vicx

Just took all of the armour for a drive after binding the axis controls to my x55 throttle. First I'll make a comment on driverview. It is actually a lot cooler than I expected. It doesn't even matter that most of the CA models look pretty ugly in closeup; just being able to freelook is awesome and the POV just feels cool. It will be awesome when driverview works with the Rift. I think the tanks and IFVs have the potential to to be better with the Rift than the aircraft cockpits. Call it a hunch. The HUD for the driverview I did not like initially but I got used to it. I kind of understand why they made the info element smaller and have hidden it on the lower-right. Although the compass HUD in the top right doesn't really work. I like most of the new sights. I'll have to make a list of which ones are the best. Most of them feel like a WIP but already they are better than just having a HUD. The other big new feature is axis controls for vehicle acceleration, vehicle left/right, turret left/right and turret up/down. After binding these to my x55 throttle I have to say it works brilliantly. I strongly recommend binding all four available axii. On the x55 I used left throttle for tank acceleration with the rocker for changing gear and right throttle for turet up/down with top thumb wheel for turret l/r and bottom thumb wheel for tank l/r. The next most important control is the turret direction lock. It is genius the way you can lock the turret and fine tune the aiming with the turret axis controls at the same time that you close range and evade fire. I don't actually have to use the mouse much at all. It was a drag having to leave the cockpit and go into F10 view just to get a look at the map. It would be much better to have a moving map kneeboard in the driverview. This is one feature that is needed. Batumi to Kerch - maybe but we are gonna need a lot of AD.

The main problem with trying to nerf the other guys missiles is that it just makes people look at ALL the missiles. and then they come for your missiles. :fear:

Sorry Kontiuka. I corrected my post for TIR and Rift. I will test for the rift when I have time but it is not trivial to just jump in and test right now. I hope this support is there and it just requires configuration.

Guys do you have CA? Jump in vehicle and press Ctrl-C. If you don't have CA I wouldn't worry too much about this feature. It is just a bind for a driver viewpoint attached to existing driveable CA vehicles. Some of those vehicles have a driver cabin as part of the model and this bind puts you in a drivers seat position. You can look around with the mouse. * I assumed also with TIR and Rift but Kontiuka corrects me below * It is a just a novelty for users but potentially more useful for people who want to make a new CA vehicle or CA vehicle cockpit or who want to make a CA UI overlay for some vehicles that is driver specific.

Sorry no tracks or tacview I might revisit this but I'm hoping someone else will so I don't have to.

You could make a sniperish add-on for CA but it would probably not be sniperish enough to make it worth doing. The handheld and portable radios is something I would love to see in CA. Buz - I have to disagree with your crits of A3. Realism in A never came from the devs, it always came from the modding community. A3 is new so it will take some time before it is fixed the way that A2 was. The lack of vanilla servers is a feature not a bug. Some of those servers that aren't vanilla are running Realism mods. BI has also done a revolutionary thing by opening up the license on A2 content and sharing the source files so that they can be ported and modified for use in A3 and A3 mods. Imagine if ED did that and made the source for the Crimea map, the Caucasus map and all the AI planes available for modding. Minds would be blown. They probably can't do that because they have different restrictions to BI when it comes to IP. It is what it is.

Is it still BVR if you have a 16K TV and can see jets 20 nautical miles away? You might not be "cheating" with labels but you are doing something that is impossible IRL. Yay Realism.

I was testing Stingers tonight and found some inconsistent AI when using the Stinger Commander in a Stinger Team. The Stinger Commander is meant to give the team some early warning on approaching targets and I've seen it work that way once or twice :music_whistling: Anyway I was testing Stingers vs Helos tonight and it turns out you can notch the Stinger Commander pretty easily in a helo and then close on the group in a pretty ridiculous fashion. It's like once a notch is triggered the Stinger Commander and the Stingers don't use use their visual sensors AKA eyeballs to spot the target. You can close in on the group and fly around them and the Stingers are oblivious. I can break the notch and wake the Stingers up but I have to have the Hind moving pretty quickly to do that. I didn't check the speed but it was over 120kph.

I was just testing stingers again tonight and they are very 'hit and miss' :megalol: Even without countermeasures I had a lot stingers that seemed to be passing through the helo or at least right through the main blades. I'm pretty sure now that the blades (at least on the Hind) don't have a hitbox. HANG-ON ::detective_2: all the shots that seemed like they were passing through the Hind were being fired from right underneath it and that reminds me of this thread. http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=131673&highlight=lod What if the hitbox model on some helos is like the LOD shown in the thread above and is missing the bottom polygon or has it reversed. Even if there isn't a bug in the hitbox; a lot of the helos might not have the hitbox coverage you are expecting and this combined with the lack of a fuse on some missiles (mentioned by karambiatos) means that some missiles look like they pass right through the target. My opinion is that it 'looks' terrible when missiles pass through parts of the helo. It would be better for them to be a hit than for them to do that.

You can fine tune the view if you want. The information is in C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\Scripts\Database\vehicles\Tanks\M1128 Stryker MGS.lua GT.driverViewPoint = {2.05, 1.915, -0.34}; Change those values around until you are happy.

In DCS you probably can't recreate a realistic historical moment in time because all the hardware is frozen in shapes that match the data ED has to work with and that data is either locked to a specific hardware specification unique in time and place and manufacture and deployment. or it is a generalized mash-up of multiple hardwares, times, places, manufactures and deployments. You might think one of those is a better option than the other, but both approaches will still not be realistic when you produce a mission because the times and dates of the snap frozen elements don't match up. The only way to have something realistic is to choose a SINGLE flight sortie that is well documented and create modelling for all the hardware involved in that mission and then fly only that mission. Yay Realism. ED seems to use the snap frozen approach interchangeably with the generalized approach and their decisions on edge cases seem to err on the side of sanity and more than some people realize, they do err on the side of playability. Playability is a form of sanity that I enjoy in the game, and arguments for 100% realism is form of insanity I seem to enjoy - in the forum.

Except for SAMs and Manpads right?

The Australian tanks look cold.

Yep. IR SAMS and Manpads aren't that bright - in the game.

The SA9M311 is an AFM missile in DCS. AFM missiles are twitchy because they use dynamic systems modelling. But the SA9M311 is also modelled as a manually controlled TOW type missile in DCS which means our human fingers are required to manage the twitching and human fingers aren't good enough. We need a better UI for driving this missile and future manual missile guidance options in the Tor and OSA. I have been experimenting with binding turret control to rotary pots on my x55 and I can get really smooth slewing that tracks air targets really nicely. Better than mouse (the way it is setup in DCS). All I want now is SKVAL type view for targets I am tracking. Optical tracking with human assistance (pots or min-joystick) for when the target exceeds tracking control dynamics.

Things I would like to display and control on the kneeboard. Location of group members. Waypoints. Tasks. Fire missions. Targets/threats shared via datalink. ROE instructions Loadout and current ammunition levels Waypoint for re-arming etc ...

It would be great to have kneeboard support and a Lua API for the kneeboard in Combined Arms.

Yay. GT.driverViewPoint and Toggle Driver/Gunner role. Thanks ED. :thumbup: I love the driver view - even with some of the clunky models it is still really COOL. So how about letting the AI act as the gunner while I drive? Can I switch that on via LUA? GT.user mode gunner AI = true In the next beta?

Love the cruiser updates.

Downloading the beta just to have a look at this. :detective_2: I have been playing around with the UI for CA units and I hope I now have more to play with.

Incorrect

I am using Jibs DSHK.lua and Entry.lua as a base for this tech mod. Jib demonstrates the best technique AFAIK for correctly adding a ground unit. -- /Mods/tech/MortarRocket/MortarRocket.lua mount_vfs_model_path (current_mod_path.."/Shapes") mount_vfs_liveries_path (current_mod_path.."/Liveries") mount_vfs_texture_path (current_mod_path.."/Textures/Textures.zip") GT = {}; GT_t.ws = 0; --chassis set_recursive_metatable(GT, GT_t.generic_stationary); GT.armour_scheme = unarmed_armour_scheme; set_recursive_metatable(GT.chassis, GT_t.CH_t.STATIC); GT.chassis.life = 0.1; -- not much life GT.visual.shape = "2b11.edm" -- functional model GT.visual.shape_dstr = "2b11_p_1.edm" -- destroyed model GT.WS = {}; local ws = GT_t.inc_ws(); GT.WS[ws] = {}; GT.WS[ws].newZ = false; GT.WS[ws].new_rotation = false; GT.WS[ws].center = 'CENTER_TOWER'; GT.WS[ws].angles = { -- how to come to these figures I will make into a post of it's own {math.rad(180), math.rad(-180),math.rad(-18), math.rad(17),}, }; GT.WS[ws].reference_angle_Z = math.rad(63); GT.WS[ws].drawArgument1 = 0; GT.WS[ws].drawArgument2 = 1; GT.WS[ws].omegaY = math.rad(80); GT.WS[ws].omegaZ = math.rad(100); GT.WS[ws].pidY = {p=100,i=2.0,d=10, inn = 10}; GT.WS[ws].pidZ = {p=100,i=2.0,d=10, inn = 10}; __LN = add_launcher(GT.WS[ws], GT_t.LN_t._9M311); --TYPE 33 TOW -- change flight model of missile in config/ -- I put these other entries here for the fun of your testing. --__LN = add_launcher(GT.WS[ws], GT_t.LN_t.TOMAHAWK); --TYPE 8 (change to 33 in missile.lua) --__LN = add_launcher(GT.WS[ws], GT_t.LN_t.HARPOON); --TYPE 1 (change to 33 in missle.lua) --__LN = add_launcher(GT.WS[ws], GT_t.LN_t.C_24); --type rocket not yet tested __LN.connectorFire = false; -looks interesting __LN.BR = {{ connector_name = "POINT_GUN"} } --__LN.BR = {{pos = {0, 1, 0}}} __LN.customViewPoint = { "genericAAA", {-0.3, 0.3, 0.0 }, }; -- viewpoint needs work __LN.sensor = {}; set_recursive_metatable(GT.WS[ws].LN[1].sensor, GT_t.WSN_t[6]); __LN = nil; -- The mods to missile.lua and missile_data.lua is all hacks. A better approach to encapsualte all modifications into a single lua file should be investigated GT.Name = "MortarRocket"; GT.Aliases = {"MortarRocket"} GT.DisplayName = _("MortarRocket"); GT.Rate = 1; GT.DetectionRange = 0; GT.ThreatRangeMin = 0; GT.ThreatRange = 19000; GT.mapclasskey = "P0091000208"; GT.attribute = {wsType_Ground,wsType_Tank,wsType_Miss,wsType_GenericSAU, "Artillery", }; GT.category = "Artillery"; add_surface_unit(GT) --/Mods/tech/MortarRocket/Entry.lua --Cribbed from Jib declare_plugin("DSHK by Jib", { installed = true, -- if false that will be place holder , or advertising dirName = current_mod_path, version = "1", state = "installed", info = _("Test of Adding New Ground Units to DCS"), binaries = { "GroundCockpitBase", "CombinedArms.dll", }, LogBook = { { name = _("DSHK"), type = "DSHK", }, }, InputProfiles = { ["DSHK"] = current_mod_path .. '/Input', }, Options = { { name = _("CA"), nameId = "CA", dir = "Options", CLSID = "{AE699235-F086-401f-93C8-B0FCB0E4A2ED}" }, }, }) --dofile(current_mod_path..'/DSHK.lua') dofile(current_mod_path..'/MortarRocket.lua') --make_flyable('DSHK') --make_flyable("DSHK",current_mod_path..'/Cockpit') plugin_done()-- finish declaration , clear temporal data

I am uploading a video of the 9M331 being aimed and fired from a mortar. The 9M331 has had it's flight model modified to have a LOT less thrust. This was to keep the missile around 600kph which is closer to what you are trying to model than the ~Mach3 speed it can do. I shortened the range because I am impatient when testing. === I will post the lua soon. I'm just seeing if I can combine all the into one file (I really hope so). To answer your questions, It looks like you can angle the rocket any damn way you want but for it to look good you need to match it up to the animation limits in the edm. Depending on the rocket/missile you are cribbing from you may have to change it's entry to make it visible in order to see if before it fires.This will also make it easier to work with. If you use a connector you have to be careful that the rocket/missile has room to spawn. If parts of the rocket/missile spawn inside another model or the ground I think it makes the missile inert (it will not fire). Sometimes you can't use connectors but you can at least use a connector to help you find the right angles and offests to manually place the rotation center and the rocket/missile attach-point. I used a TOW missile type for reasons I have mentioned earlier in the thread. It turns out that the TOW missile type is the easiest of the missile types to work with. I'm not finished testing yet but I have fired a few missiles out of this mortar tube. I just shot a Harpoon into space. The video is taking ages to upload. Here is a harpoon in space.

Post your lua. I've had some success with my experiments and also found some cool and unusual effects firing various missiles. Will post a video and some lua soon. I'm just seeing if I can put all the mods into one file.

Can't help right now but when I have time I will work with what you have put together and see what can be done. Last night I spent a minute modding and testing a TOW by extending it's Life_time. It flew off into the sky never to return so perhaps that modelling is too simple for a ballistic path. After that I tried a missile with AFM. I made entry changes to the Tunguska rocket stage table by adjusting thrust and burn-time. The rocket falls from the sky after the burn energy is used up. Some setting that defines the fins and COG plays a large part in flight path after that.