311Gryphon

I was wondering about that. I've been playing around with different contacts and I was happy to see larger planes being picked up much further out. That makes complete sense. Mav: As far as the PRF is concerned I've read that if they are coming at you or going away the High PRF should be used. I guess my question is, wouldn't Interleave PRF pick them up a bit better no matter what aspect they are to you with the downside being that it takes longer to complete the scan and build the track? The reason I ask is that assuming you have no idea if someone is out there, or you know someone is out there but you don't know what their heading is, how would you know to change the PRF? Would you cycle through them and allow them to run a few scans before changing them? I know that if you start getting pinged on your RWR and that warning indicator doesn't move around the circle you will have a lot more information about their heading and can then change, but until that point you really have no clue. Would it be best to leave in Interleave? I just had a bit of success against a MiG 29 and then against two MiG 29s. I only picked them up at about 30 miles so that's very short in my opinion. If it's realistic I'm good with it but it doesn't seem right. I was still able to lock them up and kill them but it would be nice to be able to have a bit more time to gather information on them. Anyway, I'll play with PRF settings and see if that helps. I'm just very happy that I was able to get some kills on fighters that could shoot back finally. I did a little work in BVR and then in TWS mode, and one even slipped behind me after a close call with a slammer but somehow I managed to get an AIM-9M into him. It was a very motivating evening since I've been fighting this stuff all week. Thanks, guys!

You can fly a mission and then when you are done you can watch the track. When you are watching the track you don't have to work at flying the plane so you can play with camera angles to record what you want to see. The pros to this system are: 1. You don't have to worry about recording while you are flying. When I'm playing games and recording I'm too often worried about making what I'm trying to show happen and I tend to use up a lot of hard drive space with video of me NOT accomplishing my goal. In DCS it records the track and you can then go back in and record only the parts you want to record (assuming you remember about where they are). You can also save the track for later if you want. You can also take control of the track, or replay the mission easily enough. 2. You can fast forward through the track to skip parts you don't need. The cons to this system are: 1. Unless I'm mistaken, as of right now there isn't a way to back a track up. I'm hoping in the future they make it so that you can (assuming I'm correct that there isn't such a thing now). This means that if you miss a shot or don't get the camera angle you want you have to start over. 2. The camera views are a bit limited. I tend to use the fly by but that gets old, and I use the view that shows your plane up close and then I just rotate the view around until I get what I want and then zoom in or out to get it just right. This is tough to do sometimes and it's nearly impossible to keep right when your target is turning or moving a lot. Make sure you get the shot set up before you need the video recording. I'd like to see some more camera views in the future. If someone knows how to lock an external view that could be helpful too. It would be nice if you could define a game logic as a camera location and "lock" it to the aircraft. Then you could define the angle to look where you wanted in relation to your aircraft. If you could set up 3 or 4 of those you could get some very reliable and very cool shots. Good luck.

I'm guessing this should be obvious....but why is this? Thanks.

I know this is an old post but I've been stumbling around the internet looking for some answers on similar things. The only decent video tutorials I've found (which were REALLY good) were from Lock On and FC2. The behavior in those videos is a bit different from what I'm seeing in FC3. I'll echo what Ralfi has said here. No matter what mode I'm in I can't pick up contacts till about 45nm. Even when I'm building the missions and know EXACTLY where they are and what their elevation is and no matter where I put my scan height they just don't pick up until that range. I had a MiG 29 and a MiG 25 fire on me when they were outside this range. They never popped up on my radar at all but I was clearly on theirs. Part of this could be me but part of it just doesn't seem to match what I've seen in other videos. Another thing that I'm not sure on is the azimuth scan width in TWS mode. The game only gives me a 60° sweep which matches something I read somewhere. But every video I've seen and the manual show a 120° sweep in TWS mode. When did this change? Or did it? Am I doing something wrong? I haven't tested burning through an ECM target yet. I have used the HOJ mode to vector in on a target but that's it. I've also had a target drop out of my radar in legitimate ways. Once I bumped the range in and lost the target under my radar and it took me a minute to notice. Another he maneuvered and I assume he went into the notch. I got him back after a few seconds. Other than that I'll echo Ralfi's comments and hopefully someone who knows the answers can chime in.

I haven't flown many of the campaign missions just because I'm not that good and I tend to make my own missions in the editor just to fly around and try different things. The F15 is the first campaign that I've tried outside of the A-10C Georgian Hammer campaign. It seems that there aren't always good indicators that you're accomplishing things. It looks like I have to redo the very first F15 mission even though I flew the route, and Wags (it sounds like him so I'm assuming it was him) told me all the cities that we flew over. Then he told me to contact ATC and land. I landed. I taxied over to where I first started the mission. I shut down my engines and opened my canopy and I sat there and sat there and sat there. I finally quit the mission and it told me that I had a completion rate of 50. Is that 50%? How can you have 50% when you've only tried 1 mission? Anyway, I hit the next button and that mission is the next one I have to fly. YES! I so loved that mission. SO I have to echo a similar question to ^ this guy. Although he clearly figured out how to get past the first mission. How do we know when we're done and are there many bugs in the mission that keep you from completing them? If you miss a simple objective (like perhaps I didn't park in exactly the right spot or shut my plane down correctly) how will you know what to do differently?

What Mav said. It's a little confusing at first because there is the "cannon" option listed in the control list. I thought that was to fire the cannon but it's not. It's to select your cannon.

Solid Copy on that. I gave up on the P-51 after 4 or 5 hours and stuck to flying the A-10C (so easy). Then I sort of kind of learned to take off in the UH-1 (still not great at landings). When I got the F-86 I found it to be a good mix between the easy A-10 and the not so easy P-51 and after taking off, flying, and landing it a few times I decided to go back to the P-51. After a few more hours I can finally take off in the P-51 every time and land the P-51 most of the time. So yeah, we've all been there! Quality sims can't be easy or they wouldn't be a quality sim. EDIT: And as Greco said, reading the manual helps. It doesn't seem like it but it does.

I'm not the best at riding the Mustang, but I've had a lot of issues with bouncing when I try to land. I've got most of those worked out. As Bit Master said you can dial 5° right rudder before you take off and the manual also says to put it 2 or 3° nose heavy I believe. The tutorial in game doesn't mention making it nose heavy but it helped my take offs. I always had the most trouble when it started getting light on the wheels. I'm not sure why but it liked to veer off and roll. Probably engine torque? Not really sure. That's with no sudden adjustments to the throttle also. Anyway, my take offs have cleaned up a lot and I just try to stay ready for and sudden movements without getting too tensed up and causing problems. The bouncing on landing I believe is a result of too much vertical speed AND at times too much horizontal speed. I try to come in lower now than I used to and keep it just above stall speed. I think you're supposed to be 1.3X stall speed officially, but I don't usually do that much thinking. That probably doesn't help much, but just keep at it (as frustrating as it can be) and eventually you'll start nailing some pretty good landings. Although my gear seems to rip off when I try to land in grass still.

Thank you, sir. I managed to find it in one of the other threads too. Many thanks and rep!

Skate, I'm sure you've answered this many times but I'm having trouble finding it....how might one get a hold of your template? :D

I know this thread was about making Alabama Rammer Jammer and not general skinning, but I thought I'd post a picture of my skin since we discussed it. I never did figure out how to get the .lua to change the spinning prop to my texture but that's okay I guess. The prop on this plane in real life has a very reflective front surface for about half of each prop blade. That shows up well when the prop is barely spinning or not spinning. Oh well.

No doubt. I started playing around with one but it had no layers and was going to be too big of a pain to try to recreate lines, shadows, rivets, and dirt. So I gave up. Oh well. Soon enough I'm sure.

Good looking skins! I was surprised to see my video posted there! Reskinning seems to waste so much of my time but it's actually rather enjoyable. Keep it up!

Does this mean there is an F-86 template floating around? Me wants! Me wants!

This doesn't seem to be working for me. The helmet I can change just fine but not the pilot body or the moving propeller textures. Any ideas? Thanks.

Okay.....new question. I've been working in Model Viewer to try to speed up the process of checking my skins and also to try to find the proper name for some of the textures to edit the description.lua. I can't make the prop work. When it is stationary it grabs the part of the fuz_front file and so that works fine. But as soon as it spins up to the point where it starts swapping textures it goes back to default. I would assume that I have something wrong with the description but I've gone over it repeatedly. If anyone has a chance to look this over, let me know what I'm doing wrong. {"pilot_P51_helmet_A", 0 ,"pilot_p51_helmet_MissA",False}; {"p51d_blade prop", 0 ,"p51D_prop_bladeMissA",False}; {"p51d_prop_3", 0 ,"p51D_prop_3MissA",False}; {"p51d_prop", 0 , "p51D_propMissA",False}; I've also tried: {"p51d_prop_blade", 0 , "p51D_prop_bladeMissA",False}; because I've got two different textures that look like they could be the blade file in Model Viewer. You'll have to take my word for it that I have my file names correct for the textures I've made. Also, the helmet works perfectly. Thanks in advance.

Thank you! I downloaded your skin and have looked it over a little. I'm at work so I'll have to take it home with me to fly it around. I'm trying to put the finishing touches on my first P-51 skin and this should help me sort out some of the little things that make it nicer.

Wow. That's outstanding work! I have a couple of questions that have probably been answered elsewhere but I can't seem to find them. Number 1, can you get the bare metal finish to look that way by just bumping up the video settings in DCS and selecting the proper skin? I've had some bare metal skins that didn't look shiny at all, but were dull gray. I thought I had my settings bumped up after getting a nicer graphics card but maybe I'm missing a setting. Number 2, what can anyone tell me about the SPEC files. If I remember right, those are to make the finish either dull or shiny when the textures are applied. Is that correct? The follow up would be, are the whiter areas in the SPEC files shinier and the blacker areas more dull? I've seen some SPEC files with a lot of pink and yellow and I've seen others with just black and white. Thanks, and again, that's an awesome skin. I do believe I'm going to have to find that and put it in my stable.

You do have to be up to 34% or so throttle to power the hydro system. The gauge isn't that clear but the little needle that starts moving when you first power up (the one that you let go to 3% before putting the throttle to outboard and 6% before moving to idle) will be the one you watch. You may have to zoom in to see it but when in doubt just take it up to 40% or so. The big needle won't move until the little needle gets up to something like 50%. I can see how the speed brakes can be a bit frustrating but I think they are modeled fairly well from what I read. It takes power to run hydraulic pumps. I guess my point is that I want it modeled correctly even if it kind of stinks, and I think mapping keys and buttons is the way to go on these sims when trying to make them easier to learn and easier to fly. Another note is that some of the planes other systems won't power up until you get to something like 43% power. The generator won't kick in until that point. If you bump up between 45 and 50% you should have hydro and generator power. Cheers.

File opened fine! Thanks! Now I can finish my skin!

Awesome. I'm downloading now and I'll give it a try. Thanks.

I've had issues with the P-51 front fuselage file opening in Gimp as well. I can get the others open but not that file. I even found an older version of the template (I think it was an official version but may not have been). It wouldn't open either. I tried with 2 different versions of Gimp on 2 different PCs. Anyone know what causes this?

I think that I may have the same issue although mind can drift. For me it is the way my TrackIR (5) is tracking me. Sometimes I have to try to reset my "zero" in TrackIR to get a better view. I'm not sure why. Part of it is because I want to see as much of my cockpit as possible but I also want to see as much outside the cockpit as possible and that is....not possible at the same time. So I tend to recenter multiple times and then I may lose the pipper/gun sight and have to recenter where I can see it.

Someone may have said this already but I was able to look for the soot trail and positively ID my wingman most of the time. I did put a few rounds into him early on, but luckily none of the planes seem to go down very easily except mine. I put some rounds into a MiG and quite a few into a Dora and have yet to shoot anything down except the transport.

That's hilarious! Ol' boy doesn't look too put out.