monkie

yes I agree too small

Having spent some more time with the AI Autopilot I can say I think it works well enough. The flight model of the Kiowa is such that honestly all you really need is the AI to hover once in awhile or just fly straight while you type away in the left seat. Anytime I needed to reposition it's easier for me to manually just fly the helicopter myself and a lot more fun to be honest. So I find that just keeping heading, alt and speed is fine as I transit to a waypoint and input any data or set up the MMS/HSD. So simply turing the Autopilot on does this, similar to the Huey. Once I get close to the battle position I can get the helicopter into the general position and again engaged the Autopilot and have him come to a hover. Usually the climb descend to get the beachball above obstacles to unmask and that is good enough. So mapping the turn left/right/speed up/down climb/descend Hover, AGL/Barometric alt ref and the AI HUD ON/OFF toggle and of course AI Autopilot ON/OFF is really all you need. The rest are just jibber jabber as Mr. T would say. The HUD I just reference once in awhile and then turn off, it's too intrusive normally to keep visible. The orbit might be useful if you are playing police helicopter or trying to play low intensity conflict, otherwise there is little use for it as you'd be an easy target in a hot war scenario. The figure 8 is more useful and you will just command this yourself with left/right turn commands. I'd still prefer the AH64 Rose command system but this works as is. The only thing I think would be really helpful is a simple turn to the heading I'm currently looking like available in the other helicopter modules, It's much quicker and less time intensive than holding down the turn keystroke. just my observations

Thanks for posting this, I know some of these mods might be updated but for those of us late to the party its good to know what is/was going on. Thanks.

I had some issues when in PPT mode after storing a PPT, it didn't seem to act like when it was in FWD mode. I'm guessing it's getting a bit advanced into the sub sub modes. I still don't understand what the point of being in Area Track and then desginating multiple targets with boxes is. If you go Point Track it just deletes them as it is. I'm sure Casmo will deep dive that one day but for DCS it seems that Point track and shoot is all you truly need.

Negative, the AI overlay was on, it was ignoring the commanded red triangle, the AI just kept turning and when I commanded the release control the helicopter immediately rolled 360 2 or 3 times before impacting, I had no way of counteracting anything. I've disengaged the AP many times, I understand what you are saying but this is not the issue in these cases. All I can say is that it's acting like a bug.

Twice now I've been giving the AI a turn command by holding down the turn key and when I release the AI continues the turn and will not stop or reverse the turn. If I disconnect the autopilot the helicopter enters an extreme rolling motion and sometimes complletes 360 rolls in a few seconds. It's usually unrecoverable.

just add the turn to the heading I'm looking in, that is one I use the most with the other modules. Right now you need to hold down the key for turn left/right for a long time when you might be wanting to use the sensor or doing something else. Also no need to hold the key for speed up/ slow down for so long, just click it in 10 kt increments unless it's under 20 kts in a hover.

it's an effect I can live without to be honest.

It's not covered in the manual so who knows what is a feature/bug or how it's supposed to be used at this point?

Yes I understand it doesn't need to be shown to have the AI operate but when I want to order certain airspeed or altitude I have to bring it up, especially altitude since it seems the Baro/Radar command at different rates. It's still too large and intrusive, all the info could have been put into the standard rose sized dial instead of the hologram on the dash. I see no need to order 1 knot chnages it could have been simplified like the Apache/HIND where it's flown in a series of speed zones or finer control during hover operations like the Rose H/B. Say 20kts or less and then up to 30 40 60 80 etc, really no need to sit and hold it for several seconds to go from hover to 90 knots. I think it should be made smaller, and moved into a corner out of the way. Also during the daylight desert Nevada map it's unreadable as it is. Last night I was using the MMS and just having the AI fly some slow racetrack patterns and then it got stuck in a turn and wouldn't release. When I clicked the AI off the helicopter did several rolls in a few seconds and crashed. Obviously it has some issues that need to be tracked down.

One of the biggest issues so far is the AI Autopilot "HUD" it's a huge display which for some reason needs to show the outline of the helicopter itself. It's quite intrusive and needs to be modded a bit, no reason it can't show the info in a more compact and less distracting form. At night it's too bright and during the day it's sometimes unreadable depending on the background.

I hope that it can be changed so that any command for a heading change will stop the orbit, no way am I going to try to map every 10 degrees of heading lol. I am a bit shocked that they have so many commands for altitutudes and headings, guess that is specific for voice attack. A simple fly the heading that I'm looking like in the Apache/Hind would be really useful, no need for a left/right bind or any heading call out, simply look in that direction, press key and off he goes on that heading.

did you complete the training mission and read the manual? The HF are a bit complex with a lot of options so better to learn them properly form the start since there is no one easy answer to your question.

Checklists? whats a checklist?

I assume that the reason for so many single binds is to cater to people that have "sim cockpits" with a ton of button that can be assigned, and that is fine but yes for those of us that are old school and use a lot of keyboard commands the simple toggles are a must. One work around that I have used in the AH64 especially is using the program "Joy to Key" so allow one button to cycle through multiple keystrokes, it's a life saver with the Gunner position in the Apache. For example I can cycle through all the magnifications with one single button on a gamepad controller instead of using 4 keystrokes on the keyboard.

I was very skeptical of the OH58, thought it would not really offer much more than we already have with the AH64 or other Helos but I've found I really enjoy working with the sensors and searching for targets, setting up Target Points, etc. I didn't expect the systems to be modeled so far in depth, in reality I think there is a point where the developers dive so deep that most of the effort is wasted on details most of us will never really use ie "Offsets" etc. Poly has done a deep dive and I can appreciate it in this module. As for the textures, I have no issues with them, they look good enough for me but I'm old school, I prefer a good flight model over how many pixels a texture contains. Flight model, I think Poly went with the more stable side of the equation and I think that is a good choice. The stability opens up helicopters to a large audience that might be frustrated because they don't own the big end hardware or long throws that allow for the fine inputs that helicopters demand. I'm all for getting more people interested and flying the helicopters in DCS. I might have been drinking when I decided to buy the OH58 but I have no regrets so far other than the AI autopilot and it's need for too many keybinds that hopefully will be worked with in the future.

I simply just say a command that corresponds with what I would normaly do on my joystick switch. "Left" "Right" "Long Left" "Long Right" "up" etc etc. It works pretty well and corresponds with the movements I already know so no need to memorize new VA commands. So you are saying using the commands "Adjust heading Left/Right" will break the orbit? if that is the case mine is not doing that. I see you can command a certain heading with a specific key stroke, for example "heading 270" is that what you are referring to as a heading command? That would require a much more advanced AI such as the one with the HIND and Apache that actually searches for targets, I doubt we will ever see that with this module. The Kiowa is pretty much centered around the sensors since it's an observation helicopter and the focus is on the Copilot duties with the MMS.

See the topic in the main room, I think the discusion will be helpful there because at this point it's hard to say what is a bug and what is a feature since the AI system is kind of a mystery and wasn't covered in the manual. I was able to map a button to Autopilot on/off not sure which binding off hand but yes it's all a bit confusing.

I finally started to work with the AI autopilot system and I'm curious what others are finding as far as usage and or issues, or tips? For one I'm not a fan of the key for every action but that is what we have to work with, I am using the keyboard for all my bindings at this point. I've set my system up on the ole ASDFstyle keys at this point. W to speed up, S to slow down, Shift-W to climb etc. One issue I've come across is the "orbit" command, first the orbit seems a bit small but the biggest issue is there is no way to break out of the orbit that I've found other than the command to fly towards the Mast sight position. You would think that giving a turn left or right command would break the Autopilot out of the orbit at that point but it doesn't. Also it would be nice to have a key that just cycles between Baro and AGL altitudes, for keyboard users this is very helpful. Another issue I have come across is that the Autopilot HUD is very bright for use at night, maybe there is a way to adjust this?

Be careful when setting up the AI key bindings because there is a set for both PILOT and COPILOT and if they are not the same there are issues. Sounds like you had the same issues as I had until I matched them up.

The liveries are all compressed into .zip files and that is going to make any repaints a true PITA until somebody does one with all of the proper links in the desciption file. I just wanted to change out the camo flight suits to all green and figured it wasn't worth the work at this time. That being said Italy might not be in the cards in the near future.

I've played several more times with the same Mods and haven't had a crash yet and fired several HF's. I've only had one other CTD and it was AFTER I fired all the HF's succesfully. I will say that firing weapons is kinda strange with the 2 stage trigger, sometimes the HF won't fire at all even though all constraints are met. I have to pull and hold the trigger a couple of times to get them to come off the rails. Sometimes it's the long wait and sometimes they seem to fire with little pause.

Tried it with B and C channels, same thing, they pick up primary B but missles don't pick up on C laser code even though they are showing RDY with "C" and the mast is firing "C". So it's not specific to a channel.

I thought there were "stabilized" binocs in use in the past but maybe they never panned out. I can't imagine trying to use conventional binocs in a helicopter but who knows.

I just checked it again, in Normal mode the two launched on A and the second two stayed on B.