Xavven

Kippy pretty much said it. When I first started flying the A-10C, it was mostly about learning all the systems, and it's easy to spend a lot of time heads down on the TGP and guided munitions because the procedures are quite interesting. My first real wakeup call was when I was flying CAS for a Combined Arms player. His convoy got flanked by an enemy tank line, and by the time I got sensors on target, the fight was practically over and I was of no help. Had I just visually acquired the target and gone in with guns, I would have gotten one or two kills during the engagement. Lesson learned -- the TGP is slow compared to performing CCIP weapons engagements. From then on, I started flying heads up the majority of the time. The situational awareness you can gain from this is substantial. Now that said, it all depends on the mission you're flying, your objectives, the threats, etc. The A-10C can use used to maverick a couple of static targets and then fly home, or even serve as an AFAC, and in those cases your mission profile will look much different compared to a CAS assignment. As for tactics and altitude, the A-10 has this reputation of being "low and slow" but that doesn't mean they have to been in the weeds all day. For example, if you read the book A-10's over Kosovo, written by the pilots that flew in that engagement, you'll see that they weren't allowed below about 10,000 ft due to SAM concerns. They had to work hard just to negotiate that down to 8,000 ft so they could see and engage targets more easily. That war was fought with mostly air power, though, so there were no CAS missions. There are other cases where your A-10's would be best employed at lower altitudes. In other words, it turns out that the A-10 can be in the weeds, at low altitude, or medium altitude depending on the needs of the mission.

I second that motion! The AI wingmen are terrible and spend forever to set up a simple bomb run, when they're even working. Half the time they do the "Affirm, rejoin, RTB" loop and run away. The best use I have for them is to straight up take control with alt-J after I run out of ordinance.

There are ways to earn some extra cash before you're eligible for W-2 employment. My parents paid me $10 to mow the lawn every week among other chores when I was a minor, for example As for the original question, DCS is not like a typical video game that goes obsolete after a few years. Flight sims in general have a lot more longevity, and given the extreme fidelity of the A-10 and other modules, it's more likely that the engine will be upgraded to keep up than it is for a complete overhaul to be done. In fact, that's exactly what versions 1.5 and 2.0 are -- an engine upgrade. So my bet is that DCS will still be very much alive by the time you've graduated from high school.

Can you provide a screenshot? Does the problem appear when you use a regular monitor screen instead of VR? Make sure you run the same mission and look at the same target so we can compare.

Works in DCS but not IRL. Here's a post by Eddie to explain it: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2315372&postcount=27

Guys, this is a bug, not ground effect: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=154630&highlight=landing+flare I've even experienced it in 1.5. A friend of mine didn't believe me and told me it was ground effect, but you can tell whether it's the bug or ground effect by opening your control position window (default is rctrl-enter) and watching your trim go crazy when you begin your round-out.

Would you mind uploading a track showing the problem? It's worth more than 1000 words.

It's possible if you switch to the IR Pointer. Make your TGP the SOI, then press DMS-Right. The TGP has two lasers: one for designating targets for a weapon seeker like the GBU-12/GBU-10 and for LSS, and an IR Pointer for illuminating targets or positions for visual acquisition. The former is the default enabled when you hop into the sim.

Well I can't answer for Gliptal, but my own opinion is that tank squadrons avoid bunching up too close together because it doesn't allow for effective mutual support and a single bomb could damage or destroy all of them.

I also seem to achieve lock with the AGM-65D from greater range than the AGM-65H in broad daylight. The H model IRL apparently is better than the D, though, so I guess DCS messed up? Also... Be aware that force correlate is not modeled realistically in DCS. IRL force correlate is very inaccurate, to the point of not being able to hit a 20ft tall building reliably. DCS turns it into a perfect-accuracy sniper rifle from 10 nm away. I won't judge you if you use it, but just FYI they're not used that way ;)

I have the same problem. I am not accurate at all with rockets, so I can't get reliable tank kills with them. I can't comment on the realism, because there are plenty of pilot-errors than can cause your rocket shots to be inaccurate, and I'm not good enough to say whether the sim models them poorly or if I need more practice. What I have read on these forums is that the M151 rockets are area effect weapons, great for killing soft targets and infantry, so the spread is actually helpful. In my experience, the MK5 on the other hand needs a direct hit to do anything to a tank, and I need more than a few of them to achieve a kill. As a result, the spread is detrimental. I almost never take MK5s on a mission, but I do take M151s when I expect infantry.

I thought realism was I priority in this sim, but I don't know anymore!

Press your pinky switch after a disconnect to reset. You should see "Ready" on the indicator light in the upper right, not "Disconnect"

You're going to want to look at the 476th Combat Aircraft Fundamentals book starting on page 162 (175 in the pdf). It will answer all three of your questions. Find it here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=165469 To answer your questions directly: 1. There are attack profiles for less than 15 degrees and there are attack profiles for greater than 30 degrees. I'd say the max I've done a gun delivery is about 50 degrees. In other words, there's a wide range! If you're shooting something on a hillside, you could even be straight level, but most of the time I'd say I'm between 10 degrees and 45 degrees. (EDIT: By the way, AoA, or Angle of Attack, has to do with the angle between the relative wind and your wings. This is different from dive angle, which has to do with your direction of travel relative to the horizon.) 2. For most tanks, I shoot at .6 nautical miles (~3500 ft) in a 2 second burst (say "one thousand one, one thousand two" or "one potato, two potato" in your head while you hold the trigger down). The 476th book states that you should shoot at 3000ft slant range and stop firing at 2000ft slant range. On softer targets, you can fire at greater range. I have definitely taken 1.5 nm shots on trucks, and the 476th book defines very long range shots as 10,000 ft (1.6 nm) and beyond. 3. Around 150 rounds per target. I don't believe there's a rule that you should fire more rounds on tanks and less rounds on soft targets, even though you can get away with it in DCS. It has to do with the CEP of the gun and ensuring that enough rounds are put downrange to ensure hit probability.

I noticed that as well after the last patch. The first several times I heard it, I thought I had accidentally flown through my target's debris field or gotten shot by an unseen bandit. I really hate that ending click sound.

Are they correctable to 20/20 with lenses or laser? I've heard you can still make a pilot slot if so.

Haha. Yes. That one is good enough to start IMHO. It's lacking in many areas, but it's cheap enough that you can decide whether or not you want to invest more money into flight simming. I know several people who were enthused to start but later decided simming is too much work. Others go on to spend $100's, and in my case, DCS actually inspired me to start flight lessons in real life.

Bare minimum would be this T.Flight HOTAS: https://www.amazon.com/Thrustmaster-T-Flight-Hotas-Flight-Stick-Pc/dp/B001CXYMFS I flew on that for years before getting my TM Warthog. Is the TM Warthog completely necessary to fly? No. Does it improve the experience. Yes. Worth it if you are an A-10C fan. A bit overkill if flight sims are just a passing interest.

TrackIR is not just worth it, it is a complete game changer. As for VR, two people I know have already returned theirs after a couple months due to motion sickness. Not saying that will happen to everyone, it's just not for everyone apparently.

Best thing for me to learn the F-15 was to create a mission in the editor with a helplessly unarmed adversary so I could test different weapons and learn how to use everything. Don't forget to test both BVR and dogfighting abilities and weapon systems. Have the flight manual handy and practice as you read. Then add in a Mig-25 (the overrated aircraft the F-15 was originally designed to counter) and slowly increase its weaponry and AI level, then do the same against an Su-27 and then a Mig-31 and Su-33, then go to the instant action missions in 2.0 and 1.5.

Your screenshot looks right. That's the idle position. Here's my screenshot to compare

:doh: Dammit, you're right, Yurgon. For some reason I either skipped right over his post or mistook the track link for a signature. A track is worth a thousand paragraphs. Alright, I hate to break it to you, but this is not the trim-reset bug. It's actually your A-10 bumping into the tanker's refueling boom. On your first two or three approaches, you are too high relative to the tanker. It might not look it from the point of view of the cockpit, but the bottom of your nose is hitting the top of the end of the boom, pushing your plane upward. Here's a screenshot of the exact moment you collide with the boom, from an external view. No offense intended, of course!

That really does look like the trim bug... Can you reproduce the issue again, but do it with the "show controls indicator" on? By default you press RCTL+Enter to turn it on. You'll see an indicator in the lower left of the screen that shows you what your control inputs + trim are doing together. What I'm looking for is a sudden jump on the stick (diamond) when you connect, which would indicate that your trim is getting reset (which is a bug).

Hmmm, I suspect this could have something to do with a trim problem mentioned somewhere on these forums. Can you reproduce the issue again, but do it with the "show controls indicator" on? By default you press RCTL+Enter to turn it on. You'll see an indicator in the lower left of the screen that shows you what your control inputs + trim are doing together. What I'm looking for is a sudden jump on the stick (diamond) when you connect, which would indicate that your trim is getting reset (which is a bug). Someone on these forums noticed this happening upon landing under some circumstances, causing a balloon upon landing flare that is not at all a result of ground effect, bad flying, etc., but rather the game suddenly adding in a ton of nose-up trim on the flight controls.

Hi, Davewave*! In your case, you will probably see a greater performance increase by upgrading your graphics card. You already have a Skylake processor, and even if it is a Core i3 (and i5 is the usual go-to for mid-range gaming), it's actually your AMD R7 360 that is the bottleneck. I recommend looking at Passmark benchmarks here: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html You will see that your video card has a score of 3,137. A GTX 1070 has a score of 11,604. The 1070 is between 3 and 4 times as powerful as your current card. That's a very significant difference. If you look at the CPU charts, you have to dig a little to get the i3-6100's score, but it is averaging 5328 right now, compared to a Core i5-6500 scoring 7015, and is about $200 on NewEgg.com right now. A Core i7-6700 is scoring 9980, however that's not indicative of how DCS is going to take advantage of the hyperthreading. i5 vs i7 doesn't make a big difference in a lot of games. So a $200 Core i5 might get you 50% more performance, but a $450 GTX 1070 is going to get you 300% more performance. That's a better price per performance gain IMO.