Gman109

$1330 USD for the new Vive with the sensors and remote thing. Ridiculous. I bought the Vive when it first came out too, $1250 CAD, and it worked like crap compared to the Rift for cockpit/desktop games. I'll pass.

Where are all these Chinese ships etc in the game??

The email comms with Virpil for me have been excellent. Very interactive with me, despite having similar experiences with the "check your order" deal as others here. They are a growing company doing their best IMO, I've used the T50 for a few months now (I sold it to someone who demanded it from me at $100 more than I paid as he didn't want to wait) and am waiting for a new bottom end for my remaining T50 stick. I'll be supporting them by purchasing the WrBrd (this I really want, as I can put my various TM sticks as well as the Virpil's in it on my desktop), and their throttle too. Those of you who haven't used one of these newer sticks don't know what you're missing, the improvement over the WH is significant. I best describe it as all the best feelings that my trusty CH could give me in terms of light precision, yet quality and a "solid" feel that my TM WH sticks have, and that's with the factory/stock cams and springs. You are able to really customize the feel with the different cams/springs. I find the only real negative with the desk mounts was the distance to my desk to reach the keyboard and see the LCD, but what with VR being most of my DCS flying now anyway - which is another story - that distance doesn't matter. I did buy a keyboard stand that lets me prop up my keyboard at about 30 degrees, allowing me to more easily hit keys that I need to here and there even with Voice Attack. Guys who want a center stick will really like the desk mounts and T50 with the extensions too, I've used a specific side stick placement on my desktop since the early 90s, but am considering changing to center stick for some stuff when the new T50 base gets here.

I have an order pending as well close to the same amount of time Haukka, just over 2 weeks. I'm in no way concerned, I wouldn't be Haukka. I ordered from them before some time before Xmas a few months back, same thing happened to me - the status changed on my order the same day it was sitting in my community mailbox locker, surprised me. It's a bit confusing on the Virpil site - below each item in the catalogue it says it's a 10-14 day wait for assembly, testing, and customs clearance. This refers to customs clearance for the parts coming IN to Virpil, NOT going OUT to the customer. Then, on the shipping/receipt page it states it can take 5 to 14 days for EMS (the shipping company) for your order to arrive. So, a total of up to 14 days (at least) for Virpil to complete, test, and ship your order, than another 5 to 14 days for you to receive it. IE they've stated (although not perfectly clearly, but clear enough) that it can take up to 28 days from the time you order to the time you receive it.

My F5 locks up as well, I get into the cockpit but then just the white hourglass hovering after I hit "fly". I can make the F15C fly, but have no HOTAS controls. Clean install no mods on the system below and my Broadwell E system with similar equipment/GPU.

Wow, thank god. I'd uninstalled my Thrustmaster WH controls and vkb peds, as well as my T50 and Gunfighter umpteen times, tried a pile of different stuff, other games, tested in Windows Game controller - heh, not just me I see.

Same here. I have several gaming machines with GPUs from the fastest 1080ti/SLI to the Titan XPs all with the most current "gaming" CPUs, 3 Rifts, 2 Vives(sold), and now a Samsung Odyssey. I've grown tired of the incredible lack of IQ with VR. I've tried every setting, every head position, every trick out there - it just plainly sucks IMO compared to a good gaming LCD. I don't really get the whole "being there" thing either, I truly don't feel any special experience so far as immersion, it's just become a bunch of negatives for me. Luckily I have family that use the Rifts for driving games, otherwise they'd be out the door with the Vives and Samsung now too. Maybe in 5 years there will be an adequate VR solution that at least comes close to 1080p on a gaming LCD, much less 4k that's available now. I don't know how anyone competes online in PvP multiplayer when you can't even make out dots much less the bogie's type until it's within a few hundred yards, just a blurry blotchy mess, where as without VR it's so much easier. Also the ability to see behind yourself with TrackIR compared to VR is 10x easier, without the ability to use peripheral vision in VR you literally have to point your VR unit right behind your chair/desk to see behind you, which is IMO impossible unless you spin your chair mostly straight around backwards. Forget that. I can understand offline play with VR in it's current state, but how anyone survives vs non-VR players of even close to equal skill in PvP online servers....

Thanks Skate! Worked after a reboot for me, putting the WinDate back a couple days. I'll push this to other gamers I know that are flipping right TF out right now. I can't say I blame them, this isn't even the first time OcRift has let this happen either. One would think with their sales about to fall off due to having NO competitive unit on the way to counter the Vive 2.0 or Samsung/etc mixed units, they would be crossing t's and dotting i's and being very particular about not screwing up what they have. What an embarrassment, and a very inopportune time too as I said, what with not having a new 2.0 product on deck to counter HTC or Samsung/etc. Unreal....

RIP Gos.

Great to see you posting here LogiRich. First step for good customer relations is getting in the trenches and listening/reading what's said about your products, and your customers needs. I've dealt with Logitech recently when they acquired Astro headsets, sets I've long bought, a new one every year or so for all the gaming setups we have in our home, and Logitech was great considering I bought 2 right during the week of the transition. I hope it goes the same with Sai-catz. +1 on selling the throttle and stick as single units. You can tell your marketing people as well as those responsible for sales quotas that you will move more product if you offer the X56 as single units. I'm happy to give you 3 links by PM, right now, to other popular sim games/players who have recently asked about the x56 throttle availability in just the last month - I don't want to disrespect ED by posting links to another game's forums is all. You'll be able to undercut TM's single throttle price while matching capabilities that players want (split, dials, etc), while offering a superior product feature wise to the other stand alone throttles available (TM TWCS and CH's throttle). I firmly believe despite any extra costs in creating packaging and a logistics train, it would be a profitable move. Great PR too. That's important. I hope Logitech will also create a new HOTAS, and continue to inovate in this area - it should be obvious Rich just from this one single game's forum that the custom market has exploded with new options - that happened for several reasons, not the least of which was a vacuum in new products from major manufacturers like yourself. I've collected HOTAS since the early 90s, I have dozens, and many duplicates of ones I've liked over the years. I'd love to add more, and giving the growing sim market's players more options would be great. Particularly if you were to offer features that are innovative, or not available otherwise (force feedback while not my cup of tea seems to have a pretty solid following, as an example). Hope to see you continue to give us information and stay in contact here Rich.

OP - I feel you. With TM it's a total crapshoot. I've been collecting HOTAS since the early 90s, I have over a couple dozen sets and various single sticks, including 2 Cougars and 3 Warthog sets. I got a Cougar before it was released on the market as I was editor for the biggest sim site back then, and they sent us one to look at before it was out in order to maximize their press. That one has thousands of hours of use, and not a single issue other than wear and tear on the paint or anodizing or whatever. The 2nd Cougar was a nib one I opened up and had 2 big failures within a year of use. Same goes for the Warthogs - 2 of them have worked fine, no sticktion at all with my primary one which I bought they day they became available. The 3rd WH stick got sticktion within a few months of medium use. Annoying. CH Products has noticed a HUGE decrease in quality since they sold out in the late 2000s, the internals when you take one apart compared to the units that came before the buyout - it's like they are intentionally trying to make them crap or something... OP - if you want a cheap throttle to get you by the next few months, pick up a TM TWCS - it's as good or better than the CH stand alone throttle, and cheap, I've seen them for 60 bucks on sale on Amazon/etc. I'm going to buy the Virpil and VKB units as soon as the come available, email I got a few days ago from Virpil said that they should be able to fill my WarBrd and throttle orders in March. These Russian and former Soviet republic nations sure are making great custom stuff, I've been SO impressed with the T50 and Gunfighter sticks, the VKB pedals as well. BRD pedals too, which IMO are probably the best custom ones out there, things just scream quality, weigh 25lbs too.

I wonder if it will include RWR information as the real world system does....pretty classified though.

It's close to the best, Titan XP I've found to perform a bit better in DCS, especially OC vs OC, but for the $, yes the 1080ti is the best option. 8700k or the i5 variant IMO is the best bang/$ out there - match that CPU with a decent MB/Ram/M.2 and a 1080ti, and you've got pretty much the best system for DCS available at the moment.

One thing I've wondered is if DCS goes through the trouble to model the helmet mounted sight and the Aim9x for the Hornet, will they move that over to the F15C as well, which has that same missile and helmet system?

So in the future what's going to happen if you DON'T log in every 4 days? My sched is such that often times I don't log into DCS for weeks, even a month or more on end. What happens then? Anything that simplifies the copy protection sounds great, this sounds like a great idea. I also hope that commonality between Steam purchased items and regular DCS modules returns - I bought the Mirage 2000 from Steam a while back, and it wouldn't install in my regular DCS due to the new copy protection back then. I hope this new system reverses that again, as I have a lot of credit in my Steam account, and have bought everything from DCS I could there, (I have the entire catalogue now), and for future releases, wouldn't mind using up that Steam credit on DCS modules. Either way, just so the copy protection adds more protection for DCS's hard work, yet simplifies it for customers, it's a win IMO.

Great, thanks for the info. I would have thought though that in the actual "sale" page for the Harrier it would state open beta specifically, instead it still says "stable 1.5", I just checked. It looks like they did add in the beta clause near the top, however the bottom line still states (and this was the only line regarding version until today) - I know from all the posts I wan't the only one confused by this. All clear now - great initial manual too, 118 pages is a great start. Great new module, DCS is doing great. Really pumped for the Hornet now after some blue water Harrier ops.

Where is the official statement on this??? On the DCS website, under the AV8B module, it specifically states that you only need to have the STABLE 1.5 version installed. Yet, I've read in a few threads that you have to install the BETA version. I've checked every pinned thread and no place does it clarify this. Why? Which version do I actually have to use - I'm not installing a 3rd version, and I'm not crazy about converting my 1.5 to beta after all the other problems my system has had. Anyhow, great job Razbam/DCS team, it looks fantastic in the vids I've seen. Just wish it had more clear instructions regarding this, and that they were posted in a sticky/pinned post, as it's rather important, knowing how to install it.

+1, one of my favorite aircraft. Barrett Tillman has written a lot about it, and done many videos available on YT. The old "Dogfights" series did a pretty good episode on the F8, the "Last of the Gunfighters" I believe the episode was called, the interviews with the pilots who fought vs Mig21/17/19 in it were excellent. One of my favorite single engine jet fighters of all time, and with the carrier ops, it'd make a great addition to the growing DCS inventory someday.

I used to work for a flight sim site back in the late 90s and early 2000s. Combatsim.com, and we were good friends with Carl Norman, who was with SSI and the early Flanker/2.0/2.5 productions. I was going through some old stuff the other week, and found this link to an empassioned letter Carl had written a couple years before he left ED to go work on DARPA related drones/etc. Funny how close it could have come to never having happened, I think his words show how worried he was that Flanker Attack and what would become the DCS world we now have, would never end up happening. It didn't end up being "game over", Carl's final words in his post, it became more like "game on". Thank you Wags and everyone else at ED that has seen this through to where we are now. With F18 and so many other great modules coming, I hope for continued success with everything DCS related. Great job, I'm sure if Carl could have looked ahead the day he wrote these words, he'd have been very satisfied with how ED/DCS products evolved into what they are now. http://www.combatsim.com/memb123/htm/2001/02/cnorman/ I'll cut/paste the last couple paragraphs which make my point -

I own the VKB pedals (the generation before the current ones which are a bit improved, I bought them last year, last pair in North America they were before Jason left them). I also own a pair of the Slaw BG109K, and a pair of MSG Xwind. CH and Saitek combat pedals too, but they don't count, haha. Anyhow, I hear what the OP is saying about the MFGs, yes you could mount them to the floor in some way, but if you don't want to bother, switching to the VKB is fine IMO. The VKB pedals are all metal, very, VERY tough construction. You can also modify their width, as well as the angles of the arms, plus you can mess with the pedals themselves, adjusting their throw. There is also a VERY grippy rubber base on the bottoms of the pedals, which grab my floor and carpet like cat claws. Sounds perfect for you. I find they are the most precise rudder pedals out there, like the VERY old CH Pedals of yore, they function the same way, your ankle does the work, and the ankle is far more of a precise motor skill than your entire shin/leg which push the MFG/other pedals more, more of a gross motor skill. VKB also happen to be the least expensive custom option out there. They are fairly heavy, but again, just helps keep em planted well.

Good link here - https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3102005&postcount=21

While I understand and agreed with many of the complaints about the current gen VR - graphics sucking compared to my ROG Swift monitors, not being able to see your KB or controls, not being able to see behind yourself easily due to the FOV limit of the device and being physically impossible to turn around in a chair completely - all that said, VR for single player is by far more immersive and enjoyable for me. PvP online, easy to get smoked by an equal skill opponent due to the limitations of VR to TrackIR for keeping track of things behind your 45 cone of vulnerability.

Canadian Hornet pilots have done exchanges with the USN and done carrier traps/launches and quals.

I have a question about the stick base - I fly with my forearm planted in a place on my surface/desk, so the desk clamp/mounts are a no go for me. How balanced/sturdy is the stick base, it looks like a pretty small square, just wondering how it is to use just sitting on a desktop surface like that. Do you need to affix it firmly in place with something, or will it generally stay in place all on its own if you're using it without the desk clamp mount.

Wow, ok, many thanks for the info. Have to pick it up from DCS site I guess.