Archer7

Get a SteelSeries Sensei. Costs nothing and has more features than any other mouse ever will. About 1-5600 dpi in 1-dpi increments, acceleration, smoothing, whatever you want. The only negative thing is that the side buttons are very easy to click by mistake. It seems they change the side buttons in the wireless edition, but it’s expensive as hell. I'm currently using 1200 dpi. I suppose I'll go 2400 dpi when I upgrade to 4K.

In the DCS A-10C Warthog Flight Manual there is one detailed checklist and one condensed however they both contain errors/omissions... Do the training missions and take notes instead because they don't miss anything essential however if you want something more authentic google for checklists... I have a few. I'm also making my own because I feel the other ones aren't cutting it. Campaign missions usually start on the runway and all except three or so included stand-alone missions start on the runway or in the air but player made missions can start any way the designer wants to. I also have a real checklist, maybe we can practice it in multiplayer sometime :p I do enjoy the machinery more than the avionics of the A-10. All the switches are what sets DCS advanced modules apart from any other flying game I've played.

Thanks. CAS sounds like a lot of work in difference to mere bombing missions. Sounds fun.

What about the Georgian Hammer mission where you're supposed to CAS two groups to Montana and Vermont? It was my second mission now but I believe it’s a bit unpredictable what missions you get. On my first attempt I destroyed some enemies I happened to see until I was out of ammo then told the groups to go ahead and soon they were dead… mission over. On my next attempt I contacted the JTAC but only one of them tells you where one enemy is so that’s not very helpful… I destroyed it and told the groups to move ahead and soon they were dead again… I’m going to give it a third go and try to destroy both the one enemy group the JTAC mentions and try to spot as much other stuff as I can until I’m out of ammo then tell the groups to move ahead again… A nightmare mission… it seems you’re supposed to spot targets on the ground by yourself which I’m not very good at. May have to do the campaign over but odds are I would have a CAS mission again.

How are you supposed to execute the Snake's Head mission? I stayed as low in the valley as I could and thought you were supposed to but then when I came out of the valley I had about one moment to spot the target, mark and bomb him which was easier said than done so all I managed was some gunshots then the myriad of soldiers on the ground hit me several times and I was dead. Are you supposed to go up to high altitude and continue north once you leave the valley then turn around and bomb the smoke? Because going low with all those soldiers on the ground was suicide…

Why does the anti-collision switch spring back to aft sometimes during start-up? I believe I've had the EAC switch do the same thing despite everything being set up as should but then when I click and hold and ALT+C twice they stay on even and don’t spring when I’m doing other stuff... Unless I can get a sound explanation for the anti-collision switch I would believe this is some sort of bug… otherwise the EAC thing maybe just was some minor, unpredictable technical miss. Does having the pinky in the wrong position actually make it impossible to set the switches in the correct position? I thought it only ignores whatever setting you do set.

I have had a quite mess of early campaign missions, training, the quickstart, early campaign missions, instant action, missions and being through parts of the various manuals. In the end here’s what I wish I had done: 0) Upgrade to DCS World. Not a world (get the gist?) of difference but you can’t spin the camera Exorcist style anymore and the graphics get a small upgrade. 1) Play the training missions. 2) Write notes on how to start up and shut down in accordance with the training. (Note: both checklists in the flight manual have some important omissions) 2) Understand the quickstart guide. 3) Try the stand-alone mission Hideout. Watch Hideout videos online in case you get stuck somewhere. 4) Start going through the DCS User Manual, A-10C Warthog Flight Manual and the controls menu. Discover commands such as the very useful kneeboard. 5) Do the training missions, Hideout and first instant action mission as many times as you have to then start the campaign. Also if you’re not dying to get into the campaign immediately (don’t expect it to be as detailed as Hideout anyways) it would be cool to complete Sabre’s flight qualification campaign (costs $10-15 bucks extra) first to earn your wings. I still haven’t tried Sabre’s campaign but I should get to it soon. Hideout is a very detailed starting mission that’s quite slow and there’s basically only one dangerous enemy to worry about. It has the detail of a campaign mission plus some extra briefing, nice detail while you taxi, conversations during the mission, other aircraft support and area and altitude barriers.

The manual doesn't say much. Big numbers = XX00, small numbers = XX.XX. During start-up I set the big numbers to the airfield altitude. During descent I set the small numbers to whatever the ATC tells me. All wrong maybe? It’s when I’m supposed to use 29.92 I don’t get at all anyways. You said to use it when above 6000 ft. but how do you know when you’re above 6000 ft. though? Am I supposed to be looking at the HUD altitude or watch the altimeter? If I wanted to know my elevation I would watch the altitude displayed on the HUD so I’ve never had to use the altimeter. However if my HUD is shot out, which happens, I have no idea how high I am which is why I should use the altimeter as a back-up, no? Isn’t it designed to tell me about how high up in the air I currently am? Maybe the altimeter isn’t for measuring altitude though?

I think I understand. At the start of a mission I set my altimeter big numbers to the runway altitude. When I descend they tell me a value that I adjust the small numbers to so the big numbers are 0 on the runway. So I have the sea level as zero until descent. What about the standard barometric pressure of 29.92? When do I set the small numbers to it? Whenever I’m above 6000 ft.… according to… which altimeter… and only if I desperately want it to be accurate so high such as if my other altimeters break? And it’s only accurate up to 9,999 ft. since it doesn’t go any higher?

I’ve only been through parts of it yet. This weekend I’ll be travelling though and maybe I’ll go through the whole thing. Until then I thought I might as well ask here. I would have browsed through it for the information but thought there wasn’t a chance that they included the radio model names in there. Seemed like a pretty unimportant detail but apparently it’s in there. I don't mean to be rude with my questions either. I'm currently learning all the switches so if I have some other question it's easier to ask than snap out of my switch mania and I'm not forcing anyone to answer anything.

Should NON526 (Installation of second AN/ARC-210) also be ignored? I'm also not sure what I'm supposed to set the altimeter to. In one mission the airfield is about 1500 ft elevated and by default the altimeter reads 900 and the small digits 3000-something... should I set 900 to 1500, or 0 and what does the 3000 value mean?

I selected the bombs not using the DSMS... I'm watching the track now and I did configure the all profile settings properly and save while on the ground. Yet some time later after dropping a few bombs and them not hitting I went into the profile settings pages again and nothing was configured... Oh, I just remembered though! When I went out on the runway I had one of those downloads (momentary master caution etc.)… I’m not sure why I got that in the first place (wrong side of the runway?) as you normally get it after touching down not before going up but I’m quite sure that was after configuring all my settings anyways. I can see now also that I accidentally selected the BDU-33s using the DSMS. Does that explain all settings going back to default though? I dropped two-three bombs, then went to the DSMS and all settings were unconfigured… so unexpected. By the way they were set to SEM I believe and N/T... I dropped them from 10k ft... I don't understand all of the settings available so maybe I should have changed something there? Anyways going to try again and see if I notice anything strange.

I had another annoying occurrence of bombs not hitting anything at all just now. It was the Black Sea free flight mission where you have BDU-50s and 33s… I don’t get it… It seems at some point my DSMS settings went back to default so the ones that need guiding missed but I don’t understand why the other ones missed… saved the track though.

1) Commanding my wingman... how to? If I have enemies marked at my SPI, we're moving towards it at a few nautical miles and then I tell him to attack, will he? Today he gave me a complete cold shoulder and I would believe I was accidentally set to ATC communications… but I swear I heard him talk when we were on the ground… 2) When you’re out of bombs and down to the big gun, how do you use it well from above? Say >10’000 ft.? Are you supposed to stand on your nose or is it really only meant to be used in somewhat lower altitudes? What can you do about it anyways? Idle, speed brakes up? 3) The ATC, TACAN and ILS… where does the ATC want you to go? He tells you a direction and distance but only once and I can’t see any marker on the maps, nothing obvious on the ground and can’t get any of my instruments to point me to this point where he wants me to go before I make my way toward the runway. Meanwhile TACAN only points you to a useless point near the airfield? Aren’t you supposed to be able to use it for landing? ILS is the only thing doing anything useful since it tells me how high they want me to go and the AOA Indexer or whatever it’s called tells me the speed… but the pointers still seem to be directed straight at the airfield instead of anything useful. I try to ignore the ATCs directions and only use ILS to tell me how high I'm supposed to be but I feel maybe my landings would be smoother if I could use the instruments correctly. The ILS training mission cheats by marking the "meeting point" on your map and the TACAN training only tells you how to go to a TACAN beacon but not how to use it for any landing. Is TACAN only meant to direct you to the general area of the airfield? I'm also annoyed by how they say "runway this" and "runway that" so you set your course set knob but the runway is always pointing quite significantly in some other direction.

Why don't you play through the training missions using keyboard? They say both what you are supposed to press on a Warthog HOTAS and the keyboard equivalent for all commands in the training missions.

Aha and yes that's what I meant on the OBOGS.

Advanced Sniper Targeting Pod... wasn't sure if it had replaced the old targeting pod. And and the A-10C doesn't have OBOGS? D'oh...

When is DCS set? In other words what configuration is the DCS A-10C? How different is it from actual A-10Cs? I've heard it uses Software Suite 3 (instead of 7, maybe 8?) but all the cockpit hardware seems quite up to date to me. Don’t actual A-10Cs also have more HOTAS commands and a Slew Z-axis? Does the Thrustmaster Warthog have the Slew Z? Externally I’ve heard the AGP is used instead of the TGP today, maybe? Oh and HMCS, helmet mounted targeting basically? Also what does 518/NON518 mean in the T.O.? I thought it meant that it does not apply to the A-10C in DCS which makes sense since there are two OBOGS checks which of one is marked NON518 and one 518 so only one would be executed. However curiously the only instance of checking the oxygen supply and oxy ind test are marked NON518...

LSHIFT, LCTRL and LALT + P if I remember correctly. In DCS it's known as the Pinky switch, on the left side of your left throttle.

I would believe cocking comes from gun cocking. You know that thing everybody does in the movies that make guns go click despite guns not having needed cocking since the Wild West to my knowledge... sounds cool and makes the audience know someone is going to shoot though!

What about fast alignment though? Warning: some complete guesses based on vague information from a guy who doesn’t understand how alignment or the A-10C electrical systems work yet upcoming: During the cocking process you start up the aircraft as normal up to but not including taxi things but apparently including alignment, then you shut down the engines and electronics including the battery. Then when you start again, only if alignment was completed, you can use the fast alignment option which is visible on the CDU for 30 seconds after the start-up bit is completed. Now to the complete guess: alignment data is stored even with the battery off making the fast alignment option just as accurate as the complete ground alignment. So while the ground alignment calculates your position on the planet or whatever it does the fast alignment simply loads already calculated data which is how it only can take a moment… Maybe that’s not at all what alignment does and maybe the CDU can’t store alignment data and maybe I’m completely wrong about everything but based on an about 50 word description of fast alignment I’ve seen that’s what I understood :P I suppose I gotta try this out soon. If you do not align during cocking you're supposed to do a ground alignment or in-flight if you need to be in the air yesterday and have enough time in the air to align. By the way: "hot cocking"... did they ask themselves how sexual they possibly could make something sound without it being sexual? :P

No offense but do they even make new cards with less than 2GB any more? Based on Swedish data the most popular graphics card with 1GB graphics memory to have come out in 2013 is placed 50 overall in popularity. Apparently the non-Ti 750 only has 1GB memory but it’s barely even on the charts nor have I personally heard of anyone using it. I’ve heard of few instances of 750 Ti gaming even. The most popular cards are 760s, 770s, 780s, 780 Tis, R9 280X, R9 290 and R9 290X in no particular order. This data is based on interest not sales but I can confirm after having been in buyer’s threads for nearly a year up until the start of this summer that the 760s and 770s are to go-to cards for gaming. I stand by what I said about water cooling. It’s been a while since I googled water coolers but unless something new has come up there is still none that can outmatch Noctua coolers such as the NH-D14 in benchmarks. This is based on a multitude of data from the casual overclocking scene and with water cooler sets such as the Corsair Hydro series, not custom built water coolers which I have not studied and may very well be stronger. I’m currently on water cooling because I wanted to try it out but next time I will definitely go with air, because it’s 50% the cost, cools as effectively and I’m under the impression it is also a bit quieter. And yes, what I said about dual monitors and graphics memory is that I don't have any idea because I have never tested a multi-monitor set-up and never been interested in one (because of the seams) so I have never looked into how one big monitor compares to several smaller ones in terms of memory use. If I had to buy a card without spending a few days searching for benchmarks about graphics memory use in multi-monitors set-ups on the internet I would buy a 4GB card if I was using more than a 1920x1200 screen though. I’m already aware 2GB can be insufficient even in Full HD in the case of modded Skyrim, or so I’ve heard countless times. By the way 2GB graphics memory may not be a minimum for DCS, which uses an engine a few years old and not at the height of graphic fidelity.

Ofcourse, when you have mastered any rule you can break it but it's good to have some reference in case your mind blanks etcetera. Cocking is cool concept. I've seen cocking procedures in the manual but didn't know what it meant so I scrolled by it. Seems there are directives for cocking with engines on, engines off but APU on, APU off but with the pilot still in the cockpit and with the pilot out of the cockpit. Then you can "scramble" with only 34 steps instead of 100+ and use fast alignment, or if you scramble without having cocked you can align on the ground or in the air. I take it scramble is an emergency speed-start? It would be interesting with some missions starting with your aircraft cocked... that way you could start up quickly and be realistic :blink: He only meant it doesn't take as long to align, I believe. Also I believe there's some sort of quick alignment option using stored data or something such?

I just noticed that the flight manual says DIM/FLASH and taxi lights optional during taxi, STEADY/Anti-collision ON during flight and landing lights on during landing. It doesn’t say if you’re supposed to be on BRIGHT or DIM during flight but I suppose BRIGHT because no other situation seems to call for it. Then I suppose they should be the same during landing as in flight except with landing lights on and taxi in same as taxi out. Edit: oops... the big TO calls for BRIGHT/FLASH during taxi home. Not sure what else more.

I heard you simply wave to the crew chief or something such, not call ATC. Bunyap says so in his videos. Maybe you communicate with the crew chief via UHF? >_> I don't know.