slug88

You can set your own waypoints in the Mission Planner. Use that in conjunction with the briefing to plan your strike. You can also check in with available JTACs, who will guide you to the targets they see. Note that these won't necessarily be your mission targets.

That's nice, how about the top armor? As in the part that would actually get shot at in a gun run by an A-10?

I'd wager the Concorde is more efficient in terms of miles per gallon of gas, but loses in terms of people*miles per gallon. In other words, a Concorde may use less gas than a 747 travelling the same distance, but the 747 will have delivered so many more people that it's cost per passenger is far lower.

That's their best card for under $110. Per the hierarchy chart on the last page, that card is roughly equivalent to an Nvidia 8800GT. That's what I had in my PC about four years ago. It might run DCS, but it will be neither pretty nor smooth.

Not going to happen. Anything under $200 or so will be a complete waste of money for playing games. Not sure what the current peak value card is, but this article should tell you: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html

You have to first select a unit in the F10 (map) view before the control first person button appears.

I think it's hard to argue that Western armor (M1A2, Leopard 2, Challenger 2, etc) doesn't win in a head-to-head engagement against any of the current T series, even on paper. Western tanks are simply bigger, more heavily armored, benefit from a more developed high tech electronics industry, and in summary are just much more expensive. However, I think Soviet and Russian tank design has always been driven by the consideration of warfare at the strategic scale, rather than the comparative focus on tactical effectiveness in the West. In other words, ease of production, maintenance, and crew training, and versatility and mobility at the operational scale trump one-to-one parity with opposing armor. See WWII, and their continual mass-production of the T-34 through the entire war, even though the design was clearly outmatched by the heavier German tanks that started appearing after the first year. Note that this served them very well in the end, ultimately helping them win Berlin, so they've had a good reason to continue this approach.

I thought AI JTACs with EPLRS could send red triangles in multiplayer too?

I think you're wrong. :)

I'm guessing you didn't turn on the Weapons Control System on the right panel.

Locking the enemy vehicle gives you the distance, negating the need to use the JTAC (binocular) view.

JTAC control in CA is for multiplayer use only; you can't designate targets for AI air assets in singleplayer.

To those not familiar with Giant Bomb, it's a very popular and very highly revered gaming news site. Many of you have probably watched their hilariously ill-fated attempt at . They're a huge name in mainstream gaming, and their weekly "Bombcast", which has been described as the Car Talk of gaming by The New Yorker, is among the most widely listened gaming podcasts on the internet. Well, it looks like ED has made some real fans of the guys, as DCS was the first game they discussed in their most recent podcast. You can stream it from here; they start talking about DCS at about 20 minutes in: http://media.giantbomb.com/podcast/giantbombcast-071012.mp3 Although I rarely delve into "mainstream" gaming, I listen to the Bombcast regularly, simply for the humor and high entertainment value. In fact it's very rare that I have any interest in the games they discuss. Therefore this was a very pleasant surprise, and potentially a moment of historic importance for ED, as they're seemingly doing what was long thought impossible: garnering mainstream popularity with a hardcore "niche" product. A well deserved congratulations to ED.

BTW, the following is false; Steam installs can play fine with ED installs, as long as they're at the same version:

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, supersymmetry still needs to be discovered!

Pretty sure Wags (the guy posting the screenshots) lives in the US.

Indeed, I can't think of a single game that effectively solves the problem of finding cover in a free form 3d environment. It's an issue not only of programming, but of limited CPU resources. We'll have photorealistic graphics and highly detailed physics modelling of all game entities long before we have realistic intelligence modelling. Furthermore, I wonder if seeking cover in crevices is really more intelligent than the current behavior. Were I a tanker under air attack, my strategy would be to bail out and run as far and fast as my legs could muster, with the intent of returning to the tank once the attack passed. Trying to find cover from above in a tank seems like a losing proposition, especially given the very limited situational awareness that a tank crew is likely to have.

Another recommendation for Ivy I5. I7 would be overkill for DCS (until the day DCS is running on more than 4 threads) and the Xeon isn't intended for gaming machines, it's meant for server racks and workstations. Also, Xeon is 8 cores, not 2.

I think it's a pretty safe bet that FC3 will mostly just be a direct port of FC2 to the World environment. There will likely be a few extra features (airbase resource management), but I expect the aircraft will look and play just like they do in FC2.

I haven't flown more than a dozen or so campaign missions, but I've never had to edit the missions to get SEAD to work properly.

Use your radio. Call SEAD to take out enemy air defenses, and call JTAC for target tasking.

alt+c

Wong by any metric.

As someone who purchased BS and WH on day one, and who's accumulated hundreds of hours in both, I say it's not even close, the Warthog is more survivable by far. This is due to the following advantages of the WH: Missile Warning System. The Ka-50 LWS is a joke in comparison. TGP. Hog has IR, nuff said. Standoff capability. 10ish km for Bs compared to 20+ miles for Hog. Speed and ceiling. Hog can fly faster and tremendously higher. General handling. No blade collisions to worry about, nuff said.

Remembet you can always adjust your flight plan to your liking using the Mission Planner functionality of the briefing screen.