Fishbreath

Yup, just making a little joke. (Whenever I have to use a slightly less-technological alternative, like over-the-air high definition TV instead of cable or satellite high definition TV, it's like a caveman.) 'Unreliably unreliable' isn't hyperbole, it's a statement of the problem: sometimes SAU command landing mode is closer to correct, sometimes it isn't. It doesn't have a dependable failure mode. And, of course, I remain firmly against the idea that we must always behave as though Eagle Dynamics and third-party devs can do no wrong. Obviously, they're not perfect, and although Leatherneck has done an amazing job with the MiG, they certainly would agree that there are some things remaining to polish to perfection. That's why I made this thread—to see if I ought to promote this problem to a bug report, or to see if there's a problem with my setup, my installation, or my procedures. Can anyone else reproduce my issues? This afternoon, I'm going to try some approaches at other air bases and see if I get the crazy director needles at fields other than Senaki-Kolkhi.

You can totally change country coalitions in Notepad++. You just have to change the coalitions table near the top, and move the whole country block in the mission objects section to the other coalition's block.

Further testing suggests that, for me, the KPP needles are unreliably unreliable. I tried another two approaches, and at times, the KPP pitch/altitude needle seemed correct, but progressed to demanding changes that would have taken me off of glideslope. Sometimes it didn't appear at all, or disappeared off the bottom of the scale (while I was not far from glideslope) and never came back. Cycling the SAU (cancel landing modes, directed landing mode) occasionally brought them back. The bank/heading needle was never correct as far as I could tell; I was slightly right of centerline for most of the approach, and the needle was consistently commanding right bank. Edit: that certainly could be. For the time being, I'm just flying my instrument approaches with the deviation bars alone, like a caveman, but I'd like to know if I'm just doing something wrong. :P

I tried an instrument approach at Senaki, and I couldn't get the SAU command landing mode (flight director bars) to provide reasonable inputs. The glideslope and localizer bars on the KPP and NPP both were working correctly, but the KPP director needles were providing impossible input (demanding 20+ degrees of up pitch while I was on glideslope, not showing the localizer director needle at all). Here's the procedure I've been following: 1. Line up on runway radial. 2. RSBN descent mode to airfield vicinity. 3. Landing mode, fly level until glideslope and localizer signals are picked up (black windows in the center of the NPP). 4. SAU landing command mode push button. 5. Deviation bars working correctly, providing error information. Flight director needles not providing correct information. Is it working for other people/do I have some local configuration problem, or am I missing a step in the setup?

Look in DCS/Bazar/Terrain/Beacons.lua. There's no RSBN at Sukhumi at all. (Also in mods/aircraft/MiG-21bis/Cockpit/Systems/R_NAV_data.lua.)

It's not MP or SP, it's any aircraft set to 'start from parking hot'. Ramp start it (or maybe start in flight? haven't tried) and it's fine.

I'd say it's definitely a bug: what if you have a mission with Russia and the US on the same side (or US and Ukraine)? You might have American aircraft who want to talk to the Eastern EWR.

My multiplayer shooting range mission has a MiG-21 warm start/parking hot slot, and whenever I joined it, I couldn't turn the cockpit text backlight down. (The knob responds to scrollwheel and click/drag, but constantly turns back up of its own accord.)

Pylons are numbered differently in the cockpit than in the loadout editor. Inside pylons are 1-2, outside pylons are 3-4. Odd-numbered pylons are on the left.

There's a test 4.0 version on the first post, featuring a first pass at the new BVR range (and menus done by script instead of trigger/flag, too). Not done yet, available enemy types are limited, plays poorly with the old-style ranges still present, etc. Available foes are C-130 (unarmed fun), F-4 (old-timey but dangerous), and F-16 (new-timey and definitely dangerous). I think I left the Mustang menu option in, but it doesn't yet work, because I haven't decided where I'm going to put the WWII/Korea spawns yet. (Probably north a ways.) I'm not going to be doing much in the way of enhancements beyond the BVR range for a little while, in favor of moving all the current content over to the (much more reliable, versatile, and user-friendly) scripted system.

You have to turn the right seat sight on. The switch is behind the main body of the sight. (It's easiest for me to see it when the sight is in the up position.)

In that case, you'll probably have the fancy updated BVR range to play with. I can script a lot of the stuff I currently do with triggers, so it's going to be my testbed for that.

I have to say, I wasn't altogether sold on the -21 before the preview videos started coming out. Even with the performance issues I'm having, it's probably right near the Ka-50 as my favorite DCS module. Good job! It's a riot to fly.

The key for release chute doesn't work unless you first open the cover uboats referred to.

+1 with a caveat: I found it helpful to pay attention to the attitude indicator a little bit my first few times hovering/landing. It helped me fix in my mind what nose-level looked like out the front windows, which fixed some problems with overcorrection I was having.

Working at home means I can 1) give the MiG a morning test flight and 2) provide you with the finest in multiplayer shooting range missions updated with MiG-21 slots.

You guys with Nvidia cards. I routinely get in the mid-20s with every module, thanks to AMD's crappy DCS support, and DCS's crappy AMD support.

It took me a lot less time to get comfortable with the Huey having already learned the Ka-50 than it would have to get comfortable with the Huey from a standing start. That said, it took me longer to get comfortable with the Shark coming at it with no rotorcraft experience.

It's really not that much pilot load. A 'battle zero' like that is a bad choice from a platform whose movements have a major effect on the flight of the projectiles, especially when we don't have a good sense of depth. The pilot sight is set up like I want it for the miniguns. I don't see anything wrong or inauthentic with setting it up the same way for the rockets.

It is that easy for me: setting the reticule at 60 mils up is more or less like a WWII reflector gunsight. Outside of weird flight paths, the rockets fall below the center of the sight, to a degree determined by speed, altitude, and angle. I've flown enough WWII games and launched enough rockets to judge intuitively where my rockets are going to go if the sight points along the bore axis of the rocket launchers.

A setting of about 50 mils leads to what I expect from a fixed gunsight: the rockets impact at the center of the sight at (edit: short) range, and fall below from there. (Shooting with high speed and/or high-angle dives can still make them hit high, but generally, it works well.) Edit: ~60 mils works a little better, because it brings the zero range in a little closer, and so you end up with rockets at or below the reticule center for most flight regimes.

I don't think INU drift is modeled. I believe it's the case with the real chopper that the GNSS is used to perform in-flight updates on the INU anyway (just about the only way the ABRIS system connects to the navigation/targeting complex in that direction). I dunno what's up with the drift you observed. Do you have the mission handy?

The rockets appear to fire well above the pilot's sight at its default elevation (and the chart on the sight corroborates that). Does anyone know offhand what I have to set the sight to so that it points along the rocket launcher bore axis?

My respawnable multiplayer shooting range mission (also on the front page right now) has slots for everything and no threats unless you call for them.

Yup, built and run in 1.2.10.