Alexander Seil

It's unfortunate that they didn't just re-use a component already developed by ED/Belsimtek. I wonder how much standardization ED enforces, if any.

To clarify, I am, of course, asking about the ASP without any gameplay aids. What's utterly confusing to me is that it should be, in principle, possible to provide some sort of rough A-G guidance for "average" bombs and rockets in still weather - you have the altimeter, the speed and the descent rate, which should be enough assuming you're flying over a surface that's flat as a table, so it's not immediately obvious what role the radar's fixed beam mode plays in any of this and how ranging is done. Does anyone have an original Russian Mig-21bis manual? I only have a manual volume that deals with maintenance and general flight characteristics. EDIT: I also have an English manual for a training variant, Mig-21UM, not sure how close that would be.

I haven't touched DCS in a while due to various issues with 1.5 when it initially came out. So, a few months ago I recall there was a lot of disagreement whether the ASP functions realistically, whether it functions according to what's written in the manual and whether the manual matches reality. So, have recent updates sorted this out? Is it now "stable?" I don't want to put in 40 hours into practicing bombing runs with a gunsight that might see a complete overhaul of its functionality in subsequent patches. All the YouTube videos seem to be a year old, too, so I can't tell what, if anything, has really changed. :joystick:

Try my suggestion in the other thread. It might help if we are actually experiencing the same problem. Other than the settings I describe, it seems you can pretty much set whatever you want. http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=150569

As of hotfix 2, turning off HDR, model visibility and shadows (just in case, I also force flat terrain shadows to On, not sure if that makes any difference), the game loads just fine. Enabling any one of these results in a freeze ("DCS has stopped responding") either before anything is rendered (the game hangs at the loading bar) or immediately after displaying the briefing. I have an AMD system; FX-8350, R9 285, 8GB RAM. Also, note that I am running the latest Catalyst drivers, but also dropped the older 15.5 beta .dll's in the appropriate folder as recommended by an ED tester in another thread. EDIT: Tested with multiple instant action cold starts using Mig-21 (just downloaded; no fixes of any kind from the Leatherneck section of the forum) and TF-51.

The problem is still there with hotfix 2, by the way.

If the game is not responding, doesn't it mean it's stuck in a loop somewhere? If it were just a missing library, it should crash outright.

I guess another relevant split would be whether the game ever manages to load 3D objects at all (in my case, it does under certain very specific settings, and freezes 2 seconds after).

There are currently 6 pages of threads with advice ranging from "reinstall everything" to "sacrifice a large he-goat to Baal while holding alt-ctrl-NumLock." None of it seems to do much of anything, for me at least, except for the one bit with using 15.5 Catalyst .dll's, which suggests that some of the problems may be due to driver issues with AMD GPUs. However, many, if not most, posts do not report their hardware, so this is speculation. Can a mod please create a poll to determine what is the split between nVidia/Oculus, nVidia/-, AMD/Oculus, AMD/- among people having crashes and freezes? (Maybe even split it up between "crashes," "freezes" and "both") EDIT: Would be nice to break out whether the cards are actually DX11 compatible, but I think that would make for way too many poll options.

Ok, setting shadows to "Flat" everywhere I get about 3 seconds of play on a P-51 in the hot start instant action, then it freezes. Only lines added to the log after the "Unicode" thing are below. 00105.145 INFO DXRENDERER: Creating Resource "Unicode" of type 5 00108.755 UNKNOWN ?: ----onSimulationResume--- 00108.773 ERROR SOUND: invalid source_params(woLA-16777472:aircrafts\planewingturbulence): gain 00108.773 ERROR SOUND: invalid source_params(COCKPIT_MAIN:aircrafts\planewingturbulencein): gain

I tried re-installing using the torrent. Now I had a new problem - the game would crash before entering the menu, but I resolved this by putting the .dll's one of the testers suggested in a different thread into the bin folder. However, the crashes at mission load persist. Is this an AMD driver issue, perhaps? Is anyone with nVidia cards having this issue, not counting SLI or Oculus Rift issues?

Both the Su-25 and TF-51 modules freeze on load (loading bar doesn't quite go to the end) with all settings I've tried. If I set the graphics on the Low preset, it might load, but can freeze within seconds. Only the "SAM Killer" mission for Su-25T was playable (again, on Low), out of several that I tried across the two modules. Windows 8.1 GPU: AMD R9 285 CPU: AMD FX-8320 RAM: 8GB MB: Gigabyte 970-UD3P EDIT: I have 14.12 Catalyst drivers currently installed - I'll try it tomorrow with 15.7, if there is no solution. EDIT2: New drivers didn't help either. EDIT3: There are a bunch of missing textures and errors that look like they've been handled, but here are some suspicious ones from the very end of the log. Last two crashes ended with the same line, the last one below. 00057.360 ERROR SOUND: invalid source_params(woLA-16777472:aircrafts\p-51d\planewind): gain 00057.360 ERROR SOUND: invalid source_params(woLA-16777472:aircrafts\planegearwind): gain ... 00057.370 ERROR SOUND: invalid source_params(COCKPIT_MAIN:aircrafts\p-51d\planewindin): gain 00057.370 ERROR SOUND: invalid source_params(COCKPIT_MAIN:aircrafts\planegearwindin): gain ... 00057.619 INFO EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: Force loading pipeline 'lockon'. Radius 150000.000000. Pos=-5750.229004,22.431219,295147.000000! 00057.952 ERROR EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: Material: Surface 16 00057.952 ERROR EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: build material for Surface(Land) string edgemat FxMaterial_Surface31 terrain/shaders31/Surface31.fx|LIGHT_TEXTURE|CAUCASUS_NOISE|HEIGHT_AND_COLOR LOD= X= Z= ADDBOUNDPIX= colorTexture= autoTexture= landNoiseTex=Noise_1.bmp mountainNoiseTex=Noise_mount.bmp detailNoiseTex=noise_small.bmp reason: "param addBoundPix not found" 00058.670 ERROR EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: Material: Surface 16 00058.670 ERROR EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: build material for Surface(Land) string edgemat FxMaterial_Surface31 terrain/shaders31/Surface31.fx|LIGHT_TEXTURE|CAUCASUS_NOISE|HEIGHT_AND_COLOR LOD= X= Z= ADDBOUNDPIX= colorTexture= autoTexture= landNoiseTex=Noise_1.bmp mountainNoiseTex=Noise_mount.bmp detailNoiseTex=noise_small.bmp reason: "param addBoundPix not found" 00059.147 ERROR EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: Material: Surface 16 00059.147 ERROR EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: build material for Surface(Land) string edgemat FxMaterial_Surface31 terrain/shaders31/Surface31.fx|LIGHT_TEXTURE|CAUCASUS_NOISE|HEIGHT_AND_COLOR LOD= X= Z= ADDBOUNDPIX= colorTexture= autoTexture= landNoiseTex=Noise_1.bmp mountainNoiseTex=Noise_mount.bmp detailNoiseTex=noise_small.bmp reason: "param addBoundPix not found" 00059.171 ERROR EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: Material: Surface 16 00059.171 ERROR EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: build material for Surface(Land) string edgemat FxMaterial_Surface31 terrain/shaders31/Surface31.fx|LIGHT_TEXTURE|CAUCASUS_NOISE|HEIGHT_AND_COLOR LOD= X= Z= ADDBOUNDPIX= colorTexture= autoTexture= landNoiseTex=Noise_1.bmp mountainNoiseTex=Noise_mount.bmp detailNoiseTex=noise_small.bmp reason: "param addBoundPix not found" 00059.287 ERROR EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: Material: Surface 16 00059.287 ERROR EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: build material for Surface(Land) string edgemat FxMaterial_Surface31 terrain/shaders31/Surface31.fx|LIGHT_TEXTURE|CAUCASUS_NOISE|HEIGHT_AND_COLOR LOD= X= Z= ADDBOUNDPIX= colorTexture= autoTexture= landNoiseTex=Noise_1.bmp mountainNoiseTex=Noise_mount.bmp detailNoiseTex=noise_small.bmp reason: "param addBoundPix not found" 00059.552 ERROR DX11BACKEND: rendertarget "Target::Reflection" not found 00061.994 INFO EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: force loading finished! 00061.994 INFO EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: Force loading pipeline 'map'. Radius 30000.000000. Pos=-5750.229004,22.431219,295147.000000! 00062.255 INFO EDTERRAINGRAPHICS3: force loading finished! 00063.408 INFO DXRENDERER: Creating Resource "Unicode" of type 5

That could be an interesting game-play mechanic, in fact. An airport would have support assets, which are finite. Minor repairs, refueling and restarting would require you to get to the parking area and have all this stuff rolled out (if it didn't get strafed...) to you, after it's done with outstanding requests.

It is, of course, subjective. What's not subjective is that there are too many goddamn B-17 simulators out there. It's literally the only bomber anyone bothered with in simulators before Il-2 turned the world upside down with the revelation that there were other bombers in World War 2 :megalol:

There are too many late-war "superfighters" and not enough content for an interesting WW2 scenario. The other companies aren't helping much - it's just a whole flock of warbirds. Realistic and interesting scenarios require different aircraft types. The B-29 makes a lot of sense. We know they are developing a crew AI for the F-14, and B-29 would be a useful test bed, with fewer systems for the AI to operate. It has surface radar. It's an aircraft used mainly in the Pacific - and all the hints point to that theater, if not a particular aircraft. It's also a fun, asymmetric opponent to the Raiden. If they're not making a Raiden and B-29...they should :D

If the gear is not just outright misdirection, it has to be a Raiden. So, here's a crazy theory - the "modern" aircraft is a B-29 (service time overlaps with MiG-21)! The Raiden is the "WW2" one. No, I'm not insane. Leatherneck mentioned ground radar. Behold.

A module may not mean a solitary aircraft, though. After all, they promised that new planes will come with maps. Why not also bundle them with opponents?

Basically the same aircraft, but with floats. The only complication I see is DCS physics. Are floatplanes actually possible? Or does a plane automatically crash on any attempt to land (water?) at sea? It would be a shame if there is some silly piece of engine hardcoding in the way. Floatplanes and flying boats are awesome, and it would open the door to some crazy planes down the line. EDIT: I wanted to fly an Emily the first time I saw that crazy thing in a game, knowing nothing about planes or even WW2. It's epic. (And at least one is intact!) EDIT2: Also, the duck mentioned by Leatherneck? Maybe I'm on to something here...

Here's a problem - even if you get a good photo of a restored Zero, or whatever, how do you know the gear looks exactly like the original? I doubt it's ever 100% fidelity to original blueprints. That narrows it down to completely intact museum-pieces and original drawings. The detail required to guess here is very, very fine.

After multiple attempts, I'm yet to survive a P-51 landing, but worst I have done in a MiG-21 is lose the landing gear, and I'm a complete n00b at flight sims. It's not even that hard to glide down and land relatively safely on grass, should you run out of fuel for 245867th time (though the plane won't be flying away anywhere after that). Perhaps it's the fact that it's so weird that gives people with real-life flight experience a hard time? You're supposed to practically push this thing down onto the runway, and dropping below a certain speed is fatal (the blown flaps turn off). Knowing nothing, I don't have the burden of experience to mislead me ;) Stuff like this comes down to whether anyone in real life would be able to figure this out without dying first. I'm going to guess that you crashed the plane a few times before figuring out this trick?

This doesn't quite answer the question, however. First of all, what does the IFF button return? Just red/blue that the omniscient AI sees? (So even a P-51 could return a friendly, despite having no compatible equipment) Second, if IFF is not implemented at all...who's pinging my MiG-21? That SOD lamp keeps blinking. But I'm not sure if that device is just for ATC to know where you are (does something like this exist in the A-10C? Or is this a first in DCS?), or if it does something else. The MiG-21 is a very mysterious device in DCS. An updated manual would be very helpful.

This is extremely awesome, but, seems like printing it would be...utterly insane. My work laptop can't handle it zoomed out, and I'm not sure if it might make the color printer explode. Can ED be bothered to generate an image of this map from their terrain viewer (which would also get rid of the "stitching" artifacts where some of the map is covered by other parts of it), but with elevation contours only? Perhaps that could cut down on size dramatically? It is rather disappointing that this stuff doesn't come with the game documentation...I don't understand how I'm supposed to do navigation by dead reckoning in any of the prop planes without a usable in-game map, or ability to print a paper one :/

Just a (hopefully simple) question. Can't find it in the documentation. First, are random failures for real? I.e., should I expect these to happen in ALL modules if I enable them? (I prefer pre-flight checklists to have a point to them besides OCD) On a possibly related note, what does the condition % in mission editor mean? Is this (100-chance of random failure)? If so, are randomly generated and pre-made missions capable of generating random failures (i.e., is the condition % less than 100)? If not, what is this?

As I mentioned, what I'm looking for is not the military aspect of flight. Or avionics. Just the flight part. I'm actually looking forward to the whole slew of trainers ED and others are developing - I'd like to see a full length training campaign focusing on the airmanship. (However, I'm also looking forward to the MiG-21 training back by the guys who did the A-10C one)

So, I guess, what I was doing but with more confidence. I think starting DCS with the MiG-21 spoiled me with its instant response to the throttle... Excellent point about the pitch, thank you. EDIT: Seems like I nailed the approaches - now just need to figure out how not to veer off the runway in either direction and die at an embarrassing 30MPH...