311Gryphon

Probably now that the U.S. military is thinking about shutting down some A-10 flyers to save money for the over budget F-35 it will become popular. People are slow to catch on at times. I do remember though how the first Transformers movie didn't really do the A-10 justice. I did so enjoy the AC-130 scene; however.

I'm assuming you're referring to the training mission where you go through the start up procedure. There are a couple of places where I ran into issues when I couldn't find the right switch or dial before the text went away and then didn't know exactly what to do. There were also a couple of places where I wasn't able to read the text near the switch or dial to know which way to flip/turn it. Most of that was due to using a cheap joystick and no tracking at first, so it took me a long time to find anything. So if you don't meet the trigger requirements for the tutorial to proceed it will just sit there. But if these aren't the issue we'll need more details on what it is doing.

Yes and no. It can be frustrating but I personally think it is worth it. I'm still not all that good but I enjoy it quite a lot. I've had it for over a month and haven't had a ton of time to play but it gets easier every day and then I move on to something else once I learn. I probably would not be able to play it without a HOTAS though. I can't say that the Warthog is necessary because I've never tried any other HOTAS controls, but I had a cheap stick that was a pain to fly with because it still required the keyboard commands which I hated and never could get figured out. I can also say that this forum is pretty darn good when it comes to giving help. Between it and my friend who bought the game when I did (who has a photographic memory) I've gotten through some more frustrating operations in the A-10C.

For some reason I thought those were not layered. I had downloaded one previously that wasn't but it may have been from somewhere else. Thanks though, the layers are awesome. Now I can properly note the location.

The tutorial that Taproot posted is a good one. There is another one or two in PDF form by Snoopy that are pretty good. http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=73093 http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1750518#post1750518 http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=70314 These are 3 different threads that I've looked at to help with my skinning. Somewhere there is a PSD file with all of the layers broken out but I can't find it now. It REALLY helps because you can edit the background layer without messing with all the lines, rivets, dirt, shadows, etc. I downloaded it but for the life of me I can't find it to give a link.

This is exactly what I do. As soon as I can get power to the CDU I get it started then work on doing other things. Usually by the time I have both engines cranked up I only have a moment to wait.

I've been frustrated by the same thing. I did a lot of working on my network and killed it at one point. Port forwarding, static IP, all the junk. It's a mess especially when you have a real IP and one that your router assigns your machine that isn't your real IP. Each machine, router, modem, etc seems to operate differently (or can) so it gets rather complex. I think that is why the help seems lacking. It's hard to help someone when there are so many possible problems or possible issues. I followed about 8 different tutorials on how to setup a static IP and port forward and while I was successful in some of them I could still not set up a server that my friends could see. My friend has a simpler network than I do and he finally tried it and got it done. So he hosts now and I just play! No help, I know. It's just a very complex issue.

There may be one floating around but I'm assuming you can get the photoshop files and do some work on them using a bare metal texture for the background. Then you dump the DDS files you create from those in the Temp Textures folder in the Bizar then copy a folder in the A10C/Liveries folder and change the description file to list your new textures instead of whatever you copied it from. I know that's the fast and dirty version but there are some good threads on reskinning. The hardest part is getting all the parts you want to be bare metal to be bare metal and keep all the other parts the same. I found a PSD file with all the layers split out which made it pretty easy to do but I can't find that file at the moment. I'm assuming if you had that you could pretty easily just copy the bare metal into the background and hide the original background layers.

I may be missing the entire problem but I think I understand it and have noticed it as well. I reconfigured the zoom to my friction wheel on the HOTAS throttle quadrant and it works very well. Just bump it forward a bit and you've zoomed the view in and can see pretty well. Then bump it back out if to the perfect zoom if you need to see gauges and whatnot while flying around. Good luck and if I missed something...my apologies.

Simple answer. The front of the nose is in a different location that then sides of the nose on the texture file. It's on the same file (the "a" file) but just in a different location. I missed it the first time. Found it last night and fixed. It still needs a little tweaking but it's getting better.

This may be a dumb question but I've searched a bit and can't figure it out. Is there a way to use your custom skin in the Instant Action or Campaign missions and how would I use my custom skin when playing with a friend on a server he set up..basically doing the single missions in co-op? I can get the skins in the missions which I create but other than that I don't know how to implement them. Thanks. Edit: I'm still looking for info on how to use skins in multiplayer. As of right now it appears that you have to create the missions yourself to utilize the skins (by selecting the skin in the plane details when building the mission). Is this assumption correct or is there a way to force other missions you display the skin you desire to have? From the various threads on the subject I have not been able to nail down the reality of it all.

Very true. It's kind of like trying to calculate the actual magnification of a picture taken through a stereo microscope for instance. A person can calculate it based on what they are looking at on their computer at the moment but the magnification changes if someone else looks at it on their machine based on resolution, image size, etc.

NICE! I didn't know that. I'll have to try it out. I know not everything has a function in the sim but it amazes me how detailed it seems to be anyway (not that I've ever had the chance to sit in a real hog). Thanks.

I can see both sides of this issue. Mostly because, in my own personal vision of where I'd love DCS to go, we would have a dynamic battlefield with people on both sides in air, ground, and sea vehicles and with many, many roles. In that world there may be a purpose to an ejected pilot roaming around with FPS style controls and there would certainly be a NEED for that control for dedicated ground units. However, at the moment it is just a combat flight simulator and as much as I'd love to have the option of bailing out when I've gone winchester, steel an enemy tank, and rampage the countryside....that's not all that realistic either and isn't really the important part of the simulation. So I can live without it but I hope that something gets implemented someday, even if it is only available to people who have Combined Arms (which I don't - but if there was that kind of multi-role capability I would have to get it).

Right on. Fixed the problem. Thanks.

Ah, I'll try both of those later tonight. There are many, many options in the interface and they aren't always intuitive. I love the options but they can be daunting when you try to find them or run into a fairly simple issue caused by missing an option somewhere. Thanks to both of you.

I've been looking around for anyone else who's had this problem but I'm not finding anything. I can't get any external views to work in A-10C except for the tower view. I keep checking the key bindings for all of the views (plane view, arcade view, etc) and they are all set to default in all of the profiles (simulation, game, general). Yet they will not work in game. I hit the buttons and my view remains the same, me sitting in my cockpit looking out. It's really not a huge deal but I'm working on reskinning my hog and it's really hard to check when I have to arm the seat, eject, then walk around the plane looking at it to see what needs to be changed. I was using FaceTrackNoIR but I upgraded to TrackIR5. I then deleted all the "VJOY" or virtual joystick key bindings in all of the control profiles. I'm using the track clip pro with TIR5 and an almost default profile in that software. The only thing I changed in TIR5 was the key bindings (instead of F keys they use the Insert, Home, Delete, and End keys for the various functions). I had hoped the double binding of the F keys was the problem but so far that has not fixed it. Any help is much appreciated.

It's nice to know the hows and whys! Thank you! I have to say that doing a mid-air windmill restart has been one of the highlights of my short flying career in DCS!

I'm taking a shot in the dark here but I had some questions about this early on. A few things have to be done before they can show any information, and the steps I take on startup may not all be necessary to get the MFCDs on but they are what I do. Once I have some form of power (Battery on, Inverter on, APU Generator on, APU on). Then I flip the top two switches on the Auxiliary Avionics Panel up then rotate the Steer Point dial on the same panel to "Flight Plan" (this is the step that may not be necessary but I do it first anyway, it needs to be done). I then flip the CICU on the lower, left dash up. Finally, I turn the MFCDs on by clicking the dial at the bottom left of each screen. Sometimes I have to wait a few seconds before the MFCD comes up, then you get the "DTS Load All" message and can proceed. If you are seeing anything on the screen but can't see any actual information, then I'm not so sure. I usually have to wait a few seconds for the blue screen to change, then a few seconds before I can click the "DTS Load All" and then the screen won't switch to the CDU Repeater for a bit for some reason but will eventually change. Once the navigation loads I can change to whatever screen I want. That's about all we can guess at. If there is some other problem it is a harder fix.

Good advice. I actually didn't know you could drop mark points on the TAD for some reason. I must have been confusing the fact that you can't just set a SPI anywhere on the TAD but had to hook stuff first. Also, I think the mark point is TMS right short but I could be wrong also. I use those for GPS guided bombs only at this point but have had issues setting more than 2 at a time for some reason. But still, good advice. The zoom can be used as a "poor boy" binocular function I suppose. Having it mapped to the HOTAS throttle friction slider is nice. Thanks.

So I downloaded a really nice layered PSD version of the skin template available from ED but I can't remember where I got it (somewhere in these forums - I'd like to give credit to whoever busted that out into layers because it makes editing skins SO MUCH EASIER). Anyway, that skin lacks the shark mouth. So I downloaded another skin which had the shark mouth (Ga-Bika winter camouflage from the User Files). Since that was a flattened image I just deleted everything but the shark mouth then cleaned it up so it was a very clean layer of the exact same size as all the other layers. I then pasted it into my PSD file as an independent layer. In theory, it should be positioned correctly. However, in game the shark mouth is pushed back from the nose so that it does not meet in the center. I'm wondering why this happened. I'll post pictures when I can but I'm not at home so I can't at the moment.

I share this frustration and although I'm getting better, it's going to take time. For me, I know the basic procedures to employing the various weapons (I've dropped GBU-12s and GBU-38s with great success and am so far 100% with quite a few AGM-65 missiles) but my problem is finding the targets. I've built myself several training missions and even when I know where I put the targets in, I still can't find them on the TGP or even get a "visual" while flying low over the target area. The only way I've been able to find them thus far is if there is a low altitude steerpoint over the area. A friend of mine who is actually pretty good at finding and destroying targets was frustrated by this as well and suggested that there should be a binocular function in the game, as some pilots supposedly flew around looking for targets with binoculars. While I think I'd have to get used to that I agree with his idea. At any rate, I think the other responses are solid. The great thing about the game is that there are many, many ways to do things as we're all finding out. That also means that we each have to find the way that works best for us to learn the intricacies of the system. Good luck and I'm keeping my eye on this thread for more good pointers. EDIT: I forgot that last weekend I was finally able to find some targets without a steerpoint over them, but only because I placed them in a very specific geographic location which narrowed my search area. It still took me several passes to pick up my first target on the TGP; however.

I can see the lack of a twist rudder limiting if one is used to that setup or doesn't want to buy pedals, but I agree that if one wants to get the best setup one must have rudder pedals of some kind. I personally don't like the twist rudder anyway because it is hard for me to coordinate turns with them. But you're correct, it's a lot of money but a perfect match for the A-10C simulation and works really, really, really well for just about any other sim out there that I've seen, although I have to admit that I haven't flown much in Rise of Flight, MS Flight, or FlightGear (A-10 is too much fun).

I think the stiffness is just about right. It felt funny at first becuase I was using a very old and sloppy joystick before. Once I flew a couple of times it was great. The rest of the controls feel pretty intuitive to me. However, if you are used to using a different setup it may not be worth the cost to you. But in the end, if the stiffness is all that worries you I think you'll be happy with it.

We're sold because the TM Warthog is made of metal, works, is intuitive and easy to use, reliable, resilient (again, every part that can be made of metal is), etc. The ONLY downside is the price, but I spent a lot of time researching various options for sticks, throttles, and pedals. The absolute best alternative I could find for less than $200 (just for a stick and throttle) was the Saitek X52 or X52 Pro. But it had very mixed reviews and I'm not throwing $100 plus at mixed reviews. My next option was from CH but I couldn't really get a good feel for what actually was included with those, what connections they had, and I would still have a lot of mapping to do. Then there was the Cougar. That idea got tossed thanks to the hefty price tag and the force sensing. That left me with the Warthog. As much as I hated to spend that money, I found a used TMWH and Saitek Pro Combat pedals and got them all for less than a new TMWH by itself. I had a small amount of buyer's remorse while waiting for the shipment to arrive. The first time I flew the remorse was gone. Therefore, I'm a satisfied customer. You can call me a fan as well if you'd like. I think most people here have had similar experiences. But I can say for myself that I try to be a bit cheap. I spend most of my free money on guns and ammo because I shoot a lot so it takes a lot for me to spend that kind of money on computer peripherals. And it takes even more for me to be satisfied. I'm very satisfied with the Warthog.