Xavven
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Posts posted by Xavven
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I don't want to argue in this topic but I'm sure I recall someone stating armour needs at least a direct hit from a 500 lb or a 2000 lb in close proximity to be destroyed.
But a 500 lb 20 ft away might cause enough damage to disable the tracks, the main gun, and the machine gun on top I guess.
Oh how I would love to see damage modeled like this for ground units! Eagle Dynamics has done an absolutely stellar job with modelling aircraft damage, especially with the advanced flight model. It seems like a lot of work, which is probably the only reason they haven't done it already, but disabled tracks, engine, etc. would be awesome!
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I guess Eddie should start charging to view his posts on weapon delivery.
Seriously, there's enough free content between the manual, youtube, and these forums right here. Thus, in my opinion the market price for most knowledge on this sim appears to be $0. This is why some people are calling out the pay-for-training missions as possibly a bad deal or maybe just bad form on the author's part.
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Ooo... now THAT looks like a bug. I ran a quick test with a GBU-12 and tried to hit about the same distance away. It was an instant kill:
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It's something most (all) simmer who haven't gotten heavily into real world TTPs do. And it's one of those things where I've never really understood why the concept of always using positive G to move the aeroplane comes so hard to some.
Well I've only played DCS sims, but I can say that the A-10C tutorial doesn't tell you how to properly enter a dive like a real pilot would. It's just completely absent from any of the material that comes with the game. How is anyone supposed to know this stuff? The tutorial says, "enter a dive" and so my first reaction is, "okay, a dive -- that means down," and I proceed to do a negative G pushover, not knowing any better, and of course not being able to feel how uncomfortable it is since I'm in reality sitting stationary in my house. I'm just grateful to have a few military aviators hanging around the forums to fill those knowledge gaps.
I'm sure there are at least 1,000 more things I'm doing completely wrong in this sim (not being a real pilot and all) and about 990 of them I wouldn't even know that I was doing it wrong to begin with. But, learning new stuff is like 60% of the fun I get out of this, or I wouldn't be reading the forums at all.
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Flagrum, that bit I do know yet you still wrote a perfect confirmation. A SPI might not be needed for CCIP CR but I'm asking if it is possible to have the CCIP CR pipper auto designate the current SPI? So your chances of inaccurately designating the impact point via the HUD are reduced.
JayPee, CCRP is auto-designation of the SPI as the bombing target. Once you identify your target and make it your SPI, you've designated that as your desired impact point. Just switch to CCRP and follow the steering cues. There is no need to dive on the target and use CCIP CR to re-designate your desired impact point.
No problem. That thread is also one of the more awkward ones here on EDs and I intentionally linked that post only. It's quite well-hidden in there.(Ohh, I just see my signature. I didn't intend to hint at that at all, although the context might imply otherwise)
Yeah, I read that entire thread. The "flame war," while relatively mild, was painful to read, although this community is so much more mature and considerate than a typical internet forum. That said, we ought to be gentler to inexperienced people genuinely trying to learn, even when they don't get it on the first few tries. And we ought to be more gracious when those more experienced members are trying to help. :thumbup:
EDIT:
I forgot I wanted to add that there's a bug with CCRP right now. It miscalculates the release point and dumb bombs hit long of the target. Maverick Raptor explains this in detail and demonstrates the bug extensively in this YouTube video:
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You can always use your other MFCD.
Agreed! Don't forget you can change what MFCD pages are available by holding down one the bottom OSB buttons for a couple seconds. If one of my MFCDs goes out, on the remaining side I immediate put in TAD, TGP, MAV, and DSMS to finish the mission, so long as nothing else is seriously damaged.
Aside from engines and wings getting destroyed, I mostly just get pissed when EAC goes down. I'm soooo spoiled :cry:
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Your best bet is to read A-10s Over Kosovo. It details the real life accounts of the A-10A pilots of the 81st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, deployed to Kosovo in 1999. Here's the online version: http://www.scribd.com/doc/140933190/Haave-CF-and-Haun-PM-Eds-2003-A-10s-Over-Kosovo-Air-University-Press
Regarding your JTAC question, nobody expended ordinance without AFAC (basically a JTAC in the air) identifying the target first, and even then, sometimes AFAC had to get clearance from central command. While I haven't gotten specifics on exactly when and how far away striker aircraft first checked in with AFAC, their vul was very short (45 minutes at a time) and the pilots write a lot about making the most efficient use of their time, so I'm inferring it would make sense that they are exchanging other information about the target over the radios as soon as possible. AFAC then had to help the strikers get visual of the target by either describing the location using landmarks, or by marking with smoke. Bottom line -- contact JTAC before you reach your IP.
The ROEs had strict altitude limitations. The hard deck during Operation Allied Force started at 15,000 ft AGL and was eventually lowered to 10,000, and then finally to 8,000 and 5,000. The pilots indicated it was hard to spot targets from 15,000 ft AGL with binoculars, and cloud cover was a big factor in obscuring targets, but their central command set the altitude restrictions to keep their planes safe from air defenses by either staying completely out of range or by giving them more time to see and evade a missile launch.
The A-10 pilots felt they were at the most risk when performing the AFAC role because the radio and map work limited their situational awareness, so I think they stayed above 10,000 ft AGL while spotting targets. When engaging targets their hard deck was either 5,000 or 8,000 and they were still able to employ guns from this altitude. They accidentally violated the altitude restrictions because of a miscommunication, and went below 2,000ft AGL to engage a radar. They only did so because of the very low cloud cover.
Conclusion: they stayed as high as they could to avoid air defense, only going lower because of clouds and the ability to get visual on targets with 12x binoculars. Bottom line, they were ordered to stay above 8,000 AGL.
Weapon profiles
Rockets: These are area effect weapons, so I sometimes ripple pairs qty 4, but I can also fire singles and spam the pickle button.
Mk-82 unguided: Depends on the situation. The real pilots used singles to mark targets sometimes because their smoke was greater than WP rockets (and this is not modeled in the game!) There are accounts of them dropping pairs of Mk-82s and also accounts of rippling 4 against concentrations of vehicles.
Laser Guided Bombs: These were not employed by A-10s in Kosovo, so I can only tell you what I use and what the DCS flight manual recommends. I prefer CCRP, Auto-Lase on, and 12 second lase time, and drop from above 7,000 ft AGL. 12 seconds is the perfect timing, because if you lase too early or your bomb will fall short -- it tries to take a direct, straight line path and runs out of energy. If you lase too late the bomb will not have enough time to transition on target.
CBU-87: These are poorly modeled in the game (many threads touch on this point already) but if you must use them, I have had better success lowering the rotation speed to 500 RPM, but only because DCS did a bad job with modeling them. The default 1500 spreads too wide and then nothing gets hit even though in real life this could very well be effective.
CBU-97: The default HOF (height of function) works fine, but I know some people lower it. I'll defer to others since I don't use these often.
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Yikes... I don't think I'd want to help someone who lashes out like that.
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Interesting read, you have some experience in flight. Your avoidance of missiles needs work from the sounds of it. They are avoidable but it takes lots of practice.
You say you turn away. You do this to get your eyes on it? right? and jink like mad turning into it as it closes? with the intention of forcing it to work through its motor and get to the point where it has no energy for the hard turns you put it through?
Turns out, I do need some work on my SAM evasion. For starters, I took some advice from Ralfidude and switched my countermeasures to manual program C, and that's helped a lot. Igla MANPADS seem have good flare rejection on the wimpy program M, but if you drop about 40 flares on two runs of program C, they sometimes bite! :)
Getting eyes on the missile launch helps a ton when I can manage it, but if I can't spot it within 2 seconds, I just try to get the RWR missile symbol on my 3/9 line and pull some G's (with really close-in MANPADs it's sometimes too late for that and you have to hope your flares save you). Is it best to make a vertical jink or level turn? What works best for you?
Secondly, I've been reading A-10s Over Kosovo and I'm about 30% of the way through. It's been eye opening and has changed some of my negative impressions of the missions I critiqued above. Some of these A-10 pilots had the nerves to intentionally draw AAA fire in order to locate and destroy them. Now that takes guts... and here I am, too scared to do that in a video game.
On the other hand, the enemy SAM technology was also a bit older at the time the missions took place, in 1999. One SAM missed even when the A-10 pilots didn't notice the launch until pretty late and had little reaction time, and another actually hit but was a dud and didn't explode. From the book, it appears A-10s did destroy a fair share of IR SAM threats themselves even when they had F-16 and Tornado SEAD flights available nearby (which did make the Serbians afraid to turn on their SAM radars though!) I'm starting to take back my comment about A-10's not being a SEAD capable aircraft. I still don't get the impression it's their dedicated role, but they are certainly capable of it in the right hands!
One last insight from the book -- the A-10's had a 10,000ft hard deck and they still made gun passes. I am going to have to practice this, since I've been doing all of mine from a 20 degree shallow dive from 4000ft AGL and rolling out at, uh... 500ft or so :D Yeah... That's probably my problem right there...
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You are correct after rechecking the manual states that the crossfeed switch allows fuel pumps to feed both engine systems.
But the method I posted above still works. You can verify when on the ground by starting the left engine, then when that is running, shut off the APU and then try to start the right engine. But I cannot find anything in the DCS manual about crossfeed providing bleed air as well to the non operating engine.
And at the risk of getting too far off topic, it is an operating procedure to do a crossfeed start in the F/A-18 if the APU is shut down before both engines are spinning since you cannot start the APU back up within 5 (or 15?) minutes after shutting it off to avoid damaging it.
I don't know about the Hornet, but the DCS A-10C flight manual says not to start your second engine without the APU if you're on the ground.
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Any landing you can walk away from is a good one!!!!!.....in this case you both walked away, from the smouldering wreckage!!! lol..............
And you know what they say: A GREAT landing is...
The AI never goes to the end of the runway, the turn round and exit somewhere else..I also suspect that the AI is on a "track" of sorts and doesn't actually operating the brakes and wheel steering realistically. Watch them make 90 degree turns in F2 view -- it looks completely unnatural. This is probably how the AI cut off the player so quickly.
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The cross feed switch on the fuel panel is to allow both fuel tank groups to feed the same engine and thus stopping a fuel imbalance problem or if a booster pump fails you can open this valve allowing say the left booster pumps to feed both engines. I think it says to open the cross feed if doing a windmill start, but I'm not sure what advantage would be gained by doing this as the affected engine's booster pumps will be on anyway....
My best guess is that turning on crossfeed is a best practice when an engine goes offline because you're going to have the other at full throttle to keep you in the air. That engine is going to guzzle fuel and cause a fuel tank inbalance until you get the other engine restarted. Maybe this is a preventative measure, then?
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Apologies, I meant Manual. Semi is retarded for unknown threats. I think that what happens in Semi mode (Which will get you killed) is that, let's say you set it to a Delta mode, so you have some mix of flares and chaff, but very low amount and spread out quite a bit (So not a good amount for a quick getaway), and you are flying happily along, and then all of a sudden there is a missile launch without any radar contact. Well you press the CMS up button to dump chaff and flares, but the program selected is Delta and it hasn't changed from that because CMS doesn't have a goddamn clue what's shooting at you, it's the MWS system that's picked up the launch instead. So you die a horrible fiery death due to a lack of a proper countermeasure release.
Since I have started to use the Manual mode in Charlie by default, I have survived these surprise IR threat attacks MUCH better.
Thanks for the tip, Ralfi! I didn't realize semi-auto was so... dumb... I'm going to have to start trying this. I usually switch to program M because although I know preventative flares don't do jack in this game, I always run M on a gun strafe for realism's sake. Problem is, an Igla will launch and apparently semi-auto doesn't switch to a more aggressive program!
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and of course, he just stands there like nothing happened....
:lol: LOL! This part got me laughing pretty hard!
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Before I start, let me say this is not a "DCS A-10C sucks" post. I've put in more than 150 hours into the hog in the past 6 weeks (took a week off of work too :D) and this game is addicting and fun as hell. Flying custom missions with the online community has been SO AWESOME and I've barely played any other games since I got this. I want to provide some constructive feedback on the campaign and missions that came packaged with the game as of October 2013 in the hopes that mission designers can give us better content next time.
I am also prepared to accept constructive criticism about my flying skill. I realize I still have a lot to learn, and maybe I could beat some of these missions if I had some tips from you all.
However, I'm... not so impressed with the campaign and single player missions that came with the game.
Georgian Oil Campaign
My experience with the Georgia Oil campaign has been that the missions are flat. There seem to be two basic tasks, really: blow up this artillery behind enemy lines, or escort your 4 tanks through two cities infested with 40 enemy tanks. The latter is more of a "let your tanks stay put for 2 hours while you and JTAC kill all the bad guys on the map, then once they're all dead, tell them to roll out and wait 30 minutes for the map to end" kind of game. I'm stuck permanently on mission 9 in the Geogia Oil Campaign because the game crashes to desktop every single time (gave up after 3 crashes -- approximately 5 hours of flying down the drain.) :mad:
I know many will disagree with me, but I would have preferred a linear campaign instead of dynamic, because it gives the level designer better opportunities to write a story with characters and meaningful, tense situations. Operation Save Badger is an example of a community made linear campaign where I'm actually engaged in the story, character, and action. But if you're going to do a dynamic campaign, let all my kills persist (but I know this can't be done with the current campaign + mission editors).
Okay, now for my feedback on the single player missions:
CSAR.miz
Friendly SEAD flight doesn't clear out all air defenses. Rescue chopper gets killed by air defenses. Mission failure. Hum... well since the A-10 was not designed for the SEAD/DEAD role, what is the point of this mission when the AI SEAD isn't doing its job? I skipped this after 3 tries. I could easily win with labels on, but I feel it's cheating. I could easily win by un-caging my wingman with 6 mavericks, but his super-human, target-seeking Mk5000 eyeballs seem to be just as cheap/cheating to me as turning labels on.
Defend Camp Yankee.miz and Overwatch.miz
Incredibly AWESOME missions... until the MANPADS spawn. I swear, 200ft to 10,000ft AGL is like the death zone for the A-10C. As soon as I detect a missile launch, I break in the opposite direction and dispense whatever CMS semi-auto cooked for me. For some reason, this usually ends up as program M. I get torn up pretty badly by these things and the infantry launching them are virtually impossible to find. I could play DCS: GBU-12 from Angels 15 but it's certainly less visceral than flying below 10,000ft. Any ideas?
In the weeds.miz
Too hard for me. I can fly at 100ft AGL all day long pretty well, but doing that while pulling 3g turns and engaging targets... yikes. I still get multiple SAM launches on me and they're hard to avoid. Is this just my lack of skill? Any done this successfully and have some tips? I can't help but think an A-10 would never operate in this environment without it being sanitized first. Dunno if this was meant as a realistic mission or just as a practice/challenge map. In fact, I might try this mission again, but do it with AGM-65Hs and kill the long range SAM with force correlate from 15nm away at Angels 20. Then I can finish the map from Angels 20 and GBU-12s. Not exactly "in the weeds" though.
Midnight train to Georgia.miz
Is it just me or is this mission broken? I fly to WP4, JTAC says "no tasking available," So I fly north at 100ft AGL and get a bunch of SAM launches against me anyway, get hit eventually, and crash.
Kashuri Gap.miz
Good fun on this mission! However, the map designer set no mission "goals" so there's no way to tell when the mission is over. I suppose you should just leave when JTAC runs out of targets, but there are some JTAC bugs that make this hard to gauge. JTAC gets all wonky in this game when targets are neutralized before you finish reading back the 9-line, or calling IP Inbound, etc. Sometimes you have to check out and back in, but this doesn't always fix the issue (I'm left with "Ready for 9-line" and no response... ever... even with Easy Comms.)
Surrounded!.miz
This is a very fun mission with JTAC pointing out moving columns. The problem with this mission is that you run out of ordinance too quickly and have to fly home to rearm, even if you're smart about using your 30mm autocannon on some of the earlier, softer-skinned targets. Hell, I've even gotten good at taking out Shilkas on 1 vs. 1 gun strafing runs (fire at slant range 2nm, jink and break at 1.5nm). After rearming and getting back on station, I locked my TGP on the final convoy and saw it getting shot up by something. There's some friendly unit in the city (maybe even the JTAC itself) that I'm guessing is invulnerable but can fire at the targets, because shortly thereafter, JTAC said "Target destroyed" and "No further tasking available". Well I didn't kill it, and my wingman didn't kill it... So if there's an invincible super-killer defending the city, why the heck did they call me out there to begin with?
Hideout.miz
Ah, now THIS mission was awesome. It's an extremely tense situation with an SA-10 locked on to you almost the entire mission (SEAD apparently didn't want to destroy this radar). I'm assuming this was a Russian air defense basically saying, "you cross the Russian border, you die! There's a decent briefing and back story, and you have to fly in a tight area to avoid crossing into the wrong airspace and sparking a war. My one constructive criticism is that it's anti-climatic after you call the choppers in. Nothing happens, and you just fly home. A surprise attack on the choppers that you have to strafe would've been cool. That said, if the other missions had followed this mission's general example, I'd be much happier.
I'll provide feedback on the other missions as I try them.
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Another thing to try could be this... fly a blank map and set your hog to autopilot an orbit or straight & level. Don't touch ANY inputs. Just let the game run for 30 minutes and see if the handle pulls.
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Just been flying online and it happened again. Same thing.......R/H engine shutdown, and it's definitely the T handle being pulled that caused it as I had to reset it.
Thing is I don't know what control is pulling it. I've checked the control allocations and there are none set up to operate the T handles. When it happened I wasn't even using the mouse. Under normal conditions the only thing that operates these T handles is a R/H mouse click on the handle.
I tried to do an inflight restart on the engine several times but it refused to re start which was a little annoying.
I noticed a strange behavior with engine restarting in this game. If you're on the GROUND and repeatedly pull the T-Handle while an engine is at full power, it'll restart fine any number of times (remember to motor the engine for 30 seconds first). However, if you're in the AIR and you pull a T-Handle on an engine at full power, it seems to accumulate damage until a time comes where it will never restart (I can usually reproduce the issue after no more than three consecutive t-handle shutdowns + APU restart at 1000 ft altitude). And I know I'm doing the same thing in the air as on the ground as I purposefully tested this -- only difference being in the air I am running the other engine at full throttle. I think this is a bug, honestly.
Another bug is that the manual claims that to restart an engine, you can have it on motor for 30 seconds, then bring the throttle to idle THEN switch the engine from motor to normal. In actuality, you have to switch the engine from motor to normal FIRST, THEN bring the throttle to idle. Another bug?
Getting back to your original problem, it's time to do troubleshooting the old fashioned way -- process of elimination and problem localization. Some things to try include flying a stock mission, ensuring random failures is disabled in the options menu, disconnecting your computer's input devices one at a time (your MFDs, your flight stick, your mouse, your keyboard) to see if you can make the issue go away.
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Hi to everyone,
- Why SAM (for example SA-15 tor) always intercept the AGM-88 of my AI?
Can I fix this?
I can't answer your other questions as I'm inexperienced with the editor, but I can say that the Tor is one of the few SAMs in DCS that is able to shoot down incoming missiles consistently. In the A-10C, I always fire two AGM-65 Mavericks in quick succession at a Tor. The first one will always be intercepted, and the second usually gets through, even when the Tor is set to Excellent skill.
Unfortunately, I have never witnessed the AI adapt to this unless you throw so many SEAD aircraft at it that it runs out of missiles. Could I suggest using a different SAM instead? The two closest in terms of engagement ranges with semi-active radar are the SA-19 Tunguska (slightly less range) and the SA-6 Kub (slightly longer range but uses separate target acquisition and launch vehicles)
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Pulling of the T handle happens also when you try to chat online.
Unfortunately in all the infinite wizdom that is ED, you can still click things in the cockpit when you are typing. So a LOT of times I accidentally shut my engine off by pulling that T-handle because it is right in the spot where I have to click the TEAM tick off so I chat only to my team side, or when Im trying to find my mouse, because it turns into a black little invisible line.... I have the chat screen so much...
But this is obviously only for when you are trying to type, either than that, yeah, you are somehow pulling the T-handle.
PS: I believe pulling the T-handle ONLY cuts the fuel flow to that system, nothing else. The fire extinguishers fire off by the discharge button on the right of the T handles.
Oh my god, that's exactly the reason I suspected the T-Handles in the first place -- I pulled them THREE TIMES on the first day I played multiplayer. That got me using TeamSpeak real quick, let me tell you.
Yeah, I think we're on the same page regarding the fire extinguishers. They don't actually fire until you press the discharge button, but the T-Handle decides where it goes. You can put out any of the three engines with either of the two extinguisher bottles.
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Okay, I just got done watching your second track. Your right T-Handle gets pulled out after you drop your 8th GBU-12 (one of my favorite weapons btw.) Then your left T-Handle gets pulled while you're flying over the coast feet wet. I couldn't tell if it was an errant click -- check your key bindings and that should hopefully solve it!
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Your right T-Handle gets pulled out in the first track you posted, right after you target the armor on your TGP and click on an OSB on the left MFCD to configure your DSMS. Aside from directing the flow of the fire extinguishers, the T-Handle also cuts fuel to that engine.
I noticed you hitting OSBs without clicking before takeoff. Do you have an MFD panel accessory? Maybe one of your OSBs is misconfigured to hit the T-Handle.
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Hi Quirkitized,
first of all thank you for this very nice campaign.
***SPOILER***
I've just played mission 6.
Right at the end, when Uzi has landed, hostile infantry spawns in two groups.
In my case every group had the size of a platoon.
http://s18.postimg.org/4kjmb14ft/whatamess.jpg
I guess this is a bug? If it is a feature you should rethink it imho.
In reality they would have killed the Uzi Units in seconds...
Though it was a nice tracer-firework.
Thanks again for the time you have invested in this campaign, looking forward to what ever comes from you
I just finished the campaign today. Great work on the missions! It was really fun.
***SPOILER***
Yeah, the infantry was too much. In fact, I had so little ordinance left from taking out the air defenses that I had to make gun passes. My AI wingman refused to engage, so I actually didn't kill all the targets in time (should have packed some rockets, damn!) yet Uzi managed to blow up everything anyway.
I also had a problem with the final mission's ending triggers. ***SPOILER*** By a stroke of luck, I was lined up perfectly at about the time Jackal's APC spawned, and I killed it within about 20 seconds. The mission didn't end so I looked at the triggers. There's a problem with the win condition when you kill the APC too fast (specifically, the condition is that the APC is both dead and within a zone, but I think dead units don't count when the game checks to see if they're in a zone). Adding a flag can fix this issue pretty easily
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I leave it on for one reason only: finding my way to the correct runway on a ramp start. I swear these airfields need more signage! :D
Other than that, I try to navigate using the TAD and waypoints only. EXP 1 mode on the TAD is my favorite for staying oriented. If you need to get to an airfield to land and repair/rearm, go to the CDU and hit NAV -> Divert.
Is there anything in particular you have found difficult about navigating in the A-10C? There are a lot of experienced folks on these forums who could share some tips if you're interested.
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While changing my loadout from Paveways to JDAMs because I was operating in heavy rain and snow, I noticed a huge weight difference between these two bombs. In the game, a GBU-10 weighs around 500 lbs more than a GBU-31. This doesn't make sense intuitively -- could a laser guidance kit really weigh 500 lbs more than a GPS/INS guidance kit?
I don't know how reliable this is as a source, but this website confirmed my suspicion. It lists weights at the very last table at the bottom of the page.
Paveway II GBU-10 weighs around 2,110 to 2,130 lbs
http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app5/paveway-2.html
JDAM GBU-31 weighs around 2,085 to 2,162 lbs
http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app5/jdam.html
A couple thousand pounds can make a big difference. Could this use some rebalancing?
A-10C, much more vulnerable than it sounds to be ...
in DCS: A-10C Warthog
Posted
I can't wait for the new patch! There's a note in the pre-patch notes that say ED is increasing the effectiveness of HE rounds. I am wondering if that applies to CBU-87 submunitions and HEI rockets. That should make it easier to take out masses of infantry.