Echo38

Oh, dear ... I suspected this was going to happen sooner or later. Well, I guess it's time for me to figure out the new system. : )

A year or two ago I saw a new video of five P-38s flying in formation. There was to be a sixth but she was grounded for maintenance. I believe there are seven flyable at present, which is heartening, as about a decade ago, there were only two. Since the Fighter Collection owns & operates a P-47, I think the chances of a good simulation thereof are very high. As for the P-38, it's very well-documented, although most of the "mainstream" sources have loads of incorrect data; the USAAF manual itself has loads of glaring errors, and most of the survey resources on WWII fighters (and even a lot of the ones which focus on the P-38) have simply copied these errors from the manual and other bad sources, so some sifting would be in order.

That'd be about the same as bailing out, so don't bother--I can just spawn & bail for the same effect. I might pop in and see if I can see anything.

Wow! That is a lot easier. If I had to do it all over again, I'd use your method to get the basic view and then the snapview file to do fine-tuning, but the latter probably is completely unnecessary. Once again, hats off, Peter.

Will it be possible to spectate? Max realism/difficulty settings mean that spectating is impossible, unfortunately--a conundrum for me, as I only enjoy flying on max realism, but I cannot fly for the time being due to my health problems. I'd like to spectate, if it's possible.

Yep, it looked right for the Russian bird. Just was wondering if that dark smoke was going to be applied to the U.S. moderns, which wouldn't be quite right, but I think I saw a post of Wags a while ago mentioning that the amount of smoke will vary by aircraft and stuff, so I'm sure it'll all be right.

Holy smokes! You must have a devil of a time spotting distant specks, unless you have an enormous monitor. With my monitor & eye-to-monitor distance, 75 degrees FoV is something like half of the real-life image size (while still only offering about half of my real-life FoV, alas!). That's why I set my max zoom (min FoV) to 30 degrees--that's roughly the real-life image size for my monitor size/distance.

Thanks. That should be good enough until EDGE.

Restart your PC.

Yeah, as I explained in this other thread [http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1850008#post1850008], I'm still using my old View.lua file and SnapViewsDefault.lua files which I edited a long time ago; they're in my DCS World\Config\View (the main sim directory, not the Saved Games one). Putting the lines in these files still works, even if it (evidently) isn't the format that we should be using with the latest version. I probably should update to the new method ...

I use 30 and 100.

Wow! You should work in marketing.

A number of my associates have displayed interested in the P-51, but don't fly it because they don't enjoy same-ship matchups. While I do enjoy P-51 versus P-51 duels, I must agree that different-ship matchups are much more interesting, being more complex and dynamic, and involving a greater degree of pilot skill. As for myself, there's only one thing keeping me from spending hours every day dogfighting in our wonderful P-51D, and that's my bloody hands. It's maddening to have such a well-done simulator, after all those years of using lesser sim-games and wishing there were sometihng better, but now that I have at last found it, am unable to use it. : /

Five years ago, I would have sadly agreed with you. But now I have DCS: A-10C and DCS: P-51D on my side. Eagle Dynamics have shown me that what I had long thought impossible is actually possible, if someone has the love, care, determination, and intellect to do it. Being someone who enjoys both modern and old aircraft (although I prefer the WWII fighters above all), I'm on the boat that isn't happy about the idea of another full installation for something that doesn't seem to really need another full installation. However, as long as Luthier can make the aircraft of approximately the same quality as the P-51, I can forgive the installation frustration!

Yeah, I was trying to figure out what the realism/difficulty settings were for the server I joined ... it allowed externals & padlock, which made me wonder what else was on. But when I looked around for a way to view the settings, I couldn't find one anywhere. This really is the wrong thread for the question, but I was hoping someone here was more familiar with joining other people's DCS servers than I am (I've only flown on my own server, with about three exceptions). Anyone? Any way at all to view the settings for a given server, either before or after joining it? I got into your server later, Merlin, but I couldn't see much because spectate was disabled (my own server has it disabled in my dogfight mission, although it's on in my duel mission). Air-started and had a couple of tries at landing her with trim-keys only. It--didn't go well. ; )

Uh, aren't you forgetting something? Like, full systems management? What makes DCS stand out--makes it more than competitive--is its realism, in not only flight physics but also systems management. 777's new sim-game can't hold a candle to DCS in the realism department, since BoS is going to be only Flaming Cliffs level and not DCS level.

Hmm. That implies that one of the aircraft would be free ... else it would be "free to watch" rather than "free to play."

Probably a dumb question, but, uh, how do I view a server's difficulty options? Thus far, I've almost exclusively used my own server, but today I dropped into someone else's P-51 server to watch folks dogfight (I was looking for yours, Merlin, but I couldn't find it). I can't for the life of me figure out where to see the difficulty options, either inside or outside of the server.

Oh, come off it. My own favorite module (P-51D) has a number of significant issues which haven't been examined for several major versions, but you don't hear me talking about "slap in the face." The devs are busy, and while I'm not exactly happy about bugs & issues, it isn't as though they're leaving them there to spite us. Common sense, yeah?

The Roaring Glory warbird videos were quite expensive to make, and yet it only costs, what, $10 US to buy a copy? I'm with Merlin-27.

One step at a time. : ) One step forward isn't as good as two steps forward, but it's better than no steps forward. And it's a veritable ****ton better than a few steps backwards, which is what Cobra proposed. I don't care how many rivets and panel lines he models accurately; if he feels that starting up the aircraft isn't an important thing to simulate accurately ... I really don't have much else to say here.

If it were a good simulation of the aircraft portrayed, then there would be a reasonably accurate portrayal of the processes required to manage the engine & systems. There isn't, so it's half-sim. It only simulates about half of what is required of the pilot to operate the aircraft from the moment that he climbs into the cockpit. Imagine a person who can fly a real airplane, but only if someone else starts it up for him and adjusts the systems during the flight to keep things running smoothly. If that person called himself a pilot, wouldn't you think that just a little pretentious? I feel the same way about sims. Calling it a sim when it only teaches you some parts of flying, but not about managing your engine & systems, is what I'd call pretentious and inaccurate. In an effort to avoid further expounding on this point, I'll quote an old post of mine: (Since writing that post, I've been informed that a few pieces of the A-10C startup are missing due to contractual obligations, but I suppose that can't be helped. This is about as close as we can get.)

The need to toggle every battery switch and fuel pump is necessary for a realistic combat flight sim. Whether this realism is good or not is the subjectivity in contention. But, again, there are more than a few less-than-realistic sim-games of the sort you & Cobra are advocating, so why are you even interested in DCS--the one sim which has the core attribute of offering max aircraft realism? I'm a bit perplexed because you guys are kind of like someone coming onto a meat forum and lauding tofu.

http://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/warriorshtm/centurion.htm : D

I'm not an engineer myself, so I don't know how noticeable such an increase in accuracy is. However, it's the development attitude that is important to me: "let's get it right, as much as possible." Too many times, with lesser sim-games, I've seen a different attitude: "meh, this is good enough; no one will notice/care that it's wrong/missing." And in most cases, it's true, the players don't notice. But I notice. I've noticed in far too many cases, in other sim-games, fidelity problems which the developers rely on (with reason) the vast majority overlooking. I'm exasperated with "sim" developers throwing around terms like "realism" and "high-fidelity" when their actual attitude towards those things is half-assed. Eagle Dynamics is the only exception I've ever seen, as a company. (There are individual people who are also exceptions within other development studios, I think, but the companies in which they work hold them back.) I am convinced that the core problem here is that 99+% of "simmers" & developers have only a cursory interest in real flight. [looks at RAZBAM-Cobra] Eagle Dynamics is the only extant development company which has proven that it is generally comprised of people who have a true passion for flight, instead of the more typical "yeah, flying's cool, but how tiresome to have to memorize all those buttons and switches." Or, conversely, "look at how realistic our procedures are! ... Flight model? What's that?" There are a few companies who make sim-games with great flight physics but half-assed systems, and there are a few companies who make sim-games with thorough systems but half-assed flight physics. E.D. is the only one I've seen that does both thoroughly, and this makes them an invaluable singularity. Those who don't appreciate it ... I have to wonder why you're even here.