Flagrum

If no target is designated and TPOD is in snow-plough mode, the diamond can be slewn if TPOD=OPR. But when cycling though ATRK and PTRK back to OPR, slewing is no longer possible. A simple UNDESIGNATE, i.e. to get to snow-plough, does not work either. Only double-press UNDESIGNATE to get to VVSLV and once more 2xUNDESIGNATE to get back to snow-plough works and restores the slew functionality. edit: Important here is, that no TDC depress designation has happened. If a designated target exists or was set during the process, then everything works as intendet (slewing + undesignate)

When slewing the TPOD while the JDAM TOO mission format display is active, the coordinates are constantly transferred and updated at the JDAM page. I would expect that the update only is performed, if TDC is depressed in order to deliberately designate a target. I can, for example, slew offset cursor of the TPOD (ATRK/PTRK) around and the coordinates are only transferred if TDC is depressed. That makes sense to me: I could step through several JDAMs and set each target coordinate by TDC depress with the offset cursor while the TPOD is only looking in the general target area. This should work also with the normal OPR target diamond, right? But there is now always the risk that I mess up the coordinates by accidentally slewing the TPOD. Thoughts? Is this a bug or is my thinking wrong here? tl;dr JDAM coordinate transfer should ONLY happen on TDC depress/release, not by just looking around with the TPOD.

You won DCS - congrats!

As I said, I am no expert in regards to 3d, but I assume that the terrain consists of a lot of binary data that has to match many other parts of what makes a map, like the buildings, streets, etc. You can't just modify one without having to adjust the other. All that makes it necessary to use specialized tools that take care of that to some degree. Those tools are probably quite complex in itself and if ED would release them to the general public, they would also have to be "fool proof". Probably ED don't want to support those, besides DCS World and their modules, as that would be a "Fass ohne Boden" (a barrel without bottom) as we say in german. For other parts of DCS World uses the LUA scripting language, which can be changes with any text editor. And texture files are usually also quite easily editable. I'd assume, that is the reason why terrain is unmoddable atm - to much binary data and complex interdependencies. I am sure, they did not make it that way to be difficult - it just IS difficult.

Track playback: two hornets start from cvn-71 Track opened in ME: 1 a/c group + supercarrier What I find a tad bit weired: the aircraft spawn at different positions when comparing track replay and flying the misson from ME.

From a modding and developers POV: the necessary tools to work with the terrain data are only available for registered 3rd party developers. There are texture mods available for different maps, but afaik we can't modify the 3d data at all. I have no clue about 3d modelling and such stuff, but DCS terrain seems to be quite a complicated beast. Allone due to the fact that there are several versions of the "terrain engine" that run the different maps (i.e. each map seems to have it's own special features and particularities which have to be known and properly taken into account)

If that was the case, the Mav should not have gotten a lock at all in the first place.

The whole idea of LGBs is that they hit where the laser is aimed at. The variable part is the bomb trajectory to get to that point. If lased too late, the bomb might have not enough time to correct it's trajectory if wind has blown it off course. So you can either lase earlier, but you risk that the bomb loses too much energy to be able to fly it's straight line towards the target and falls short or gets blown off course as well. Or you can try to compensate the wind effects by aiming the ballistic trajectory up-wind so that in the end the bomb is right on target and has only to do minor corrections for hitting the laser spot. You would probably do this by using CCIP and aim manually up-wind. But the laser should always stay on the intended target. If you misuse the laser for the wind correction, you only add yet another factor of uncertainity. Why lase at all in this case? Just aim it manually, if you don't even intent to hit the laser spot at all?

True, but at least it is a hint that there is(was?) an other helo in production, besides the Hind. The Cobra was, at that time, also a 3rd party project (Belsimtek) if anything. So, Apache could be still a possibility as neither of the mentioned helos was a genuine ED project at that time.

We were? :huh:

which is difficult because the sensor select switch first switches to area track and only at the second activation it switches to point track. During that time - however short it is - the reticle can not be moved. (I am starting to understand and appreciate the comments on how awesome it was that the pilot got a TPOD lock on that fast moving UFO - you know, the video that was recently unclassified by the US)

I had an odd experience last summer. I was driving in my car in the rural area I live in. You know, farmland, meadows and pastures everywhere only interrupted by an occassional farm building or small patches of forrest, bushes and the like. In the distance was one of those "lawn sprinkler" irrigating some patch of farm land - you know, those large sprinklers, commercial size, that have can cover a radius of perhaps 50? meters. From the distance and the corner of my eye the white jet of water, spray and spume totally looked like a SAM plume. I guarantee you, it is nerve wracking if you see a SAM launch nearby, the missile heading towards you ... IF YOU SIT IN YOUR CAR, MINDING YOUR OWN BUSINESS ... lol, had to do a double take in before I would have attempted to notch it (and ending up in the ditch). Maybe I am exaggerate a little bit, but certainly my heart skipped a beat in that moment.

How do you know the ratio of internally found/fixed bugs and open beta bugs?

Will we able to call in artillery strikes? And how will this feature be integrated into the DCS environment? I.e. will we trigger existing artillery assets that were placed by the mission designer or would the module itself "fake" it (generating explosiions at the target area)?

There are quite a few tutorial vids covering all kinds of aspects of the mission editor, but what I meant was more like a really, REALLY basic introduction to the ME. So that the audience you have in mind would have only to follow a hand full of steps to get their test mission set up. Really just - open mission editor - select aircraft, place aircraft, configure loadout - select target, place target - press fly button Once someone has done that 2-3 times, have overcome the "intimidation of the complexity ME", they probably start to experiment with more features of the ME on their own.

I kind of get what you are after, but also I kind of don't ... Yes, newbie-friendly missions that are simple and allow to focus on certain aspects of a certain module are probably a good idea. But to be worth anything, those would have to be somewhat rounded and fleshed out to some extend. Otherwise they are not worth the time it takes to up- and download them. I mean, that test mission setup I talked about can be done by everyone within 5 minutes - and has the benefit that it can be tweaked and tailored exactly to what you are looking for. There are literally thousands of different combinations of aircraft/weapon/target/environment possible and you can't make usable missions for each of them. But everyone can tweak their own little 5 minute mission to their liking. Instead of a download section for testing-stuff-missions, there should probably be a good(!) introduction tutorial to the mission editor (i.e. 5-10 screenshots would suffice?).

Just to try out a feature: mission editor, place a target, place aircraft, configure loadout. that's it, and not really worth sharing imo. fleshed out training missions and the like are much more elaborate than that, but also require quite a substancial amount of work to produce. they are simply a different use case.

semi-OT question: how would a TCN fix work if the carrier tacan is used? I mean, the carrier tacan is moving together with the vessel and therefore not a "fix" point that the alignment process could use as a reference. Or am I missing something here?

The updater downloads everything in form of separate files into a temporary directory ("_download" within the install directory). Once the downloading is complete, the files are then moved to their correct position within the installation directory. If the download stops for some reason, the next time the updater runs, it checks the already downloaded files and then continues where it was stopped before. So it _could_ be that a large(ish) file has to be re-downloaded again if it was incomplete, but that's it afaik. edit: the updater will not tell you that it is actually continuing a previously stopped download. But you will notice that the progress bar will be FAST (i.e. magnitude of several GB/s, depending on your hardware ofc) in the beginning as the updater just checks which files are already downloaded.

:D The first thing that came to my mind when I eventually was able to see the picture:

According to documents, the Kiowa has or had some sort of HUD or collimated gun sight, called the Pilot Display Unit (PDU). Afaik the Polychop Kiowa does not have this device and I wonder why? Is it not in service (anymore) or what are the reasons? Does anyone know? Polychop?

In theory it should be that easy. But afaik in this case it is different. In DCS flares and chaff are of the same size, so you can load for example 30 flares + 30 chaff OR 60 flares OR 60 chaff. But for the FA18 it is different, the space one chaff uses can hold 2 flares. So, as in the previous example, you could either load 60 flares + 30 chaff OR 120 flares OR 60 chaff. So there is some additional logic necessary, a simple 1 flare = 1 chaff does not suffice. That means at least the mission editor must be changed and probably the in-game reload-logic as well.

still no luck. After showing briefly the two popups saying "Logging in ..." and "Getting authorizaton data" it keept saying Now, after a few more attempts, I managed to get DCS started. Went to the module manager to install the SC. During DCS restart, now I got the 502 error with a different text: "Failed to get authorization data. Error code is 502. Using saved authorization." edit: but after clicking "Ok", DCS seems to load just fine. dcs.log excerpt: 2020-05-20 16:47:42.108 INFO Dispatcher: InitLow 2020-05-20 16:47:43.356 INFO NET: Login success. 2020-05-20 16:47:43.683 ERROR NET: Auth failed with code 502. 2020-05-20 16:47:44.177 ERROR DCS: Failed to get authorization data. Error code is: 502 2020-05-20 16:47:44.177 INFO DCS: Loading cached auth data... 2020-05-20 16:47:44.241 INFO DCS: OK 2020-05-20 16:51:34.937 INFO Dispatcher: Loading installed modules... 2020-05-20 16:51:35.942 INFO SECURITYCONTROL: Loaded mods/tech/wwii units/dcs_module.pak.crypt

simplex: single channel, single direction. one sends, the other receives. that's it. (i.e. TV broadcast) duplex: single channel, both directions simutaneously. I.e. telephone half-duplex: single channel, both directions but only one at a time. I.e. our comms radios

lol, nette idee + umsetzung! :pilotfly: und jetzt das ganze für helikopter!