Echo38

That makes sense! The "straighter" ones I've seen were higher speed, and that Charlet shot was indeed slow speed, high-alpha (flaring for landing). Thanks.

Hmm, these look long and mostly-straight, like the ones I've seen IRL. The WIP vid show them looking shorter and more wavy, doesn't it? I've seen RL vids of ones like that--in particular, one of Lionel Charlet's shots looked just like the WIP vid of our new ones--but, all the ones I've seen in person were long and mostly-straight. Again, not suggesting that the WIP is wrong; rather, I'm wondering what causes the differences. Are there several different phenomena here? I understand wingtip vortices to be a (usually invisible) effect always present when aircraft are flying; these are the things that cause turbulence for aircraft behind you, right? And contrails are when the G-forces condense the water in the air. So are the short-wavy ones some sort of visible manifestation of the former, or are they a variation of the latter, or ... I'm confused?

From the point of view of a flight simmer, it looks breathtakingly good. However, from the point of a gamer, it looks kinda old. It's similar in look to ArmA, but even ArmA 3 doesn't look nearly as pretty as Call of Battle 6 or whatever the kids are playing these days. Which is understandable, because Arma is going for a macro scale and not a micro scale. But, still, like anything with a large terrain size and a large draw distance, it isn't going to be able to compete in terms of graphics with a game that's showing off things up close.

I want to clarify that I'm not criticizing, but rather asking. I'm glad that the new effects are being made--some aircraft are smoky like that! And I've seen those vortices on R.L. videos of aircraft with show-smoke generators. But, I'm puzzled about the difference between the contrails I've seen in R.L. and these new vortices--is it different conditions which cause them to vary in appearance? And I'm also wondering if all aircraft are going to get the new smoke effect or just the "smokier" ones.

Every time I've seen wingtip contrails on fighters pulling G's in the real world, they've looked more like the older ones; the only time I've seen ones like the WIP video's are when the fighter has smoke generators on the wingtips. Granted, I've never seen 'em up close. The engine exhaust, too, I'm puzzled about. Most modern fighters don't usually leave visible smoke, as best as I can remember. Not U.S. ones, anyway. I've seen Russian fighters leave smoke, and older jets, but I don't recall ever seeing smoke from an F/A-18 or F-16, or anything similar, discounting smoke generators. Discuss?

We couldn't have BF4-level graphics even if there were no physics being simulated at all. The major culprit behind the notoriously poor graphics of the flight sim genre is the requisite terrain size & draw distance, not the physics calculations.

Indeed, I didn't mean to imply that there's something wrong with there being sim-games of the R.o.F./Flaming Cliffs level of "medium-realism." I enjoyed my time with both Lock On: Modern Air Combat and R.o.F.. However, I now can never go back to anything less than DCS: P-51D after trying it. Hence my objection to Cobra's suggestion that the world doesn't need a flight sim of the DCS level of fidelity; comparatively speaking, the world has plenty of medium-fidelity flying games (RoF, FC3, AH2, WWIIO, IL2, etc.), but there's only one DCS, and I treasure it.

Yes, "arcade versus realistic" is a personal preference, of course. I don't think anyone'll argue with that. Those who sufficiently love real flying prefer the latter, while those who only enjoy some elements of flight will prefer the former. Most people prefer arcade flying games, and a relatively large minority prefers flying games with only some realistic elements. But there are a few (such as myself) who love super-realistic flight simulators; thankfully, E.D. has a bunch of those rare souls on development! I couldn't disagree with this more. I've been waiting my entire life for the kind of flight sim that's so hardcore that they simulate fluid physics in the fuel lines. DCS is my standard.

Rise of Flight ... the spin characteristics are dramatically different for various aircraft. The Camel likes to flat spin, and requires a bizarre and unusual procedure to recover (if I recall aright, it involves hefty back stick at the point at which the revolution is the fastest). The Albatross spins like a doll and recovers just as nicely. The Dr.I spins wildly but recovers easily. And so on. However, the problem is, no one really knows whether it's right or not. Some say the same of WWII sims, but with WWII fighters, much of the hard data is out there, if you look hard enough. With First World War aircraft, it isn't. There's almost no real data out there for them. Beyond this, however, I have a big problem with Rise of Flight; though the general flight physics are great (again, I don't know about the specific aircraft characteristics), the engine & systems management are of Flaming Cliffs level and not DCS level. That is, grossly simplified compared to the real thing, and so the game doesn't teach you anything about how to start up the real aircraft and manage their engines & systems during flight. For this reason, I don't consider Rise of Flight a true flight sim. It's a very good flying game with strong simulator elements, but not really a flight sim. Too many important pieces missing.

Happily, E.D. has thus far demonstrated that they believe in making the sim as accurate as possible, rather than pandering to common misconceptions of how things "should feel." Which is the primary reason why DCS > CloD.

A-10C doesn't have a chance against the P-51D in a dogfight, unless there's an enormous discrepancy in fuel loads. If the A-10 has ~20% fuel and the P-51D has 100%, it can be a fairly even dogfight. Same fuel, however, A-10 doesn't have a chance except to not engage to begin with.

As an example of how an old map might be usable in a newer engine but not be able to benefit from some of the features, imagine the following hypothetical scenario: I make a game with a simple lighting engine and a map for this game. Later, I make another game with a better lighting engine, and another map for this game. One of the features of my new lighting engine is reflections, which requires "reflectivity values" on different parts of the map. My old map doesn't have these values, because the old engine didn't have reflections, so while the old map can be seen in the new engine, it won't look as good as the new map will, because the old is missing the reflection values. Now, that's a purely fabricated scenario, and I'm not even sure that it's technically feasible, as I'm not a game developer. Just pointing out one of the imaginable reasons why the old map might be usable in a newer engine, but not be able to benefit from some of the newer effects of that engine.

Gav's right. There really isn't a black-and-white, all-encompassing rule regarding combat flaps or the use of horizontal maneuvers. As the real-life P-51 handbook said, you can use combat flaps to tighten your turn, but be careful not to do it too long or too often. Turns--with or without flaps--can be a bad tactic against certain aircraft under certain conditions, but can be necessary in other situations. As for the elevator, as long as you aren't at max alpha, you shouldn't have a problem altering the elevator position while also moving the ailerons & rudder. Vice versa, too. A coordinated turn, even just slightly below max alpha, will allow you to input any control without a problem, as long as you don't overdo things.

Confused also. Arma's aircraft don't have any visual effects that DCS aircraft don't also have. Arma has less, actually. Wing flex | Arma: N | DCS: N Wingtip contrails | Arma: N | DCS: Y Fuselage condensation vapor | Arma: N | DCS: N Afterburner rings | Arma: N | DCS: Y Et cetera ... DCS is missing quite a few of the visual effects that real aircraft experience under various conditions, particularly ones related to G-loading; however, every one of these effects that DCS is missing, is also missing in Arma, so I don't know what the O.P. is referring to.

The real-life training resources for the P-51 do recommend using the combat flap setting (10 degrees), but sparingly. You generally wouldn't want to use it in a climb; flaps are terrible for sustained climbing. Although they can get you higher in a shorter distance than no flaps, it isn't energy-efficient or even time-efficient. Just distance-efficient.

What's that twin-boom bird? Looks like it was thinking about being a P-47 but decided at the last moment to try to become a P-61 instead. Edit: the Internet reports that it's a Fokker G.I. Interesting ship; I'd never heard of it until now.

Like the propeller pitch system ... is it a CSP, or is it completely manual? Hell, even a fixed pitch prop (nothing so simple in a WWII fighter, at least none of the competitive ones) can be a bitch to simulate properly. But, as I said last post, this discussion is old hat. Can't fault anyone for not seeing the previous ones, but it really is a bit tiresome going over the same thing over and over, especially when the misimpressions could be fairly easily avoided in the first place. If you've ever really examined--not only glanced into the cockpit, but studied to any significant degree--a WWII fighter, you have to know that the systems are way more complex than 20% of a modern jet fighter ... if you can even quantify such a thing.

[sigh] Yes, what Gav said. Also, this exact discussion has occurred on this board at least, what, three times in the last two months?

This looks amazing. I've spent many hours trying to fix some of these things, but I never was even aware that some of the problems you fixed were even fixable. The "head able to intersect the canopy" bit alone has been bugging me since the first time I ever flew the beta P-51D, and it's still a problem in the latest official version. I presume you fixed that with your reduced limits. Well done, Peter! I'll be sure to check it out next time I'm able to actually fly the sim.

Try changing it from 180 degrees to 179 degrees.

Well, evidently, the old method is still supported as well, because my view modifications are working on the latest version, with only my SnapViewsDefault.lua and View.lua modified, and with no View directory in my Saved Games\DCS\Config. Did anyone try pasting my suggested lines directly into the end of the two files? Since they work for me on the latest build, they should work for everyone. I guess I should amend my big post, since it's evidently using an out-of-date (though currently-still-supported) method, and it doesn't match the latest files generated by the autoupdater (and, I presume, new installs and autorepairs). But I'm not sure how the new method works!

Huh. So I'm looking at my freshly-generated (by the autoupdater) default files, and as David has pointed out, the lines I originally edited aren't there anymore. One of the files has a description at the top stating that they use a new format: "reformatted per-unit data to be mod system friendly", and another says "this file is no longer should be edited for adding new flyable aircraft , DCS automatically check core database for this data(i.e. where you define your aircraft in aircraft table just define ViewSettings and SnapViews tables) -- result of ingame editing is saved to Saved Games/<USER>/DCS/Config/View/SnapViews.lua" So I opened up my "C:\Users\Echo38\Saved Games\DCS\Config", but there is no View directory there. I am now rather confused! It appears that there's been a major reworking of how the sim handles custom view files since the last time I worked on them, so lemme fire up the newly-patched sim and see how it likes my old files.

Hmm. I used to have a Server.lua backup, which means at one point I did edit that file. However, since many versions ago, I haven't used that backup, and I don't even have it in my DCS directory anymore. So, unless I'm very mistaken, I'm using default values for my Server.lua, and yet my camera still uses my modified values. [Edit: yes, I see that the autoupdater is only creating backups of my View and SnapViewsDefault, which means that my Server must be default.] If I remember aright, Server.lua is where you make changes that are applied to everyone on your server? Which would be why I reverted my changes to that file. Anyway, my View.lua and SnapViewsDefault.lua files are how I listed in my large explanation post--I copied & pasted those sections directly from the file. I haven't flown the sim in many months, because of my hand injuries, but I've fired it up from time to time to watch other people, and each time I've been sitting on the tarmac, my camera's been my modified version. As I write this, I'm updating to the latest version of DCS to check a few things. I'll get back to you. By the way, I think it was a post by PeterP that gave me tips on how to edit the files in the first place, so searching his posts with relevant terms could help a bunch. He's got more than a few extremely helpful explanations on the subject of virtual cameras and such. Ah, thanks. I don't use TrackIR, but it would certainly be easier for TrackIR users to use that limit than to edit one into the DCS files.

Gav, I should probably point out that my changes aren't a magical solution to your problem; really, what I've done with the files is closer to my VHPGI for Rise of Flight than it is a solution to your problem. However, I do find that it makes spotting aircraft a bit easier with my changes, primarily because going to max zoom doesn't blind you as much to everything other than the tiny spot of sky you're looking at, and because my changes generally make it easier to look around. YRMV. (I still have a devil of a time with spotting aircraft, myself, if I don't already know where to look.)

They might've changed the format again. My files still worked last time I spawned in the sim, which was one of the builds of 1.2.5, so the format in my post should still be supported. Try pasting those two pairs of lines directly onto the end of your file, in a new section for each one.