Archer7

Depends on how good you are with a keyboard :thumbup:

So I forgot to laser designate the target? I think I activated the laser when trying the GBU-38 though. Auto-lase on and clicked insert. I searched the forums and found someone who said maybe my CDU alignment was wrong or something such and I did mess about a lot with the CDU during start-up because I couldn’t activate EGI until I reached the runway. So I may have messed something up then. I’m going to go through the start-up tutorial again to see how you align properly and then do the bomb training.

My GBU-12s are missing by 200m and my GBU-38s won't drop at all... I suppose the GBU-12s may have missed because I didn’t lase? Do they need laser assistance? With the GBU-38s I was master armed, GBU-38s were selected, CCRP mode activated and when I flew over the target and “manual release” showed I held the weapons release button and still nothing… I ought to do the bomb training again I suppose. Completely failed a two-hour mission because the bombs wouldn’t drop as told.

No stick yet. I am searching for a cheap Thrustmaster Warthog if I ever see one at about half off. Will have to spend a few days going back and forth between the default settings and trying new stuff with a keyboard. Switching everything at once left my muscle memory awfully clueless.

:doh: You mean resetting the TGP to pointing straight forward? Not something I do a lot yet. If I want it to point somewhere I usually drop a SPI and slave everything there. Maybe I'll find a binding for it though. What does switching between VHF FM/AM/UHF mean anyways? Is it the same as simply turning them on which by default is LSHIFT/LALT+Num-/+? I just remembered that... I suppose I should bind that to somewhere, maybe 123 or something close to the F-keys that are used for communications anyways. What does the pinky more specifically do though? I've never used it and there is a light switch on the forward left dash. Not the same? I have noticed CMS running out quickly so I suppose I should learn them. I just remembered where the flaps switch is... I watch it every now and then d'oh :doh:

Hey, I'm a keyboard keybinding monster and am working on intuitive A-10C bindings. I’m going to share my current work on my bindings and in the meantime anyone else can share their bindings if there’s anyone else here who is too wealthy for a cheap joystick and too cheap for the Thrustmaster Warthog… in other words a true, tested keyboard jockey. First of all I moved flying to [WASD] because it allows me to have nose-wheel steering or the rudders on [QE] or [ZC] depending on what turns out the most convenient with wheel brake on X and autopilot and ejection on [QE] or [ZC] depending on which ones are available. Trimming is [CTRLWASD]. (This was not strictly necessary as I ended up with my [arrows] unbound and bound the coolie switch to them, with the coolie switch easily fitting elsewhere. Maybe I will switch steering back to the [Arrows] to clear up the entire main keyboard cluster for other stuff, we’ll see eventually.) I bound the Coolie switch to the [Arrows]. All the other controls are on the Numpad: Slew on [2468], DMS on [CTRL2468], Boat on [153] and China Hat on [79] and TMS on [0,ENTER] with TMS Left unbound. I have the engine controls on [LALTRALT] with [*] for on or [/] for off. [+-] to throttle up/down and [LALTRALT] with [+-] to throttle only left/right up/down. (If I move steering back to the [Arrows] I might switch [LALTRALT] to [RALTRCTRL].) That was I have all HOTAS commands except for TMS Left, CMS, MIC and Pinky switch. Do I need them? TMS Left I believe only starts warning sounds? CMS I have on auto, is that a horrible thing? I don’t understand the function of MIC but have to my knowledge never used it, yet. Pinky only changes your exterior lights apparently… can’t this be done on the left front dash? Oh and one more thing: air brakes. I still haven’t used them a lot and will try binding them to something once I get a good feel for how they really work. I’m going to experiment with this set-up. I may end up moving flight and steering controls and the Home cluster is intentionally free because I have Home, End, PgUp and PgDn bound to my mouse and may stick some miscellaneous stuff there (click cockpit on/off) for convenience. I’m also going to try binding air brakes, CMS and maybe TMS Left to something eventually. Oh and trigger on [space], weapons release button on [RALTSpace], master mode control button on [M]… unchanged. Oh and one more thing! Flaps… how do they work? I haven’t seen any cockpit buttons for them and nothing on the HOTAS. I’m assuming there’s a cockpit button I’ve missed and I’ve considered them to be non-essential bindings yet. After all of this I’ll get down to all non-essential commands such as camera, flaps, gears, kneeboard and whatever other useful I can find.

I am not familiar with EAC yet. Glad to hear it exists though. There is a built-in mission called Hideout with a very detailed mission briefing that tells you to circle in an area. That would be hell with keyboard controls and no autopilot. I was thinking of trying that mission as soon as I have changed my keybindings up to something more intuitive. Indeed missions are a lot of fun when they work.

Hey, I heard that maybe someone would be interested in flight training in multiplayer though I can’t see any such thread or even a multiplayer subforum around. Am I missing it somewhere? Nevertheless I’ve been flying the A-10C for a while and just started with BS2 and would definitely want to join in if there is any such multiplayer training event or someone wants to go one-on-one with it. I can fly the A-10C alright and complete a basic mission but not much more than that and the BS I can barely get off the ground. I’m in no hurry. Edit: ahhh, here's the multiplayer subforum apparently.

Indeed it is a simulator... except it doesn't simulate being able to ask anyone on the ground what the hell they want you to do :p Thanks for all the info. Tanks are same colours as trees in the targetting pod but I'll see if I can find a setting to change that.

Can someone explain what Wingman, Flight and Second Element are? I'm still unable to contact JTAC. What keypress to use? The only things I can contact are ATCs and AWACs and I don't understand one thing the AWACS ever say... bogey dope? Some guys chatter about tally bandits but I don’t know what that means either. Is any of this detailed somewhere in any of the manuals? Also when I’m up to the fifth mission or so I’m supposed to “attrite” some unit and the target area is empty… after going down really close to the ground I was able to spot a few anti-air guns but my bombs couldn’t hit them and I’m not even sure if they were the objective. As a game DCS doesn’t make it easy on you. I can fly and I can do some basic bombing and everything the tutorials taught me but the campaign adds quite a lot of unexplained detail. Maybe all I should worry about is complete the objective and bomb whatever enemies I happen to see but I feel maybe one of the guys I can contact could at least help me spot the enemies? Isn’t that the JTACs job? At least flying is intuitive. I’ve tried BS2 some and all I do is spin around on the ground, wobble to death or have the helicopter fly around wherever it wants without any input.

DCS World needs 13GB space. How much extra will the A-10C and BS2 modules need? Will the total install be bigger or smaller than having A-10C and BS2 individually? Edit: it came down to 13GB including A-10C, BS2 and the free modules. Nice!

I do have BS2.

I don't have enough disk space for all three though... I suppose I can clear some space soon but what's new in World? Anything I will notice immediately? In that video I can see the pilot, isn't that new?

So do I uninstall A-10C and BS2 first then download World? Or do I download World directly and then they come together automatically? Also currently I only have about 3.5GB free space on the disk I intend to install the games on. A-10C takes about 7.0GB and BS2 8.5GB of that. What will World + A-10C/BS2 need?

Hey, I have DCS A-10C and BS2 and all along I've heard that you're supposed to get the Su-25T (and now there's apparently that other airplane too) and on the DCS website they mention version "1.2.8" of something though I'm only using the latest versions of A-10C and BS2. If I were to guess I would assume I have not installed “DCS World”? What happens when I do? How big is the install? Am I missing out on updates to A-10C and BS2? Can all the different games be started using DCS World instead of using separate executable shortcuts? :huh:

Oh, about the mission planner... how do I use it? I've clicked mostly all buttons but never seen anything about being able to change your weapons so I've always went with the default.

Hey, it's no secret that the first Georgian Hammer campaign mission can be completed basically any way you want to. As long as the bridge is destroyed it’s a complete win, apparently. However winning by any means isn’t very enjoyable. At one time or another something always goes sideways when I’m playing the mission so now I’m asking how to execute it as intended. It seems that there’s a lot more to the mission than the game tells you about! When I went through the mission today I did a completely solo job and everything worked out nicely however as I’m going down the runway at the start of the mission the ATC tells me all of a sudden the runway isn’t clear and I nearly hit the other A-10. When I go down he starts chanting at me to join him constantly, or maybe that’s me chanting at him. Anyways there seems to be some issue with this guy. After completing the mission I also noticed our guys only destroyed about a quarter of the enemies. My mission was actually not only to destroy the bridge but also to assist the guys on ground if I’m not completely mistaken. How do I go about doing that though? I’ve never been able to contact anyone except for the ATC. Meanwhile there are ground units, other A-10s, AWACS I believe… how do I get in touch with any of these guys? Here’s how I went through the mission today: Contacted ATC. Activated Mavericks, targeting and CMS. Went up in the air. Gears up, flaps down and arm weapons on. Desperately tried to trim the aircraft to stop slow tilting. Went to waypoint two while ascending to about 8000 ft. Bombed the bridge. Went home, contacted ATC, touched down, taxied and shut down. Anything to change? It is quite sorry how the game doesn’t evaluate your mission skills in any greater detail.

Sounds interesting! The hardest thing about starting games blindly is learning what you have to learn. That's why I wish the game came with better tutorials. Even if they blew they would give me an idea of what to learn. The qualifications may give me something concrete to aim for. If anyone else has similar frameworks to work by bring them on! Why don't I simply play the campaing until I hit a wall? Because there are insufficient walls. You can complete the first mission without setting up your comms and ending it by crashing your A-10C into the ground and ejecting out of it... and it still counts as some sort of "win"... I'm on summer vacation and can easily spend a whole day straight playing games... so I do usually get good at doing things quickly. A-10C is by far not the only game I'm playing though.

Actually I checked the tutorial wiki out now and a lot of the sites are dead... I’m also unable to find any tutorial series that goes through everything in order… if they’re not systematic I might end up missing something. Not to mention you usually end up going through the same thing over and over again. Indeed it seems I’ll be going through the manual bit by bit, try stuff out and if something doesn’t work out well I’ll search for a specific video if there is one.

Hey, ten days ago I bought DCS A-10C Warthog and the training missions are easy however going into the campaign is going into a world of shit. I don’t understand the briefing… though start anyways. No instructions, can’t contact base… I continue up. Aircraft tilts, some other guy chasing me (Wingman?)… and then die terribly because countermeasures weren’t on. D’oh. After a few tries the first missions aren’t so difficult though I’m not at all satisfied with my awful execution. So is there any good tutorial video series, or even a more complete interactive tutorial series that I can download? Of all the missions included is there any where you start off on the ground with everything in the aircraft cold and objective to go bomb something easy with no time constraints? I could use a quite basic mission to train in. Then I could have the manual and YouTube videos open on my smartphone in my other hand while actually being in game. The tutorials in this game insufficient by the very definition of the word. I suppose it’s all going to make sense after I’ve gone through all the documentation… eventually. Edit: d'oh... double-checked the stickies now and saw that there was one with tutorials. Only saw the one with questions. Still: what's a good mission to train in?

Thanks for all the answers. It's good to know that the Huey/Magnificent Eight are more transport-y helicopters. How does that work? DCS doesn't have excellent graphics quality close to the ground from what I've seen and the character model in A10-C is comedic. Do the transport chopper modules also have higher quality soldier models? I can imagine the mix of high quality and ugly models would bother me and the BS sounds like more fun so I suppose that’s the one for me. Blowing stuff up hooray.

Hey, I'm going to buy a bunch of games soon and one or two DCS modules. I’ve decided on the Warthog because I’ve tried it and it’s quite nice… and quite cheap! Second to break the monotony of only flying on aircraft I’m going to buy a helicopter. Unfortunately (?) DCS offer three different helicopters and I can’t tell which suits me the best. There’s the aggressive Black Shark, classic Huey and Magnificent Eight. How do they compare? The Black Shark seems to have come out first (digitally) and seems to be more of an agile attack helicopter due to it being single-seat and all. Does it being the first in the DCS series mean anything bad though? The Huey seems more old-school which I would suppose means its less complex however it can also hold a whole bunch of guys which should make it more complex. Where does it end, cumbersome and difficult or fun and versatile? The Magnificent Eight seems even more complex capable of holding an entire crowd and with a whole myriad of switches. It is still in open-beta however and the website says not all switches are interactive though doesn’t specify which are. There’s also the cost. The Warthog costs $40 with an $8 bonus and the Huey/Magnificent Eight cost $50 each with a $10 bonus each. The Black Shark 2 is available in Sweden for $22. I’m assuming these bonuses are money that you get back as a store credit and can use for buying more games from the DCS store? If so the Warthog + BS2 would cost me $62 (with an $8 bonus available for the future) and the Warthog + Huey or Warthog + Magnificent Eight would cost me $80. All would cost $142 total. Is the Huey or Magnificent Eight worth the extra cost? Do any of the other DCS modules have interactive cockpits? I believe the Mustang does but I’ve heard there’s a World War module of some sort coming up and will wait until that is out to buy any WWII aircraft. Also is there any other flight simulator with more detail than DCS? Edit: DCS A-10C Warthog is also available marginally cheaper physically than digitally in Sweden... does the physical edition contain anything of value? The flight manual? Or only the disc and basic installation guide?