Art-J

I don't use Steam for DCS, but just searched their store and the upgrade to N2 is available, isn't it? Not sure what's more profitable for you though - getting a refund for N1944 (if still eligible that is) and buying N2, or sticking to upgrade option. You'll have to calculate it.

As noted above, it's an issue with flat shadows option. I've seen the same problem being reported in Mi-8 as well. Might be worth checking out other ex-Belsimtek modules to see if they're also affected.

Apparently that's how wartime Gs were rigged. Our K has the same trim curves implemented in its flight model as a compromise, 'cause similar data for K is not available, while both airframes are similar enough. So, unless someone discovers actual trim charts for K, that's the intended implementation for now. More on the subject here, and in the linked discussion thread:

I honestly don't recall the diluter pump ever to make any sound, even in 1.2.xx-1.5.xx era. Booster pump and primer - yes, diluter - no. Need to search some very old youtube videos to confirm I guess! Moreover, as discussed recently in the other thread, its seems to be non-functional in the Mustang now after the cooling system revisions. At least I haven't noticed it doing anything two or three OB version numbers ago (while it used to drop the pressure VERY effectively long ago). Would have to test again in the latest version.

They're still there allright, just in the other forum thread by Dmitri (the "Hard to pitch down" one). @DmitriKozlowsky It has to be honestly said you come off as a person who's first to argue and rant about something, but doesn't bother reading manuals, or reading other player advices, or reading only few of them. Maybe it's a wrong impression, but that's the one you give with your posts. While I agree it's more difficult to learn something from vague and non-quantitive descriptions like "short" or "a little", there are things you rant about both in this and the other thread, which are explained and shown in the manuals as literally as possible - if you only read them. I don't own I-16 module, but for all other DCS warbirds the following notes apply: a) All warbirds that have trims, have also some trim indicators in cocpkit or markings on trim wheels. These are all shown and described in manuals. Every manual also says how much trim has to be applied for takeoff; b) All warbirds have some flap indicators, either in cockpit or on wings. These are also shown and described in manuals and the manuals say how to operate flaps and what flap settings must be used for takeoffs and landings; c) All warbirds have some form of manifold pressure gauges. What units these gauges are in is irrelevant. Inches/PSI/ATA/mmHG/whatever - the manuals say this or that number of units of manifold pressure is required for takeoff, climb, cruise. Same for engine RPM. All in plain numbers, you just have to memorize/note them and follow them. Most of procedures in DCS warbird manuals are copy-pasted from real life, historic manuals, so you won't find more detailed instructions anywhere. Moreover, videos from guys who recorded takeoffs with Ctrl-Enter window enabled at least show you approximately how much aileron/rudder/brake they used. Although not perfect resource, that's as direct and literal as one can show in a video, what else do you want? Instead of doing 100+ unsuccessful takeoff attempts with probably wrong technique (you know what they say - it's not smart to repeat the same mistake all the time and expect different result), maybe you should stop after 30, read other players' advices, watch these videos, and then come back to the plane and try a little different approach? You have to put in some effort, but do it smarter. Reading the manual or Chuck's guide first is a must, at least chapters about cockpit instruments and takeoff & landing procedures. You might also experiment with takeoff help slider in special options. I would not recommend using it, because it causes conflict with your ruder inputs and teaches you bad habits in the long term, but some people prefer to learn a new module with it switched on. In the end, maybe taildragger prop planes are indeed just not something for you. In real life not all training pilots get cleared to fly them either. Some never manage to learn how to handle them and stick to tricycle landing gear planes instead and that's OK. In DCS, the fact that Mosquito doesn't have a tailwheel lock doesn't help either. As I said, I don't own I-16, but have read it's quite difficult on the ground and not a good plane to train in. If you really want to learn taildraggers, spend more time with Mustang then, it's the only warbird in DCS that has a steerable tailwheel and, unlike in Il-2GB series, that feature makes a huge difference here and helps novice pilots a lot.

Exactly same config here. I'm on 2 x MSAA only now (previosly didn't even use that, used Reshade FXAA instead), but that's because maintaining minimum 60 fps is much more important for me than shimmering. I can live with it, though I understand some people can't stand low AA. It's all subjective matter.

Who knows, maybe Barthek will take on the Winter challenge someday, after he's done with his Spring/Summer/Autumn work for Normandy 2.

Whenever you make any single change to default controller bindings, the game must save the info about difference you made from defaults. It does so in files with .diff.lua extensions, created for this purpose ("diff" for "difference"). If you open one of these and take a look inside, you'll see it just contains the info about what exactly you changed. If you make no changes, there will be no differences from default bindings and thus no .diff files.

About the mixture levers, the plane was equipped with automatic mixture regulators, which could either maintain rich or weak. So in practical terms the levers had only fixed positions (similar to US planes, but two positions in this case) and you can forget about them for now, unless you really want to practice saving fuel during cruise. Follow razo+r's advice about the rest. The plane isn't very difficult or unusual to liftoff really and doesn't require flaps as long as airspeed and trim are correct.

^ What Saburo said. If you fly fast enough (pulling out of a dive at low altitudes for example), ram effect can even boost you up to 75" for a while! That's a bit risky territory, though, and one needs to keep an eye on oil and carb temps to avoid engine damage. 64 is just rated and safe limit. Do some "torture testing" yourself and see how far you can push it at various airspeeds and altitudes.

Gone or not, mind you it was made for Normandy 1, so it wouldn't work with current version anyway.

Not a skin maker myself, but I've noticed the website says official template dates back to Dec 2016 and that would mean it's just not compatible with current DCS anymore. Somewhere in 2019 Sabre and MiG-15 switched from spec maps to roughmets, so there's you answer, partially at least! When that happened, guys doing custom Sabre skins had to redo all their older ones, and make new ones using their own unofficial templates. I don't know if SkateZilla's template (the one in a sticky thread) is up to date, but maybe there's one from Jocko, Rick, Reflected or SubZero available somewhere. I don't remember to be honest - look around the User Files section. Or maybe some good soul will post a relevant link here. Good luck!

@jackd Rudel and I are talking about the standard C:\Users\[Your profile name]\Saved Games\DCS.Openbeta\Missions folder, which was automatically created by the game when you installed it and where all missions created in full or fast editor go by default. You don't create it, it should already be there, and that's where you're supposed to place any custom missions.

1) The "Missions" folder for custom stuff is supposed to be in C:\Users\.... etc.... etc.\Saved Games\DCS location, NOT in the main game folder as shown on your second screen; 2) Do you own and have installed all the maps and units required by these missions? They won't show up otherwise.

Yes, post a short track please so that the guys using Open Beta can check if the Monday update fixed the issue. If it did, you will just have to wait until Stable catches up to the same version number.

Are these screenshots from the latest Stable or Open Beta? The last OB apparently included some tweaks which are supposesd do improve the ground shadows. The problem is discussed here:

I'd rather disagree here. The whole point of introduction of radiator doors automation in Mustang (one of the first ever US planes to have this modern feature) was exactly to forget about them. And now in DCS, after recent revision of cooling system modelling, the same applies to our sim as well. When we spawn with them in auto, we already do hear they work when they start closing. I doubt they can fail without combat damage anyway (never in 9 years of flying that bird in DCS have I encountered such failure, but then, apparently "random failures" option in DCS has been somewhat buggy for a long time and doesn't affect all modules - maybe P-51 is one of them?). Thermostatic auto control used to be somewhat too slow and ineffective indeed before aforementioned revision, but now it's pretty much impossible to overheat DCS Mustang unless one really, really, REALLY wants to do it on purpose, or does something silly like leaving the doors in manual-closed position and forgetting about them - one more reason not to fumble with them in the first place in my opinion. I get that real life operators of these very expensive warbirds tend to play it super-safe and often keep the doors manually open on the ground. Thus I can understand some players do it in DCS for immersion reasons, but that's that - there is no single practical benefit of doing it in the sim otherwise. Auto-mode is there for a reason. That's also why I consider all-manual P-47 vastly inferior in this regard and I find it puzzling that Republic started implementing cooler door automation only in the last model of the Jug.

@LooseSeal Sorry you took it this way and that I might have come across a bit blunt, but the fact is - the updater cannot and will not create a separate clean install of DCS inside existing copy, and neither will the game installer, unless told so by the user. So whatever happened in January, the game didn't do it by itself. Nobody can say what happened from these screenshots alone, but it's not important anymore really. They are helpful for figuring out how to clean up the game though. Again, It seems there's a duplicate OB copy (probably clean without modules judging from its size) inside another one, probably bigger, the one you used to play previously I'd guess. How big is it? Can you launch it successfully from its own bin folder? If you can, does it show your purchased modules? Then, as silverdevil suggested, let's narrow down which copy your desktop and start menu shortcuts point to now. You'll be able to adjust them as necessary and dump the duplicate copy then.

^ That tends to happen when you get any connection and authotization problems while logging into the game. Did you have any recently? Should never happen otherwise. Make a backup of your Config/Input folder and options.lua file. Will make getting back on track faster if such shenanigans happen again.

Keith, I think everyone understands the nature of your workaround and it's awesome, but still - unless ED reaches to you (or any of the guys who propose various workarounds in this thread) to adopt the customized json as an official file in one of next OB updates, then all this magnificent work presented here is drain-worthy waste of time for average DCS customer, 'cause these NM skins just won't look correctly in the game. The fact that even NL didn't get a proper response from the team about this issue is concerning.

You tell us, we don't know . The game installer would never do such thing by itself. Must be result of some botched install/reinstall attempt of yours, with wrong folder pointed as destination. Did you try to create a second, separate DCS MT install back when it went live months ago? Looks like you might have. Anyway, this "internal" copy is small, 130 GB sound allright for a barebones DCSW with no payware modules in it, that's why you don't see them I suppose. What version number is displayed when you launch the "external" DCS and what when you launch the "internal" one? I'd hazard a guess the former is much older (that's why it doesn't even have a bin-mt in it) and it contains your modules, while the latter is newer, but, as I said, it's empty. Personally, I'd delete that "internal" copy. I'd also delete all these "_backup.0xx" folders created whenever the dcs_updater.exe detects any custom mods in the main game directory and moves them to the "_backup" folders to keep the main one clean. You've got quite a few of them and they don't serve any purpose now apart from using up disc space. I gather you install custom mods just by copying them into your DCS? I strongly recommend using popular mod managers instead to enable and disable custom mods at will when the patch day comes, and avoid creating such a mess. Then I'd do an update, plus slow repair & cleanup of the "external" copy again to bring it to the latest version number and tidy it up properly.

I recall the Hip reflections issue shown above was exacerbated by one of shadow settings, though don't recall which one exactly. Might be worth experimenting. I don't own the F-5, so can't comment on it, but wouldn't be surprised if it was a similar problem.

He's got a point, though. If this thread was just about making custom skins look better, than anything goes, including deleting or modding any files necessary. They're custom content after all. But many of the tweaks suggested here are off-topic / irrelevant in the competition which is about stock skins that are all supposed to work out-of-the-box for all DCS customers, without touching any files. At least that's what the current situation is, unless ED does the last-minute update of their official json and template (which with every passing week seems more unlikely?).

Rudel has been showing his once-private work on A6M5 external model for years, and talked about it in their last year podcast, so I agree AI version seems to be a possibility in 2023-24. Flyable one? Nah, I wouldn't count on it, not in upcoming years at least. We've been shown their next projects already: Crusader, some form of MiG-21 refresh and undisclosed "something modern under the tarp". When we add post-release bug-fixing of Corsair on top of that, I suspect they'll be too busy to fit yet another flyable warbird in that schedule. But after 2030? Sky's the limit ;). I don't mind either way. For me DCS is cheaper alternative for MSFS, so I don't need map or unit assets to enjoy just flying particular aircraft. In my opinion there are too many issues with AI warbirds in DCS to make them useful in combat missions anyway. And that's core problem of the game only ED can solve, M3 guys can't do anything about it. Thus, for me, If Corsair comes only with that carrier and Japanese tanks shown in WIP screens - great. If they add something more - even better. I do understand, however, some guys would prefer more thorough package for that 60-70 bucks.

There's nothing "arcade" or wrong about modelling any region as it looks today rather than how it looked 50 years ago. Easier for any dev to get reference data. If OneReTech figured they only had time and resources sufficient for modern Sinai then that's that. The map was never advertized as historic version of the region. Maybe they'll make such version someday, but until then this whole thread belongs in the wishlist section really.