Fri13

The smoke lasts only like 5 seconds and then it is gone. It is a 6 floor building size and will only block the IR vision for little further period than visual. But it doesn't work really. It is just a reminder "You hit it, but didn't destroy it". A actively used it would be very effective. Especially when they would use it as cover to move around. Your laser mavericks would go dud and fly past with the smoke screen as they lose the spot. The laser guided bombs would drop to last known location. IR mavericks would lose locks and become useless. Visually guiding something would be difficult as you don't see where they would move behind the smoke screen. Now they just sit the 600 seconds (default, you can change it) scattered around as you say and pretends to be in a tower defense game. Like there is one nice simple script to make ground units to stop firing if they get first under fire, like suppressing them with cannon or rockets. It adds little more value for unguided weapons at short ranges when they don't snipe you down on the second.

If we would have proper ground units behavior, you wouldn't be spotting those vehicles so easily. And when they roll behind their cover, they spend there time just enough for gunner to acquire a target and shoot at it, confirm the shot and roll back in the cover. Once the helicopters are spotted (by vehicles crews or someone else informing it to them) they would change tactics, you have people in observation for the ATGM launches even and utilize smoke screens effectively. They might not be able jam your guidance, but they can blind you so you don't know where to aim inside a large smoke screen in witch cover they roll back to cover. This of course if the enemy has not chosen so stupid position that they give for enemy full access to use their longest range weapons to destroy them....

The Escape From Tarkov has 20 minutes penalty when you die. You literally sit in the main screen unable to play with your main character, and you lose everything that you brought with you in the game when connecting. It adds a lot more "fear" (and rage) to players if they fail in the game. Famous Dark Souls game has hideous difficulty level for many, but it is the interesting part really, thanks from copying the original Rogue from 1980 with a permanent death. More you played, better you became, but each time spent to it meant that death is permanent and you will need to start from the begin again. In a RTS games where one can just build and produce infinite amount of units, it becomes quickly boring as the challenge is different than games that you have limited resources. Example for the time of release the Ground Control was major player as you had what you had and you didn't really get more. So you tried to save every and each unit you could as you couldn't just build more. In the last interview from Wags in CasmoTV the talk was about all the background strategical elements from the reinforcements to factories and productions etc. Meaning that the RTS part of the DCS World (Combined Arms) will be (at least should be part) partially with limited units and limited resources and all. What we need in the DCS more and more is that there will be like a 60 various aircraft on the carrier and no more, nothing to add unless someone can fly them from another location there to keep the number up. Like 24 Hornets, four E-2, couple C-2 transporters and few helicopters. In a multiplayer server such would make people to value far more about each airframe they are flying. Just losing them would mean a lot difference at later phase of server mission. Same thing as giving limited amount of missiles would mean every shot should count, and every bomb. There would always be those who wouldn't care do they use 10 fighters for stupid things just to get fancy few kills, why there should be penalties for the player ID what they can do. Like promote players to give them more action time by shortening their routes to fight. Give them more challenging and interesting missions to complete. Little RPG elements here and there and you get people to eventually value more of the time they spend and what they do. Having a such optional server setting that can be enabled for those who are ready for challenge and want to avoid air quake behavior, it could be welcoming for many. The ground units values would change a lot when you can't just spawn more or produce more so quickly. Transporting them from otherside of the map to one side is not an easy task. Plan a routes how to transport them first on trains or roads (we need such cars) and then get them moved closer to required positions etc. A RTS commander on the ground that loses units means they open up possibility for enemy to take advantage of that. But nothing works as long there is no risk to the player itself for losing something. You never can get anything about fear for life, but you can get fear for able to play the game on the server. To have a reputation to be playing with servers and missions that requires higher reputation, as losing such high reputation pilots is threatful for many pilots who care about statics and online ladders comparisons to others. We have various other problems like players jumping on opposite side to take notes where their units are, and then jump back to go attack at them. Again something that would be impossible like with a ED ID to be used for server side registration of virtual pilots, that you need to pick up your side on the server you play. Adding various other elements like real fog of war, that no pilot can see everything than just the mission they are opting-in, intelligence reports are vague and they need to do the work. So limiting the access to instant all-around information would be impossible even on the ground commanders who only knows what their units does and that with delayed communications and vague reports etc.

I guess so, I hope so. But I can only accept the possibility that their programmers documentation becomes.... Acceptable. But I do hope it would be well done.

What is more of a problem between ED and third party developers to understand the changes to come and versions that will remove something. Nice way is that when a something better is developed, it will be introduced first for moment aside of the old one. And then old is moved in given time frame, giving developers time to adapt to new way. This is example use in the Linux where periods are 3/6/12 months and then even 2-4 years own steps. Everyone gets the changes, they have time to port to new and once the old code has turned to be obsolete, it gets removed. If someone still has not done their work for major changes, it is their fault for not following what happens. Usually such scenarios happens where losses are too high are when intelligence fails (and it always does...) and troops commander underestimates enemy or overestimates own troops. Doesn't see out of the box or doesn't react to very obvious threat. There are always cases where other side has been slaughtered, like defenders has been commanded to hold as reinforcements are just coming. And then enemy suddenly has heavy artillery in their arsenal or air support and majority of defenders are killed before they could do anything. The WW2 did teach many things, shaking so old ideas away. And since the WW2 things the proper european level modern full war scenarios has not happen. So tactics and all has been adjusted to different kind ones. DCS World can not provide so adaptable and skilled AI that in reality there is. But key thing is as well that we need to have AI that does not cheat, that is actually fair and does mistakes. Why IMHO the AI that is controlling each unit individually, should not know anything more than they should. So the AI doesn't know that how many enemies there is behind the ridge, if there is any even if the intelligence say so. It shouldn't know it is getting flanked if there is no one spotting the flanking element and warning the AI. But the AI should make mistakes like recognizing flanking possibility and preparing for it, or be skilled and clever that prepares for it already but does know how to react to it by not spreading forces too thin. Eventually I see DCS World Combined Arms as RTS game for human players. Not so much for "super intelligent AI". Like if the current AI is so stupid that it just moves as waypoints go and do what waypoint tells to, having only own capability to fire with some default settings. But outside of it, there is no intelligence. Like have a group moving over field and if they get engaged, they scatter for 600 seconds and sit there as ducks in open field being shot at. Where we can see many things are broken in the AI way of thinking, starting from the old way of groups + waypoints. AI shouldn't use anymore groups, they should be units. So copy the real military hierarchy to be used and AI has possibilities to start being more flexible. Make basic rules like how to send first scouts a head to check the positions, instead moving main forces straight to be killed. Basic logic like if the open field needs to be crossed (instead going around) then send scouts first and gather other units ready to support from own side. First writing basic logic to work as individual unit, then as pair, then as squad/platoon and eventually as larger units. It will get far in basic manner. It can't cover everything but it is a far better than what we have now. But developing such framework for AI is what would brake so many things. It doesn't mean that waypoints and current group thinking can't be maintained aside for year or two, but new framework needs to be made primary new way to do things. In a RTS games we can either have this waypoint+group thinking, but it is like a old Red Alert kind style where you select bunch of units and command to go somewhere. No matter how stupid it is, but support units goes first and spreadhead units can come last. The AI needs to understand that what is required to form different elements and make those available to player to command. So if player selects a recon unit and tells it to get one position, the AI needs to know what belongs to that recon unit and what routes it should move to get to commanded location. As player shouldn't command waypoints but give goals. Like mark a bridge as the crossing point, and set the area in place to be scouted and at what time it needs to be done. The players needs to move away from the old current method as well, and move more to the real military ways of thinking. The easy part is that none of this is hard to find out, as it is out there in the libraries for basic military lessons. Hard part is to actually implement it but that is the programmers work, and it is actually very easy as real military command structure and tactics/strategies are so well documented to lowest level that it is just thinking it aloud. And great thing in DCS World is that so much micromanagement parts can be dropped off. Like there is no need to have anything about individual soldier daily tasks to be modeled that things get easier.

P is far easier to make than a V, where the WSO would have been required to be spotting, aiming and firing a gun at the targets around your frontal hemisphere. And do that by analyzing the target type in proper time (search specific targets or recognize specific type among others) and engage it. In P it is easier as AI doesn't need to care about the rotating gun. And anyways such is already in game in Mi-24V as AI unit (and all units). What comes to flying, we need AI that would be better at low altitudes. You can't have AI flying a helicopter at 80 meter altitude like now because they don't dare to go lower and actually try to find the spots to engaged targets. But KA-50, SA342 Gazelle, OH-58 Kiowa and AH-64 requires this more than a Mi-24 pilot that is more about how current AI flies. For almost two years I have been flying in formation with Mi-24V as AI, and got custom to many of its flaws but as well surprising good things. The most annoying part will be the relationship between AI and player in spotting. As that makes big difference between flying co-op and flying alone. Where in Co-Op with other player you are talking to other about spotted things, the AI is like "Target 50 km East!" and you are like "??????" Or best thing in co-op is that you can actually talk the other player on the target like "1'clock, about 1 km, right of the small tree group, see it?" Where with AI you are "How I can tell you to look at there!?!?". One key things I think we should have, kind a cheat. Is like a green HMS circle in a Su-27S or MiG-29S that you could press button to see it, and then use that to point out to AI that where to fly and where to look. Just a generic 5-10 degree would be enough even for that. Just easily visually aim by giving heading like "20 degree to right" and AI would concentrate their search in that direction, or they would fly to that direction. Same way as you would with a player talk "Fly around that field" or "The target was somewhere there". Then have just a radio call list kind interface (but in pie-shape like no Jester has) to set target types to engage or altitude to fly or maneuver to perform. I would never expect AI to be so good that you can fly the mission without trying to guide it to do something. Why I think that we seriously need assisting features to command the AI easily. I am not fond of the old games style to have keyboard commands "Go Left" or "Go Down" and "Target SAM" kind things, As you ended up a lot to micromanage the AI pilot to get basics done. Only so much can be done for AI as Close Air Support is especially dynamic element where you need to be able adapt to new threats and find new ways to fly to avoid getting shot down, or even worse - be somewhere else than delivering support in time. It would be nice to hear if the ED would program the Ai fly the real patterns, maneuvers and tactics, and you would get basic introduction for those and then have idea that what AI is going to do, or what it can do and then do so. Even more challenging will be the coordination with the ground units. As you would need to be constantly talking with the officer responsible to command units to attack and get the fire support on moment it is required. That is demanding part. Like how to get a AI on ground to talk to player in the aircraft, without them starting to scribble a GPS coordinates every and each time. As nothing is as stupid as "Enemy in GRID 3423 2231". If the AI ground units would use smoke grenades (those small hand throwables, not those 300 meter tall infinite fuel ones) to mark their position, and then tell the enemy position from that as bullseye call "Enemy armor 120 degree from our location, about 500 meters". And once you see the smoke, you know from where to attack to where.

No, as the symbols and their status there are set by the intelligence officers before pilot enters the cockpit. There is no datalink to update those units positions or types in flight.

ED takes own cut from all module sales there happens. That is put to DCS World development and support all modules. And problem with ED is that majority of it is still based very old legacy codes and designs, and they can not just start updating individual parts without breaking backward compatibility each time. Like now is the 2.7 coming after two days and it will brake every mission custom/tweaked weathers such way that all needs to be revisited and checked and adjusted. When later the new core features comes like new communications, new voice overs for everything etc, it will mean that things get broken again. When the new AI comes with RTS elements and such, it means again that everything brakes down. Hopefully we get away from legacy idea of ground units moving by the waypoints, and we move toward real command structure where you set mission goals and common doctrinal strategies and tactics and AI will work around all by itself, instead using waypoints and advanced waypoint rules and some trigger zones and scripts etc. If AI is wanted to be Intelligent, it needs to figure out by itself everything what needs to be done to achieve the goals. Like if you tell specific unit ("3rd Company of X" etc) to defend a 5 km wide part and tell that expected enemy direction is South-West, then the AI needs to know by itself how to move all units for defense in primary positions and where are each unit secondary positions, what are ROE for range, enemy type/amount or actions etc. The AI needs to know how to adjust things based their mission status, as if enemy overwhelms with 5:1 ratio it is then no use to be there to die for nothing when position is anyways lost no matter how player commands them to sacrifice themselves for nothing. The DCS World needs to be worked to support every other module. But if they do it, it better be done once so things gets badly broken only once instead once every year. Doesn't really work that way. Example, you would want a better AI logic for SAM systems. So you give ED 50€ for that. ED needs to first improve the whole AI logic system for all units, but before they can do that they need to rewrite the game terrain engine to add a required new path finding technology, but no one wanted to fund that.... It is just best to give money for the ED and let them to use it as they seem to be best bit. And then just vote for wishlists and discuss that how things should work.

Some module makers has said that they have prepared all missions and campaigns for 2.7 new weather. Nothing else. Meaning that they have likely required to open every mission and select proper weather for it and save it. This is required to be done again when a new weather options comes available as then makers can adjust wanted weather to missions. This is nothing compared to future when a dynamic campaign system comes, as all new AI logic, RTS elements etc comes out. That likely requires to redo everything as they are already doing thousands of new voice covers for AI and all. So if new clouds is 2.7, then new AI will be likely 3.0 level change. But this is business as usual when you are dependent to a second party engine and all. You just need to rework if you want to keep selling stuff. I am not worried about third party community missions and such to get broken. Load a mission, select weather template and save. There could be a converter that will set some wanted template as batch and then have most work right. But if someone has been very specific with things.... Recheck. But this doesn't mean that wind settings can't be converted. Just the visual look of clouds as moment. So if someone wanted to have thunderstorm or specific altitude of clouds, those are difficult to match 1:1. Likely system can check "Cloud density 9, use template Yz", but again that likely does not help to get proper results if not using official template already. As API gets changed, question is can old things be used someway? And I would guess that once we get custom weather adjustments (once they are done) and API is finished, ED will document it. Weather can be nasty when you don't have control of it .

You don't mainly use VKB software for anything else than setting up how the Windows see the device inputs. You do all the functions in the DCS World itself (best for all modules in all gaming devices). If you play OLD games, like 90's or what does not understand DirectX and so on, but has lots of keyboard functions, then you need to use some software like Joystick Gremlin with Joy2Key that allows you to bind keyboard buttons to joystick inputs as if the game accepts something like 3 axis and 5 buttons only. In DCS you just go through the normal configuration to bind what you want and where. All your profiles are saved by DCS by device and by date as well. So you can copy and paste those profiles between computers or installations.

Install that.

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.