JLX

I know that mouse activation was recently added to the comm menu which is great. But for those of us who take HOTAS more literally (e.g. for VR) would it really be so time consuming to add 4 hotkeys so we can easily navigate menus with a single HAT switch? MenuItemUp = Move selected menu item up MenuItemDown = Move selected menu item down MenuItemSelect = Select/Activate selected menu item MenuBack = Go back to previous menu (or cancel if at root) Considering how extensively the comm menu is used (radio, cargo, mods, etc...) it seems like a relatively small ask (and very worthwhile) to get this functionality. Yes, there are workarounds (VoiceAttack, 3rd party scripting (AHK, CH, etc), KB/mouse,etc.) but all is quite cumbersome. Not least because the F1-F12 keys are used for the menu AND changing views! Also, menu items like airports change order based on distance so some clever workarounds become very awkward. I'd kindly ask that ED consider this sooner rather than later as this would be a big quality of life improvement! 4 hotkeys. That's all I ask. Please?

Looks fantastic! However, I agree with @mx22. The 2-way switch on the top right isn't ideal. Even if it doesn't match the SU-35, I think a single button makes way more sense here. It would be great if you could swap out this switch for a single button as you can with the 4-way thumb switch. That sort of customization really sets this stick apart. Other than that, I'm sold. Would like to know about complete stick+base options too. Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

Some impressive aerobatics in a BO-105. Crikey!

This is just a shot in the dark but the default key bind for the FPS counter is Ctrl-Pause. There may be some kind of input error causing unwanted Pause, Ctrl (and perhaps other) key presses. Either a faulty controller and/or corrupt key binds? Might be worth looking into at least. As you said it happens on gun runs check associated buttons (trigger etc). Swap controllers if you can to isolate the issue. It may even be that a bad keypress triggered an unwanted hotkey in GForce Experience? Anyway, just guesses. Good luck!

Just thought I'd give a quick ping and see how things are coming along. I'm not in a rush as my graphics card is in for repairs anyway but I'm still very interested to see this get developed further as interesting/unpredictable helo flights are my main interest. Cheers! :-)

Swapping the Time & Mission Description was a good move. Seems subtle but it makes a difference when quickly scanning them. It is more logical and readable. I miss the waypoint names and descriptions though. I found those really excellent! It's more than personal preference though, I think they really add informational value. For example: WP #4 - Other than sequence, doesn't tell me much WP #4, Akyara NE - Tells me more. Especially if I've become familiar with the area enough to know where Akyara is. WP #4, Akyara NE (Entrance to Valley) - Now we're talking. Even for "just a waypoint" that is so much more informative. Especially if I don't know where Akyara is. I tend to like flying with no labels, no F10 map and without using the mark position on kneeboard whenever possible. Also, depending on the mission, I often like to fly using visual navigation rather than just instruments. The notes you added to all waypoints really helped with this! Together with the map, I could now use visual cues to make my way around. Especially helpful if I've wandered off my designated bearing or decided to take a different route/shortcut. It's like receiving directions from a person: "Head East on Hwy 21 until you see the gas station, turn left and look for the driveway north of the green barn." or "Fly to the valley entrance, head north, look for the second small township and pickup troops on the north side. Then return to the FARP." That is really great! I'd not only hate to lose it, but would love it if it were more important to use visual/descriptive spotting to locate mission points in the future. For readability, might I suggest omitting the altitude information of waypoints instead? As you pointed out, it can be a bit confusing as is (although I now understand how they work). Also, do we really need to be told how high to fly over a waypoint? My thought is that would be left to the pilot. Just my $0.02 as always...

I played quite a few of these over the weekend and even though there are only a few pickup points, I'm really enjoying them! It's fun to get familiar with the area. I thought I'd add a couple more thoughts as they came to me: 1. Sling loads are being registered as delievered ("Mission Goal Complete") when I haven't dropped the load yet. I think it's about 20ft over ground level the trigger comes on. 2. For sling loads, it would be a nice challenge to have to drop the load in a much smaller target area. Perhaps the harder the mission, the smaller the target? You could get quite creative with this using ships, platforms, truck beds, stacking of some sort?, etc. Like the trucks & troops used now, smaller targets should of course also have some obvious visual cues as to where the limits of the drop area are.

I got my versions crossed when looking at this. The cargo section of the hints page on the kneeboard is only in v2.x: Yeah, I've noticed the same thing. I'm routinely flying over-temp even when I feel I'm not over stressing the engine (Engine/Rotor RPM high-green). But, perhaps the governor has something else to say about that? If/when they start modelling engine overheating effects I guess I'll have to learn to fly much more conservatively. Ack! It turns out that when copying snapviews.lua between stable/beta/alpha versions, I mixed up my files which only had some of my snapviews up to date. Sry for wasting your time on this. One last thing is that I think you may need to check your altitudes. Something janky is going on there: Hope that helps.

A few of oversights on my part: I missed the fact that on the flight plan the mission goals are stated at the very top! I was focused on the waypoint information and missed it. That is sufficient and what I was looking for in the briefing. Might be nice to have it in the briefing too but not really necessary now that I see where it is. My bad. I also didn't remember that the rope length is reported on the Hints page of the kneeboard so again, my bad. Please ignore my earlier comment about it. As for the icing and engine overheating, I did the mission again and saw that the ambient temperature at ground level was indeed 0°C as you suspected. The exhaust temp did go over the green up to 650-700°C, sometimes even after I'd dropped the sling load. I made a point of not over torquing the engine but, TBH, I never paid any attention to this in the past. So perhaps this is happening more often than I realize. So much to learn... FWIW, I have checked to make sure that random failures is (ans was) turned off in the settings for future testing. Cheers!

I've only had time to try 2 interesting missions so far (#1 & #100) but here is my initial feedback: There is something that is causing severe frame drop. It happened consistently in both missions I tried. I've a pretty capable rig (see my sig.) and usually run at 60fps but was getting drops to as low as 14fps around the initial FARP. When further away (and not looking at it) it would climb back up. Perhaps a poorly constructed object or something that if it comes into view causes the slowdown? I'll let you know if I notice anything more specific. Often the waypoints out to a pickup point are the same ones used coming back in. When this is the case, the initial outbound waypoints are overwritten on the map with the returning inbound waypoints. So, it appears as if the first half of the waypoints are missing. You can see this in interesting mission #1. The mission text is boilerplate right now. It would be nice to have a very brief summary of the objective. Short and sweet is fine. Perhaps of the form: "Take off from... Pickup ??? at... Deliver/Return ??? to..." or something like that. So for example (again for mission #1): "Takeoff from from Alahadzy FARP. Pickup troops at Bzybta N. Return troops to Alahadzy FARP ." I just assumed there was a pickup at the furthest point and that I had to bring them back to the original FARP based of waypoint progression. But missions may get more interesting than that ;-) Similar to above... The flightplan on the kneeboard displays the waypoints and their description (a nice touch). But it would be good to have additional information about any specifics that need to happen at a specific waypoint. For example in interesting mission #1, you may want to add a "Pickup troops/gear here..." message to the notes of waypoint #5 and "Deliver troops/gear here..." to WP#9. Default views seemed to be saved with the mission which overrode my custom default views for both the pilot and co-pilot. It would be nice if the default views were omitted from the mission files so we can use our own that we're used to. I vaguely remember reading something about including/excluding them from mission files in a post long ago but it escapes me at the moment. Mission distances are good and not too long for helo flights. Unlike the original test mission, there was no red smoke at the pickup point. This is fine as it was kind of fun to have to look for the trucks and use the description in the notes to figure out the correct pickup point. However, it would be nice to have the option via the comm menu to request smoke if you're having a hard time locating the correct spot and prefer to fly without using labels, the F10 map or marks on the kneeboard for assistance. Really enjoyed keeping an eye out for mechanical failures. In mission #100 I got an engine icing warning as well as having the engine run hot. Even though it was a bit of an odd combination of problems and the icing wasn't particularly appropriate to the environment, that part didn't matter too much. It was fun to actually have to turn on the de-icing gear but to be honest, I didn't know what to do with hot running engine. I decided to finish the mission and didn't fall out of the sky :-) An additional spec I'd like to see reported is the length of the cargo line. In my homegrown practise missions I use 50' but I seem to recall getting the "Successfully delivered cargo..." message with about 75' on my radar altimeter. As I use the altimeter to gauge decent rate/distance for an accurate cargo drop I dropped it way to early/far from my intended target. Great work! Looking forward to seeing these evolve.

Thanks emolina! I'm eager to try them out and will give them a whirl (pun intended) as soon as I'm able. Sent from my tablet using Tapatalk.

Always good to see more UH-1/Mi-8 content! Looking forward to it! Sent from my tablet using Tapatalk.

Fantastic! The flavour text is a nice immersive touch to explain why missions aren't vetted before being assigned. The clear explanation of weather and procedures is helpful too. Really looking forward to trying these out! As always, thanks for your efforts. Sent from my tablet using Tapatalk.

Hey emolina, By "hover over the landing zone" I actually meant the equivalent of what you said about touching only the tip of the skids to the ground. I used to work in the arctic and my first helicopter experience was being dropped off over the snowy tundra to take DGPS readings. Anyway, I remember the pilot teaching me to gently step off the skids as he couldn't land due to the deep snow. So, he hovered about a foot over the surface while I stepped out (and later climbed back in from the chest deep snow). This is what made me think of a "hover pickup/dropoff" even for passengers. For this to work in DCS though, I think it would be helpful to know what parameters your interesting mission generator uses so that we can decide how creative we can be when trying to meet the mission criteria. For example, if I know that I've got a 75m radius around the pickup point, I may look for near by buildings as you suggested. But, if I've only got 5m from the smoke, then there is no point. Similarly, if hovering within 1m above ground is acceptable for pickup/dropoffs then I know it's an option (kinda like picking up a sling load with a 1m rope). However, I assumed that landing, meant *landing* (AGL=0 and velocity=0) but perhaps it's more flexible than that? I've always wished there was a hoist for DCS helos so troops could rappel in and medivac out (via basket) but I digress... Having alternatives/fallbacks would be great but I can appreciate how quickly that would make the missions much more complicated. Failing that though, it would be good to at least know pickup radius.

Glad you got it sorted out! I only had a short time to try the mission this morning and noticed that the landing point was on a steep incline (marked with red smoke which was nice). I tried to land there for the fun of it but (unsurprisingly) crashed as the helicopter tipped as I set her down. I don't know if you can check for slope when placing a landing point but if so, it might be wise to make sure designated spots are flat(ish) or perhaps place a FARP/Landing Pad (which I think is automatically placed level?) However, if steep landing spots are intentionally allowed by the generator then it seems that the decision on whether it's possible to set down safely lies with the pilot (like choosing to fly in foul weather). If it's NOT safe though, what are the alternatives? Just leave and not be able complete the mission? Hover over the landing zone until (un)loading is comlete? - Are triggers set to allow this? Radio to cancel the pickup/drop off? Etc... Really excited about these helicopter missions! This is exactly the sort of thing I've been looking for in DCS.

Best news I've heard all day!!! Good luck with it emolina. This is what I've been waiting for! [emoji2] Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

One of the most important thing for me when deciding was how I like to articulate the pedals. Keep in mind I fly mostly helos. When I had my CH pedals, I used to curl my toes around the little lip at the back that keeps your heel in place. Sounds odd I know. But it's because I found that operating the pedals with my heels fixed and just moving my toes was far more precise than pushing my whole leg forward. And precision is far more important with helos as I'm sure you know. The VKB T-Rudders (like other helo-like pedals that don't have toe brakes) are designed to work this way and this alone put them easily at the top of my list. My point is that at the top of the pedal spectrum (which you are considering) build quality and spring/cam options are good across all the different models. I feels the big deciding factor is ergonomics and that is very much a personal style decision. Sent from my tablet using Tapatalk.

I have to agree that very often missions require several attempts to complete. The repetition removes the element of surprise/discovery and breaks immersion for me as well. Sometimes it feels more like solving a puzzle or memorizing moves in a platformer so you can proceed to the next level. I don't believe this is overly connected to whether a mission is "realistically" difficult or not, but more about the extra coding required (and often not present) to make it more accommodating if a player doesn't proceed the way the designer planned. Building triggers/events for when players wander off-script takes a lot of extra work. All for mechanics that may never be used, or even seen, if things go as planned. However, as metzger pointed out, there are plenty of things like poor wingman AI or DCS spotting issues which could really use some extra consideration. In general, I'd love to see more robust mission design with contingencies in place like: Voiceovers if you're off script/target Extra help (smoke/coords/tracers/etc.) to avoid having to use labels/F10/etc. to spot targets Forward FARP/etc. to optionally refuel/rearm/repair so you can recover from a bad encounter rather than having to restart. Perhaps fallback ways to complete an objective (e.g. Ideally wipe out convoy but can fallback to destroying a bridge to stop their progress instead) etc. When thinking about these things, I acknowledge it can be challenging to anticipate how a mission may fail or how difficult it will be on the first try when it seems so obvious to the designer. The effort required to implement these things does take a lot of extra work but I think it would really enhance the overall experience. Just my 2¢ as usual.

I've had mine for a few weeks now and they are fantastic! Not only are they smooth and precise, but they are also very compact and silent. While expensive, they're extremely well built and the vertical movement is perfect for us desk jockeys without a sim pit. I fly helicopters 98% of the time to which they are particularly well suited. For toe brakes, I have programmed my CH Throttle to add two virtual slider axis (for the toe brakes) to my controller. I activate these with the thumb-joystick, when I pull back they apply the toe brakes evenly between left and right. When I push the stick forward, and slide it left or right, it applies differential braking for planes without nose-wheel steering. If you happen to be using a CH HOTAS and are comfortable using the CH Control Manager, I've included just the toe brake portion of my script below. You'll need to assign CMS.A1 and CMS.A2 to Slider 0 and Slider 1 on the CMS Controls tab and then (when running the HOTAS in mapped mode) you'll see the extra two sliders appear in DCS and you can assign these new axis to the toe brakes. The regular thumbstick axis still behave as usual so you can still use them for slewing/etc. If you don't use CH Products, I'm guessing that you can do something similar with TARGET or whatever Saitek/etc. uses. Hpoe that helps. // // Make Thumbstick into Toe Brakes: // AFT = Even Brakes // FWD = Differential Brakes // %define Midpoint 128 %define UpDownDeadzone 16 // tweaked for the play in my particular stick %define FwdAftDeadzone 12 // adjust as needed. %define IsAft [JS2.A1 < (Midpoint - FwdAftDeadzone)] %define IsFwd [JS2.A1 > (Midpoint + FwdAftDeadzone)] %define IsUp [JS2.A2 < (Midpoint - UpDownDeadzone)] %define IsDown [JS2.A2 > (Midpoint + UpDownDeadzone)] %define AmtAft ((128-JS2.A1)*2) %define AmtFwd ((JS2.A1-128)*2) %define AmtUp ((128-JS2.A2)*2) %define AmtDown ((JS2.A2-128)*2) %define LeftBrake CMS.A1 %define RightBrake CMS.A2 If (IsAft) Then // Brake Evenly LeftBrake = AmtAft; RightBrake = AmtAft; Else If (IsFwd) Then If (IsUp) Then // Reduce Left Brake LeftBrake = AmtFwd; RightBrake = AmtFwd - AmtUp; Else If (IsDown) Then // Reduce Right Brake LeftBrake = AmtFwd - AmtDown; RightBrake = AmtFwd; Else // Brake Evenly LeftBrake = AmtFwd; RightBrake = AmtFwd; EndIf EndIf Else // Release Brakes LeftBrake = 0; RightBrake = 0; EndIf EndIf

Hi, I was just testing your Radio-Comms script for VoiceAttack and ran into the issue where DCS is not recognizing the commands as you mentioned in point #2 (although VoiceAttack recognition & verbal confirmation are working correctly) As VoiceAttack is up to date and my own profiles are working fine, I dug into your demo script and found the problem: You're sending the KeyPress commands with the "Standard" input method instead of the "Windows Game (DirectX)" method. Here's a screenshot of what I'm talking about. I adjusted your demo script to fix this and it works fine now. Also, VoiceAttack doesn't need to be run as Admin. I was planning on writing a similar script for radio control but as it's tedious I never got around to it. You've done a nice job and I'd be happy to give you a few bucks for your efforts. Also, I don't know if you've only done this for the demo, but shorter command strings would be nice. Words like "radio" and "tower" are already implied and could be thought of as default. Also VHF could be AM/FM/etc. So, rather than "Tune VHF Radio to Batumi Tower", perhaps consider something a little more terse like: "Tune FM to 123" or "Tune AM to Batumi", "Tune ADF to 477" Food for thought and thanks for a very useful VA profile! It would be nice to see this for other modules <cough>Mi-8</cough> too! Cheers.

Crikey, no wonder I couldn't find it! Tnx.

Title pretty much says it all. I've got all 6 red light brightness rheostats maxed yet 3 gauges aren't illuminated at all. Bug?

That makes sense. I'm just encouraged that you are interested in expanding to other modules. As mentioned, I fly mainly helos (Huey & Mi-8) and would be happy to help if/when the time comes if you'd find that beneficial. Sent from my tablet using Tapatalk.

Wow. Just found this thread. As I play DCS solo, this is most welcome! I am often looking for more things to do. Thank you for sharing your efforts. I'm eager to check out these missions once I'm back home after the weekend. The generated kneeboard pages are a wonderful addition! I find the kneeboard an excellent and immersive tool that is often under used. Without even having tried a single one of your F-86 missions yet, I'm already wondering about the potential for expanding your tool for other modules - especially helicopters. Apart from my personal preferance for rotorcraft, helicopters would benefit from a wider range of mission types that cannot be auto-generated at the moment. Things like cargo pickup/delivery, SAR with radio tracking, recon (perhaps marking targets with smoke), etc. Regardless, more missions for us single players makes the DCS experience much more rewarding! When you make your own and therefore know in advance what you need to do, immersion is lost. Thanks again. Sent from my LG-V497 using Tapatalk