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streakeagle

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Everything posted by streakeagle

  1. You accept that the 37mm round has 37 times more explosive power than a 23mm round because of gun camera footage? There is no magic in physics. By ED's own numbers, the mass of the 37mm round is 0.722 vs the 23mm's 0.196. You don't get 37 times the power for 3.5 times the mass. Either the 37mm round has an erroneous value, or all of the other rounds is DCS have values that are too low. I would like to know the data that ED used to define their rounds and what the explosive value in the definition represents, i.e. mass? energy?
  2. Great news! I wish the people at nVidia and AMD would recognize DCS as a platform that needs to be properly supported.
  3. In the server missions I maintain, this breaks the scheduled spawning. Once a given group of targets are killed, they don't respawn. I can use trigger zones to work around this, but it would be much better if ED addressed this problem rather than having to do extensive editing to all of our missions!
  4. Same here: Frame rate and frame time stability. Image quality increase. Performance increase. Extra performance used to buy even more quality increase. SteamVR consumed resources, increased latency, caused stuttering, delayed DCS startup etc. Without SteamVR, my G2 works better than ever on a 5800X with a 6900XT.
  5. Exactly as the title says. Also, it would be nice of the tail numbers were at least white if not scaled to the correct size and font.
  6. Yesterday, I went to try out the new KG12 and discovered that there is no published software/firmware that supports it. So, I couldn't even use it. I put in a support ticket with the VKB website and requested help on the official tech support forum. Today, I was provided with unreleased firmware that works. Out of the box, the hat switch is a simple 4-button hat. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to implement an 8-way POV hat in the configuration software. I normally only want/need 4-way hats since the switches on real life sticks are often only 4-way. But some applications work better with an 8-way POV hat (especially older games), so I wanted to see how hard it was to program. I learned that I really need to pay attention to the physical button layer map versus the logical button layer map. During button tests, the logical button numbers are used for display. But the POV hat is programmed using physical button numbers. Strangely enough, the stock configuration has an odd mapping between the physical layer and the logical layer. Once I figured out the relationship, I was able to program POV 1. The stock configuration also has 0 POV hats configured, so you have to go to the global parameters tag and set the number of POV hats to 1. The configuration software looks complex and intimidating, but that is the price you pay for exceptionally good programming flexibility. It is amazing what can be done with the configuration. Most people won't need this level of flexibility, but I love having such a powerful tool available.
  7. The new KG12 stick grip just arrived today. It is a small, but nice step up from the original KG12. The key differences are: added twist axis added side button metal paddle in place of pinky button new shape for 8-way thumb hat textured grip Options I wish it had: As previously stated, the 8-way thumb hat should have had a center depress capability. The adjacent weapon fire/release button should have been a 4-way or 8-way hat with center depress. Button(s) to detect when the flip safety is in the safe and/or fire position. As the real grips were metal, this is one case where I would like to see an "ultimate" version with the above changes and a metal grip. Beyond the obvious WW2 fighter applications, this is essentially the same grip as the MiG-15. With the extra side button, it is now perfect as a stand-in for my all-time favorite B-8 grip. The standard B-8 had a 4-way trim switch, a trigger, a bomb release button, a side button, and a pinky button. DCS aircraft that utilize the standard B-8 include the F-86 and the UH-1. The F-5's modified B-8 grip has a fwd/aft/center depress button on the side button, which is beyond the available buttons on the new KG12. The twist axis could be programmed to provide fwd and aft buttons with the side button acting as the center depress.
  8. I have had the F-86 since it was available for purchase/download. It has been and remains one of my favorite DCS modules with countless hours spent flying it over the years. I am more of an air-to-air pilot, but in recent years, I have started playing online which often requires air-to-ground attacks. I can employ HVAR rockets with devastating effectiveness using the radar-ranging gunsight and single-shot manual release. But when it comes to bombing, the radar-ranging gunsight is difficult to employ. 1) It is very sensitive to the speed, dive angle, and g-load. Unless you fly exactly the right profile and press the buttons at exactly the right time, it doesn't ever release. I have found that the radar range indicator needs to be tracking (less than 5,000 feet) before the electrical interlock can be released to establish a target aim point. At the required 45 degree dive angle, this means the automatic release point is going to be below 3,000 feet if it releases at all. 2) Even when I can get the auto release to work, it hits long every single time. Most of the time, I have to aim about 1 or 2 reticle diameters ahead of the target to get a hit. Has anyone been able to use the auto release effectively? If so, what profile do you fly to get it to release consistently and accurately? i.e. speed and altitude at entry into the dive, dive angle, timing of when to press/release the electrical interlock and bomb release buttons, etc.
  9. Why doesn't the 8-way hat have a center depress? This was a big oversight on the original VKB KG12 and the same mistake was made again.
  10. I fly the F-86, the UH-1, A-4E-C, and the F-5 quite a bit. Helicopters and WW2 aircraft also have controls all over the place. So it isn't just MiGs. There are a lot of controls in each of those aircraft that are on the sides or down low and Leap made operating those controls very difficult. Whereas using a mouse, PointCTRL, or physical panels, I could get the right control in the right position quickly and easily. If it does the job for you, great, but the only thing Leap does for me is collect dust.
  11. After the update, I inadvertently went back to SteamVR, which gave me the chance to do an apples-to-apples comparison with the same graphics settings. With SteamVR: pegged at 45 fps with drops to 30-35 fps at low altitude with lots of ground units. In the same mission using this OpenXR mod, the indicated frame rate was 60 fps (I understand that it is really averaging the jumps between 90 and 45 fps) with drops to 45 fps at low altitude with lots of ground units (sometimes it did drop into the 30s). Not only did OpenXR run faster on average, but was far smoother no matter what the indicated fps. But for me, the biggest gain has been how fast I can start up DCS World and being able to quit DCS back to my WMR desktop without having to use a VR controller or peak out of my G2 headset. ED needs to provide built-in support for this as it is a huge step forward for flying in VR with WMR based headsets.
  12. While it looks cool, my experience with Leap is that it is too sloppy and suffers from field of view limitations. When operating controls high and centered, it works great. when you go low or especially low to the left or right, it has issues. Some controls are difficult to touch/operate which leads to inadvertent operation of nearby controls. Somehow canopy jettison switches or other critical controls always end up near controls I need to use and ruin the flight if they get triggered. I found PointCTRL to be a far superior solution as it is almost as precise as a mouse, but calibrated so that the mouse cursor follows your left and right index fingers, but only when you activate them. But even PointCTRL suffers from field of view limitations: you can only operate controls withing so many degrees of your viewpoint, so you generally need to look in the direction of the control you want to operate. I prefer a mix of hardware panels and PointCTRL. In combat, nothing beats having real panels/switches if you can find them in VR as you can keep your eyes out of the cockpit while you toggle important controls.
  13. I haven't had any of the issues. Installed and worked first try. The elimination of SteamVR is what I wanted most and it brought some great things with it. It doesn't take more than a couple of minutes to install: copy the listed files, backup the original files, paste in the listed files. I did run the repair prior to installation per the procedure, so that takes some time, but it was worth the wait.
  14. One thing to consider on the AIM-4 employment with the F-106: no combat experience. Early AIM-7s had a 50% PK in peacetime evaluation. 8-10% in combat. F-4s may not have had the same equipment as an F-106, but once the missile left the rail, it was an IR homer independent of the aircraft. The AIM-4 needed a direct hit to do damage, and the only thing they really hit well in Vietnam were slow trucks at night when the AIM-4's seekers could see them very well.
  15. I have all of the WingWing panels: Startup that comes with the throttle, Takeoff, and Combat as well as a pair of TM Cougar MFDs. When I am not in a panic, I can consistently navigate all of the panels almost reflexively. I tend to grab a reference point such as the corner of a panel or a uniquely shaped control, then count over to avoid flipping the wrong switch. When in combat or in a hurry, I tend to make mistakes or fumble for a few precious seconds before finding a reference point. But most switches/knobs/levers that I use all the time, I grab reflexively even when panicked. I have PointCTRL, too. PointCTRL works almost as well as a mouse. But I have two problems with using it compared to the aforementioned physical panel controls: 1) I have to more or less look at the switch I want to operate whereas I can be looking over my shoulder and still find physical switches on my USB control panels. 2) I live in Florida with bright sunny days which disrupt the PointCTRL IR sensor unless I black out my windows or wait until sunset to fly. Once you can rapidly grab real world controls with few errors, there is nothing faster or more precise, but PointCTRL encourages learning where all the controls are on the real panels instead of memorizing arbitrary assignments to USB panels. In combat I prefer the real panels, but for start-up, takeoff, and navigation PointCTRL is as good or better.
  16. There is definitely an inconsistency in the explosive values between the 23mm and the 37mm. In real life, the 23mm has about 18 grams of explosive in the HEI round, so the DCS value of 0.011 may be ED's assessment of the kg of explosive in an HEI-T round. Notice the 23 mm API round has an explosive value of 0. Even if ED's value isn't in "kg", it should be proportional to the mass of the explosive, perhaps multiplied by a co-efficient representing the relative efficiency of the type of explosive used. In real life, the 37mm has about 40 grams of explosive in the HEI round, so the DCS value of 0.410 may a typo and should have been 0.041 if that is ED's assessment of the kg of explosive in the HEI-T round. Even if the explosive value isn't expressed in "kg", the type of explosive used in the two rounds is probably the same, so the explosive values should be proportional, making the 0.410 value over 10 times more than it should have been compared to the 23mm round. Notice the 37 mm API-T round has the same value as the HEI-T round, which is definitely a mistake. Does anyone know how the explosive values are determined and whether both the 23mm and 37mm values are correct?
  17. I am not here to argue or debate but to simply state my experience with this mod (all perception/impression/opinion): 1. I followed the manual installation instructions to the letter, so it worked first try. 2. Even if there were no measurable or perceptible improvements in performance or quality, simply eliminating the overhead of SteamVR is enough to keep me using OpenXR. I can transition from WMR with the desktop open to DCS or from DCS to WMR much faster than before. 3. I didn't perform benchmarks prior to installing OpenXR, but my estimation from flying on certain servers for months is that I may have gained 5 to 10 fps with the same graphics settings I had before and after upping the quality the frame rates were comparable if not slightly better. 4. The image quality without MSAA looks very good. MSAAx2 is only slightly better. It is the one setting that brings the frame rates at or below what I typically saw without OpenXR without MSAA. Even with MSAAx2, the indicated framerate typically falls between 50 and 70 fps. With a target of 45 fps, MSAAx2 is clearly usable. MSAAx2 seemed to make a bigger difference without OpenXR: i.e. the image was more aliased/shimmering with SteamVR and no MSAA, whereas OpenXR makes it much harder for me to notice any improvement after enabling MSAAx2 other than the loss of performance. I will continue using this unless I encounter some kind of showstopping bug. So far, I haven't encountered any bugs.
  18. I didn't say never, just very rare. Of over 5,000 produced, 200 F-4's were lost in Vietnam to departing controlled flight because they had stability issues at high AoA. I have never once read of an F-4 lost to pulling so many g's that a wing fell off despite having read many accounts of F-4's pulling about 12g during the same kind of situations that led to departing controlled flight: dodging SAMs and pulling out of dives to avoid hitting the ground. How many F-5s were produced from F-5A to F-5E or to increase the sample size, include the T-38 and F-20? How many incidents of the wings failing have been documented? I have no idea, but have never read of even structural deformation in any F-5 pilot accounts. What that means is that the incident rate is low enough if any occurred at all, that it didn't fold like a paper airplane every time someone pulled the stick or it would have been labeled a "widow maker" and attacked by the press. So, to be fair, all DCS aircraft should use a similar model for determining when structural failure occurs based on documentation or else aircraft that had similar design limits in reality will have very different limits in a game that is supposed to tend toward as much realism as possible. Since there is really no in-game incentive to prevent simulator pilots from pulling loads that most real pilots would almost never intentionally pull, I can see the value of making aircraft more fragile than reality to keep people honest -- but all aircraft need to be bound by the same rules, not randomly make some aircraft break at the touch of the stick while others pull insanely high loads with no penalty at all.
  19. F-4s could and did pull 12g in Vietnam while pulling out of dive bomb attacks and evading SAMs. They did not disintegrate and flew home. They didn't fly the next day, and in many cases never flew again. F-4s that never exceeded load limits but flew extended hours during Vietnam were falling apart by the late 70s. My friend's father was an F-4 WSO that flew in Vietnam and was still flying them out of MacDill AFB in 1977-1979. He commented that nearly every single flight, rivets popped on every aircraft he was aboard. On the one hand, it is rare to hear of any fighter aircraft suffering catastrophic failure due to g load (notwithstanding high hour F-15's with defective longerons snapping in two where the nose attaches to the engines). On the other hand, pilots are pretty careful to avoid exceeding limits unless it is a life or death situation. DCS doesn't have any way to penalize pilots for overstressing aircraft. Real pilots won't pull 9g any more than they have to, either, because it results in rapid exhaustion and a risk of gloc. The main point of this thread is that the F-5, unlike all other aircraft in DCS, was shedding its wings pretty darn easy. The F-5 was a fairly sturdy aircraft compared to many others. Its history would indicate that it wasn't any more likely and perhaps even less likely than other aircraft to shed its wings. If other aircraft wings aren't modeled the same way, why single out the F-5? One other comment: I have quite a few hours in the F-5. I think I have shed my wings once since the failure was modeled. But one of the other pilots I fly with in multiplayer has a ton of hours in the F-5 and he had shed wings more than once when this was first implemented.
  20. Everyone in the immediate group of about 8 regulars has the assets, but on many Sundays we bring in 2-8 new people. If we include WW2 assets, we don't get anyone. One of our regular visitors has the money and just doesn't see the value in buying it. So any time we include WW2 assets we lose one of the better pilots/flight leaders in our group.
  21. I purchased it, but I cannot use it. The value is zero if I cannot put WW2 assets in missions because the majority of people playing co-op missions can't or won't buy WW2 assets. If you are playing single player only, I get your point. But after years of playing single player only, I found a group of people that I get along with really well online with similar interests, but in the effort to bring in more players, we can't use WW2 assets which are critical to missions set in Korea and Vietnam because 1950s and 1960s assets don't exist and WW2 assets are the only things even close or in some cases, WW2 assets were still being used in Korea and Vietnam. In particular, flak is a big issue. The free flak 18 was broken when the flak upgrade requires the director that isn't free. There are other cases, but that is the big one since Soviet 100 mm and 85 mm flak that was used from WW2 to the present isn't in DCS World at all. So German 88mm is the only thing even close. A must have WW2 asset for me is the Douglas A-26. It served in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. If it was available, I would have it flying in weekly co-op missions and persistent server missions, especially in Korea. Fortunately, the A-20 is available and is close enough to reduce the urgency.
  22. The best way to increase the value of the WW2 assets pack isn't adding more units of any kind. Make it free. No matter how many useful assets are added, they are worthless if I can't use them in multiplayer missions because most people refuse to buy it.
  23. The original AH-1G was extremely similar to the UH-1. For some that is a negative thing and makes it a bad choice. But for me, I am a fan of the Vietnam Nam war era. I want both a UH-1B/C gunship and an AH-1G. The benefit of being so similar to the UH-1 is a lot of the work is already done aside from the 3d model, just a matter of tuning a few variations to comply with the design differences. I like the progression of the original post, but I would rather see the Vietnam era AH-1J after the AH-1G. After the Vietnam era, I want the late 1970s/early 1980s TOW cobras. My preferences aside, I think the AH-1W is actually the best variant for the DCS environment since it favors 90s era aircraft. But it is the last variant I would worry about since the AH-64 is already here. I would buy an AH-1Z, but it doesn't really fit with any of the other generations of DCS aircraft. The AH-1W is already beyond what I would actually want to fly. If I could have only one, I would want the AH-1G and would settle for the AH-1J.
  24. I can't go into details, but I heard some pretty interesting things. Biologics have even more interesting sounds that any manmade systems.
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