M1Combat

From the latest update... "PRIFLY View the deck below you. Direct the carrier’s heading and speed with wind indications (permission controls available for network play). Control deck lighting. View PLAT CAM. View plotting map." So... Just wondering if there's a pathway here to having a Carrier Command style experience in DCS with the SC???

Umm... OK. Thanks for your reply. Please keep in mind I specifically said it is "not" super strength 300IQ good... as you said... So... thanks for agreeing with me I guess? Also... It (the modern AI, as I stated) is not half bad. It indeed used to be half bad. Now it is not. Please keep in mind I did not say it was "all good". Praise and criticism doesn't exist at the edges of black and white sir. The entire point of both is to expose the reality of where something exists in the grey area between "it's perfect" and "It's useless". Also for the record... "AI FM is not only more lax inducing G-loc to its pilot it can also reinvent the ingame physics while it penalizes you"... I'm currently about 350-0 while flying a Hornet against the old AI on random difficulty in another Hornet, guns only, with the opponent setup 1KM off my tail to start, both at 400kts... back when they had a much better AI FM than we get. I've only flown that mission a couple times since the new AI and it beat me the first time but not in about 5 tries after that... but it's MUCH more believable in how it responds to the player aircraft positioning. Please don't use their FM advantage as an excuse. It's a bit more of an advantage to them in the WW2 birds (and the Mirage AI FM was a bit "perky" for a while too) but it wasn't all that much of an advantage in the modern fighters. Certainly not enough to offset the old AI's lack of skill in any situation.

What's your page file setup like?

"BS2 has over a decade of missions and campaigns supporting it that are now totally unavailable to people who didn't happen to buy BS2 sooner!" Well that's just not true. Any single mission can be converted in the mission editor in like 12 seconds. Maybe a few will have bugs but in large part I think they'll work great. Campaigns take a bit more but are also super doable. Just ask around :). Small tip for you and your brother... You can also use the Mission Editor to make sure there are both BS2 and BS3 aircraft available. One drawback to this is that if the primary aircraft gets destroyed it's likely that the programming of the mission will not allow the second aircraft to trigger mission progress. You could fix that... but that's well beyond the scope of my post :).

The WW2 planes have less realistic AI. As I recall the WW2 AI will be updated "Soon". The modern AI isn't half bad. It's not super strength 300IQ good either :). It is very beatable at all skill levels, but it does fairly intelligent things based on the current dynamics of the fight. It doesn't appear to have all the tricks a seasoned fighter pilot would have... but it's passable for sure. 1 circle vs. 2 circle defines a style of fight that is chosen at the merge by the AI based largely on their airframe and it's strengths. Google the subject there is a lot to learn there.

"sold with content being 90% pure invention." "It's the same level of what if than attaching Rafale wings on a Mirage 3 expecting it to work properly" "This is an upgrade which is sold as something realistic while nothing about it ever existed" These statements are simply not true sir. I know you know the arguments so I won't belabor them here but these statements go too far. 90% pure invention?? Swapping wings? Nothin about it ever existed??? WUT? There isn't a SINGLE module in this game that is "perfectly" real sir. You may as well stop acting like there are... and just enjoy what we have. You're cutting off your nose to spite your face friend ;). There is clearly enough evidence to indicate that this was the direction the aircraft was going had development continued.

He's right though...

^^ Solution

They are generally pretty good about doing these things. I'd ask @BIGNEWY to run it up the flagpole :). To assist I'd also suggest that you make an exhaustive list of which ones need to be broken out in that way.

Just fire 10 before takeoff....

I didn't explain well but what I mean is that they don't do their own thing well when fast movers are around. By that I mean that if there's an enemy fighter around you simply have to take note and significantly adjust your focus to defend yourself or pay attention until they've moved on, and if the enemy fighter has a half decent pilot... You're almost certainly done if they so choose. I have many, many hours in the shark. I've shot down a number of enemy aircraft, including two human piloted Huey's with AI door gunners at once at close range using the cannon and HMS :). Anyway... I agree with all you said. I'm not trying to say your only option is land and prepare your picnic until the sky is clear :). You can make an effort to defend yourself for sure, but... you're on the wrong side of the power curve IMO :). The fighter is designed to kill other things in the air... and it will. The heli is designed to hopefully defend itself... and it might :). I'm just saying that to defend yourself against a fighter, using a heli... You have to do a lot of things just right and they have to do a lot of things wrong :). Aside from that... Heli's stick out like a sore thumb on radar. Aside from physical cover or concealment from the moment the fighter might have LoS... you aren't going to go sneaking about if the fighter takes any interest.

You can swap the HMS over to NVG at least. It's not horrible. I mean it's almost horrible... but not quite :).

The moment you see a fast mover that can kill you... you need air support or SAM support. Preferably both. Most heli's don't do well when any fighters or CAS aircraft are around. The heli's rotor creates a HUGE radar signal... and their exhaust points UP. Gain air superiority first or operate as if you don't have it if you aren't sure. In MP make sure you're on the GCI channel and listen at the least.

They're pretty quiet.

Practice makes permanent. Not perfect. Control issues aside the primary thing I've seen people do that prevents fueling is that they're being too gentle and slow near the basket. Clearly you need to be precise but you aren't looking to just make it to the basket. When I AAR I tend to catch the basket on my way into a tight formation with the fueler. I probably sit about 2/3 hose length. Don't watch the basket itself. There's a good tutorial on what the sight picture needs to look like for the hornet at least. Essentially a "glide slope" to the basket if you will... It shows you where each of three of four things need to be as you approach. Small chance it might be in Chuck's guide??? Maybe not. Anyhow... Don't try to match speed with tanker "too much" and then "creep" in on the basket. Don't watch the basket directly. Lots of people use the air-brake to fuel as it deadens the throttle a bit.

https://gitlab.com/overlordbot/srs-bot/-/wikis/Interaction

Lots of great suggestions here for sure... Another is the Cold War server... Try to sync with a GCI schedule... Get SRS for at least the squad lead. Whomever is the squad lead should jump into ColdWar early and get an understanding of which channel GCI uses etc. Just sit on the ground and change channels and listen. I can't remember if GCI/Magic/Overlord is channels 1/2/3. You can also use the automated voice controlled GCI if you prefer. Just hold the right SRS Push to Talk and say "Overlord Ahsoul 1-1 request picture" and it will tell you what the picture is. "Overlord Ahsoul 1-1 Bogey Dope" will have it give you a BRA call. "Overlord Ahsoul 1-1 Vector to home plate" will make it tell you where to go to re-fuel/re-arm. There are other commands that are also useful. Just listen to other people using it on that channel. You'll need to set your squad names to be "something 1-1 | Nickname" so AI overlord understands who's speaking... and your squad name needs to be recognizable by AI overlord. So... ahsoul 1-1 may not work... but asshole 1-1 probably would... Setup your comms to have a squad com channel either through SRS (aircraft's radios will work to set a channel frequency for yourselves) or through discord or whatever you're using. Have your squad leader in SRS at least and on the correct channel for the GCI. Announce to the GCI that you're a 2, 3, 4 ship of whatevers, where you're taking off from and what you'd like to do (CAP, CAS, wreck everything on the scope...) whatever... And the GCI will vector you to live targets. They will even do things like use your flight tactically :)... which is SUPER fun. Learn to understand BRA calls and relay them to your squad. Direct your squad as you see fit based on the BRA calls from the GCI. It's OK to be new at MP. You'll be targets at first but that's fine. Use team tactics and a GCI and that will QUICKLY change :).

I would try the adjustment. I suspect when loading textures it will force both the CPU and GPU frame to wait for the textures. I don't know if it's the solution but it's low hanging fruit regarding time investment. Like almost quicker than these two extra messages :). Just one more thing to be sure is off the list.

Frame time improvements aren't something you believe... they are something you measure

I would try to eliminate texture loading real quick first. If you know that the stutter occurs at "exactly" the same place etc from takeoff I'd adjust the pre-load and the ground textures in turn and see if it changes. What kind of drive is DCS on? Windows?

Maybe because...

Nice

^^^ 100%

I've been preaching the "Don't stop unless you need to" thing for years. The first thing most new heli pilots do is start asking "What's the best way to get to a stable hover?" I always reply "Don't... a stable hover is the most dangerous kind of hover." I mean clearly it has it's uses... but I always try to teach people that they need to work on SA first, moving as effectively as possible in their SA envelope, stay low and learn how to slow down without gaining altitude. That said... NOT a real heli pilot here... but I do have a good number of hours in sim heli's and I've learned a good bit from flaming balls of wreckage... Mine and theirs :).

Just a small note... I noticed after the 2.8 update that my trim type setting in Apache options (and indeed all my "special" options... like auto rudder and T/O assist in the warbirds) had been reset to the defaults and not the setting I had them set to. Not sure if that was just mine or not :).