slug88

Presumably, templates of static objects, which are absent, AFAIK.

Exactly, all you people who are printing the PDF's right now are wasting your money; the official release will probably be cheaper, and it will have corrections and additional content.

Also, on the overhead panel, and green 'route' sign will light up when it's engaged.

The HUD is activated when you turn on the Weapons Control System (bottom left panel). It takes a minute or two for it to warm up; once the WCS is on, you'll see a yellow 'HUD No Ready' lamp on the overhead panel while the HUD is warming up.

No, the AP can not take directions from the ABRIS. Nor can any other equipment on the helicopter. The ABRIS is there purely to display information being sent to it by other devices, beyond that it can not interact with or control anything on the helicopter.

Are you setting any waypoints for the MiG-29, besides the takeoff point?

I've never had this happen. How exactly are you disengaging the autohover? Are you hitting the AP Emergency Off switch (which happens to be the wrong way to do it)?

Heading hold is off as long as Flight Director is ON, or while you're holding down the trimmer button. Also, you could disengage the AP heading hold (one of the four blue AP control buttons), but this is neither necessary, nor allowed in real life, barring AP malfunction.

Here's another great way to minimize keyboard use: use the clickable cockpit! It's far more immersive, and I don't know why anyone would still be the using the keyboard.

I have not noticed this. Are you sure you're not flying with unlimited ammo enabled?

Post a track.

I believe the SOP is to leave the three main AP channels on at all times. This has nothing to do with tactical rigidity and/or adherence to the preplanned flight plan, rather the AP is there to assist the pilot in dealing with his significant workload. Personally, I find that the best method to make smooth, coordinated turns is to hold down the trimmer until you've reached the new desired heading. This way, you won't be fighting the AP stabilizers throughout the turn, while retaining their damping function.

If you're referring to that Abrams in the beginning, I think all it's doing is driving off road to avoid the burning hulk on the road ahead of it, just as the AI will currently do.

I'm running a dual boot system with XP 64 and Windows 7. The W7 was a clean install on a new partition. So far, I've had no need to load the XP partition.

Yep, it's pretty much just that, as well as replacing all the w's with v's. "Vingman vone, rejoin formationski."

AFAIK Microsoft has now opened the beta to unlimited enrollment; in other words, keys will be available for the foreseeable future.

Lol, I don't think we'll be seeing admirals until they model the Ka-32. AFAIK, the rank of Admiral does not exist within Army Aviation. As for me, I'm still a lowly 2nd Lt., since my current practice is creating a new profile each time my pilot dies! The day I set my pilot to immortal is the day I play in game mode :noexpression:.

Better yet, just get the Windows 7 beta for free, and then buy the release in August. I think buying Vista at this point would be a huge waste, when a massive improvement is on the horizon. I've been using Windows 7 since it's been available, and so far the sailing has been very smooth, even my X-Fi soundcard seems to be agreeing with the beta.

I doubt that you'll be able to get smooth framerates with all settings on high. My expectation is that you'll be maintaining 40+ fps with everything but view distance set to high. I'm not sure if there's a machine in existence today that can maintain good fps with view distance set to high, but I'd be glad if someone would correct me.

If anyone's interested in starting a community effort to get these localized, I'd be glad to help. I'm a native Russian speaker, so I'll be happy to lend that authentic Russian accent to any role that is provided to me :D.

I've no advice besides "practice". This is one of those things that's simply hard, no way of avoiding that fact. It's hard and all you can do is practice. It's all a matter of getting a feel for the weapons and being able to predict their behavior. Also, note that in real life, the gun pods, and especially the unguided rockets, aren't intended as 'precision weapons' anyway. They're excellent tools for suppression, and for destroying enemy soft targets when used en masse. Recall that in World War II, the accuracy of airborne delivered unguided rockets was believed to be on the order of 1%. The rockets you're firing from the Black Shark aren't all that much different than those RS-82's they were firing from IL-2's, so you shouldn't expect to be scoring direct hits with every salvo.

I have a feeling that was a recent addition in response to the aforementioned comment :D

Good work. I enjoyed the review and have commented. I recommend everyone else do the same; registration was a surprisingly easy one step process. We need to spread the word, people!

As geogob said, besides the smoking and high heels, I'd say my game looks identical. And where are you seeing the AI being more "lively" than it is in our game?

I'm playing BS on the Windows 7 Beta right now, and it seems to work perfectly, starforce drivers and all. This is with the english download version. And I'm happy to report a roughly 25 fps improvement over XP 64.