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Hi Bee Sting, Have a look in the manual PDF that comes with the game.. In it there are pictures of the Cyclic (joystick) and Collective (throttle) with all of the real features on there. Use that as a guide to bind up your own Joystick settings... If you do not have a HOTAS (throttle), then just bind the "cyclic" buttons, and use the default keyboard keys to raise and lower collective. If your joystick has a throttle lever on it, then use that as the collective axis.

In game sence, this means you should not have the "Throttle" axis bound to an axis on your HOTAS (unless you have a spare one) ..as the proper usage of the throttle is essentially digital (ie move from Idle, up 1 step to low power, up 1 more step to auto). It is very tempting for people who first get the game to bind up the Throttle axis instead of the collective.

great stuff, congrats

what is the file extention ?....if it is .miz, then you should just be able to save it wherever you like. On the blackshark GUI click the "Mission" button..this will bring up a dialogue box where on the right had side you can navigate to where the .miz file is stored...select the .miz file and then click the "open" button at the bottom right...

show_fps is turned on with ctrl-pause I think I don't run vista, but have heard many people nearly doubling their FPS by forcing mutli core affinity. There is an app someone developed on this board called DCSMax , and from what I've heard, everyone who is running vista and multi cores should be using this app....search the forums for more info on it.

Actually, hopefully there will be a mirror in the front seat of the Apache module, as pilots in the AH64 use it for non-verbal comms between front and back seat (ie in the event comms is busted) ... not suggesting we'd be able to use it in the sim, but , ya know..accuracy is accuracy ;) I think the commanche hokum engine uses an animated texture for the rain / dust splatters ... it is pretty cool ... NFI if such a thing is do-able in the lomac engine though...could be a million reasons why not. ...though at least there'd be a use for the 3 position windshield wiper, lol

Hi Brad, 1) Don't worry about the campaign warning about Vista compatibility, this is a left over message from the beta days, and is no longer valid (and is to be removed I believe with the patch release) ... the game is fully compatible with Vista, and infact, many people have had better overall peformance on Vista than with XP (check out the DCSMax utility if you run multi processor / multi core, this can greatly improve performace in vista) 2) you might be "double transform" trimming by accident, OR you may have the stability augmentation turned off! Eather of these two things could result in a horrible see-sawing ... I'm sometimes flying along, and notice the ship is suddenly bucking like a bronco. A quick look down to the right confirms the a/p channels have switched themselves off. -Make SURE the a/p channels are ALLWAYS on (Yaw, Pitch and Roll), these are the blue buttons to the right hand side (the 4th one is altitude hold, which can be turned on and off as required). - press ctrl-enter to get the controls overlay up .. this will show if you are double transform trimming ... what I mean by this is, if you pitch the cyclic forward (for eg) and trim it but fail to return the stick to center quick enough, you will get a massive double transform pitch forward...if you then retrim to that and fail to return the stick, you could get a triple transform! The easiest way I have found to make sure this doesnt happen, is to press and hold the trim button 90% of the time, and only release it when flying at the correct attitude...when releaseing hte trim button, also IMMEDIATELY return the contrls (both cyclic and rudders) to center physically... on the ctrl-enter overlay, you will see where the controls are now trimmed to.

you cannot really "lock" a target with rockets as with the vhikrs, as they are un guided. You can however get HUD cue's that will try to calculate the impact point of your rockets based of a few things (Rocket Ballistics, altitude , and range). This is the cue that you are seeing in the HUD if you select the inner pylons (assuming rockets)...it is different from the Vhikr HUD pipper. If you lock a target with the Shkval, you will see the Shkval Line Of Sight pipper in the HUD. If you then select Inner pylon (assuming rockets), you will also see the rocket Calculated Impact Point pipper...this will be located somewhere near the middle / top of your HUD and will stay there if you manuever. The Laser range finder MUST be in standby prior to lockng the target for this to be accurate..it will continue to range for 30 seconds after lock. You must then use the helicopter primary controls (cyclic and rudder) to align the two reticules, and, if in range (ie less than 2KM's) , you will get a launch authority ("C" in the HUD)...press and hold the weapons launch key, and whatch those rockets fly (you can adjust the number of rockets per shot by selecting "short", "Medium" or "Long" on the weapons panel under the Shkval display). It is very difficult to be accurate with rockets, and they are considered an "area effect" weapon... As people have suggested above, you need to trim a LOT to be accurate...try pressing and holding the trim button while lining up the rocket shot, or , even try activating the "flight director" mode on the autopilot panel for lining up the rocket shot. Best of luck!

Lock On is the same... asssume engine limitation, and consider "time to implement new widget" vs "true value to sim" ... I know you mentioned it is a minor, so I'm not busting your balls here, just adding my view :)

yeah, its called "filter" , and it literally clamps the light source value. In a good (ie. dark, or low ambient) environment with track clip pro IR LED' emiters, there is no reason why you cannot set the filetering to it's highest value...infact I do this, and even with sunlight shining in perpendicular, I have never had tracking problems (at least not realted to FOIV...I alleways has FOV tracking problems when I lean in too far!...also get gimble lock, but thats not trackir's fault!)

Not quite sure i understand the situation (sorry, have not checked your track), however... the Outboard and Inboard pylons are likely to hold different weapons ... If the Outboard pylons have Vhikrs , then they have the ablity to defelect up / down themselves automatically + or - 15 degrees (? double check as I have just guessed a figure here)....check this by arming Vhikrs, lock a target point, switch to an outside view (F2) , and gently rock the cyclic back or forwards...you will see the Vhikr launch pod deflect automatically to keep the seeker head of the Missles alligned vertically with the current Shkval target...very cool. Anything on the inboard pylons will be rockets, fuel tanks or bomb's...non of which have the ability to deflect + / - , and so must (in the case of rockets) be fired "boresite" ... Laser ranging information and Ballistics information of the type of rocket are taken into account when presenting the rocket firing "target" piper on the HUD, but you will need to manually move the aircraft to point the rocket point of impact marker straight at the Shkval LOS marker both Horizontally and vertically (make sure laser is on standby to get accurate target impact point!)....actually quite difficult to do! ...thus making the 30MM cannon a much better choice IMHO, since it can automatically deflect in all 4 directions!.

Yeah, he talks to the differences in terms of target loiter...the Brits tend to get to altitude (2000 ft ?) from their IP and "wheel" over the target , whereas, apparently the US will NOE all the way in to hit-and-run ? It is a very good book IMHO .. I've also recently read "Apache Dawn" by Damien Lewis, also covering UK Apache operations out of Bastion / Helmand, and , though not as in depth as Ed Macy's, still has some interesting tid bits.

yeah, it's not really designed like your standard game campain, where you will get a "mission complete" acknowledgement (allthough that can be done if the mission designer chooses) ... it is designed more like in reality where the pilot must assess the success or failure based on his eyes on the battlefield ... the key is to read the briefing and try to understand it, then assess how you are doing over the course of the mission.

Allthough it is not possible to do this completely dynamically in the ME (ie. sending co-ordinates) , it could certainly be approximated by using triggers. If it were possible to set flag's from an action (ie. send custom message), then you could trigger from your radio, but as it stands, the best you could do is "fake" it by having an audio message and activate group action based on a locational trigger zone.

you can toggle labels on and off (if allowed) by using right_shift-f10 also.

..my guess is, that if there is a deactive agroup trigger, it will basically make them static .... whether they can then be "activated" again...? probably not ... would be nice though... I agree, a "hold:xx" waypoint type or trigger action would be great....there may be inherent issues with the AI that cannot allow for it though ? As for the topo stuff, yeah, I totally agree. I almost feel an interactive 3d placement map would be of benefit (take Tacview for eg) .. where the mesh is aproximated, but accurate enough ... I wonder if Tacview could be used as a unit placement engine to generate a .miz that can then be opened in the ME for triggers / actions / waypoints etc... with some modding?

Hi Vanessa, Where are you based?... I believe the majority of international versions are all ready in distribution.

In a post not long ago, I belive Wags outlines the upcoming improvements to the ME functionality in the (nearly here?) patch ! I remember seeing someone talk about a "deactivate group" trigger action, though that doesn't really help in your scenario...maybe a hold waypoint type, or hold trigger action will come with it too?.. As for height detail, you do get very accurate height data , if you hover the curser over a point, the height (ASL) is shown down the bottom of the screen ... though not as good as having contour lines, you can still "plot" out an area's topography by moving the mouse around it and taking note of the elevation...not saying it;s prefect, but incase you didnt notice the elevation data down the bottom there...

...anyway...install tacview.... ..it should basically come bundled with windows, thats how important it is IMHO :P

Hmm....double check the LUA file make sure he is marked as status= "active", and invulnerable: players.lua found in: X:\install_path\BlackShark\BlackShark\data\scripts\Logbook logbook = { players = { [1] = { invulnerable = true, awards = { [0] = { [6] = "Medal For Merit To Fatherland-II with swords", [2] = "Medal of Courage", [8] = "Hero Gold Star", [3] = "Nesterov Medal", [1] = "Courage Order", [4] = "Military Serve Order", [5] = "Georgy Cross-IV", [7] = "Georgy Cross-I", }, -- end of [0] }, -- end of awards picture = "", squadron = "Land Forces", password = "xxx", callsign = "xxx", name = "xxx", games = { [1] = { created = "12/13/08 21:00:38", player = "xxx", campaign = "./../Missions/Campaigns/Georgian Oil War - Chapter 1.cmp", status = "Active", history = If you do edit it, make sure to use Notepad++ or another decent editor, notepad has a history of killing lua file's

1) your pilot is probably dead...set him to "invulnerable" 2) nfi 3) Bomb drops are WW1 style dead reckoning, no CCRP/CCIP ... there is a producers note about them..I think the ony restriction is a minumum height / speed ?

If I'm not mistaken, the SIMMOD crew were working on improved textures and Airfield static density with ED, but it has, for some reason, not been completed or released.

...sorry, didnt watch track long enough I guess :/. Well, the "problem" showing in your screenshot ,is that the target is out of range. The cannon will only fire at targets 4KM or less (someone check my numbers), whereas the laser ranger is showing that target at 14KM's ... If you leave the weapons switch in "Auto" mode (as you should!) , then you will see a "C" appear in the HUD and in the Shkval when your selected weapons and selected target are within paramters. If they are out of parameters (ie out of range of teh weapon system), then no "C" , and with no "C" , no fire weapon. You can override this behavior , as suggested above, by selecting "Manual" weapons realease mode, but it is there for a reason, to increase your pK

Are you sure you attached the right track?... I whatched it, saw you fly forward, turn on the HMS and laser, target a Fuel truck, select Cannons, fire, destroy the truck with Cannons, get hit by 2 Missiles and fly into your wingman while banking left, and ejecting :) If you don't see or hear your cannons in that tracks, then something is very wrong.

theres no way your blades will collide if you fly within parameters... - throttle set to auto - EEG limiters on - do NOT exceed velocity threshold (ie. apy attention to the warning alarms going on at about 275 KPH) - do NOT yank on the cyclic - do not use right rudder if travelling faster than about 100 KPH (or at least be very gentle) the most common mistake is people travelling to fast...the blades will never collide if you are in a hover, I don't think it is physically possible..? unless maybe you are raising collective to full then dumping it then raising then dumping etc..in which case, well...