FourSpeed

Hi All, A couple weeks back I posted here about some issues I was having while trying to learn the SLAM-ER. Alas, the response was underwhelming (no offense intended to the 1 person who did respond). Given that, I conclude that there are bugs / unfinished work needed for proper functionality of the SLAM-ER weapons (at least, while using them essentially like PP JDAMs where target coordinates are entered on the ground before flight). Specifically, I found that neither the target entries for ELEV or TERM-ANG affect anything at all. As best I can tell, Terminal Angle while showing as entered has no effect at all on the descent angle -- In my testing it always comes in at the appx same angle (~24-28 degrees PTH based on F6 view). As for elevation, regardless of what is entered, the missile always hits at whatever elevation the terrain is, at the target's Lat/Long co-ords (which, on the Caucasus map is a negative number in sea areas). I did my testing using a custom mission (attached in the original post linked above), and I'm attaching two tracks described as follows: In both tracks, I start on the ground, and enter target coordinates as part of my ground start procedure. In the first track (a), I launch 4 SLAM-ERs at an offshore Oil Platform with differing values for ELEV, and TERM-ANG for each missile. In the second track (b), I do the same thing with a ground based EWR Dome as the target. In both cases, the missiles are set for a High Profile and launched from ~appx 35,000 feet. The first pair are launched from a distance of ~90 nm, and the second pair from ~75 nm from the targets. In both tracks, the 4 missiles are set for the appropriate target's Lat/Long co-ordinates and the ELEV and TERM-ANG values are set as follows: 1: ELEV: 2000 feet TERM-ANG: 25 degrees 2: ELEV: 1500 feet TERM-ANG: 45 degrees 3: ELEV: 500 feet TERM-ANG: 65 degrees 4: ELEV: TGT elev* TERM-ANG: 85 degrees * 100 feet for Oil Platform, 16 feet for EWR Dome In both tracks, all missiles appear to hit very close to the same identical spots, and the descent angle is ~24-28 degrees for each. In the case of the Oil Platform, the hits are underneath the platform despite the ELEV numbers entered (While we were lucky enough to hit a cross beam under the platform in the track, in other missions, the missiles oftentimes just splash into the water below it, missing entirely, which is quite frustrating given the effort needed to set them up). In the case of the EWR Dome, the impact point is right at ground level where the dome is located, again, despite the varying elevations and terminal angles entered. Hopefully, these issues can be corrected in a future patch. Thanks in Advance, 4 SLAMER-Test_240602a.trk SLAMER-Test_240602b.trk

Hi Guys, Started dabbling with the SLAM-ER the past week or so, and, afaict, a number of it's features appear to not work. First, I'm not talking about datalink, steering, waypoints, or anything that far along the learning curve as yet. Basically, I'm just treating them as longer range JSOWs -- ie. PP Mode, Set fusing, Set flight profile, Enter precise co-ords for the target points, and call it a day.... What I am observing: 1. Data Entry works exactly the same as it does for PrePlan JSOWs (Great!) with the additional option(s) of terminal guidance (for me, Drop Angle is all I want). Employing them is identical to PP JSOWs, but at much greater range (Perfect!). 2. Unfortunately, using High Flight mode (> FL350), and launching within 100 nm, I find: A> TERM - ANG, quite simply doesn't work/matter at all -- the PTH angle (on F6 View) *always* shows ~25 PTH (+/- a bit for range) - never what I enter using the UFC. B> ELEV - also does not seem to work/matter... Whatever the map elevation is at the tgt co-ords is *always* what appears to be used, regardless of what you enter. A little more here.... --- Target: Some Precise LAT/LNG (that works fine - it always gets there and reaches the target if in range). Set ELEV at any number (I tested up to 2000 ft for a 16 ft TGT), and all missiles hit the same ~spot (TERM-ANG doesn't matter either - I tested 45-85 deg, and they still hit the same ~spot with a ~25 PTH angle) That said, that still works fine for a bunch of trucks on the ground, or a building on land, BUT, if you're trying to hit an oil platform above the sea level, (note: map height is negative at sea on Caucasus map, at least), missiles will often miss by flying into the sea *under* the oil platform, doing virtually no damage. Unless you're lucky enough to hit a platform crossmember on the ~25 deg attack path, there's no joy for hitting that target, regardless of TERM:ANG or ELEV (FEET) settings you use. So, are these parameters simply not working, or am I completely missing something here? If these are known issues, then, good to know, I'll bide my time with these missiles pending a fix. If not, I've provided the test mission I'm using, and can make some tracks, if necessary, to illustrate what I'm seeing, but what I'm observing distinctly limits SLAM-ER use cases, compared to a standard Unity Broach JSOW, which works fine, albeit at closer range... Any insight you could provide would be most welcome and appreciated. Thanks, and Regards. 4 F-18 -- SLAM-ER Testing.miz

Thanks for the tip. I appreciate the response. That said, I'd rather not monkey around with swapping / editing files every patch. I'd much prefer that they allow proper key bindings for these various switches. It makes far more sense, and it's much more customer friendly than altering my game installation to kludge that functionality. Regards, 4 ~S!~

Hi, I've been learning the F-15E in recent days, and overall, I'm really enjoying it. However, one thing I've noticed is that when it comes to key bindings, many items in the category "Joystick Switch Abstraction" cannot (currently) be mapped to keystrokes, despite many of these being simple switches on the consoles (ie. Radar Alt, various External Lights, TF Radar, etc.) rather than joystick items. It would be a great help, and very much appreciated, if actual keyboard bindings would be allowed / implemented for the items in that category, especially for us Voice Attack users. While I have a WinWing Hotas and Gladiator Joystick with a lot of buttons, these are already saturated for vital things like TDC, Castle, Auto Acq, Trim, NWS etc. and thus are not available for secondary items like the bulk of the controls in the JSA category. Thanks in Advance, and looking forward to future improvements in the module! Regards, 4 ~S!~

Interesting. Thx for the response. I was flying it in an SP mission, run in MP, because of a different actual issue with the game freezing up at Sim Poststart (see post) on missions with a Super Carrier (a feature of my SP training mission, originally made for the Hornet), where I now simply swap out the player aircraft in the M.E. when I train on other planes (A-10, F-15, F-16, and now F-15E). That mission has a bunch of training targets (air & ground), and it's really easy to edit / swap quickly for other aircraft, so I find it real useful, but I always run it in MP mode. So, I guess this is just another downside of that particular issue.... Pity. Thanks, and Regards, 4 -S!-

Hi Fellow Pilots, I just started learning the F-15E yesterday, and one thing I noticed after a handful of flights, is that the Pilot Logbook doesn't show any time flown in the F15E category. I didn't see any other mention of that in the Bugs section, so I thought I'd ask here if it's a bug, or if it is something I've missed? Anyone else seeing that issue? Thanks, and Happy Holidays, 4 -S!-

Hi Flappie, Just a point of clarification, the missions that lock-up are discrete, standalone missions, rather than campaigns. That said, I did rename the logbook.lua file and restarted my PC & DCS a couple times, and the missions loaded successfully on those occasions. However, when I restored the original logbook file, and restarted, the missions also loaded successfully, so I'm not sure what conclusions (if any) can be drawn from that, as I never got a lock-up during any of those tests. Regards, 4

Went from a 504 error initially to a 502 error after patching with 41066 and the 41066.1 hotfix... I'm guessing a 41066.2 hotfix for the hotfix will be forthcoming soon-ish??? 4

Interesting. I've rarely (if ever?) tried to fly from a .trk file, so I'm not sure how applicable it is to the situation, but who knows? In my case, I've just been flying standard .miz files (many of which I created myself, or modified from older missions as modules, terrains, and such other DCS game updates and features have been added to the sim). Regards, 4 ~S!~

Minor Update (and possible short-term workaround). I've not had the chance to do much more testing lately, but the past few days, I have not had any Sim PostStart hangs with the problem missions that were regularly locking up. Rather than clearing folders, as Nealius suggested, what I have done is this: * On the first start-up of one of the "problem missions", I start the mission up as a MP mission (before trying it in SP or before trying to edit it). (ie. Select Mission --> "Launch as Multiplayer Server", rather than just click "OK") -- so far, the mission(s) have always loaded up without a hang at Sim PostStart. * At that point, I can either: -- Fly it that way as an MP experience -- Exit the server, and then restart it as an SP mission the normal way -- Exit the server, and edit it (if I'm tweaking things), and it will load / run properly from inside the M.E. with the green arrow button. Why does that work? I have NO idea, but since I've started doing that with any missions involving the Supercarrier, I've had *zero* Sim PostStart lock-ups. Go Figure... Anyway, I hope that works for other folks as it has for me, and I hope that it might help the devs pinpoint what's causing the lock-ups in the first place, so they can hopefully squash that insidious bug outright... Regards, 4 ~S!~ Update / Concession I'll be the first to concede that this is *not* the ideal solution. That said, I've experienced *zero* Sim PostStart lock-ups since I started the first (problem) mission start-up of the day / session as an MP server... A pita, but so far, it seems to work for me, so in the absence of any other solutions, this is the one I've personally found to work for me ... YMMV

Yep, This is the same kind of stuff I'm seeing when my missions hang at Sim PostStart as well. It always seems to involve missions with the Supercarrier (although I've not yet rigorously checked this, and I do fly the Hornet most of the time, so that may not be too much of a surprise) Nevertheless, I'm getting a strong sense that this post and my post are encountering the same problem. Interestingly enough, when it works and when it doesn't, there still seems to be many of the same errors. In the failed case, it just never moves past that step. I'll attach a couple logs from the other day, where one worked, and the other one failed... Regards, 4 PS> Changing my pagefile to 32GB didn't make any difference -- the failures are still happening quite frequently... dcs-Successful-Run.log dcs-SimPostSart-Fail.log

Thx for the replies. @MAXsenna and @zildac: While I do appreciate your suggestion, it doesn't really help me. I'm not interested in monitoring my log minute by minute, and I don't much understand what's in it (or want to) -- I just want my game to work properly when I run it. The fact that this issue happens intermittently (with either client on missions that normally work) sounds a lot like an internal bug to me, and if as @Nealius points out, it's a problem with DCS loading an internal table of some type, then it's really something the devs should be looking at. I'm only including the logs because A> It's not possible to get a track, as the crash occurs during loading... B> The logs may be useful to the devs or folks who find it interesting to look at logs (I'm not one of them) to help pinpoint why this problem is occurring. If it is related to the SuperCarrier,as @Nealius implies, that might make some sense as the problem started fairly recently for me (and I know they added SuperCarrier features a couple patches back), and perhaps that may be the source of the problem. I honestly don't know, I'm just hoping the logs can help a knowledgeable person find the issue so it can be fixed, and my game gets back to running properly once again... Regards, 4 ~S!~ PS> I've also added the autoexec.cfg line (about full debug logs) to my config per BigNewy's suggestion (sorry, hadn't seen that before I posted the OP), so perhaps that will contain better information the next time the hang occurs....

Hi Fellow Pilots, Lately (the past month or so), I've been observing cases where the sim hangs while trying to load / run a mission. This always occurs in the "Sim PostStart" phase of the loading screens. That step typically takes ~ a minute, or two, when things are going ok, before moving on to later steps, but occasionally, it simply hangs there and never comes back.... The only way out at that point is to kill DCS with the Task Manager. This occurs in both the standard OB version and the newer MultiThread version. It occurs on several (working) missions, most notably when I've been in the editor tweaking something, and then try to run it (with the green up arrow on the left vertical task bar). In looking at the logs, the only thing I seem to see is that DCS looks like it's having issues trying to find things when it hangs. Apart from a few liveries, Grinelli's F22 (not used in the recent hung missions), and TacView, I'm not running any mods that I'm aware of. I'm including a couple log files (from today) for review. These were both from the standard OB client (not MT -- this time). In the first one (a failed, hung game) I was in the M.E., saved the mission, and tried to run it ---> Sim PostStart hang.... After killing DCS with Task Manager and restarting it I simply ran the mission from the Main Menu (Mission), and it succeeded. I copied that log at the point where I was able to select the flyable aircraft (after mission successfully loaded). At this stage, I'm unable to pinpoint exactly what's causing the problem as it seems to happen intermittently, regardless of which OB client I'm running or which mission I'm attempting to edit / play. Note, it doesn't always happen during editing a mission either, that just seems to be where I notice it most, like today's example). Any insight you could provide would be much appreciated. Thanks in Advance Regards, 4 ~S!~ Save_Failed_dcs.log Save_OK_dcs.log

Interesting. Good to know I'm not missing something, with the set-up. Thanks! Regards, 4 ~S!~

Hi Fellow Pilots, I've recently started learning the A-10C II, and I find I'm really enjoying it even more than I expected to.... One oddity with Mavericks I've run into is this: When carrying 6 (on stns 3 & 9), I'm seeing that all mavericks will fire from one station first (ie. 3) before any fire from the other pylon, rather than alternating between them for each shot like they do for other a/c. Note: this occurs even when I have both pylons selected (via DSMS page -> Prof -> Dobber to Mavericks -> Act Pro). If I want to avoid an asymmetrical situation, either I ripple them all in one pass, or I manually manage the stations myself on the DSMS page between shots. This behavior seems quite odd to me, so I'm wondering if I'm missing a setting somewhere, during Mav setup, to have them fire in a balanced sequence. Any insight on this would be much appreciated, Thanks in Advance. Regards, 4 ~S!~