Fri13

For a budget of 500 € there is mainly one option I see for You, and it is VKB NXT. It is a module system that can later be extended with additional side modules as example some are these below: And then you can pair the joystick (the base + grip) with up coming VKB throttle that is compatible with it (IIRC) to be connected to side, but you anyways want to have it separately next to your left leg: The Joystick costs right now in Europe about 185 € + shipping. https://flightsimcontrols.com/product/gladiator-nxt/ And the basic variant of the throttle will be 200 €, meaning it is a tilting one with mechanical detents. That is the low-end option. The middle option is a tilting throttle + digital detents (electro-magnetics, configurable in-flight) that will cost somewhere 300-350 €. And then their top option is a sliding/rail throttle + digital detents and it will be 400-450 € option. Because VKB wants to get away from legacy mechanical detents, they offer the basic variant for so cheap. So in total you can get about 400-450 € the joystick + throttle and totally far better than you can get from Thrustmaster or anyone else. You need to jump up to to much higher price range if you want better, and then we are talking about 450-550 € for joystick + 400-500 € for a throttle, so in total about 800-900 €. And if you want to fly helicopters, you really want to get a pedals. And best there are is VKB T-rudders, they lack toe brakes (you can get one if you want via software) but you don't need them. So with throttle + joystick + pedals you would talk about 600 € price range in total. You can not get any better from anywhere for price.

You are not alone. That is what I enjoy in VR as I am physically required to look back. In hornet I can turn my head in Rift S and see to my 7/5 positions without moving back or ass, I can't see further because the ejection seat blocks my line of sight. I need to shift my weight and turn slightly my back to get to see opposite side of vertical stabilizer. So I can perfectly see between them without problems if wanted, but it requires other than just turn my head like normally. It is easy to notice too that when I have lazy days, I don't even look much to 9/3 line, even when it is as simple as just look left and right. And you will notice that it is you who is problem and not the VR. I had once stretched my back badly and couldn't turn my head to right more than to 1'clock position. It was dangerous to drive a car as I couldn't even check my right side. It meant that I couldn't do so in VR either (and didn't even dare to use). Visit to chiropractor and all was fine again, just avoiding few days doing anything heavy so muscles gets back to normal from tensed position. I totally get that some people might have physical condition that they can not turn their heads well or while upper body. They need assistance because their physical condition. But in the world there is this attitude that even young people have, they do not care to look around. They are lazy. They don't even roll their eyes to look around. And you see them on road and they don't even have effort to look where they drive or how they park etc. They walk in to stores without even looking around and don't know how to move in crowded places as they do not look around. Their situational awareness is 0. And that is in simulators as well, they do not dare to move their heads as they just want to press button to look a side or rear. And people use wrong chairs as well. Such ones that makes difficult to look around. A gaming chair is not designed for it. A car chair is neither, what now just to check blind spot, but people don't set car seats properly to support it. Before I sit in a flight chair, I stretch little bit. You get good feeling and condition to be able easily look around and don't hurt yourself suddenly. But everyone by their own.... If someone thinks that it should be effortless to fly in DCS as flying a drone from comfy warm chair, so be it. But it is not real if looking six while pulling 9 G and tracking easily the target at your rear like no effects. We have already really ease G effects and super capabilities. What makes dog fighting in DCS like drone fighting with automatic target tracking. That is nice thing in Su-25 that you have excellent visibility to rear with mirrors. In AV-8B Harrier the visibility is as well excellent to surrounding parts, only F-16 gets better from frontal hemisphere because there isn't anything front of you. In A-10 I hate the engines as they block your view sometimes. Hornet is annoying by chair.... In VR having to move your head, body etc makes far more value each aircraft differently as everyone of those has different limitations how well you can see outside and their flight characteristics change the means how much you need to look around. I never go back to TrackIR to fly on display as it is just so wrong to look around so easily with just small head turns. What DCS needs is more proper camera control system that counts G forces better and forces view to be centered or supported etc. And in relaxed flight you would be more free to see and look around. Being stationary is not good for muscles. You get strain and muscles start to tense and lock, then you do a wrong movement and muscles can't support it and you can injure yourself. Mobility is key. Like sitting front of the computer and staring monitor is bad. Similar way is to sit and read book on table, your neck is all the time supporting head in bad position. Like try holding a 1 kg handweight for 15 minutes straight to side. After a minute or two it starts to feel like it weights more and more. Same thing is in bed reading etc. Your head weights about 4-5 kg, and whole back needs to support it. It starts from position of palvis how you are seated and legs at what angle they are, all the way to the head. Bad chair, bad table height, bad angle etc.

That is what I meant. Power switch that doesn't turn device off is odd thing if it would be in real thing. Checking from couple videos: It can be seen that it is possible install it so that it will not automatically turn power On but you need to do so yourself, then it will run self-tests and be ready to be used. So it does make sense in civilian aircraft to have it connected to main bus for automatic standby mode as you don't have NVG to worry. But in military it would make sense to not, so you can keep it off at night missions.

You would think that power knob would do that.... Power the thing off.

I have recollection for a 30 min as active cooling and 60 minutes for something else.

https://youtu.be/1NSb-YttCgU?t=3150

https://youtu.be/eXR1olg_I0w That line is totally correct, so everything you say is totally wrong. Yes you can. You render everything on the client side, not on the server side. It is idiotic that one server would need to calculate every single thing with 50 players and 15 000 units on the map. No, it is server-client thing here client calculates, simulates what is happening in their side, registers it to server and server checks is it possible (anti-cheat purposes). Again, you are thinking in real-time processing not in dynamic calculations. There is no such problem what happens on other side of the map as everything works with the server time stamp. If you fly on the south of the map, it doesn't matter a bit to you that did your computer receive a information that unit #21421 has been destroyed in 12:04:12.1224 or does it receive the information 200-300 ms after that.... IT DOES NOT MATTER. The only thing that matters is that information you receive is correctly registered by the server so it can tell your machine that at 12:04:12.1224 happened X. Not a problem. Again, server does the checking, your client anyways sync is the launch done or not. Server checks that Rocket hit SAM unit before SAM launch, cancel the SAM. The damage modeling is not required to be real-time processing that WHAT happens to unit, but it doesn't mean that unit is not affected. The hit is registered > Delay the unit actions for 50 ms extra > Calculate the Damage > Return the unit back to function 60 ms after hit registration. You don't even notice anything being delayed, difference is that nothing irrelevant is required to be real-time processing. Syncing. These has been solved long time ago in turn-based games where clients calculate the actions, send the changes to server that collects them from all, checks them and sends results to all. DCS World is not a FPS shooter game where a claimed 50 ms ping is too much compared to 20 ms ping. We are talking about real time simulation where closest possible thing really for a real-time processing calculation is that two soldiers shoot each other at the same exact moment and only other dies. In the same FPS shooter desync problems. But we are talking about tens of milliseconds desync here, not tens of seconds. Okay. If you do not accept the fact that these things has long time ago already solved, fine. Did you even read what I wrote? Okay, here is a short posts for you from now on as you have difficulties to understand anyways as you are so disrespectful and you wanted so: NO, YOU ARE WRONG IN EVERYTHING.

If you have a joystick that has rotating grip and small throttle axis, then that is all you need as the throttle is your collective. In the helicopters you have governor that will automatically adjust your engine RPM to maintain constant rotor speed so you don't need to have that (nice to have sometimes but not really). The question is more about how you have those controllers set up. If you have a spring loaded (centering) joystick, it will be hard for helicopters as you need to constantly move and hold the joystick in various positions depending flight condition. If you have a rotating joystick, you can use it as pedals for anti-torque rotor but you need to hold it in proper position all the time and change its amount. What comes to example small throttle, it is really easy part as you are not going to adjust collective as much as joystick or pedals. You get use to its movements so it goes OK'ish. First check example this video: Especially from 4:24 forward. There are some assisting features for normal centering joysticks, no-pedals and so on setups in KA-50. ED has implemented unrealistic (but required) "Center Trim" function for players with normal joystick where they need to move joystick to attitude they want to fly, and then press TRIM button (realistic one) to command autopilot (realistic systems) to maintain helicopter in that attitude. In a real helicopter the cyclic would have magnetic brake that will lock the cyclic in that position (you can move it around but it returns to that new trimmed position) so you can let go of it. But with that assisting feature once you press trim, the simulator stops reacting your joystick movements until you return it to center by its spring. Once the joystick is returned to center, it is like in trimmed position and you can start moving joystick again and input is received, until you again trim and need to return it back to center. In a non-centering joystick you would just leave the joystick where it is as you trim. You can let go and systems work right. If you have Force Feedback joystick then it will try to recenter to trimmed position where ever it was. So it works much like a real cyclic does with the force feedback. The lack of pedals is problematic IMHO. You don't gain the muscle memory same way and you can't do same adjustments on all controls (Cyclic, Collective and Pedals) as you have two of them (Cyclic and Pedals) combined in one, and the throttle is very close to your cyclic as well. The key thing really is that real helicopter controls positions. Collective is at the left and raise/lower vertically. The cyclic is between your legs so you can rest right arm on leg and just use it with finger tips on most of the flight in relaxed manner with small movements. The feets are on the pedals all the time, constantly making small adjustments depending helicopter attitude and your other controls. All the time you use both hands and feets to fly. If you set your normal joystick (+throttle) in the common manner on table, it will be fighting against you. you can learn to fly all okay, but not without assisting features. The ARMA has a relaxed flying. IMHO the best way to fly in that game is to have ADSW and mouse. Change the default bindings so that mouse movement will change roll and pitch. A and D will operate anti-torque (yaw) and W and S will control torque (collective). I would never take joystick to ARMA helicopters as it makes them just more difficult to fly. Comparing ARMA in that sense to example Mi-8 in DCS, it will be challenging. You are going to fight against the controls. Not sugar coating it. They likely will bring the unrealistic assisting features to it as they must, so that normal joystick players can fly them. So your worries about that should be unwarranted. But it will require you learn to fly with what you have. One of the another challenges in flying helicopters is if you don't have VR. The VR will make flying helicopters like... Well it is just so much easier. It is impossible really to tell how much you get information about flying with VR. it is not exactly so big deal in fighters, but in helicopters it is. But even with VR, you need the proper control setup (positions) to start handling it easily. But that is icing the cake. That is why it is great that ED adds all kind assisting features to game that gameplay experience wouldn't be bad because player doesn't own a $1500 worth of equipment to fly. So what if one needs to enable a assisting features and such to fly and enjoy? You can even enable a GAME FLIGHTMODELING to get the same feeling as in ARMA. I have once tried it like when KA-50 got out and if I remember correctly, you couldn't flip over. It limited like your roll/pitch to 30 degree or something and then it didn't drop you on the ground instantly but started to fly in that direction etc. So pretty much like in ARMA. Once a friend wanted to start flying and I suggested him to enable that and he declined to do so. I watched maybe 2 hours of him crashing the KA-50 in first minute, until he started to get it. Then he wanted to jump straight to shooting the Vikhr missiles and crashing started again. And KA-50 is very easy to fly compared to traditional helicopter.

Problems in current code is that there is not really a prioritizing that what needs to be calculated and when. If AI launch rocket volley 20 km from you and they all explode at once around a unit, your aircraft takes performance hit because on the moment they impact they are all calculated. Totally wasting processing as it has no concern of you that rockets did blow up 20 km from you. it is all (except sound) running in same priority, all the time. You put sudden badly written calculations suddenly between everything and everything will take a bump. Using cheats, parallel calculations and prioritizing what needs to be done and when it would be opposite, everything would ease down as handling everything as real-time processing is just crazy. When a bomb explodes, there is no any requirement to caclulate its affects in those cycles it happens. You can delay it by 15 ms or by 100 ms even for real time processing. For a replay purposes you can render everything in more precisely on the correct moment when slowing down. Same thing is with play moment if player slows down the time, as the simulation does slow down, not the processing speed capability. You forget cheating. You are again thinking things as real-time processing. That everything needs to happen all the time realistically etc. No. Forget all that and cheat. When something is not required to be done - don't do it! Sleep! You will ignore the tasks that are not relevant for the moment. Let's say that you have 100 soldiers attacking 100 other soldiers on open field. At this moment it is catastrophic situation as on the moment the units are activated, everyone is checking LOS to everyone. They will react that what is enemy unit and start firing. Every single unit will check what they can shoot at. They calculate what is the selected target and start animations and each bullet they fire will be calculated for ballistics and did they hit another unit or not. A average PC can easily run a such completely unrealistic scenario. In the first couple seconds rendering drops some frames as everyone is doing the checking of targets, but after that is gone it is just firing until they run out of ammo or they kill target and switch to another. Such a engagement to happen in modern combat is not really going to happen often as that is a assault to other defensive positions. But on the moment when it would happen, it is easy to fix - cheating. First of all you do not have everyone shooting bursts and waste their ammo. You have them firing single shots. You don't have them all firing at once. You don't have everyone at open/visible. Secondly you will alter their reaction times, their objectives and behavior by implementing logic and commands from basic training and moral system. In that scenario the BLUFOR is actually retreating more until they are out of the REDFOR engagement ranges and they stick there. That leads to situation that units are scattered far distances from each others and it is a stale situation. In reality a such engagement would not be over in a minute or two. It would easily go for days. As neither side want to die so they can have last man standing. And all that extra time that is saved from changing the rules of engagements, will and means to engage, you get to spend for totally other things between and actually do the combat more realistic manner. DCS World tries to be a realistic Digital Combat Simulator (Air, Ground & Sea units and gameplay). But there is one flaw that all of us will utilize. And that is infinite lives! We use infinite amount of vehicles, resources, weapons, lives! In real world you have only one live. If you die, that is it! Pilots are not idiots who go flying around and shooting things down with stupid risks to get killed while doing so. They don't go risking their F/A-18C to be shot down by some MANPADS guy on the enemy territory because they were so fixated to chase a Mi-24 somewhere in the area. Players are morons in this sense. There is no risks, no penalty to be shot down. To eject from the aircraft and to get to "Win" the fight, because they will never lose the war - because they never run out of lives, equipment, weapons and means to win. That is where the RTS element should come importantly that you have limited resources, you need to protect each and every live there is on the map. Every expensive high utility like a fighter or attack helicopter needs to be defended and taken care that it doesn't get shot down while it is trying to be used for its purpose. How many has played a Air campaign online with friends where there is series of the missions and if you die, it ends there from your part? Meaning that example 7 missions and every night you and 9 other friends are flying, and if someone gets killed, they don't participate anymore to the campaign. If they eject and survive, someone needs to pick their pilot up and they get to back only on the next or one after that mission - if there is aircraft available. It adds tremendous fear and risk that is whacking players back of the head that if they fail, they can't anymore participate to play with their friends. Suddenly no stupid things are done, no idiotic risks are taken, no fooling around "Hey, let's see who of us can fly below the lowest bridge on the map on way home!". At this moment in DCS the helicopters can not be utilized as they should be. Because the AI being way too all seeing and way too accurate and precise and trying too well. The most terrains don't support ground units capabilities and performances, that will affect directly to helicopters as you can't fly NOE so well, but you don't either be limited to spot and engage targets. The Combined Arms suffers from this flaw that we don't have a sub-terrain elements to make possible advance in larger open areas that are not prepared farming fields. We don't need to use roads, railways or air transportation because terrain would be difficult or challenging to move. What leads to situations that there is no need for ambush, defensive positions and missions to destroy/defend bridges and crossroads and harbors etc. Like add on the mission below a Mi-8MTv2 with rockets and 23 mm gun pods and of course KORD door gunner and you can support your troops very well, as long you do not fly too close and especially over the units. When the Mi-24P gets out, you can do it much better as it is more stable to fly and faster to get around for re-attack. But still that is idiotic example as such scenario would not happen where you have 100 vs 100 + just couple support vehicles (like half a dozen instead dozens). The M113 are the danger ones, they will snipe you down if you get too close. And placing couple good S-8 rockets on them is possible but you can't easily take all of them, and you are just one helicopter instead proper support element. Infantry Engagement.miz

https://youtu.be/JZ5je96v8H8?t=1483 20 degree banking means 20 degree rolling. So you can not perform a barrel roll and maintain the stabilization. So you are free to fly in maneuvers as long you do not bank over 20 degree to right or left to make a hard quick turn. The sight stabilization is like a gunner for a MBT, you can already experience its controls (as in tanks or SAM) with the Combined Arms by using the middle mouse button (wheel) to get the arrow. Further you move the mouse from the center then faster it will move to mouse direction. It is not so difficult when you have trained for it. It is actually easier when target moves or you move as you can maintain constant speed with variating it as required. To get a good gunner position in a MBT/IFV one would need to use a Yoke as controller, the azimuth would be great by rotating yoke left or right, but instead tilting grips forward/backward you would pull/push the yoke. But if wanted anyone can buy example BMP-2 controller: https://www.afvsim.com/products/ (I wouldn't be surprised if they would make a AH-64D gunner controls for DCS...) The mouse is bad controller for such operations, as is a joystick. Such devices like that makes it easier and it becomes natural thing to do. The Steam Controller has a gyro option, it makes good one for its use as you hold and use it correctly. But to make it easier you need to mount it to a fixed axis so you don't wave it in the air. Stabilization is not different from just announced update to A-10C Maverick use where holding TMS UP maintains the vector (azimuth and vertical angle) while you fly. I have such missions, avoiding a ZSU-23-4 is often too easy as the gunner is idiot and will perfectly match your flight vector on moment firing, instead your flight path you want to do and deny your flight as you are flying at the shells. It is currently very challenging to attack as has been discussed, just avoid placing LAV-25 on the area and you can succeed. It is, what has been discussed.

I understand that ED purposely started a Belsimtek to generate information as example how to make a company to make DCS World modules. So they made it as example for others that how business is done and works and then after they produced the wanted results, it got merged back to ED. So when studios approach for ED to business model, ED could use Belsimtek as example how to run the business and development.

Yeah, here waiting Razbam to get their map out and get more of the different mission types out from those ships. A proper FLIR from ED and Harrier N/A will become better.

Sure there are (hydraulic or electronic, some even mechanic) but those would more more of a parts of bigger elements (batteries, engine, hydraulic system overall). IMHO we should have crew separated from the vehicle as damage model. Same way as a transported infantry in helicopter is separate element. Like carry a infantry squad inside Mi-24 and get under fire where bullets hits the cargo compartment. Injure/kill the soldiers in the path, but don't the pilot or co-pilot. Same thing is with the APC units, you can have infantry squad survive from the attack but damage the vehicle. Or you can kill the personnel and leave vehicle operational. As the human being is critical part of the damage modeling and the AI logic. The human being is fearful, trying to survive. If a APC suddenly is under fire and none of the hits penetrate armor or cause any spalling, the APC will totally be driving out of fire as at any moment there can come something bigger. If it is a attack process where troops needs to get transported over open area and they are under artillery fire etc, then better push forward than stop there or try to get around and retreat. This is what makes a Mi-24 more effective as you could threaten or control the ground units with rockets or cannon without destroying or damaging the vehicle itself. Like if a APC is near edge of forest, couple rockets next to it and it will reverse back to cover deeper inside forest, opening a possibility for own units to attack. If a APC is moving on the road, short burst front of it should get it to drive in the forest for cover even if you don't hit it and damage it. In a 2K22 Tunguska you have computers on one side of compartment and you can penetrate armor or cause spalling that will destroy the systems, without killing the operator. Or you can penetrate it cleanly and kill operator but leave the systems intact (even if unlikely, it is still possibility), that would leave operations like recover unit and recrew it by transporting new crew (like with many vehicles, after cleaning the mess). This doesn't mean that we need to have every single element modeled inside a vehicle, but some important ones would be good, like main hydraulic or electronic but not everything. It is important in these to maintain the crew and vehicle as separate entities as it goes through everything. You can scare the infantry, you can render them unconscious, cause them get in shock etc. Various weapons and elements do that. A close high explosion will not be easy to recover when it came just out of blue. Why we need the simple soldiers that will unmount/mount vehicles by AI logic. In a single seated aircraft pilot is critical element, kill it and aircraft comes down. Injure it, he will likely eject. Get the pilot eject and plane is trashed. There it is easy 1/0 element. But when it becomes a two pilot vehicle like Mi-24, where you can kill the pilot but co-pilot survives and flies back to base or lands on near by safe location. Similar thing is with the infantry squad inside, injure many of them and helicopter will abort their attack (bur will continue back to base) and land on near by safe location to help wounded, depending threat and area. A MBT can have driver killed so it doesn't anymore move, but it can still shoot back and defend itself by popping smoke etc. Commander or gunner can switch places and in short time get vehicle moving to safe but lose capability shoot or spot targets. These things sounds "too complex" but they really ain't. There are old games utilizing these features like Theatre of War or Men of War. The Combined Arms would be excellent to provide the RTS elements to the DCS World. As there are more RTS players than there are virtual pilots. And having capability to have players concentrated to small area (lets say 20 x 20 km) combat where they can command the ground forces and generate support calls for the aircraft, that can be either AI - or the players. DCS World could very well handle a 20-30 players at the time, commanding small groups of units across various places without turning them exactly so deep as mentioned above ones. We do not never get any FPS elements in the game other than maybe a MANPADS and ATGM operator outside the cockpit. That is it. All the ideas of the ARMA is just out of the scope of the DCS World. So closest really there will be is sitting in a cockpit and seeing that infantry loads and unloads from the helicopter/vehicle and that is it. But such element would require such minor details as separate vehicles and infantry, and their effects. The DCS World already has the maps. It has the theaters. It has the themes and most important units. It just needs reconstruction. Like it would be amazing experience to fly a Mi-24 while a friend is in Combined Arms and playing the ground units. It just isn't great yet because these AI limitations, but there is huge potential. When the ground combat turns to more realistic and slow paced action, there is more time to fly around the combat areas and actually participate to it. As right now we can have one pilot take-off from base, launch few missiles and come back with a 4-6 MBT's destroyed. Not a real challenge. And Mi-24 is more about gun and rockets than it is about missiles. It is about first finding the enemy, then find a way to get to them and so on. One can always pretend great success in Mi-24 by placing group of M16 guys on the open and few APC next to them and just slaughter them on the spot.

A BTR-60 is not so much different from a German half-track SdKfz 251. Little bit more lights and so on, but otherwise as complex. Then 2K22 Tunguska.... It has a lot more wires and hydraulics and coolant systems than either one. Same as with M1A1 Abrams. But how detailed we really require it to be on ground units? I see that we could forgive a lot about minimizing the damage zones and parts inside to dozen or two, instead hundreds like in a WW2 aircraft. Like how much does it matter if a 30 mm API round penetrates inside BTR-60 engine compartment that is it a fuel pipe leak or is it a coolant leak or oil leak? Those could be randomized really. "30 mm API hit the engine" Roll a die of 6 eye for: 1. Nothing 2. Coolant / Oil Leak 3. Fuel Leak 4. Set engine on Fire 5. Kill the engine 6. Kill the engine Wouldn't that be enough? Make the 14.5 mm HMG turret as one element, hit at it and render the weapon unusable and kill one squad member inside the vehicle who was manning the turret. Sure it would be nice to have "Optics has been destroyed" but it is just one statics more about some bombs or other fragments. Where 30 mm API hitting that turret will cause serious spalling and injure or kill multiple person from the compartment. So throw a dice that how many dies from a 8+2 soldiers inside. A S-8KO rocket hit the center of vehicle = kill 6 and injure 2.... A 12. 7 KORD gunner shot three tires from the right side = immobilize the vehicle with 3/4 blown tires. WARNING ABOUT AUDIO! Edit: Seriously anyone should question a moment that what does anyone see outside from a military vehicles? We have a infantry squad leader perfectly tracking a fast mover above him with the turret sight (the infantry squad leader was leader of the vehicle, the vehicle commander took control of the vehicle when the infantry squad leader unmounted from it) and as well that if a helicopter pop-up suddenly any direction (than from front) the squad leader knows exactly when and from what direction and from what range... We have a ground units like LAV-25 that shoots more accurately than a AAA units. And that variant doesn't even have a laser range finder (installed in LAV-25A2 upgrade to be used against air threats like hovering helicopter). Because all the ground units capabilities to engage helicopters way too quickly, accurately and so on. It makes all helicopters just very unsuitable for DCS ground combat inside those units engagement ranges.

If the "spread a bit" would be "a bit" and not "Shoot 10 degree after the target where it was". When the first WW2 damage modelings were shown, it was mentioned by ED that they needed to improve that shooting accuracy as the AI always aimed at the pilot and killed the pilot on each time. So they made the WW2 pilots to shoot and then correct their aim based their shells trajectory until they started to hit the target. AI does always spot. The only factor there is the random timer from entering to LOS and reaction. That is tied to the difficulty level. There was a one forum member that made a good test of the AI spotting timings and it had like 10 units in line on group and basically even at lowest skill level the AI reacted right away but some were delayed by a second or two. It was funny to see how the turrets started to point when he popped up behind from hill at their flank. It is not too complicated as it requires to be done by cheating. If we put 100 units on same side on same small area, there is no reason what so ever to run any single LOS checking or scanning surroundings when there is no enemies. It is waste of processing time to even try. Now if we suddenly spawn a enemy unit middle of the group, that is very unrealistic behavior to happen, but it would require just a few units to really react to it and then alarm the others. So just few searches and then all to know what is going on as it would be so obvious thing. And we are talking about real-time from player perspective, there is no requirement to calculate everything in real-time as computing perspective. Meaning that 100 units to perform a LOS check is not required to happen in X milliseconds, but it can be done in 5-10 second period. We need to add to AI as well the human factor that it does not constantly scan the places but gets lazy. Why the ALARM STATE is important factor that unit can stay as such about 30 minutes and then the focus will drop. It is currently once per second. So every second the AI rolls a dice that is a unit X inside unit Y spotting range. If that happens, then DO. Every second wasting processing for tasks that AI shouldn't be doing. Place a 1000 units on the island 500 km away from player and CPU dies for the processing. Make them shoot at point on ground and your CPU is melted. Totally doable. It was already a couple decades ago, with single CPU. Now we have 6-16 cores (or 64 cores with Threadripper) and we would very well have plenty of sharing by allocating different parts of simulator to different cores. 1. Player aircraft systems and flight modeling. 2. Blue side AI aircraft flight modeling. 3. RED side AI aircraft flight modeling. 4. AI pathfinding and LOS 5. Missile/Ammunition trajectory calculation. 6. Fragmentation / damage modeling calculations. We could very well combine multiple calculations for own sub-simulations that doesn't need to work in sync with others. That might happen if it is up to the AI that is being developed for Mi-24. As it has interesting spotting calculations. And such should be done for AI trying to shoot at you. Like if you have a Mi-24 flying toward you from about 1000 meters distance. Why would you shoot 5 degree away from it? You would shoot little above it or straight at it, but not below it. If it is flying around you, you wouldn't be aiming behind it or directly at it. You would be aiming to predicted flight path front of it. Trying to estimate a lead and get shots at it. Totally would. Just simple current AI adjustments with the aiming time, the aiming point, randomizing aiming around that aiming point and make the AI actually shoot more proper bursts than full auto for 4 seconds each time etc. Simply having a AI to have blind zones (smaller scan sectors) would make amazing results.

It was for all ground vehicles, not just WW2 ones. As ED is developing as well a new fragmentation system. Chicz just mentioned about it hour ago. That includes as well all missiles and everything that explodes and cause fragmentations (so WW2 flak cannons as well etc). Just adding a damage values and effects for various parts of the vehicles is not enough if the cause for damage can't be calculated (fragmentations). This is as well about all bombs, rockets, artillery shells etc. As it is about A2A missiles.

But did it lock EXP mode for mapping a new area?

Just cheat. Check the line of sight to unit to get the sector that unit model occupies. And then take the fragmentation pattern (varies by warhead, angeles, fuses etc) and divide the matching sector from it. Then run a ray tracing (on CPU, not on GPU if not supported) for the remaining fragments on the target. This can be done early before impact as when flight path is known like unguided rockets or free falling bomb. Guided munitions are more challenging but does not require so much either in the timely presented processing. As after the explosion there is extra time to calculate hit points and damage before smoke and fire disappears.

Thanks, looks great what they have done. Gotta place on the download line once getting front of the computer. Will be interesting to take-off from a ramp.

I have a principle that I fly one month the chosen module. Instead hopping in/out on multiple one. IMHO Harrier is best ground pounder there is. It mission capabilities and the systems to support that is just well concentrated. What you mean with that? Razbam promised to make a AV-8B+ once ED completes the Hornet A-G radar.... I have the quotation for that somewhere too. The + was first suggested it would come as additional to N/A owners, but later I think Razbam decided that it would be fully own $79 module. Considering it is mainly nose reshape (DMT off, NFLIR reposition, Radar In) a hornet radar MFCD pages and new throttle with couple extra buttons, it is fairly small change considering while product. After all they are so similar that official manuals are same and they just mention if there are differences between variants (Day-time, N/A and Radar). Main difference is really the radar operation like in Hornet. THat AV-8B+ would make it less capable for A-G pounding but open up a totally new Air-Air combat options and means to perform a air patrols and ground attack missions in enemy airspace. It could become shocking to Hornet pilots that there would be a challenger for subsonic AMRAAM carrier (As Hornet doesn't get Supersonic either with few bombs and missiles).

Yes, IF you screw up with controls the Harrier for unrecoverable state, it is then unrecoverable. But it is easier with Harrier to come to stop, rotate around, adjust altitude and position than with a helicopter. And because the Harrier doesn't react strongly to small inputs, it is easier to keep it steady and do as wanted. It is as well said that the Pegasus engine has great responsiveness for the throttle. And in Harrier it is so as you need to be careful with the throttle movements as it reacts very quickly and jumps up in the air with small overcontrol. In helicopters that is lagging behind.

Didn't talk about Kiowa having datalink, but laser designator and act as JTAC over radio.... The Apache might have a datalink to A-10C (my only questionable argument) that would make it better if A-10C pilots can see where Apache is and its pilot can see where A-10C is to sync their attacks.

What I mean is that when you have LOS below the trees (as is), the AI that knows all the time where you are (just not allowed to engage you) the moment you slip through that underside of trees, the AI starts to react to you, and if you manage to come up behind trees on that moment, they will engage you. You can not fly behind a ground unit to surprise it, as on moment you enter its engagement circle, it will spot you unless you have something between you to brake it. This means that you can not perform a proper scouting (as to see you need to reveal yourself) and pop-up as AI will react to you on moment you become visible. So you can't start a attack run from 4 km by firing couple missiles as AI knows your existence. They are just currently so stupid to do anything if you are outside of their engagement ring even if you would hover just 1 meter further than it. I should have somewhere a video where I am in a KA-50 hovering behind a tall office building (like 10 meters from it). I know that AH-64 patrol is flying about 3 km from my location and waiting them to appear on any moment the edge of the building to shoot at their flank. Nothing happens. Then I decide that I perform a small pop-up to check where they are. On the moment I come up slowly the building roof I get 30 mm shells on face and dead. The AI Apache pair (only other unit in mission) knew where I was even when I have been all the time behind a building, and not just did it do that, it did know my velocity to time the shells hit me from about 1 km distance before I could even see it. I only saw the Apache in the replay video before shells hit, that it is just visible above the roof. The only thing I could get was that the hitbox for building LOS is shorter than the 3D model is. And that was reason why it could fire by anticipation couple seconds earlier to kill me on moment I popped up visible (or it saw my top rotor in time).

I wouldn't say that Mi-8 is underpowered aircraft, but as anything if you load up them to maximum weight you will have penalties. That was example the Mi-4 problem that when it was in assault configuration you couldn't load any infantry on it. So it was either troop transport or assault helicopter. And Mi-24 was wanted to be different where it can have the infantry squad in and some weapons to perform the assault and support for them. You can example see here the transport configuration: https://youtu.be/JZ5je96v8H8?t=1748 Where at 29:30 it unloads squad and carries 4x rocket pods. It is out of the frame does it have AT missiles with it even. As the ~2500 kg max loading capacity is limiting factor. But you are not so effective attack helicopter if you are required to land to unload infantry and then get up in air to support them. Why it is better have a more capable Mi-8 (more space etc) do it while Mi-24 defends it or attacks the enemy. (btw, person who calls me wrong to say Mi-24 is a multirole attack helicopter, can check the 29:38) The KA-50 was to be more than a recon helicopter. The one pilot had smaller workload than a multirole single-pilotted fighter (like F/A-18) has. But it is easier when you have a flight commander to designate you the targets (tell what found targets you engage) sitting in a KA-52 next to its pilot. Together you could get a flight like 3x KA-50 and 1x KA-52 where you can attack effectively using all datalinks and digital navigation and targeting systems. Like compare it to Mi-24 where you need to fly in formation, stay in contact with radio and coordinate with the flight as trained to do things. Where KA-50 was to be able separate and position themselves more freely and share their targets to each others. Literally like a swarm of sharks does. The Mi-24 is just old limited design compared to KA-50 or Mi-28. Comparing it to even SA342 Gazelle you don't get anything like that in it. So what you get your or target GPS coordinates, but when you don't see on a digital moving map where others move or where others are aiming, it is limiting factor. Many player knows that Su-27S in DCS is great in single player as you have the datalink for flight, but it doesn't work in multiplayer that you would see here others fly and what they are targeting at. It makes coordination far more difficult, compared to now F/A-18, A-10C and F-16CM where you get the datalink working. The Mi-24 will be interesting to fly as it doesn't have all that "mumbo jumbo". Like good old paper map with cross showing where you are, and then just visually fly to engage targets. It is like Su-25A but as in helicopter form and many other capabilities.

It would not. As it is not processed at all by all units all the time. That is why we need a one AI that is cheater. We need dozens/hundreds of different AI's to work standalone form, without information of each others. And key component for all is a "Cheater AI" that is responsible to control what AI units gets activated and what processing they can do. Example you have a one MBT and one helicopter. The MBT sits in a edge of forest having 180 degree view to south. It has engine turned off and crew is outside observing scene/waiting. The Helicopter is approaching from the south flying NOE behind tree lines. It would be stupid to run all checks once a second (as it does now) for MBT or helicopter that do they spot something, until it is really possible. That is where the "cheater AI" comes by, as all units are stupid/simple until the "Cheater AI" activates each unit corresponding AI functions. So not until the helicopter reach a pre-set "audible" range to another unit, neither AI does anything. When the audible range is reached, is the MBT AI commanded to check that can it hear the helicopter. Check includes "Engine Off", "Crew member outside" and some other values that needs to become TRUE to be able detect the helicopter by sound. If that doesn't happen, no checks are performed further until Cheater AI tells to do it again for some reason. If the detection is made, the MBT unit gets activated some modes. Like crew becomes alerted and focus visual search on the direction of the sound. On that moment the MBT AI is just scanning the general direction as a IR seeker or Radar scans in the fighters. If the spotting happens, again MBT status is changed to combat mode where crew buttons up and now it is commander and gunner only that will try to find and track the helicopter visually. Each time the LOS is broken, search is committed to general direction (like a missile guidance mode) for X period and then returned to general direction etc. The units on the ground are not so many that would each require perform it that would stress a CPU. We can have even a hundred units to scan a given area as it is about spotting something. And if someone does spot, it is assisting others by various rules to spot the one. Like it is expected that once a one soldier in a squad spots something, he can alarm others and point the threat direction. Similar thing is in the vehicle commanding, one spots something and alarms others and others need to concentrate for search in the general direction to find it. Even if you have 5000 units, lets say 5 km from the helicopter, they don't do anything because they do not know it is there. Unless the MBT would alarm someone on that area to their direction, like a SAM system or a MANPADS patrol. Again they need to perform visual search or activate Radar and try to search target. Now it is two units instead 5000 that is performing the search, where one is visually tracking target. The "Cheater AI" makes the check that can the MBT radio a another party. If it can't, no processing will be initialized. Majority of the units on the ground are stationary, dummies. They don't move, they don't react or check anything unless they would find something or they are commanded to do something. Their job is to sit somewhere and wait. Even a recon units can be moving across the land without performing any single LOS check or such. Because the "Cheatin AI" is not activating those modes as there is no one near by. Once the "Cheating AI" knows that opposite units are closing each other that various spotting methods can be done, it activates them. Friendly units do not generate such tasks as it would mean that all are running it all the time. And assumption would be that units know how to ID each other visually. There are rules that could be done for that as well but there are many other rules like assumptions that same unit will stick together and in time they know who belongs where. It is all about cheating. In a dynamic campaign the player doesn't care that what kind a clash happens 150 km from player plane. It is totally irrelevant. It is literally just rolling some dice for generating the possib combinations in a real time process, meaning it is simulated by long period of time the gun shot exchanges and wounding, destruction etc. Instead running all in 1-2 second period, it is done in 5-15 minute period. All that extra time is spent for other tasks. Combat is not over in seconds but minutes or hours depending are artificial units made to retreat and reposition themselves by various rules. Like if group A is commanded to defend a bridge, then they are not going to charge after a enemy recon car that is driving 2 km away already and leave the bridge undefended. There is no need to simulate any complex things in majority of the places, that is eased with the inaccuracies in units exact positions, conditions etc. A lot of things needs to be cheated and kept vague, but it needs to happen in proper manner where one AI is not controlling to units to engage each others, as it is similar case as playing chess alone and purposely try to make other side win. It is like a RPG where the game host controls what other players can do, change their statuses based their actions and simply limit their options and capabilities how to engage each other but let them to do the play with rules. The whole gaming industry is about cheating. But it needs to be done clever way so it doesn't become obvious and it requires building rules what everyone can do. As dynamic campaign is not one that is over in 1-2 hours. We sit in a cockpit flying in real time, there is not happening much in real time in a large scale conflict. The hard part is to run a simulation in high speed, like 8x or 60x accelerated speed to jump in specific future time. As that is the moment when lots of things needs to be simulated and roll a dice. But this is nothing new in the RTS game side where thousands of units are run this way 20 years ago, each turn to make major changes. Far more stressing than running things in real-time where such simple things as moving unit 100-500 meters can take literally a minute. And one minute for CPU is infinite time to be used for other things to check out. But right now in DCS all AI units are performing checks constantly. Just having units active on the map is consuming CPU cycles for worthless checks and polling time schedule to do nothing. Why such modes are required as "deactivate group/unit" and so on are required because otherwise you can't run anything if you don't cheat and tell game not to care about such units at all.