DiabloSP

Honestly, I'm not triying to be rude, but I think that if you don't have the patience to reinstall the sim, loosing maybe 2 minutes of your time (yes, you can keep doing anything else while it installs!) you won't have the patience to learn how to fly it. Good luck mate! :thumbup:

You don't get the picture I was triying to explain. Anyway, I won't bother with it any more, as it simply won't happen anytime soon. We'll keep fliying perfectly modeled airplanes in a less than perfect shooting gallery.* * IF we only get new airplanes and no ground improvements for 10 years, which we all know ED won't allow it to happen.

There's no need to dream that far. You don't need a "Battlefield 2" experience, this is DCS not BF. The (very vague) "general-idea" need is isolating the AI and Vehicle Control Command subsystems so they can be executed by players or AI, and then having an AI that is good enough to behave in a realistic fashion. Easy to say, very hard to accomplish.

Tanks are sitting ducks in the current implementation in the sim. But I talked about the need of a ground AI and ground units rework. As it stands now, a tank sim would not work. A lot of work needs to be done previously. IF that rework is done, player controlled tanks would not be sitting ducks. As GG said, a proper radar network would bring EW to all datalinked vehicles in the net. Even if not datalinked, radio comms would alert the ground crews of nearby enemy planes. You can't even count on firing HARMs or MAVs at will because of enemy CAPs (yes, in an open war you are not alone in the sky burning tanks). If you fly high, EWR will track you. If you fly low, MANPADS will get you as soon as you overfly any kind of enemy concentration. In a case of 50/50 air superiority, being in a Hog is not as easy as you seem to think. Mobility and the cover of woods, buildings, and self defence AA units, do the rest. And when I talked about "MBT sim", I was thinking more in a "Platoon sim", or even multi-platoon sim, something close to Microprose's M1 Tank Platoon, where you could drive 4 tanks and take control of various support platoons. Those were great sims in their time, very challenging and fun. You did not need to drive 2 hours to get anywhere, you took control when forces where in close proximity. Every sim needs proper distancing between forces when designing missions. A-10 can be 300km apart, KA-50 can be 100Km apart, and tanks can be 15Km apart. But, of all the ideas posted, the one I like most was the possibility of integrating truly realistic ground war in what already is a truly realistic air war scenario. It's very very important in two sims that simulate some of the most effective tank killers of our time.

DCS: MBT would be a nice addition. I know it won't happen because of engine limitations, but it would bring many good things to the table, if all the systems were made to be integrated with A-10 and Ka-50. For starters, tanks are not -that- classified. Info about them is easier to come by. Their systems are also a lot easier to model than jets or helicopters. A bundle with M1 and T80 would be very easy to model (ok, not that easy, but I bet it's easier than modeling an F-18). Armor and ballistic models would be developed, enhancing realism in the two previous DCS models. Ground AI would need to be reworked, enhancing realism in the two previous DCS models. I think you get the picture. Everything that is lacking now in the DCS series, is exactly what needs to be done in a ground sim. It would compliment the two present models perfectly. A true combined arms sim, with A-10s supporting players in tanks. Apart from that, there is no competitor on this kind of sim. SB is ages old, and it's the only one. From there on, the sky is the limit.

I'm guessing the titanium bathub that protects the pilot from 23mm fire should reduce a lot any noise generated under his seat, but come on, this is a PC sim, realistic or not, we NEED those sounds and feedback. Every noise gives a little bit more of that "being there" feeling.

As far as I know, crossfire only works with twin cards. Exactly the same. Apart from that, a single 5970 is more than enough to get what you need. This sim is not that graphical intensive, it is more CPU intensive. I have a 4850 512mb and run the sim nicely at 1920 resolution with everything maxed save AA and scenes on medium.

Makes complete sense, great post. Expanding on the RALT thing, if I remember correctly, Tornados and some other planes have two TFR, one looking straight down to measure current RALT, and one looking a bit ahead so the plane can fly very close to the ground safely avoiding incoming elevations. Without that second radar keeping you safe, fliying close to the ground in low visibility is looking for trouble. Always keep an eye on the flight plan and take notes on altitudes prior to takeoff. Especially if there are clouds expected.

Beta 3 will have the fix I guess. This is a non-critical bug that doesn't need a patch, IMHO.

Good to know it's something high on the priority list, or at least on the minds of the creators. A couple years more won't hurt. :thumbup:

Being a military sim enthusiast for more than 20 years, there is something in the DCS series that I miss greatly: proper, in-depth mission planning interface. In the DCS series, only the mission creator is able to create the flight path, weapons loadout, etc. Yes, we can edit the mission prior to start if we like to change the plan, but it's only a modification on the mission itself what we're doing. What I'm talking about is, I miss some kind of easy-to-use and understand, mission planning tool. Not for the creator of the mission, but for the pilots. Some kind of collaborative chat room with maps, elevation maps, distance measure tool, proper icons with estimated threat ranges, and no pre-planned flight path. Ideally, you'll have your mission objective, but no flight plan. If you have a pre-planned flight path, you loose the thrill of estimating the best IPs, exit routes, and all the weight of mission success or a fiery death rests on your fliying skills, not on your tactics and brains. I miss the need to account for stores in my base's inventory or the possibility of attacking using this or that weapon if it's available. Of course, for the creator, it's harder to "program" the mission to behave in a certain way if the player has that much freedom, but that's what life is like. Mission designers would have to be more creative and realistic when placing forces during mission creation. But I feel that would bring a lot more depth to the experience. Is anybody missing this too, or do you feel what we have is good enough?

If you plan on buying Tir and are short on money, get the Trackclip first and start tinkering with Freetrack. Works like a charm (depending on your webcam, that is) and you don't need to get all the cash upfront.

I have noticed the gun rolling a bit on external views when gun mode is selected, don't know if it's arbitrary or happens when you depress the first trigger before firing, or some other reason. But it's a nice touch.

I'm sure most of the people that traverses this forums and spends literally hundreds of hours fliying and learning, would be ok even if they had to pay the asking price twice. I am planning on doing it just for the sake of contributing to what I think it is the only effort in the world to bring us this kind of products. We all should do it if we really feel it is worth it. Come on, you have a friggin' real A-10 in your hands, just the PDF manual alone is worth 60 bucks, and the sim is way beyond most of our wettest dreams. We'll be spending months fliying it. How is it possible that people pay 70€ to play Modern Warfare, a game that is over in 5 hours (tested it myself)! Think about it, what would you be fliying if DCS was not around? I wouldn't be fliying anymore. Software is way more important than every other aspect in this hobby (Hotas, Hardware) and yet it is the most underpriced, by far. Think about it.

IF we're to have a good, realistic 2 seater aircraft in SP, we need proper 2-seater AI to handle the tasks you're not doing while in the other seat. If you're piloting, you need to have an AI co-pilot searching and acquiring (sp?) targets. On the other hand, if you're in the gunner's position, you can't pilot and effectively use all the systems to locate targets properly, you need someone piloting the aircraft so you can work with confidence. Of course, some system to order the AI "verbally" should be in place: "Fly lower", "Fly faster", "RTB", etc. I sincerely don't think it will work if no AI is present with you while you fly in single player. When playing MP, lag may be a bit annoying, but I don't think it would break the experience if the game client has a good system interpolating states/positions in the game. As said before, it has been done a long time ago. Seat position should be chosen pre-fligth and unchangeable, and disconnects would be handled by returning the chopper to 1player mode: as soon as 1 player disconnects, the AI takes over his role. I feel a bit stupid saying all this as i'm sure ED already is doing/has done all of it already :D

If I was a helicopter pilot triying to land on an unprepared strip or in the middle of a field, I would never try to make a rolling landing. You're risking too much and it's hard to see bumps in a field. If it's a Su-25, then you have to cross your fingers, I guess. Most secondary or country roads in the world are full of bumps and I guess any plane triying to land there would crash most of the time. A field is even worse, you don't know the rigidity of the surface, and you definately can't land a multi-ton aircraft in a crop field because it would sink its wheels.

Nice work Trujillo! If you could post the way you're getting to this kind of results, I guess the community would be glad to help. Seems very, very interesting. Keep it up!

I'd like to bring another glass to the table. That 33Km/h speed, is the best for landing even with one engine? I remember being easier to land a bit faster (around 40-50Km/h) when on one engine only, but i'm not really sure that's the way to do it. Thanks in advance.

If you do that -> switch off the 3 auto pilot shiny buttons. ... It's normal to end like that -> crashing into the ground. GG is right.

I have the same problem here. And in my case, it has consequences. Multiplayer tracks are not saved correctly, sometimes they are not saved at all. Sometimes even mission outcome is not presented in the "debrief". Using AMD64X2 5800, ATI 4850, WinXP 32 Pro Service Pack 3. Latest drivers in everything.

Thanks AlphaOneSix, very interesting and insightful explanation. Now it all makes sense to me.

Although hard, very hard indeed, you can create a realistic combat environment today. Mostly adequate for low intensity conflicts, like the first campaing, but you can do it with a lot of work. What is being discussed here though, is the fact that MOST of that hard work can be taken off the hands of the mission creator, just by implementing some fairly simple AI routines (fairly simple in most recent games, maybe they are incredibly hard to create in the current BS engine...)

CAS is a lot more involved than VBR AA. For starters, you need to locate the target visually. Then you need to aquire the target with an optical sensor. Then you need to maneuver in a confined, usually NOE, usually threat heavy, environment, to get the optimum attack angle and direction. All of this, visually. In BVR scenarios, all that matters is AWACS, radar quality, missile quality, and sheer numbers...

A random thought crossed my mind this morning: - If you are in a typical Black Shark mission, CAS, or similar, but you know for sure you're going to fly near enemy helicopters, what would you prefer as ordnance, 2 R-73, or 12 Vikhr? Even in an escort mission, where you probably will find the biggest threat against the escorted elements is another attack helicopter, would you sacrifice all your long range AG firepower, just to carry 2 AA missiles, wich can be spoofed with flares? Would you risk loosing an encounter with enemy armor? The only scenario in wich those missiles are more useful than a Vikhr, is hunting slow moving, low fliying planes. And that work is done by other planes, not by sitting ducks.

Turret mounted machine guns are capable of firing directly upwards? Answering that question may answer our doubts.