ryuzu

Hmmm - looking through the loadouts in the mission editor I can't see any Kh25-ML or any other guided missiles - just the Vikhr. How are you loading it on and what is it's designation? r.

I've been wondering about these "big white missiles" - as far as I can tell from the game, the bits of the manual I could translate/read and playing around there are no big white missiles. The only guided missile is the Vikhr - the other things that look like missiles are either 1) Cluster bombs 2) Extra gun pods 3) FABs 4) Fuel tanks. When I first saw these various things I thought each was some missile but could never select or deploy them so I conclude they are in fact other stuff. BUT if someone knows different let us know! r.

On the topic of activations (or more accurately de-activations) I see that in the bin/stable directory the usual protect.exe is available. If you run that and translate the text it seems to be talking about de-activating a product in addition to activating it. I haven't gone through the clicking process yet just in case I end up mangling my install but if you're made of stronger stuff it may be worth a look. r.

It seems to work more or less like any medium-large size helicopter since they have a Stability Augmentation System or something similar - basically the AP is always engaged to some extent to overcome the instability of the helicopter. The top two modes are bank and pitch hold (K & T buttons) - those should be left in, they make the AP hold the pilot's selected bank angle and pitch. So if you put in 30 degs bank or 5 degs nose down pitch, the AP holds those settings for you as long as the stick is in that position. Without them the helicopter will deviate from the pitch/bank setting almost immediately and the pilot needs to continually adjust to compensate. Of the bottom 2 buttons I usually keep the left one engaged (H button) - "Direction" hold in my translation. Without a proper translation I suspect this is more of a Yaw damper rather than a navigation heading hold as such - but difficult to tell. Anyway it seems to assist with stability in yaw lessening the work required on the pedals. The bottom right button is Alt hold (B button) (this can be set to Rad Alt. or Baro Alt mode via a switch) but I only select this when I want to use it rather than have it in most of the time. Even in hover I prefer to control height manually with collective. I haven't tried the AP coupler at all - I think 'R' engages route following... r.

It depends what mode you have the Nav system in. I haven't quite worked out the translation of the names, but either way the operation of that changes as you select different modes.... "Normal" waypoint mode seem to be the top middle selection - looks a bit like PAg on the dial. Far left setting (OTKA) is Off while the next to the right I'm not certain about but could be the mode you're talking about. Second from the right is input mode - I presume this is to program waypoints. The 2 settings on the far right I'm not sure of either but one or the other of those could be the mode. I have been in it before but can't remember which position the switch was in :) r.

So far it seems to me the AI is largely behaving similar to that of FC - that's to say it's only as clever as the person who designed the mission/pathing. I made a quick mission with a few enemies but no pathing or other instructions. If you fly towards them and get close enough they engage you, but they don't move or do anything by themselves. The usual options for triggering etc seems to be present in the Mission Editor - all I might have seen is that it looks a bit more intuitive than the LOMAC/FC Mission Editors - but I didn't use them that much so maybe I'm just mis-remembering them. Either way, I didn't spot any magic buttons to make anything extra happen AI-wise apart from the usual Average, Good, Expert settings for AI that seems to make them more/less accurate and faster/slower at targeting and firing. Your wingmen do the usual stuff - go where you tell tham and do what you tell them. Again they seem similar to FC in that they don't do anything clever really - just engage the targets etc you assign. I haven't seen the AI do anything stupid like fly into the ground or whatever. The campaign is so heavy with Russian I can't really say anything about it unfortunately...I don't know if anything was promised on the campaign front (other than what was already in FC) but it doesn't look much different to me so far.. r.

I can't read/write or speak Russian - I can drive an internet translator though. Below is an example of the result from one mission :- "Thank you! Help out! I am here is dead on the rise ... The report will be sure to mention those state headquarters matchasti." If you feel this level of translation is better than something completely unintelligible, then I salute you since to me there is no difference - it may as well be in Russian ;) Anyway, the pirates have had an easy enough time - why give them this final step for free.... If you're going to translate don't put it anywhere obvious eh? r.

I looked at this and a few other Paypal -> WMZ exchange methods but there are no automated ones that I could find. What this seems to mean is that in order to go from PP to WM someone on the exchange end will be involved and you'll end up needing to give them all kinds of additional info and it will take time. It seems the problem is that WM (and all the 1C payment methods) cannot use credit - they need real cash/currency transfer rather than credit based ones. In the end, the Ukash thing worked better for me but I don't think they're available online. Good luck with it. r.

While this procedure translates the main briefing text there are some other things to note : 1) It doesn't translate the pop-up messages in the mission - for that you need to look at each trigger which has a message and translate those too. Some of those missions have a fair bit of extra text so it's not a 5/10 minute job. 2) Online translators aren't terribly good for the most part - once the text is translated that doesn't mean it is understandable! I did about half the stock missions and part of the first Campaign mission and realised that a) it was taking a long time and b) the results weren't all that great! Personally, I'd rather wait for EDs professional translation than some half-baked internet one. But in the meantime, there's nothing stopping us making new missions! r.

The ukash method worked for me as well - didn't get anywhere trying to do PayPal with online exchangers... Hope to see you (English speakers!) online soon :P r.

Ahh that's true. In fact I think someone on here already psoted a link to a translated version of the Russian manual(s). I haven't looked at it - seems like an exercise in frustration without some buttons to press - but it was around here somewhere. r.

Really? I didn't see the original announcement, but the quote was dated 10-16 (I presume the 16th of October) - since the full release was the 17th of October, I don't think the news of piracy and the subsequent "change of plans" had occurred at that time. Who knows? Not me! Either way, I doubt helping pirates with an English manual over the web is in the game plan any more. r.

Be nice to have something to flick through - or maybe not without the actual software! However, with the sudden change of plans with the download version etc etc I suspect we won't see this until the full release. r.

In this case no - well not directly. The 1C site needs to be credited with 300 rubles - approx £7 or about US$13 to buy the download (which is far too little of course - I imagine everyone here would only look on this as a paid demo/early access and get the Western Version next year). To credit your 1C account you can do a bank transfer, use a 1C prepay card, use WebMoney or Yandex.Money. Bank Transfer is going to be tricky unless you're set up with a Russian account :) I won't ask what that may be/may have been for - maybe you just like Vodka! 1C prepay cards are a possiblity I guess - may be able to get one from ebay but potentially comes with complications. Webmoney is probably the best and easiest option. However WebMoney is a South American based company and the only way to charge your WebMoney account directly is yet again a bank transfer of some kind... Finally Yandex.Money is a bit like WebMoney - going to need a bank transfer to get money in (Yandex is apparently the Russian equivalent of Yahoo). So to get money into Webmoney, there is an option through yet another company to do a PayPal payment. This third company will take a payment via PayPal and credit it to your Webmoney account and then that can charge your 1C account and hey presto. However the third company want a 14% commission, need to text to your mobile phone, and also it seems the process is human driven (i.e. they need a person to do the job, it's not automated their end). This latter bit doesn't make me comfortable - passing various details all over the place only to rely on someone to get your paypal "cash" and type it into a WebMoney account entry :/ Still, at only about £9/$17 total I guess that's the cheapest access to a flight sim of BS's quality you'll ever get - even if all the writing is unintelligible to non-Russian readers... I'm just toying with the idea of going through with it and then ditching the Paypal account just to avoid any risk of getting robbed later :P As for waiting, well, besides the philosophical point, it's available right now - while the process is risky I've seen worse and certainly more expensive ones... :pilotfly: r.

For some reason WM won't send me the SMS code anyway - not sure what the problem is but I'll try again with that. - Ahhh typo in my phone number.... But regardless, the PayPal->WM transfer incurs a 14% commission!! I'd rather give that to ED/1C if they'd put a simpler method of payment on the thing... r.

Another lamentable debate about CP - seems you can't go to an entertainment software forum these days without the tripping over the obligatory CP thread! The reality is that in some sense the various cracking groups are in fact supporting the CP industry and make it viable! The two are in a symbiotic relationship - they need each other and it's in the interests of the CP companies that the crackers keep breaking the CP - that way the CP companies have an excuse to keep charging more and more for better levels of security (while pointing out how rampant piracy is - not mentioning it must be down to their ineffective code). Meanwhile the professional pirates (the ones who make money from illegal copies) require CP to be present in the software for it to be possible for them to sell. The only people who lose are those who legitimately buy the software in the first place and in this case ED since they have to pay some ridiculous fee to SF or whoever for something which is not only tantamount to useless but in fact is enabling piracy - the big winners of course are the CP company and the pirates - those two groups win regardless. It's a sad state of affairs - while I've not had a problem with CP personally, I view the whole thing like charging to use a toilet - rather irritating to most normal people, and the people who p**s in the street will just carry on doing that no matter how clean those toilets might be... r.

Well it seems there is something of a PR melt down happening now. Personally I suspect that ED/1C are costing themselves more sales overall than the risk of losing them through a DL'able Russian version - the people here talking about DLing the Russian version are presumably those who have followed this since LockOn and before - not just casual drive-by bargain hunters - I suspect most here recognise the minimal support for sims and are prepared to pay a fair Western price for the sim. Given that some people seem to be getting hold of the sim regardless and there are rumblings about English language support even in the Russian version, perhaps the Russian version could be released and payable online, but make it such that to get the other stuff, like a manual, and patches you have to pay the Western price (which will have been in addition to the Russian version of course) and that can be managed through the website at ED/1C as a log in option and/or with the activation mechanism in the game. Maybe that would make the game saleable online in Russia (and to others) now, but also provide a way for ED to get a suitable return from Western customers. If not that, why not just open up the order process and rely on something no one seems to believe in anymore - honesty. Just tell Western customers - this is your price, please click - I think you'll find most will, particularly if you commit to offering a patch to bring the Russian version to the Western release levels of language support and it means sales aren't lost and the core consumers here aren't ticked off. Well good luck ED - just hope this sim is as good as I hope if/when it ever arrives :) r.

TrackClip Pro is an attachment for your existing headset (assuming it is of a suitable type - see the NaturalPoint website). It isn't a passive reflector like the hat mounted thing - instead it has 3 IR LEDs which emit light for the TrackIR sensor meaning the TrackIR does not blast you with IR light to reflect. The main reason for using it is to extend the view field of the TrackIR and thereby increase reliability of tracking. What I mean is that when you have the baseball cap on and move your head around, the TrackIR needs to be able to see the reflected dots. If you tilt your head up a long way for example, the cap's peak masks the reflectors and so you lose tracking at that point. Since the TrackClip emits light and has nothing to get masked by it is more reliable at the extremes of tracking. It depends on where your TrackIR is mounted and how you like to move as to how much of a difference you'll see (besides not needing to wear a cap). Downside is that to power the lights you have a USB pass through + cable so an additional cable is attached to your head. The question is whether that extra reliability is worth it for the extra cost... r.

May/may not look at those for "fun", but personally I'm primarily interested in helicopters... r.

Well if you translate the posts in the Russian forums it says the *1C* download is not "prepared" yet and probably next week. The original post from Wags suggested there would be an Eagle download version in addition to the 1C one, sooooooooo if you'd like a little optimism perhaps the Eagle Version will be DL'able soon but the 1C version will take longer. Heh - think I'm stretching the boundaries of optimism there :P Regardless of all that, last minute release delays seem to be par for the course with entertainment software companies now. It should in any normal operation, have been possible to look at the state of the release last night before going home and say "this won't be ready" and from there a quick forum post. Better yet, it should have been possible last week to say that and not get everyone here refreshing. Still since Black Shark is the only "game" in town I guess we're waiting... r.