SeaQuark

I'm with you on that Tiger, it is potentially a great feature, but unfortunately I just never use it because of its current implementation. Odd to see it floating while you are in the cockpit. It is available in Replay, but it's still only over the cockpit, and also means you have to sit through an entire replay if you just want to go back and check your gunnery. Funnily enough, I noticed that the small exposure dial on top of the dash actually rotates-- you can set the camera's aperture depending on whether it's bright, B-- f/22, or dim, D-- f/ 2.8, weather. I doubt this affects the guncamera currently, but how awesome would it be if a Re-Arm loaded the camera with film, and the aperture affected the brightness of the final images? I'm a photography geek and have shot a good amount of 16mm. Being able to do so in DCS would really make my day!

I would also like to hear the developer's thoughts on this. Whenever someone is sneaking up on my 6, I hear them before I see them. This really does change the nature of dogfighting. It also negates the usefulness of the P-51's rear radar, which should be one of its few advantages over the 109.

You mention increasing the FOV.... Is there any way to do this in the Replay, without disabling the recorded head movements of the track? When I try to zoom-in or zoom-out during replay, it resets to a mouse-controlled camera.

When using VR, I am unable to turn knobs in cockpits. Left or right clicking and then scrolling (either by moving the "laser pointer" in VR or with the actual mouse) does nothing. I noticed the UI does have an option to bind a button for "scroll up / down" but it's very crude-- it spins a knob halfway up or halfway down, there is no precise control. And regardless, I would much rather just keep using my mouse in VR, so as not to take up buttons on my HOTAS. Is this a known bug / issue or is it just me? This is the only thing keeping me from using clickable cockpits 100% in VR.

I am also looking into solutions for these problems. Currently the only one I've had success with is Replaying the mission track with VR disconnected-- you can get a proper full-screen recording of your mission this way, however it will not help the shaking. Interestingly, I believe all that shaking is the actual movement of your head-- you don't see shaking in real life or in VR because your eyes & brain naturally correct for it. But when played back on a flat screen, you see shaking. This is the same as if you stuck a camera on a person's head in real life; if you play back the footage, it looks shaky. Hence why film crews often use tripods or stabilization rigs. TrackIR had Smoothness settings to correct for such natural shakiness, however in VR, 1:1 head tracking is obviously necessary.

Question: with current version of Leap Motion, are you able to see representations of your hands inside the cockpit? Just seeing the hands would be very useful, even without integration for hitting toggles. For instance, you could place a real-life gear level on your desk, in the approximate position of the virtual handle in the cockpit. Seeing your hands would be all you'd need to complete the illusion.

I tentatively second this. Personally I never use the F# views once I'm in the air, only to see where I've spawned in on the airfield. I'm not overly concerned about people abusing it during combat-- if anything I think they would be doing themselves a disservice by trying to use it for spotting. But if there's a perception that it's unfair, I can understand how that might keep people away from the server. Worth considering removing the external views for that reason alone. I could certainly live without them just fine.

Personally I use headtracking for zoom as well. I find it the most natural and effective use of Track IR. Seems like you figured out a solution. There is also a way to do this purely inside of DCS: map the Track IR Z axis to Zoom View, then go to Axis Tune: set the axis to a slider, and a curve to your liking-- this will allow your resting state to be zoomed out as much or as little as you like.

I made a "cinematic" video for an F-5 mission I flew, air-to-air against the Mig-21. Thought you folks might enjoy it.

Thank you again for the opportunity, I'm super thrilled and honored to be among the winners! This totally vindicates the hours I sunk into that video (though it was great fun too). Congrats to slamraam & King.

My entry for the contest:

I think you guys are all missing the point. A multicrew TF-51 might be kinda interesting for training DCS pilots, but the real draw of a feature like this would be providing a joyride or orientation flight for a friend, acquaintance, or prospective flight simmer (i.e. someone who doesn't already own a joystick, or has never tried a flight sim). If a ride-along seat were implemented, that means someone with zero accessories could have a very immersive experience of being a passenger (as opposed to currently, where they would download the game cold, and simply fumble about with switches and maybe crash on take-off). This would be a great, easy way to show anybody what DCS is all about, without having to convince them to buy a joystick or download any paid modules. The current VR revolution will only make such a feature even more valuable.

That's awesome. If you have a newsletter or anything I could subscribe to let me know, otherwise I'll just keep an eye out. There's a bunch of us who fly P-51 missions regularly and this sort of thing is right up our alley. If these boards work as great as they look, you can bet most of us flying the P-51 would snatch them up-- even those of us who couldn't fit a full pit in their homes would love to own an engine control panel or similar sitting on their desk, I'm sure.

This is incredible. I do almost all my simming in the P-51, I'd buy any of these in a heartbeat.

I don't think the combined, simultaneous air/ground battles in War Thunder turned out to be very interesting. It sounds like an awesome concept on paper, but in practice, there is not much meaningful interaction between players in planes and players in tanks. It just splits the player base and makes multiplayer more logistically difficult. In terms of gameplay, a realistic Tank Sim would benefit a lot more when combined with a First-Person-Shooter environment, than it would with a Flight Sim. It would be awesome to see a Red Orchestra style game with accurate Tanks in them. Placing a Tank Sim into DCS would just be spinning one's wheels, so to speak. I would fully support a development team making their own awesome WW2 Tank Sim, however.

Very much looking forward to this plane! Can't wait to slap a Republican skin on one and do some mock Spanish Civil War flying.

Just now discovered this mod and tried it out with latest Beta version 1.5.3.51870.58 It seems to work pretty great! I no longer get those balloon-like imposters from all the way across the map. But dots are nice and contrasty against the sky at a reasonable distance. There are some small hiccups now and then-- the contrast of the dots seem to blink on and off at certain distances. But that is far preferable to the crazy 1.5 imposters. The mod's dots also seem to scale well while zooming in and out, which was one of the biggest issues for me with 1.5's imposters. I also agree 100% with your decision to simplify enhanced visibility to either ON or OFF; consistency should be of paramount importance in a multiplayer Sim, splitting it into 4 different settings was always madness. Will need to try some more flying, but so far, my impression is very favorable. Thank you so much for addressing this huge issue.

Wow, thanks for the tip. That's perfect. Sent him a PM!

I'd say PvP is the best way to go for a public server. But I think a good PvP server would cater to AG players as well. There was a mission on the Burning Skies WWII server that did this perfectly: * PvP only, no AI fighters * Soft ground targets (buildings, trucks, nothing that fires back) * "Medium" distance to bullseye * Air defenses at each base The soft ground targets give you a general mission objective and sense of purpose, but won't interfere by shooting your wing off just when you're in the middle of a great PvP fight. It also gives you something to do (practice AG skills) while waiting for the server to fill up. Distance between Red and Blue airfields should be right in the sweetspot-- far enough to prevent furballs over the runways or easy escapes. But not so far that people get bored. The ACG server is a tad too close; Burning Skies had it about right, IIRC. There should be AAA over each airfield of course, to effectively discourage vulching without having to ban it outright. And no AI fighters, simply because they are more of a distraction than anything else. That's all just my own personal opinion of course. Give me a shout anytime on Steam if you need any mission testers. I've been itching for a chance to take out the Sabre in MP again.

Hey guys, has anyone successfully been able to use PFC (Precision Flight Controls) hardware with DCS? They're pricey but look very nicely made. In particular I'm considering getting this unit: https://store.flypfc.com/?/products/consoles/throttle-quadrant-console1/ The manufacturers state that it's USB, but will only work with X-Plane. Has anyone tried using this or something similar, and will DCS recognize the axes and buttons? Maybe there's an unofficial workaround?

I get the same thing, playing at 2560x1080. Would definitely prefer smaller imposters, large settings makes it easier to see planes, but more difficult to judge distance. Actually, if I had my druthers I'd even turn them off completely, but that's just me.

Interesting. I never found TrackIR to work perfectly with DCS by default (like it does for some other games), but I always fixed that with custom profiles in TrackIR. Never thought to adjust the saturation in DCS; I guess it's two different ways of doing the same thing.

I finally got around to trying this mod in 1.5, used your version posted above. I did not mess with the Axis settings in-game like you mentioned, still got good results. I tried it with the P-51 and F-15, works great. However it doesn't seem to work with the Sabre-- looking right back into the seat, like without the mod. Script doesn't seem to be affecting that module at all. Any thoughts why?

When replaying a saved track, and using the L-alt+F1 key to go to the "cockpit hidden" view, I've noticed that my kneeboard is permanently on-screen. The standard kneeboard keys do nothing to change or hide it. I don't remember having this issue before, is it a bug? Looks like this: No matter what I do, I can't get rid of it. Tried re-assigning keyboard shortcuts, no dice.

I'm entertaining the idea of either building or commissioning some replica switch panels for my plane of choice, the P-51. Here's the kicker: I'm fully confident that within a few years' time, I'll make the transition into VR, at which point a physical switchboard on one's desk will become very difficult to use, if not impossible. However, I don't like using the mouse to operate controls, and prefer physical switches. Here's my intended solution: build the panel to correspond exactly to the dimensions of DCS' virtual cockpit. In theory, then, all I have to do is make sure the panel is the correct distance from my chair IRL, and in VR I should be able to simply reach out and operate the panel in a fully realistic fashion. So I have a couple questions, A) How can I get some exact dimensions of the P-51 cockpit as it appears in DCS? (the size of individual panels, the distance between switches and their size, and the incline of the panel would all be important factors). The dimensions of a real P-51 cockpit would be a good reference, but I'd be concerned about small variances between that and DCS' layout that might not be immediately apparent. Is there some way to get this data from in-game? And B) Do you guys foresee any extreme difficulties in this process that I'm not thinking of? To keep things simple, I'd plan on starting with just the Engine Control Panel, and if successful, move on to the center panel with the ignition and weapon controls.