twistking

Happy Holidays!

Dang! You're right. Honestly i feel that ED should just scrap the current system and make a new one from ground up with better UX and the possibility to use voice recognition functionality.

Good idea. I think i would add sth. like "% of max engine power". even with the upcoming GFM and better AI this would be cool to balance difficulty of engagements and simulate exercise scenarios or simulate other (lower powered) variants of an aircraft. Another aspect to think about is, how that many options could clutter the UI. Maybe it would be good to have a limited set of options as standard (max g-load, altitude bracket, max engine power) that offer decent customization for many scenarios and have the other limiters as advanced options (i do see the usefulness of limiting pitch, roll angle, roll and turn rate), but i think for 99% of mission design AI scripting it would be sufficient to give speed/altitude brackets and limits to max power and max G load).

then just exclude all HOTAS commands (except radio/PTT). if players decide to use click-modifiers on a button/key, the regular button would vanish completely, instead they would get three instances of the same key with different naming: a "normal click" variant (which acts similar to the old unmodded button but is technically different and is named differently!), a double-click variant and a hold variant. none of those buttons could be applied to a function that was blacklisted by the devs. again: the moment you setup click-modifiers for a button, the button itself is no longer available for mapping - only the three new variants are.

i see. thanks for the detailed answer. i was not aware that VRS can be done without a proper integration in the engine. yes, i'm also quite sure that DCS does not do stereo instanced rendering, which is a shame. i'll probably organize some pitchforks if vulkan comes along without significant vr-optimization on the CPU-side.

another question: the member/donor advanced page is available also for AI aircraft. does AI behaviours change when they have other flights added to their datalink? i assume not, but would appreciate clarification on that (testing AI behaviour is very tedious).

I get your argument, but please be realistic: Even without modifiers people can make stupid keymaps. People can make extremely stupid keymaps with the regular modifier buttons. People can use the graphics options to tank their performance. People are allowed to modify lua-files that allow them to do egregiously stupid things. The modifier menu in itself is an "advanced" feature, that the user you are describing might not even find by himself. There are so many ways for an unexperienced user to fail with keymapping and i honestly don't see how an advanced feature (hidden in a seperate menu) could add too much confusion. With Hotas i see the problem: Hotas commands are abstract, it may not be clear if an input was registered and functions are contextual. However: If you would do a "stupid" keybind where "normal" press would open canopy and long press would do soemthing else completely, short press would still activate the switch visually and open the canopy a bit - as expected. Long press would activate the other unrelated function (but would not open canopy). Both keybinds work as they were set-up by the user. The sillyness of that map however should indeed be obvious even to beginners after they test it the first time - if they have the mental capacity to fly and have fun with a DCS module that is...

i think i would go for 3 very generically named factions different only in colour of their symbol/flag (insurgent (blue), insurgent (red), insurgent (grey)) where each would incorporate all "unconventional" units (historic mode would hide/show historic and local variety). if ED would make specificaly named factions, mission designers will eventually end up having to use akwardly named factions, because ED won't be able to account for all conflicts (historical and fictional)...

How would quad view foveated rendering compare to a hypothetical VRS (variable rate shading) implementation with vulkan? VRS should also be useful for pancake users, so it might appear more attractive to ED. Has anyone experience with eye-tracked VRS, or general VRS in virtual reality? I don't want to derail this topic: I'm sure quad view is great, but with vulkan coming soon, it's maybe time to look a bit further. VRS seems more "elegant", but i guess it will give less of a performance gain compared to just dropping resolution (the question is, if quad view rendering has it's own relevant performance overhead)?!

Mine doesn't hurt. Without thinking all to long i think the following are relatively safe: 1.) Every simple button and switch* that is not part of a sophisticated modern-aircraft hotas control-sheme or digital keypad (upfront controller keypads, MFD buttons, CDU keypads) 2.) As an exception to #1: Radio (PTT/Radio menu) buttons, even if they are part of a hotas sheme *but what about switches that you need to hold for a function (f.e. hold switch to close canopy): these should not be a problem, since a potential unlucky assignment should be obvious even to unexperienced users. also remember that the most useful functions (other than radio/ptt) would be to have two- or threeway switches (landing lights, old-school flap control, gear, master arm, laser arm) assigned to a single key/button with different click-types, or to use the function to simply protect from hitting a crtical key by accident (eject, gear toggle, nuclear consent). in both case problematic assignments would be either quite obvious, or shouldn't even occur.

if possible ED should just get rid of the need to choose the recipient. your dialed-in frequency already selected the recipient. i think the current menu structure is a relict from the flanker/flaming cliffs days, where tuning radios was not available.

realistic HOTAS configuration is part of the official manual that comes with the module.

i understand that people will eventually find ways to break their hotas controls with that: it's just that blocking the feature for certain keymaps seems quite a bit of extra logic to write and test, but maybe this would be needed. it will absolutely be worth it though, especially for people who have a limited number of buttons on their flight-controllers.

while technically true, i believe it would be enough to show a general warning when users first setup those modifiers. the mic-switch is a hotas command typically and this is where that feature would be really useful.

update: small correction: donors do indeed provide contacts, but only those they are currently engaging. is there no way to have donors and members broadcast all contacts, even if not actively engaging? is the DL only useful for attack sorting? i was hoping i could use other fighters as improvised awacs. is this not possible?

since this post was tagged with "f/a-18c" by a mod, i assume that only 16s and 18s can be donor/members for now. will this eventually change and include all link16-compatible ac? i also still struggle to understand what donor ac actually provide to the player. i made a seperate thread about it:

i don't understand your comment. what do mean by mandatory? nobody forces you to do a specific key mapping, or use certain modifier keys for your keymaps. i even suggested that a warning would be shown when setting up those special-click modifiers, so that beginner players don't accidentaly set up problematic keymaps. to clarify: i want the option (not mandatory) that for certain keys, double clicks or "long" click will interpreted as unique keys. those would need to be set up per key/function. similar to how a modifier keys, let's you map the same key to a different function.

Hello, i still have trouble getting datalink to work as i expect it to (maybe my expectations are wrong though). I have set up a test mission with a player viper, a different viper flight which is set as member to the player, a hornet which is set as donor to the player and a random hornet as "control group" that is neither set as member nor as donor. All flight have the option "radar illuminate continously" active, and i have set up multiple passive enemys circling well withing radar range of the friendly flights. In mission, als flights show correctly on the HSD with respective colors and symbols, however even though the flights do pick up the enemies (confirmed by radio contact report), i never get a contact from the datalink. The only instance where i get a contact over DL, is when an aircraft actually engages a bandit. I think this is how it was before the DL update already. The "donor" flight never gives a DL contact. My assumption was, that members and donors would provide contacts similar to an awacs, but limited to their respective sensors. While the member flights at least provide contacts when engaging, i haven't figured out if there is anything that the donors provide. What am i missing? Does this work differently with player/client controlled donors? Is there a way to set up the AI flights to actually broadcast enemy contacts before engaging?

Hello, i would like to see double click (with required speed as user setting) and press & hold (aka long click) as an universal key modifier. This way you could either have multiple options on the same key (simple click: landing light, double click: taxi light, press and hold: light off), or you could have critical commands "guarded" by the necessity to do more than just tab a key. This would also be useful for the radio/PTT buttons: Simple presses and holding would work the PTT, while the radio menu could be set to a quick double click of the same button. This could be confusing for new users, that may not understand that many hotas-commands have hardcoded long/short press sensitivity, but confusion can be easily avoided by showing a warning when a "double click" or "press&hold" are initially set up. I imagine users would first define and allow those options in the modifier menu, before DCS would "listen" to those "modifiers" when assigning keys.

i would prefer a double click to open the menu. double click speed requirement should be a user option. this way you could set it up so that only a very quick doubleclick would bring up the menu.

Hi, what aircraft can be used as donor for the f-16? is it every aircraft that has link16 in real life, or does it need to be a playable module also? it seems that the UI allows you to add units that won't function as donor, so this does not help with finding those who do. thanks. bonus question: which fighter would work best as "tactical mini awacs"? strike eagle perhaps? second bonus question: what are the functional differences between members and donors? i know that members show the dashed line to bugged target. anything else?

thanks for the reply and the miz. i will have a look at your example! by the way, i suspect that the issue could be that the groups were "late activated". maybe the "probability" setting internally does a dice roll on mission start which breaks when the group is not yet spawned. haven't tested that. just a theory...

I would expand on that slightly and ask that any POIs (Points Of Interest) were somehow marked on the map to find them easily (In that case, ED should however provide a declutter toggle to hide that visual layer).

ah. thanks for the heads-up. i will advise my vr-enabled friends to check it out (i'm on flatscreen still).

you are right. i did not think properly before posting.