Developer's Note" which discussed the improved flight model fidelity for AI planes and helos. My recollection is that the note/FAQ/whatever which I read years before the DCS release promised a fidelity in DCS AI which would be comparable to Lock-On human controlled aircraft. Does anyone else recall that note? Smokin' Hole

The subject of trim has truely been beaten to death on this forum. So why try to revive it? Because after 300 + hours flying this sim I've begun to learn something that, although probably immediately obvious to some of you, is only now clear to me. And that is the difference between the function of the trim button with FD on (autopilot off) and FD off (autopilot on). A few months ago, I actually gave up DCS because I hated flying the thing until a forum member suggested using the flight director to bypass the axis hold functions of the autopilot while still benefiting from the dampening functions of the Ka50's stability augmentation. That simple step made flying the sim enjoyable for me and from then on I used the FD exclusively unless I required the "enroute", "autohover", or "turn-on-target" autopilot modes. Still, I wanted to do it the "right way" and follow the lead of GG, Wags, EB1 and other DCS Pros. So I decided to do the entire Chapter 3 of the oil campaign with the Autopilot ON (FD not engaged). Alas here is what finally sank in to my thick old skull: With the FD off (autopilot on) the trim button doesn't just trim, it also commands a new pitch, roll, and yaw axis for the autopilot to hold. And the autopilot will do just that (to the extent of its control authority) even as conditions change. For instance, if the pilot has the helo trimmed slightly nose down and accelerating through 100 kph, the flight control system will hold that attitude even as the airspeed continues to increase and, unknown to the pilot, trim is required. In this example if the pilot presses the trim button (with a non-ffb stick) the helicopter will immediately pitch up. I took this to be an error with the the way the Ka50 was modelled in DCS when actually the error is in my use of a non-ffb stick. The reason I didn't have this problem with the flight director engaged is because I was intuitively adding forward cyclic as the speed increased. Therefore pressing the trim button changed nothing (while releasing the button held the cyclic in the new trimmed position and I no longer needed to hold that pressure.) With this simple knowledge, flying and agressively manuevering with the autopilot on became easier but did require that I hold the trim while maneuvering, sometimes for long periods of time. Once the trim is released, the FCS "thinks" that the pilot is commanding an attitude hold which of course is rarely the case when maneuvering. The technique therefore becomes something like: manuever, trim then trim-and-hold (the first press of the trim...well...trims, while the second press allows for throwing the helo around without the autopilot attempting to hold an axis). Now I'm not completely stupid. I've read the manual a dozen times, I've watched all of Wag's tutorials and I've read everything the experts on this forum had to say on the subject. It's not that I didn't know from the beginning that holding the trim button would allow for easier maneuvering, it's that I didn't really understand why. I felt that Kamov would never build a helicopter where the autopilot is always on until the pilot holds the trim. To a professional fixed-wing pilot, it just didn't seem logical or intuitive. Now it seems more of both. Armed with this new understanding, do I keep the FD off? No, I've gone back to my old way of flying because I've found the press-and-hold step to be a little combersome when the LWS is flashing and tracers are flying past the canopy. But I do now understand why most keep the FD off and fly the way they've been told is proper--because it works. In the end, flying FD on or off is, as we say in the south, "six of one a half-dozen of the other". It is a matter of preference. Smokin' Hole

Apple MAC PRO! ("Spring '08") Dual Zeon Quad 2.8 4 Gig Nvidia 8800gt ^^ More than enough with most settings on high The Dark Side of the Rig runs Vista Ultimate 64 TrackIR 4 Saitek x52

Well he's received several helpful smarta$$ answers but his question is legitimate. Using the map for identifying friendlies ONLY is perfectly realistic as it emulates a well commanded battlefield where a pilot can verify friendly locations before firing. As I thought I understood it, selecting units to be HIDDEN or not, applies to the editor map, not the F10 map. If that assumption is correct then the OP is correct in either identifying a bug or better learning the game. Smokin' Hole

I'm running Vista Ultimate 64 on a Mac of all places and its smooth as silk. No hiccups whatsoever.

Interestingly, many early aviation pioneers had the same discussion. Some successfully flew with the reversed rudder configuration and were adamant that this was more intuitive. that was then...this is now. Left goes left, right goes right. Smokin' Hole