bell_rj

I've asked NineLine by PM if he would raise the matter and request a comment from ED on our behalf.

Thank you for all the constructive comments. Thank you especially to Shahdoh for the tip about editing the lua which I'm going to try. Thankfully ED disagrees with those who don't believe there is an issue. I'm not sure there's a lot of point in wading through the technicalities of spotting. ED know their engine better than we do, and as the customer, all we need to do is make sure ED know we are having a problem with spotting. We don't need to define why this is, or fix it. Hardware and settings may factor in but we're not talking about niche hardware here. DCS World should work well with all common hardware. It also needs to work well for those who aren't blessed with fighter pilot vision - most of us perhaps? Having options for making spotting easier is the key here. Labels are one option, but I'm hoping that ED will offer some less immersion breaking improvements in future. What I hope for is that Nineline can escalate this for us and get some sort of comment from the Devs. I do wonder if it is actually being worked on with any sort of urgency, or if it's not being worked on at this time. I understand that there is a lot of work to do in DCS but it is plain to see from comments here and on other forums that many DCS players would like to see spotting improvements and perhaps, if it isn't being worked on now, the Devs would consider moving it up the priority list?

Great idea! It would make quite a difference. The current radio menu persists sometimes - e.g. with ATC landing requests. ED would need to work out if that's really needed as a persistent radial menu taking up screen estate would be problematic.

The "learn to get better at the game" argument can be permanently discounted as the dev's have already acknowledged the issue by enhancing label options not that long ago. I would like to suggest an interim enhancement that would hopefully be fairly easy to implement. It would be good if labels could be set to disappear within a user configurable range. So I could have labels on to generally locate a target, and then once within guns distance the labels disappear. Why bother with this you might ask? Well having a label obscuring part of an airframe when you have it in the crosshairs looks a bit ugly and immersion breaking so having it disappear automatically would be nice. Admittedly, I could press the key combo to turn them off but that's difficult when in combat and my HOTAS is out of buttons. Anyway, it's not a spotting fix - but something to make labels more flexible.

I experienced the same issues in the AA mission with the F5's. Couldn't see them and Jester wasn't very good at finding them with the radar either.

I want to know this too!!!!! :thumbup:

I know it's a longstanding issue, but I'm not convinced ED realise how impactful a problem it is on the enjoyment of the game. They should really - because Nineline has responded to posts about it. But where's the progress, or even some sort of comment from Wags?

I've been flying the F-14 today. It's absolutely epic. I've been going through the training missions and got to the AA missions and the awful spotting experience ruined it for me a bit. It shouldn't be that hard in a game to find an SU-25 that Jester is telling me is right in front of me. I really do appreciate the improvements in comms over the last year but reading the regular updates on all the frequent Hornet fixes are making me somewhat bitter. Where are the frequent updates to the fundamental, core features? WVR air combat should be the showcase of this game - it should be as epic an experience as launching the F-14 off the carrier to Meteor's soundtrack is. ED should be embarrassed by the current fitness for purpose of the spotting system and spotting should be up there on the highest priority list. It would be really great to hear Wags talk about this because frankly, hearing about the new shiny stuff is starting to wear very thin when core issues seemingly aren't being addressed. Mods: This is not a bug report, or wishlist item, so please don't bury it in those subforums. I hope that Wags will pay it some attention instead.

Ah, thank you! I was just wondering what the steps would be for recovering. I will try your/Jabber's instructions!

For about the third time in two hours I've got my Tomcat into a flat spin. I think Jester is starting to hate me. I haven't worked out exactly how I'm doing this but it seems to be related to high alpha at low speed. Spin recovery seems impossible but that isn't helped by me watching the spin in F3 view - it looks very cinematic - rather than doing my pilot thing. Don't really care - as the popular song goes.... "Everything is Awesome".

Yeah I tried an F-14B carrier take-off in calm conditions and the sliding was very noticeable and WEIRD. No apologies for caps as it was a real immersion breaker. Please fix it ED.

Dedicated servers can mean multiple things depending upon the context. In DCS, the key distinction is how we will be able to run the DCS client without 3D rendering - i.e. without loading a mission as a player. So you will be able to load a mission that other people connect to, and your machine will only need to process events and position attributes for entities such as buildings, weapons, and aircraft - but won't need to do the intensive work of rendering all that in a 3D environment.

What was different for you?

The communication has been excellent. The person who didn't like the "hype" seems to be at odds with the rest of our community - because we love dev progress updates! Heatblur's comms have left me under no illusion whatsoever that the release date might end up being the last possible winter date. AND THAT'S TOTALLY FINE. Why? Because this is a once in a lifetime release. It's true. I've been waiting for this for 30 years and if it needs more time then we all know that good things come to those who wait. (Guinness told us that ;P)

WOW that is a a full loadout! Even delivery of a few of those things in 2019 would be very, very exciting. I don't know what to pick as my favourite. Dynamic campaign is an obvious one, but I also think the VOIP/radio integration will be game changing for online play. I think my most eagerly awaited item though has to be better air AI. I am really enjoying the effort ED are putting into communicating with us. It's fantastic - thank you!

Hi GUTB, while you are correct on some points, you are wrong on some others. That's understandable - it took me quite a while to really understand in depth what DCS is, who it is aimed at, and where the depth is. DCS has a great depth of high fidelity systems content to learn. I find DCS quite easy to get into but hard to master (in simulation mode, not game mode). It is also worth knowing that DCS focuses on being a simulator first, and game second, although there is more focus on some of the game aspects lately. If you love flight sims then I'm sure you'll love DCS. You may just need to research more and perhaps play it more to appreciate it. Sometimes DCS hides its light under a bushel. The DCS Harrier has Litening Pod by the way.

Trim as advised above. Hold the stick fully back. Don't dilly dally on the throttle - straight to 8lb+. Full right rudder initially then come down to half as speed builds, then watch for the swing to the right starting and go left rudder. Once you have some speed built, stick to neutral. Nose should come up soon. After that I find I usually take off successfully although I like to slam it to full boost once the nose is up.

Two whole months at sea? Must be time for more repairs! :-P Anyway, stop taking me off topic. You'll get us told off. :D

The aircraft carrier has to be out of dry dock first...

Oooh that's a nice boost to immersion. Now I have to crash into one on purpose just to try it.

Yeah I feel this is a bit overdone. I'm no Harrier pilot, but it just feels wrong in DCS.

Excellent news!

After the free stuff your first clickable cockpit plane should be the F-5. I know you didn't mention that one but: It's fantastically modelled and has a clickable cockpit but is not too complicated. You can pretend to be training up to be a real pilot (especially if you buy the NTTR map). TOP GUN! You can pretend to fly the fabled Mig-28 - and there's the black skin for it too - and fight the F-14 when it comes out. You can pretend to be a front line fighter pilot (because some airforces use them as frontline planes) You can learn to drop bombs without fancy gadgets which is proper old school. There's a lots more reasons but those are some good ones.

@Mr_sukebe, to maintain DCS standards of realism I don't think the Falklands map should have a 'good' setting. It should have 'dull and windy', 'dull, very windy, and wet' and 'bucketing it down, hurricane winds, and miserable' settings.

I know, but 'realism' right? (Yes I'm joking). Hi BuzzU, yes I use outside views when fighting. The views are cool, that's why! :)