streakeagle

I had not tried the Quest 2 since the latest update that claimed to enhance clarity, so I just updated Oculus and flew DCS World with the Quest 2. I flew two missions: one with the F-14A and one with the F/A-18A. The image quality was better than I remembered, but I still have to lean closer to read the MFDs on the Hornet. F-14A switch labels are still too fuzzy to read without leaning in or zooming. There is one other problem I forgot about that has plagued all of my Oculus headsets: double-image/ghosting when motion reprojection is active. The Reverb G2 sometimes has ghosting, but it is practically non-existent compared to the Oculus.

I have the Rift, Rift S, Quest 2, and Reverb G2. While the Quest 2 is an amazing value, it doesn't hold a candle to the G2 for clarity, both in and out of the cockpit. If you want to read MFDs, gauges, and labels on switches without any zoom, the G2 is close to perfect. But I find the G2 is only good for sims. As a general VR headset for playing all kinds of games, the Quest 2 has far superior controller tracking. But the Quest 2 has one big disadvantage for someone like me: battery life. The built-in battery has a fairly short life for my purposes. If you have a modern router, you can use the air link which allows you to plug in an external battery. By the time you buy a deluxe head strap for comfort and an external battery, the Quest 2 gets pretty close to the price of the G2. The G2 was on sale not too long ago for $400, which was a steal.

I want to thank anyone/everyone who has helped in creating this script. Even as far back as Vietnam, electronic warfare was a critical component of air combat. You can't simulate modern air combat to any degree of accuracy without at least some basic ECM/ECCM modeling. After just one basic test employing offensive jamming for an orbiting S-3B tanker simulating a Vietnam era KEA-3B, I am thoroughly impressed. Using historical stand-off range (20 miles from the coast) and altitude (20,000 feet), I got results that mirrored historical results on May 10, 1972 during the Navy's alpha strikes on Haiphong. I didn't even tweak the script's values. It worked perfectly right out of the box. Eagle Dynamics is missing the boat by not having an equal or better ECM simulation built into the game. Thank you for spending your time and effort making an old guy like me happy so I can send strike packages "downtown" facing historical air defense threat levels and not get creamed by all of the super-accurate SA-2 sites. The SA-2 went from being too easy to dodge, almost no threat at all to being incredibly difficult when sandwiched by multiple units. Your script puts it right. There is one story from May 10, 1972 that might impact your script: a form of jamming that I wasn't even aware was being done. A Navy F-4 pilot saw a pair of incoming SA-2s come through the clouds having already ditched their boosters. He did a quick dip of his nose, and they followed, so he knew he was their target. He pulled 7g and couldn't shake them. He could see they were going to pass near his canopy. He was certain he was dead. They both passed by without detonating. At the debrief back on the carrier, he discovered that the KEA-3B ECM operator realized there were just too many radars to jam effectively, so instead, he jammed the frequency of their radio fuse system! If an aircraft is close enough to the jamming aircraft, the SA-2 fuses won't know they are close enough to detonate. Unless they score a rare kinetic kill, they will pass right by without detonating. I don't know if there is a way to script this form of jamming. Perhaps the script you have that makes the SA-2's detonate in midair is a close enough approximation. But if there was someway you could factor in the ability to disable to the fusing/warhead while allowing the missile to continue to guide normally, that would be awesome. The F-4 pilot that survived that attack had half a case of Vodka left and he gave it to the ECM operator that had saved his life.

If Oculus would make a headset that kept all of the advantages of the Quest 2 but also have image quality equal or better than the G2, I would buy it in a heartbeat. It would also be nice if they could match the comfort and audio of the G2. I think I like the comfort/fit of the Rift S more than any of them, but I preferred the original Oculus audio and the very similar G2 audio to the Rift S and Quest 2 solutions. When using a headset with a PC, I also want the option to not be dependent on battery power. I have no life and sometimes spend as many hours as my eyes and face can take in DCS VR. I take breaks to get fresh air and cool off, but often play much longer on weekends than any battery will support.

I have the Quest 2 and the Reverb G2. While this Quest 2 upgrade might improve the clarity, it still can't compare to the G2. I had to send my G2 away for a month or two for a warranty replacement. I used both the Quest 2 and Rift S in its place. The Quest 2 is about halfway between the G2 and Rift S in image quality/resolution/clarity. Beyond the problems it causes with cockpit instrument/display clarity, I don't care for having my DCS flight time limited by battery life. After going without the G2 for so long, it felt like huge upgrade when I got it back. For VR gaming purposes, like shooter games, the Quest 2's far superior controller tracking more than offsets its inferior graphics. When I play Onward with the G2 I have to struggle to keep my rifle pointing the right direction, especially if I raise it up into my shoulder (i.e. the controller is next to my face). The Quest 2 almost never loses tracking. The G2's better graphics make Onward play better as I can spot and aim at enemies at much greater distances, but that offers little advantage since I can't get my rifle to point straight. After nearly a full year of having the G2 and Quest 2, I can't imaging choosing the Quest 2 over the G2 for PC flight sims. To each his own!

The F-86 Sabre has an option to automatically adjust head height. If you don't like that, you just uncheck the option. The problem is that the default head height is set to optimal for seeing the instrument panel and the gunsight, which is quite a bit lower than view of a real pilot. So, they added this artificial shift to give you a proper view for take-off / landing then automatically lowering the view for gear-up flight. As I fly with either TrackIR or VR, I uncheck this box and calibrate my view center to be correct for the virtual body in the cockpit.

f4l0 does the Sim Shaker for Aviators software. Both he and André seem to live on these forums trying to support everyone using their software and seat pads. If you want information or have problems, this thread on SSA is for you:

The principal difference between the models is the shape. The "Sim Edition" was exactly what I wanted/needed because I have an actual F-4 ejection seat cushion/survival pack and it is notched to permit stick movement. Either one will work just fine with a normal chair, just a matter of which style you prefer. Out of the box, you need to install the Gametrix software package to get the USB driver. It includes the ability to test the individual motors of the pad and you can even put it into a "massage" mode. After that you need SimShaker for Aviators, often called "SSA", to use the USB driver with DCS and a few other flight sims. The Gametrix software and SSA are free. To date, SSA is still being updated for free to keep up with DCS World patches and new aircraft. I am sure there will be a time where that won't be true anymore, but so far the SSA developer has maintained the software for quite some time with the only compensation being paypal donations by happy end users. There is a second software package that is needed for some applications, SimShaker Wings. That one is sold and updated by Andre. If you use any of the applications supported by SSW, then you may want to buy it, too.

I have never finished the throttle. I want to connect the real levers to a Warthog throttle base. I added sleeves to the stubs that are left when you remove the throttle grips, so I now have wooden blocks that can be used to attach whatever control scheme I decide to try. But the problem is that the range of movement for the Warthog "stubs" is much larger than the range of movement of the real throttle levers at the attachment points. I haven't had the time to dream up some way of scaling the movement reliably: i.e. amplify the real levers' small range to the Warthog's larger range. I have considered trying to using pushrods and levers made from aluminum bar stock, but I haven't ever taken the time to sketch it up and find/buy materials. I like to use radio control aircraft parts for linkages/pushrods because they are readily available, have threaded ends to make minor adjustments, and I am familiar with what is available and how to use them. I have not stopped looking for other panels so that I could complete the left console. But the only ones I could find were in Europe and not even accounting for shipping, the prices were too high. So, already having real panels and knowing I can get similar if not identical switches on e-Bay, I think I will end up trying to build replica panels: steel mounting plate with transparent acrylic or plexiglass panels that are painted black and engraved with the lettering painted white. But to do the cutting/engraving I either have to invest in some tooling or find the right software and order custom panels. I still need to provide a second seat/stick platform for my WinWing controls so that I can use my existing one mount and wire up the real F-4 stick as originally built. I have real life issues at home and at work that limit the time and money I can put into this right now. But if DCS is actually going to release an F-4 in the near future as appeared to be hinted in a recent Russian interview, I will make an effort to get this working sooner rather than later.

It was an absolute rocket, not just in terms of climb but in range and endurance. A lot of things were sacrificed to get that performance, conceptually similar to the F-104.

Gametrix discontinued their series of vibrating seat pads and are unavailable. Andre used the Gametrix hardware/software as a baseline, but produces his own custom seat pads. He continues to make and sell his custom versions, but they are still technically "powered by Gametrix". The new option that replaced the Gametrix brand is Realteus. If you read these forums, you will find the Realteus has made a lot of customers unhappy with incredibly long delays and/or never delivered a product that had been pre-paid. Of those who actually received their Realteus seat pads, many are happy and some are not due to quality control issues. I have two of Andre's pads. I bought his pad because of the notch for the stick that matches my home ejection seat shape as well as having a color close to real ejection seat pads. I bought the 2nd one to guarantee spare parts when I heard Gametrix was discontinuing their seats. However, as Andre appears to be continuing to produce and sell new seats, I didn't need to do that.

In terms of the 3d model, the JA-37 is dimensionally different, about 10 cm longer. Skyflash preceded the AIM-7M. It is largely an AIM-7E with an inverse monopulse seeker that is better at look-down shots and far more ECM resistant than the disappointing AIM-7F. The AIM-7M was the Skyflash inspired upgrade to the AIM-7F: i.e. retrofitted with the US version of an inverse monopulse seeker. The AIM-7M may or may not have caught up to or surpassed the Skyflash seeker, but it also had the engine/warhead/range/speed of the AIM-7F, which was a tremendous gain over the AIM-7E used as the Skyflash baseline. I have always wondered why the Skyflash wasn't updated to the AIM-7F/AIM-7M engine baseline.

From the F-86F manual: Seat Vertical Adjustment Lever. Mechanical adjustment of the seat is controlled by a lever at the right of the headrest. Pulling the handle down releases the seat for adjustment, and it can be raised when the pilot lifts his weight from the seat. After adjustment, the seat should be checked that it is locked. If ED wanted to model the lever, you could only adjust the seat height with a lever on the ground with the canopy open. In-game, you can achieve the same result by adjusting the head/camera position up or down, then saving the new position. I disable the height adjustment cheat and used the a saved height that puts my head in the same position as the AI pilot. While this is realistic, it puts your head up high enough that you may need to be pulling lead or lower your view a bit to see the whole gunsight reticle. If you are using TrackIR or VR, using a fixed, realistic head height works great. The default head height in DCS World, like many sims, often puts you in a position to optimize your view of the gunsight and/or instrument panel rather than matching the actual position and/or view angle of real aircraft. In VR, when there is a virtual pilot body, it is easy to calibrate the head position. Moving your head and then re-centering the view will quickly give you a realistic position, but putting your head in your natural seated position looking straight forward and then bumping the camera up/down and/or forward back until it matches the VR pilot body will make it easier by starting at the right position and not requiring hold your head at an odd position while re-centering.

I confirmed that you cannot twist the throttle handle with the mouse: you can either move the throttle forward or backward or push the mic button on the end. This isn't really a bug, just a matter of how ED chose to model the mouse controls.

The distance is adjusted by rotating the throttle handle. I don't know if the throttle handle rotation was ever intended to be adjustable by mouse since the throttle handle is primarily used to move the throttle. It is possible that if you hover over the handle in they right place, it may work. But the distance control is best mapped to an axis or buttons on the throttle handle to approximate the functionality of the real sight.

My logic is that aircraft performance falls within certain classes, like say Mach 2 fighters vs earlier supersonic fighters. The US fighters that were built for escorting bombers all used variations of the same tech to achieve peak performance at high altitudes involving turbo and/or superchargers to really jack up the power above 20,000 feet. Asserting the P-51B to be a low alt fighter compared to the P-47D sounds backwards to me. Despite the P-51's two-stage supercharger creating a notch in its performance at medium altitudes, clearly, it was optimized for high altitude as its performance improved the higher it went above the notch, In fact, its performance was higher than all other contemporary aircraft. The Fw190D-9, while better than the Fw190A series at high altitudes was clearly still a medium altitude fighter with its performance falling off as it approached 20,000 feet, which is pretty much the boundary between medium and high altitudes. How can such an aircraft be classified as a "high altitude fighter"? Whereas the P-47 really hits its stride at 25,000 feet and keeps getting better all the way up to 30,000 feet. The P-51B had different engines during its production run. The original engine was optimized for 29,000 feet. The later engine, which also went into the P-51D lowered that peak down to 25,000 feet so that it wouldn't suffer from the notch over the typical combat altitudes between 20 and 25,000 feet. Until the late war P-47s, Ta-152s, and Bf109s came out, the P-51B with the original engine was really in a class by itself because of its speed, range, and maneuverability at 25,000+ feet. Ideally, the P-38 should have been the best of the bunch due to its power, but its compressibility issues, much lower top speed, high monetary cost, large size, and various design flaws that didn't like combat in the freezing high altitudes over Europe relegated it to only dominating in the Pacific. If you play the "which one of these things is not like the others" with high altitude fighter performance charts, the Fw190D9 will always be the "other". Whereas the lower the Fw190D-9 goes below 20,000 ft, the more it becomes an exceptional fighter. If the D-9 had been the high altitude Germany needed to counter the P-51, the Ta-152 would not have been developed. It was an interim version using an unwanted, available engine because the Bf109 was getting all the best engines. If the Fw190D-9 was a high altitude fighter, then so was the Anton... because all the new engine did was slide the existing performance curves to the right by 30-40 mph, it didn't change the efficiency as a function of altitude at all.

I had not updated my software or firmware in a while since everything has been working exactly the way I wanted it to work. But on a whim, I started up SimAppPro and updated everything: stick, throttle, combat panel, and takeoff panel. I immediately noticed the difference: the ability to assign an axis as an axis, buttons, or combined. I had already programmed my VKB MCG Pro to have a center depress rather than a toggle between analog and buttons, which gave me both. It is a feature that gives me flexibility and in the case of the VKB, gives me one more button that can be mapped to game functions. A typical problem for me is the spring to center radar elevation wheel on the throttle grip. In some cases, I prefer the analog axis and in others I prefer to have it configured as buttons. Now I can have both as required rather than having to choose just one way or use SimAppPro to set my flavor of the week. Also new, but less useful to me is the ability to configure hats to act as an analog. In theory, this is great for analog trim applications where return to center axes can't do the job. But since most sims have trim controls that also work with buttons, I never use this function. Nice to have to maximize options, but I haven't ever used it and don't anticipate ever needing it. Aside from one lighted pushbutton having its label crack and peel off, all of my hardware has been working perfectly despite being used extensively almost every day. The only part I don't use is the stick, because I prefer the VKB MCG Ultimate. Overall, I thoroughly enjoy flying with the Winwing hardware even in VR. Getting new extremely useful features for free is just icing on the cake.

When I upgraded from the Rift S to the Reverb G2 before building a new PC, I expected to have performance issues. Instead, I was able to keep the same or better quality settings and still maintain 45 fps in most situations. Then I built a new PC. I chose the AMD 5800X on an X570 motherboard. I didn't really gain any fps, but what I did gain was stability. My old PC with 4-cores was pegged out trying to keep up with SimShaker, VR, DCS, SRS, and VoiceAttack/Vaicom Pro. With the new PC, my cpu was handling the load really well, practically idling since it appears to be gpu bound (particuarly by the 8 GB of VRAM). Then ED released a patch (not long after switching to 2.7/new clouds). Now, the only way I can get the performance I was getting is to fly in environments with little no clouds like Nevada missions. If I fly my usual MP servers with clouds, I have to downgrade the G2 to 60 fps base and force 30 fps motion smoothing to get stable frame rates, and even then under some conditions it drops into the 20s and gets difficult to fly. For the record, I am stuck on a regular 1080. I am sure I would be doing a little bit better on a 1080 Ti. I am not going to buy the current overpriced gpus I need. If my performance gets any worse, I will simply stop playing DCS. I have better things to do with my time and money than to spend 2 or 3K on a new top of the line gpu, install it in a nearly top of the line pc and struggle to maintain playable frame rates and image quality. ED's answer is buy better hardware. When I am already just a gpu purchase away from top notch hardware, my answer is go back to my other hobbies that cost less and make me happier.

I don't know what aircraft you guys are flying or where you calibrate your head to be at in VR. I try to line up my head and shoulders with the VR pilot. Many of the aircraft I fly have canopies that are close to the pilot's head. If you move your head much at all, you go through the glass. The aircraft that are the worst for this are the ones that look like they have bubble canopies, but between the seat and the small canopy, there isn't much room to look behind you. I don't use any kind of check 6 cheats. I physically strain to look over my shoulder from one side to the other while scissoring to shake an opponent. I sit in a mock up of an F-4 ejection seat. The most annoying aspect of going through the glass is the sound. I fly other air combat sims, and in those sims I cannot go through the glass and I don't get motion sickness. So, my suggestion is for DCS to implement optional constraints similar to competitor's sims. Key word optional: if you don't like it don't use it. I prefer head constraints. Most TrackIR games had head constraints. You could only move you head so much no matter how far you physically moved your head. You could not use TrackIR to stick your head through the glass to look behind you. Right now, the MiG-15 essentially has as good a visibility out o f its cockpit as the F-86 in VR, because there is nothing keeping you from turning around and looking straight back even though the real cockpit didn't have the room to do this. For the sake of fairness/realism in multiplayer it would be worth it to limit head movement in VR.

The D-9 (mid to late 1944 service entry date) was a high altitude fighter relative to Antons, but not compared to P-51Bs and P-47Ds from a year earlier. They closed the gap significantly compared to the Anton, but within a few months, the monster P-47M came online. The Luftwaffe needed the Ta-152 in 1943, not the D-9 in 1944. Of course, the Me262 would have been the real solution to the bomber threat.

The D-9 was better than the Anton at higher altitudes, but it is only strong against the P-51 from sea level to 20,000 feet. Above 24,000 feet, the P-51 becomes dominant. The story is pretty much the same with the P-47. I would not call a D-9 a high altitude fighter. Whereas the Ta-152 is less than useful below 25,000 feet, but becomes an absolute monster above that it.

Even with boost, the A-8 lacks the power to compete in air-to-air with any contemporary aircraft. The D-9 within lower altitudes is the Fw answer to US late war fighters. The Ta-152 was meant to be the high altitude option. The A-5 was better than the A-8 at ACM by every measure. As I prefer air-to-air combat, I would much rather have the A-5 than the A-8. I enjoy flying the A-8, but it is very difficult to win against any other flyable WW2 fighter in DCS World.

Go to F10 view, click on aircraft of interest, then click F2.

Another solution is to try PointCTRL. It is kind of like TrackIR, except that you wear the sensor and your fingers have the LEDs. It works as a mouse, but you just point your finger to move the mouse cursor. You lose the tactile feel of pressing real buttons, but it is by far the best VR control solution I have tried for DCS since you can use either hand as required and get nearly the precision and speed of using a mouse. When it is calibrated properly, you still feel like you are putting your finger on the virtual controls, so it feels like you are using VR even though you are really just tracking one of your fingers in 2D as a mouse cursor. There are disadvantages: 1) Currently, the IR sensor is very sensitive, so any bright IR sources (namely sunlight) entering the room can cause issues with tracking. The sensitivity may become adjustable in the future. 2) You have to wear the led/button assemblies on the index finger of both hands. 3) The finger controllers are battery powered. They have a long life, but you still have to worry about keeping them charged. 4) The IR sensor requires a USB cable. If your headset has a cable, as most PC headsets do, no problem. But if you are using wireless with a Quest 2, you probably don't want to add a cable. 5) Most important of all (the others are relatively minor), you have to look towards the direction of the control you want to operate so that the mouse cursor can reach it and it is within the sensor's field of view limits. Once PointCTRL becomes 2nd nature, you won't want to fly without it. But I use it in parallel with my physical controls. There are still times when the physical controllers are the way to go, such as when you need to toggle a switch/press a button without taking your eyes off of a target or in the rare case where you have to operate two controls at the same time, such as the flight control system test for the F/A-18 (for that one, I press the button on my Cougar MFD and use PointCTRL to toggle the switch on the right side of the cockpit).

I have used the voice controls to great benefit. Using the flashlight/passthrough is the best way to find my drink without spilling it. Being able to adjust volume with verbal commands is great, as well as being able to access the desktop while in-game without using any controls. However, just typing on my keyboard gets recognized as a "select" command and while using voice chat with online multiplayer, the voice commands inadvertently recognize the speech as valid commands causing all kinds of mayhem, including causing DCS or SteamVR to crash. These problems happened so often, I was forced to disable it. If there was an easy way to enable/disable voice commands with a directx button or even a verbal command, I would go back to using it. If I could select which commands are available and suppress the ones causing problems, I would go back to using it. But there are no good options, so I live without voice commands, losing the flashlight, volume, and desktop. I can use the keyboard, which is better than having to grab a VR controller, but voice commands are so much more convenient when they work.