PitbullVicious

The setting works with Oculus Rift SDK for the time being ( ). The native setting support for DCS is incoming, as SkateZilla implied. For 2.0 you'll need to buy the Nevada Testing and Training Ground map. But as said, the setting itself does not require that at the moment, as it is DCS independent. It does seem to work better with 2.0 at the moment, though. Still a small disclaimer. It does indeed eat into your FPS, currently just not quite so much with 2.0 as with 1.5.3, but that seems to be also dependent on the module which you are flying (I had some stutters with Gazelle, while A-10C and M2000C seemed to work rather nicely). So, while I whole heartedly recommend the NTTR map as the great module it is, you might want to wait for a while and maybe the 1.5 will be optimized to the same degree.

Yes indeed. Seems that the 2.0 NTTR works quite nicely with the pixel density settings on 2.0, even over Las Vegas. I hope and pray that this is due to some optimization in the 2.0 and when 2.5 comes out, situation will be the same with other maps too :) Can't tell you guys how happy I feel about this :D

I tried the DSR / supersampling during the weekend and was quick to get disappointed, as I had to turn down all graphical settings down to get half decent fps. However, last evening I quickly tried it out with 2.0 (earlier 1.5 and early access) and didn't get any problems with FPS. I'm still skeptical if I indeed set it correctly in the 2.0 version or if it's just placebo, but the A-10C Nevada CAS surely seemed to look much more crisp... Can anyone verify if there's a big difference in 1.5 and 2.0 with this or am I just imagining things? Might also be the scenarios I tested with (2.0: A-10C in desert vs. 1.5: Gazelle in a city)...

Sorry to butt in, but I also tried the supersampling, so I'd like to share my experience. I have decent specs on my computer and in general CV1 seems to run nicely with everything cramped up (except DOF and the draw distance on second highest). While 2x supersampling looks very nice and crisp, I have to turn everything down to medium or low and turn on flat shadows to get playable (still occasional jitters) frame rate. I'm still not absolutely sure which I prefer (supersampling or better game settings). I guess it would require actually optimizing settings and playing a few longer and more complex scenarios, both A2A and A2G, to properly compare the usability and benefits of supersampling. Or simply wait a few years when the hardware catches up.

This is one fascinating aspect of the VR. What I forgot to mention in my previous post was that I found dog fighting in the WWII planes much better with VR. Estimating your own and your adversary's energy state, their distance and speed made manoeuvering and taking lead much easier than in 2D. The Bf-109 felt much more manoeuverable against the P-51 just due to the increased spacial awareness. But as mentioned, the problem with keeping your eyes on the enemy is the biggest limitation. Works pretty well with AI as you can pretty much guess what it's doing most of the time, but as Han Solo put it "Going good against the living? That's something else."

I got my Rift yesterday. This was the first time I was trying out any VR device, so it was quite an experience. Especially as the first try was flying a Huey straight into the ground due to badly configured controls :D I'm not trying to describe the experience, as I feel that nobody has been able to explain it to me, one just has to experience it. I seem to get decent performance in 2.0.2 with only rendering distance turned to ultra from extreme (or was it the other way around.. to the second highest setting from the highest anyways). That's on simple single player missions, just flying about or dog fighting. Then the harsh truth: While the experience is unparalleled, I feel that the fidelity is not yet good enough for adversarial multiplayer. The resolution is simply too low for meaningful spotting and visual recognition in high end simulators, such as DCS. Very fun and very immersive, but for "proper" aerial warfare simulation, I'd guess it'll take 5-10 years more. But it is definitely coming! Just quick first impressions from a noob.

Ah, now I understand why I crash so often. It must be the quality of my jokes. Like this one. - PitbullVicious

FWIW, I've found the very precise and light CH Fighter Stick to be easier and more enjoyable to use with the Gazelle than the heavier Warthog Stick (especially if it has developed some sticktion). I usually fly the helos with MS SW2 FFB, but as FFB is not implemented yet...

Sounds good. I've been playing with the NADIR a bit today. And as it happens, also did some night flying :) Hopefully I can find someone to fly it with.

Just had a quick skim of the background and the first couple of missions in the PDF (Mods\aircraft\SA342\Doc\OPERATION DIXMUDE_en.pdf). Don't want to spoil myself yet, but looks like something to look forward to. Seems like Polychop sims have put quite a lot of work in to it :) And this also seemed promising: "This campaign is playable in multiplayer up to 4 people, up to mission 7." Now I'm just torn if I should wait for the full release, or at least few patches before getting in to it (well, at least I have to wait until Gazelle comes out for the 1.5 as the campaign is based in the Caucasus).

A minor bug. NADIR / UHF Radio keybinding: Number key bindings With the NADIR and UHF are mixed up, so that "SA324 5" cannot be bound to NADIR and "SA324 4" seems to bind actually to the number 5 on the NADIR keys.

By the way, how does the M-2000C's jammer "manifest" itself in other DCS / FC3 planes? Does it efficiently, for example, hide altitude information until burn-through? And how effective is it against F-15C and Su-27 radar, for example? As I've only flown the M-2000C and MiG-21bis online, I really haven't got an idea how well it works and what situations it would be most beneficial.

@Dojo Just wanted to thank you for the latest episode and for the excellent Podcast in general. I've got all of the episodes on my phone to help me through those work days with some boring routine work :)

My first experience in taking part in an event like this, right at the end of the campaign. 10/10. Would join again :) I was a bit dreaded to join all by myself, but everyone was really cool at the TS and rather tolerant of my noobiness. At one point I was wondering why my bombs didn't seem to hit or even detonate and the bomb lights were acting all weird, until I noticed that in addition to my joystick, I had my throttle TS button also assigned to "drop ordinance", so every time I talked to my team mates, I was dropping 50 kg bombs and had usually ran out of them before I got to the target... :doh:

Great to hear that you and your loved ones are safe! I'm sure everyone's sympathies are with you and your fellow countrymen and women some of sadly were not as fortunate. I experienced the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake here in Tokyo, so I've had a small glimpse what you are going through. First of all take care of yourselves and those around you in midst of all those after shocks. We'll still be here after things settle down.

Why would you even require to know (I think what you really mean here is "understand")? Or are you implying that some of us should not be allowed to enjoy the pursuit for realism? To me this seems contradictory. Yes, due to limited resources there are different levels of simulation, but isn't simulation by definition about modelling the "nature" by producing those numbers via algorithms / functions? So that the numbers correspond to the real world phenomena with desired accuracy (which is highly dependent on the context). Can't we enthusiasts have at least one title that tries to simulate historic and modern combat aviation to the detail that DCS does? I'm sure there are already several other titles that are aimed for other kind of gamers. Simply put: I'm not saying what you should or should not enjoy, so I sure as hell don't want you to tell me what I should enjoy either and try to take it away from me. Of course, business side of things is one big question. Obviously this kind of hobby isn't a huge money maker, but hopefully it will offer a few companies with rather specific skill set a good enough market, so that they can make a worthwhile profit out of it, rather than try to make it in other, more competitive market area.

I've been often wondering the same as OP as in DCS it is relatively easy to pack your plane always with loads of "top of the art" weapons and use them rather indiscriminately. Made me kind of wonder why would anyone use dumb-bombs if laser-guided or GPS-guided bombs are available. However, this interview shed some light to that question: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=157896 I kind of got the impression that pilots prefer in some cases dumb-bombs due to the quick deployment time compared to other, "smarter" bombs. Somebody also asked in that interview if money was a concern when selecting weapons to use and Lt. Col. Olson replied that not really, but availability is. He also had an interesting anecdote about a rather limitedly available weapon. I guess availability might somehow be also related to the cost, but other factors like manufacturing and especially logistics will also most likely affect it.

Look under L-39 instant action missions. I just quickly checked this morning and saw couple of L-39ZA missions there. Didn't have time to test them, though.

Damn, and here I was frantically looking for a cup holder with a cup full of vodka and orange juice.

Yes, looking at the missiles such a big difference seems perplexing even to my layman's eyes. But as a researcher I've also got into the habit of expecting nothing at a face value :D Oh my God! It's the recently released area 51, isn't it. :P

Well, that was rather conclusive. The remaining questions are then: "Is it realistic?" and if yes "why?" (well, at least I'm interested on the actual aerodynamics behind it).

And if you would've read my posts, you would've noticed that I have also mentioned this a couple of times, in fact just a couple of posts above in this thread :) And therefore... ... I cannot, but as you may have noticed, I'm looking into eliminating SOME possible factors. Sustain burn after the boost burn would be an explanation, although a highly improbable one with these kind of missiles (I've been told). Also, could you describe how you are actually doing the test? What you are describing is indeed peculiar and worth looking into (and I believe I could replicate your results yesterday in a different kind of test, but it wasn't at all formal, so I wouldn't trust my own results quite yet ;) ). I just believe that by first narrowing the problem down it is possibly easier to report it (or it may become obvious that there is no problem after all). As OnlyforDCS noted, unless we know more about the actual missiles, it is difficult to say if it is correct or not.

Hold on a second. Either I've miscommunicated what I've been trying to say or you haven't been reading my posts carefully. Of course the cross sectional area is only one contributing factor, but a rather obvious one (especially in sub-sonic speeds. I must say that I'm very uneducated about super-sonic drag). My intention was to raise it as it is one of the factors that is obviously quite a lot different to some of the missiles mentioned as similar in this discussion. I've said many times there are several other factors which we (or at least I) don't know (implying that saying anything too strong at this point is impossible).

Well plausible and if we can establish that, we can move to the next question. (Well, I can. I'm not at all knowledgeable about missiles and a quick search didn't bring up anything on the matter. I'm learning as I go along. This module is really the first one where I'm getting into the details of more or less modern A2A combat.) Of course, but that's really not under observation here as we are currently able to infer anything about the drag only after the boost has finished. It appears to be different from other missiles, but there can be several reasons for that (such as diameter, which was already discussed). Just looking at the dimensions of the missiles, the R-73 seems to become closest, so it might be beneficial to understand what is same and different between these missiles.

So this could explain the difference of what we see as higher "drag" if the missiles we are comparing to have also sustain thrust.