Stingray

+1 There is a post in the 2.5 Bugs forum: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=205526 The mig is almost unflyable in it's current state. Spotting aircraft, which is already difficult in any module in this sim, is almost impossible in the mig-21.

Thanks for that, good to see the original quote and source.

Sounds silly, but is there any chance that the front wheel isn't 100% straight when you release the nose wheel steering button? When I roll onto the active for a take off, I will stop briefly, and then roll forward a few more feet to make sure that the nose wheel is as straight as possible and I'm lined up properly. I find that the nose-wheel-steering is too sensitive to use during the takeoff run. If I need to correct on the takeoff run before the speed gets to a point that the rudder gets some authority I will quickly 'tap' the wheel brake to straighten out, I have a pretty aggressive curve set on each wheel brake axis, as there is no anti-skid and has a tendency to skid. I fly the F-5E almost exclusively, and haven't noticed any change in takeoff/rollout behaviour between 1.5.8 to 2.5

There is a good I read online somewhere, I can't find the source, but it was along the lines of: "aircraft structural g-limits are only in effect when a second flight of the aircraft seems likely" meaning, if you're about to get smoked by a missile/enemy/etc, survival becomes more important than avoiding airframe stress.

Hi there, I've been working on fighting in the F5... it's definitely a challenge! I'm no pro, but I’m starting to feel like I can hold my own against the AI (well, at least some of the time anyway!) About the radar and DM/DG - I find it much easier to lock in DM mode. The antenna elevation is 5 or so degrees higher than in DG mode, and closer to your center line/nose, and it just seems to acquire the lock better, while also giving a better visual cue with the piper to let you know that it's locked. So even if I have no missiles, or am planning to use guns, I'll still mainly use DM to get the initial lock. I'll even switch between DG and DM frequently during the fight. Aiming in DG mode is hard and somewhat unintuitive because of the ‘floating’ piper. It is going to float around somewhat lazily in response to both your control inputs, and to the targets control inputs, and there also is some lag with how it responds. As a result, it is really unnatural and slow to try to "walk" the piper to the target. I find I over correct and never get in a good solution. Instead, I largely ignore the floating piper when maneuvering (or even quickly switch to DM mode so that the piper is fixed), and just focus on using my instincts/experience to get into the proper position, attitude, and lead for a gun solution, and the piper will naturally be over the target, then only for the absolute final corrections to the aiming will I focus on using the piper. I haven't noticed the problem that you mention of still having to lead the target, but aiming is still tricky with the piper, and it's really easy to miss. I also really try to not fly with any slip while shooting, and I absolutely avoid using the rudder pedals to move the piper to aim (unless I'm really close and it's a last-ditch attempt to make a shot). I also find DG mode hard when doing quick snap-shots, as it doesn't get the lock fast enough to help. As for energy management, when turning I try to use gravity to help speed turn whenever possible. If doing a level turn, I try to make sure that the vertical velocity indicator shows a slight elevation loss, so that even though I'm losing energy from the turn, I'm not also losing energy by climbing at the same time. If I need to do a really high G turn, I'll try to time it so that I'm pulling the nose down through the horizon and gaining energy by losing elevation and having gravity help pull the nose around, rather than doing the same turn with the nose going up through the horizon where again you're losing energy both through the high G turn, and from gaining elevation, and now also gravity is working against your turn slowing your turn rate. Similarly when fighting in the vertical, I will try to avoid doing a high G pull at the bottom of a loop, because you have gained a lot of energy from coming down, and it's really easy to bleed off all that energy by pulling up hard in the bottom of the loop. At the top of the loop though I will really yank hard on the stick to bring the nose around, because you are going to gain that energy back on the way down, and gravity is also helping you pull the nose around so your turning radius is much lower. Now of course, you can't always time your turns or attack/defense so that you are always using gravity rather than fighting it, but it's just another thing to keep in mind. Another thing I try to keep in mind is unloading the wings whenever possible. If I’m pulling up and need to roll sharply, I will push forward on the stick to unload the wings, then roll, rather than trying to blend the pulling up maneuver into a roll. Again, it’s not something you can always do, but just another thing I keep in mind. Also, try experimenting with putting the flaps in fixed-up rather than auto until you find yourself really slow, once the flaps get auto deployed, you lose energy really quickly. I find I'm almost always in lag pursuit, trying to do high yo-yo's and conserving energy until I'm in the right position for a gun shot, and then I'll finally pull the nose a bit harder and bleed energy to pull the nose faster to make the shot. If it doesn't look like I'll be getting a shot, I go back to lag pursuit and maintain energy rather than pulling harder and harder bleeding all my energy in a futile attempt at the shot. I keep my eye on the G meter, the vertical velocity indicator, and the slip indicator while dog-fighting. It's hard because it requires some attention, but I've found that paying attention to those really helps me keep up the energy. I also turn up the cockpit volume a bit to really listen for the wind buffeting sound effect when you start to turn too hard, and then try to fly and avoiding the sound. I'll be honest that I also cheat and sometimes use the F5 button for external padlock nearest plane view when I lose sight or situation awareness. I find that helps me stay in the fight a bit longer and get back to the right position to stay in the fight... after all, this is just practice. I've also started recording each practice fight in tacview, pause the game, and alt-tab to tacview right after the fight to review it and see how it played out. When practicing against AI I will have a specific game plan of what I'm going to try or work on. For example, I will say: This fight I will go vertical at the merge and try to keep the fight vertical. Or, this fight I will turn into them on the merge and go for a scissors, or this fight I will turn away from them and try a horizontal turning circle fight, or this fight I will dive below them on the merge and come up from underneath, this fight I will try lead pursuit, or this fight I will try pure pursuit, etc. Then I review things in tacview and evaluate how I did with a bit more of an idea of how I wanted things to unfold. I watch how much energy both of us had during the fight by watching the TAS (true airspeed), and kind of try to be more analytical with evaluating what I did and how the fight went. Anyway, that turned out to be way more text than I anticipated... tl;dr... I hope you find something useful in my little brain dump. Do you ever try fighting against non-AI? If you want to try to meetup online to dogfight sometime send me an email at robscallsign@gmail.com ... I'm in Ontario, Canada, and you seem to be in the UK so lag might be an issue, but if you wanted to try to meet up on a public server for some BFM with a non-AI I’d be down. (Also I'll mention that the 104th is looking for more F-5 pilots for the Red vs. Blue rumble on February 25th, see the link on the "Tournaments" sub-forum). Cheers, and good luck!

Rob - F5 Won't be able to make it, have to work today :(, have fun

My quick search of the forum seems to indicate that it was never implemented

Is the modelling of the drift for inertial navigation system implemented, requiring coordinate corrections during a flight? Or can that task safety be "ignored" (for now) Cheers, S.

yo, quick question with the F-15C radar. The FC2 key command lists some commands, namely: * RShift -, (Scan zone left) * RShift -/ (Scan zone right) * RShift - I (Radar pulse repeat frequency) In the F-15C I cannot seem to make the radar respond to these functions or key commands? Just want to see if they are not implemented in the F-15C radar or if I am doing something wrong, or am trying to use them incorrectly, etc. Edit: nevermind, I think I got it figured out. How to delete this post? Stingray

As part of my usual start up routine, from the cockpit, I will zoom to the full extent, and look around completely, and then do the same thing from the external view, with the hope that it loads all the textures/models at the finest LOD. This was a trick I heard about in the IL-2 1946 community, probably common in a lot of games. Also, before online combat, many IL2-1946 pilots will fire their weapons once, so that the sounds are loaded and in the sound cards hardware buffer to avoid any stutter when they first fire. Although, it is difficult to do this in the ka-50, as there is much less of each type of ammunition :)

What is the alt-tab trick?

I just want to make a quick point about graphics differences in games. Stand back and think about the differences between Crysis, Dragons Age, and DCS. When you play FPS, RPG, MMOs. Typically there is more lighting, fog/smoke right up close to the camera view and generally, much more going on in a typical scene: more models up close, higher poly count models, more lighting calculations, more light sources, etc. You are typically much closer up to the other characters, objects, etc, all of these require more vertices, higher resolution textures, and all-in-all, much more work for the GPU. The GPU is pretty good at this stuff, so these games can typically fly pretty fast, and, this is why games like Crysis are usually used for benchmarking GPUs for hardware sites. In DCS, typically you are viewing the world from inside your cockpit, so right away, much of the world is blocked from view, and thus doesn't need to be rendered (I am assuming that their engine culls objects blocked by the cockpit). When you view objects, they are typically very far away and can be represented adequately with quite low-polygon count meshes and textures (the so called level-of-detail, or LOD). Additionally, the ground can be adequately modelled using low-polygon count meshes and relatively coarse textures, same with buildings. It all adds up that in DCS, the GPU has much less to do than in a typical FPS or MMO game. Now, versus a typical FPS or MMO game, there is much more going on in terms of physics. Of course there are the basic things that must be done in all games: input, collision detection and AI. DCS also has ballistics, weapons (can be a lot of these going on at once) and most importantly, the flight model (again, can be several objects flying at once), which involves solving a time-varying differential equation accurately and in real-time. This is probably the most CPU intensive step, and is probably the FPS-limiting step. Even though, AI planes probably use a simplified and easier-to-compute FM. Is there a way to see a breakdown for each frame how much of the time is taken in the flight model, AI, collision detection and graphics rendering to get an idea of just how much computation the flight model takes up? I wonder if you can make an empty mission with the helo turned off to see if there then isn't any flight modelling to get a sense of the max FPS that the GPU can turn out with their graphics engine? Anyway, just wanted to make a few comments as a game programmer, or at least, an amateur-hack of a game programmer, as this comment seems to come up quite a bit. My observations and comments may be a bit wrong though, so welcome corrections. Stingray

Howdy, I've been practicing performing unguided rocket attacks while moving. I have a mission with a few groups of 10 or so transports lined up, and see how many I can hit in one pass, the results are rarely good. Typically I setup my run 5-7 km before the targets to get trim, level and straightened, and have been experimenting firing anywhere between 3km and 1km from the targets, then breaking to a side at 1km out. I am trying to aim by zooming in on the rocket piper, placing the rocket piper on the targets and firing 2-4 rockets (1 from each pod for now). The selector on the rear aux-panel is set for 0 for unguided rockets, weapon release mode on auto, I am not locking targets with the shval and the shval is not in gunsight mode. The problem I am having is that I am having trouble moving the rocket piper exactly where I want, and it feels that I am always fighting the stabilization/auto pilot. I fly with the autopilot holds on typically, except altitude, trim constantly and have tried using the flight director mode as well. In all of the modes, it seems like I fight the autopilot, and my aim really bounces around when aiming. My solution has been to always fly with the trimmer held down when I am manually aiming rockets and guns, and it seems that I can can aim fine this way. I am wondering if I could be doing something different with the flight director mode on to aim a bit better. I have had to assign a secondary trimmer button on my throttle so that I could both hold the trimmer down and easily release the rockets using the stick, as I was having trouble both holding down the trimmer and hitting the release with my thumb. If I lock onto a target in the shval, I can do the run no problem, the problem is that I only have time to take out a target or two before I break. Ideally I'd like to avoid having to select and lock each target using the shval and do more of a rocket strafe along the entire row of vehicles using the piper. Another question is, how, if at all, to use the laser ranging when manually attacking with rockets. I am wondering if it is possible to have the piper compute the landing point of the rockets accurately on the topography like in the A-10 for example. Would having the shval in gunsight mode aim the laser range finder where the rockets are aimed and help in the computations for example? I welcome any criticisms, thoughts or ideas on the best way to do this type of manual rocket attack. Edit: another question, should I be flying so that my aircraft is trimmed, i.e. the black ball is in the center of the ADI, or so that the rocket piper and the centerline of aircraft marker in the HUD are aligned? Thanks, S. :joystick:

Hello, I am having trouble with losing the mission waypoints in the ABRIS. For example, if I use the search function to select an NDB, and then use the TO function to create a simple 1-waypoint route to the NDB, I can't never seem to get back to the original mission waypoints. Is there a function to quickly restore your original flight plan? Thanks, S.

Yep, I am oc'd at 3.2GHZ no problem, temperatures are usually below 30 C, huge improvement in FPS. Thanks, huge performance increase tonight, its a night-and-day difference in playing this sim, Stingray