zamboni

I tried to record the second DC mission last night but was having problem with FRAPS. For some reason the Sim would freeze for about 3-4 seconds and at the end of the freeze, FRAPS had quit recording and there was no joy hitting the record button again. On the video above it happened to me on the ramp after I landed so it was no problem, but last night it happened to me in mid mission. Not sure what is going on. It may be because I was trying to record to an external USB HD and that drive was spinning down for some reason. Unfortunately, my SA plain sucks. When I was recording the second mission last night I had my head down in the cockpit too long concentrating too much on what I wanted to do for my next guns run and BAM! Missile launch warning, Two missile launch warnings! Tried to start a CM program....where are the flares? I had ran out of flares! BOOM! BOOM! Luckily they only took out my Right MFD and I had a CICU warning light. I wasn't paying attention and drifted behind the enemy lines and into the range of an SA-13. I started to head back to base and then FRAPS quit on me :(. Stupid me, I deleted the files....should have posted it as a lesson in what not to do :). Re: Brightness/Contrast in the MFDs The white background map is just too bright for and I cant see the symbols on top of them....even though I lower the brightness I still feel that the symbols aren't bright enough, and feel I should be able to get them brighter. Cant have everything I guess :). Re: Equipment I probably should add it to my profile/signature so people wouldn't need to ask :) AMD Phenom X4 955 Black Edition O/C to 4GHz 8GB RAM 500GB WD 7200RPM HD HIS HD5770 1GB memory Windows 7 HOTAS Cougar Saitek Pro Flight Rudders TrackIR 3Pro + Vector + Vector hat clip Re: TrackIR I cannot do without one. I think it is required for flight sims along with a good HOTAS setup. I liked the TrackIR so much I did a review of it years ago! (Cant believe it has been that long!). I've had a bit of problem looking to the side and down and trying to keep a switch centered a bit. I think part of that has to do with the hat clip not being the best, and that the resolution of the TrackIR camera is showing its age. I am wondering if the track clip might work better. I upped the smoothness to max and it seems to help a bit though. Re: Smoothness in flying You know, I have a feeling that when I first started out in the sim I had very heavy loadouts and I usually ended up flying too slow. In those situations you can easily get yourself into stall situations where you have to learn how to fly lightly and smoothly with such a laden down hog. When you expend ordinance, it becomes much easier to fly, but you retain the smoothness (I'm just hypothesizing here). I have my stick setup with a curve of 20 (no deadzone), I tried higher but didn't like it. Even at 20 I run into a problem of yanking a bit too much pitchwise and getting stall warnings...but again being smooth helps out. The stall warnings usually come when I yank the stick back just a little too much. Right now there is a bug where JTAC will only send the datalink symbol when your GroupID is set to 01. Take a look at 0:20:45 in the video above. That is where I change the GroupID (at takeoff it is 02), I change it to 01.

Thanks for the comments. Its really hard to 1) learn all of the systems, 2) learn how to use the weapons and then 3) put everything together to attempt a mission. I always have a problem with situational awareness. Is that missile launch a SAM or a friendly Mav? Where exactly is SEAD or CAP, did they do their job? Even watching a video it is hard to tell just what I am doing in the cockpit because there are so many different key presses that you can do on your hotas and not see in the video. It is hard to make notes on everything that you do in the cockpit also. There are a lot of times in the video that it looks like I am looking at my seat, but that is usually me looking down at the keyboard. When I do that, I am usually searching for the 2, 3, 4 keys to change the AP modes....there was also one time during the video where it looks like I was looking at the side of the HUD, that was because I was reaching down to refill my drink :) Re: LOL moments, I kinda put them in there because that was what I was thinking at the time when I was flying. After my last guns kill I turned on the labels because I thought for sure that there was some more armor in the area...didnt think we got them all :). The one time I looked left and saw oooooh the sun! I should turn and stare into the sun! (Would be really impressed if the sim modeled a lingering bright spot if you stared into the sun too long :) )....and when I was heading home I saw the 29 on the RWR and thought "Dammit....finished the mission only to get shot down by a Mig on my way home" As for the questions. I really haven't figured out the pressure thing. I read somewhere that the numbers ATC gives you aren't correct. There was a thread yesterday or today that kinda talked about the QFE stuff and a calculation, cant remember which one at the moment. Not sure about the Morse Code, but I was heading back to Vaziani I think I am going to do videos for the rest of the Devil's Cross missions, maybe starting tonight :)

Note: I have decided to do videos for each of the missions each with a little walkthrough on what I ended up doing in the mission... After seeing a lot of people having questions about what to do in the Devil's Cross first mission, I decided to go ahead and record an entire mission and post it to You Tube. My .trk files were usually borked and had errors in what actually happened so I loaded up FRAPS and started recording at the ramp at start, and stopping after I landed. FRAPS spit out 50GB of video (1hr 20min of sim time) which was then compressed just under the 2GB limit to upload to YT. I had to lower the bitrate a bit to get it under the 2GB limit so even at 720p resolution it is not the sharpest, but you can basically see everything you need to see in the video. Best to open the viewer full screen to so the HD size. I first want to note a couple of things about the mission: 1) I am using Tiger's AI mod so your wingman is more effective and doesn't run headlong into death. 2) Fixed the mission so the CAS1 flight doesn't fly into the ground at their hold waypoint (although their fuel load is still too low that the CAS1 wingman RTBs to base because he is out of fuel) 3) Forgot that I got rid of the dynamic weather in the mission (was thinking that it was one of the reasons why .trk files didn't play back right). So this mission has clear skies and 0 wind. 4) Changed my both my and my wingman's loadout to have 4 Mavs + 4 CBU97s also upped the fuel to 70% to give more loiter time. 5) I use the Easy Communications option. 6) Will probably go back to the YT page and add some notes to the videos to point out some things I did during the flight, and maybe some goofs I did during the flight also 7) Disclaimer: Do not use the video as an example of "the right way to do things". It is just the way I fly....I am not sure exactly the right way to fly a mission to begin with :)....sooooo any tips on how to help improve my flying and shacking are greatly appreciated. 8) If you have any questions on what I did or why I did it....ASK! Now....here are a few notes about about flying the mission. In this mission you are tasked with delaying the advance of the Russian 19th Motor Rifle Division. Their advance will take the form of two Regiment columns moving S - SE towards the town of Gori. After contacting JTAC at the contact point, you will be assigned targets from one of the two columns. You will have some CAP cover, help against AAA and SAMs from dedicated SEAD, and there will also be some other CAS flights in the area. There is no rush to get into the air. There is a reason why there are assigned time over targets. If you reach the target area, you may not give the CAP enough time to sweep the area and take care of air threats, and you may arrive before SEAD can take out some of the most potent AAA and SAM threats. Take your time on ingress to get an overview of your target, where he is going and how best to attack them. Do your best with the ordinance and fuel you have and then head back to base. You can't take out the entire Russian Army by yourself! There are other flights scheduled to help delay the forces if you aren't able to do so. As long as you takeoff and land back at base you WILL advance to the next mission in the campaign. Prepare for your ingress and attack. Although you have dedicated SEAD flights for this mission, you cannot completely rely on them completing your objective! A MiG can get through the CAP sweep, or a SAM may find its target. Be prepared for the SAM threat as if the SEAD was not assigned. Because of the possibility of AA threats, I ingress at around 15000 ft, and will only go lower when I know that there are not immediate AA threats down low. At the control point, I get my assigned target of the Western Column moving south. I hook the datalink triangle and slew my TGP to the area. I then scan south/southwest looking for any moving targets. I first spot two Zeus, and then some tanks leading the column. I check with JTAC and he confirms to me that those tanks are my target. I keep moving towards my IP waypoint and not directly to the target. No use getting over into enemy territory if you are not on an attack run....plus if you go direct to the target, you run the risk of flying over the Eastern column and possible AAA/SAM threats in that area. While I move towards the IP, I started thinking I was going to first attack with a ripple of 2 CBUs from the south along the length of the column. Dropping them at 15K feet with them moving may have them miss entirely. I then change my mind to hit the first few tanks with Mavs. When the Tanks scatter, they will be sitting targets for my next run(s) using CBUs....also it will cause a blockage in the roadway causing a backup of the other armor in the column making it a target rich environment :). How to get in and get out? South is safe. I you are assigned the Western column, egress west is safe. East is not safe because it may cause you to fly over the other column. Avoid north....there may still be some SAMs left up there. Do attack runs from the south and egress back south or maybe west. If you have the eastern column, East of that column and south is safe. After I made my first run with Mavs to hit the front of the column, I tell my wingie to attack AAA from the south. He only fires off 1 Mav, so I know that SEAD must have done their job well (Otherwise the wingie would have shot all of his Mavs at AAA/SAM threats). So I knew it was safe to go a bit lower if I needed to (beware of MANPADS though!). After my Mavs run, I decide to plink the tanks and BMPs with the CBUs. I use 1 CBU each pass....I know they probably don't do this in RL, but the CCRP release with the CBUs are pretty darn accurate with no wind! (Note....on the RAMP I changed the CBU burst height to 700). The wingie and I were able to take out the tanks and BMPs and JTAC told us we were free to go home (actually wingie had his tail shot up a bit and RTB). I looked and saw some artillery left and with a full cannon load and little low altitude AA threat, I decided to go guns and take them out :). Even with this extended time over target and trip back home, it wasn't until I was on the taxiway at base before the delay triggers kicked in and I started to get additional points for the mission. Although the wingie and I didn't hit the front of the other column, the other CAS flights did their jobs in help delaying that column. I know I have written enough, but want to add one more thing. One thing to help you with reviewing what happened, I highly suggest downloading Tacview. Even though it is a post mission took, it does help you with situational awareness on what was going on in the battle, and you can see things that you may miss in replaying a .trk (if the .trk replay works for ya!) For instance, when looking at the .acmi file for the video above, I was wondering why a CAS mission only had one member, and it turns out that the missing plane actually crashed midair with a C-17 right after takeoff! If you want to see what the .acmi of the mission in the video looks like you can download the .acmi here. Anyways, enjoy the video.....and if there are any questions ASK! Either I or someone here in the forums will probably have an answer for ya!

Here ya go....got it under 2GB with the video compression and YT allowed the entire video to be uploaded :). A couple of notes on the mission. I changed the dynamic weather in the mission to have 0 wind (thought it was causing .trk playback earlier). Also changed our flight loadout to 4 Mavs and 4 CBU-97s, increased fuel to 70% for longer loiter time.

Got tired of the .trk files being wonky so I recorded an entire mission using FRAPS. I'm trying to encode the entire video right now. It is like 1hr 20 min long :). Although YT says that I can upload stuff longer than 15 minutes, I am not sure exactly how long a video it will let me upload.....that is if I can get the encoding under 2GB without that much quality loss :)...otherwise I will have to like chop it up into smaller pieces. I think the wingie and I took out an entire column by ourselves. Wingie survivied although he had half of his tail wing blown off. I came out of it unscathed. The other assets did their job in both columns were delayed and ended up with a 100% in the mission. Believe I ended up with 23 kills, not sure at the moment. Will update with a link when I get things posted to YT.

I think they know about it. Not exactly sure if it was addressed in the last patch (doesn't seem to have changed much from the release version). Not sure of the status of a fix though.

OK, I reflew the first DC mission last night and argh....again, my .trk file is messed up. I have a sneaking feeling why the .trk file won't play back correctly (has to do with the dynamic weather). I'm going to give it a go again today and editing the weather so there is 0 wind and 0 turbulence and get rid of the dynamic weather and see how it goes.

You know, I was going to do a video on the first mission in this campaign, but the .trk file just wouldn't play back correctly. I received my target from JTAC and in the .trk file, when I tried to hook the red triangle on the TAD, it missed the hook in the TAD. Therefore my TGP never slewed to the SPI, and my Mavs never fired.... I should go through tonight and retry the mission and see how it goes and maybe make a video out of it.

This is just speculation...but I think that Wags had mentioned that he was heading off for vacation until the 10th. In addition, I also saw that all Russians have a 5 day holiday that ends on the 9th. I wouldn't expect anything until after the second week in May and that is at the earliest.

I gave the stock first mission in this campaign a try and after getting waxed by the MiGs, checked the .trk and Tacview .acmi of the mission. CAP and SEAD went full AB near their first WP, ran out of gas and crashed into the sea. Tried editing to get them to stop that but no go and just gave up. Didn't try or investigate the other missions....gonna wait till the next patch to give it a go. As for looking at the .miz file. All I think you need to do is rename it to a .zip file and unzip it. Then you can open up the mission file with notepad to check things.

Also remember you need to set the Title for the profile to be used as Black Shark. It does not use the Title for DCS:A-10 when the sim starts. Even though you may be editing your profile correctly, it may be defaulting back to the default profile when you load up the sim.

You're absolutely right. Sorry for adding unnecessary confusion. (My mistake was thinking China Hat Aft Long was "Slave All to Steerpoint"...it only slaves the TGP). I just went through and did a test of things and what nomedeplume said was correct on all counts.

Guess I need to clarify also (or need a clarification on what is a bug or not) :) From what I gather right now the "Slave all" functionality is kinda broken. If you create the markpoints, switch to Mark on the AAP and then Slave all to steerpoint, it should (sans bug) slave the TGP and the Mav seeker to the markpoint. Shouldn't you be able to (without the bug) to just change the markpoint with the Mav seeker head switching to the next mark point without having to go back to the TGP?

Hopefully they will get that fixed in the next patch :)

I think I have always had this problem also, but never reported it because It doesn't quite affect gameplay stuff....and when I am directly over target I shouldnt be starting at my TGP either ;). Ive always figured it was some sort of LOD or mip-mapping thing.

Hrmmmm...all this time I have been listening to what everyone has been saying about attacking from the rear on these tanks. All of my guns runs on the tanks I have been positioning my runs so I get to the rear of the tank, and in this test mission if you do that you have the smoke problem. Then I looked at the .trk that Viper posted in the other tank thread in the general forum and saw him take all of them out with basically side (maybe rear quarter) shots. I know he was shooting from a bit closer in, but those tanks went up pretty easy with shots from the sides. Gonna have to try some different stuff.

Gave the mission a whirl last night some... My main problem is I target the back tank, then try to come back around for another run and cant spot the next tank because of the smoke.... What are you guys doing to see through the muck?

^^^ what nomdeplume said. The manual isn't totally clear about the manual profiles. I didn't realize until recently that if you do a manual profile like you did in the .trk and then choose a different weapon, that the changes you had just made gets lost. To make things stick you need to either change the default profile or create a new profile in the DSMS profile page.

Tyger, I'm never one to start or get into a pi**ing match over something. For the most part when it comes to specifics in flight sims I do not feel like I can comment from a position of authority. But after reading the manual and I believe that I have come to grips with the theory behind and implementation of the 3/9 and 5 mil release modes. I read your original reply, and then watched the video. When watching the video, I was thinking....."that bombing run is not a 5mil consent to release run...it was just a straight CCIP manual release while the 5 mil consent to release mode was active." After watching the video I saw the youtube comment which stated what I was thinking. But seeing it was an ED Tester that is making a video for his fighter wing, I better have my ducks in a row before commenting. Went back and checked the manual again on the release modes and when I posted, I laid out that I thought that the video was not showing a 5mil consent to release, and tried to explain why I thought it was incorrect. If you had not changed the setting to 5 mil and made the same exact bombing run, you would have gotten the same exact result because the impact point was within the HUD FOV. The 5mil consent to release is only activated when the computed impact point is outside the HUD FOV (the pipper and impact line will be dashed). If the video did actually show a 5 mil consent to release bomb release I would not have commented. Because it did not show one, I felt that the opening poster should be aware, and that you should be aware so the instructional video could be changed to show what you were describing at the beginning of the video.

I guess I should also answer the opening post's question :) Why the 3/9 and 5 mil modes? Lets say that you have some AAA in the target area. With straight CCIP mode You will have to dive in on the target and then place the pipper over the target. Weapons will be released as soon as you pickle. If you are low, you may not be able to break off and climb out of the area before the AAA starts to shoot at you. With the 3/9 mode or the 5 mil mode, you can start out higher and not use as steep a dive angle. Go into a shallow dive, place the pipper over the target and hold the release button. Continue that shallow dive, or you can pull up level (while still holding the release button) and then fly the release cue over the pipper. It can keep you a bit higher and out of range of AAA at the target site. In addition, if you are loaded out with high drag bombs like the MK82-airs, you can fly low and fast over the target area. In this situation, the normal CCIP pipper would be below the hud. In 3/9 or 5 mil consent mode, although the real CCIP pipper would be below the hud, you can designate on the spot you want to hit, hold the button and then fly the solution cue over the pipper. Bombs will release when the cue goes over the pipper. You can remain level and fast and then be immediately ready for an immediate break/climb out of the danger area.

Tyger, Watched the video you are talking about, and I agree with the commenter on the thread. Although you switched the setting to 5 mil, you actually dropped the bombs in CCIP mode (It was in CCIP delivery because the pipper was solid when you pickled). From the way I understand it will go into the 5mil mode if the actual impact point is below the hud, the reticle will be dashed. Fly the pipper over the target, hold weapons release, Pipper/PBIL will turn solid and then you have to fly the solution cue over the pipper. But because of you low height and speed, the pipper was within the HUD FOV and was acting in CCIP mode. In those two bomb runs in the video it wouldn't matter if you had it in straight CCIP or in 5 mil consent move because it was acting as a CCIP release (the bombs came off the rail as soon as you hit the release button). EDIT: What you should have done with that video was load out 4 MK82-Airs and 4 CBU-87s. For that first run on the convoy, select the MK82Airs and the release point would have been below the HUD and you would have actually used the 5 mil consent to release mode. On that second run you switch to the 87s and do the same thing you did just to show that even though you selected 5 mil mode, you can still do a CCIP release if the pipper is solid and within the FOV of the HUD.

Coolio. Just didn't know if it was proper to do so. Would feel weird dropping a a larger bomb on a tank for JTAC, but again that bomb probably costs less than a Maverick :)

In several of the campaign missions I have done the objective was to take out a bridge. The loadout for the missions were large LGBs and a couple of the bigger Mavs. The missions were rather easy if you make sure to call in SEAD to take out SAM threats and to call in CAS to occupy AAA while I cruise in on high. Each time it only took one of the LGBs to take out the bridge. Yay! Mission accomplished! Thing is, do I just RTB and go for the next mission? There are usually one or two JTAC operating in the area, should I call into JTAC for further tasking even though my remaining weapons may not really fit the bill. I know I could RTB and change loadout and then to back to get some JTAC work, but I am at the front why not do it while I am there?

In the stuck.trk he posted, I brought up the input control overlay with ctrl-enter and it seems like his brakes were working right in that mission (although he got stuck in the grass :) ). I was wondering if the brakes were sticking at the beginning of a mission or something, but It didn't show it with the overlay. If he hasn't changed any hardware it may not be any brake problem.

I know with the updated sim that you will get friendly missile launches along with enemy launch warnings, but just exactly triggers the warning? The reason I ask is that I was doing some testing on a mission with myself and the wingie launching mavs, I was moving around a bit and the wingie was usually launching from behind me. For the most part I was ending up with the warnings going off after the missiles past in front of my nose and not when the missiles were launched. This may have been because it may take time for detection and the system to do its work. I also was firing some Mavs, and a couple of times after I fired off a mav, I would maneuver, and then to back nose towards the target and I would get a missile launch warning from my own maverick. Should the MWR only be able to detect the launch plume, or will a missile with an active motor be enough to trigger a launch alert? I'm having a hard enough time already trying to figure out if a missile launch is something I should be worrying about, be nice to know if I am seeing more of them than I should :)