Lace

The above mentioned '10 Percent True' podcast series really is first class, and the best (IMHO) military aviation themed podcast available. Steve is very knowledgeable and a great interviewer. Highly recommended listening for any DCS'er.

This short video is a great visualisation of how FOV changes our perception of speed.

I have an Alienware X17 with the 3070 mobile card as I spend a lot of time overseas. I have a Rift S which comes with me, and a cooling stand, which I'm not sure is absolutely necessary for this laptop (but was for my previous one), but they are cheap and light so why not. It runs very smoothly (even in VR), but I am not afraid to dial settings back to increase performance, and I'm 99% single player. I use an Xbox controller which is actually a really good HOTAS alternative, let me know if you need help with any 'creative' mapping.

Next update is 2.8.2.35759. 2+8+2+3 = 15. The 5th letter of the alphabet is E. - 15E! 75+9 = 84, 84 is 48 backwards, and the 48th TFW flies, you guessed it, F-15Es from Lakenheath. Coincidence? I don't think so. The numbers don't lie @BIGNEWY

That's what VIPs and VRPs are for.

I agree 100% that trees should suffer damage, but they should still have an influence on weapons. Proximity fuses can be triggered by heavy foliage, and it will make the correct setting of fusing delays and types more relevant, particularly when attacking through thick cover. Large limbs can deflect weapons too, and any hunter will know that even a tiny twig can cause enough of a deflection to turn a hit into a miss. Scale that up and it is obviously important that the effect trees have on weapon systems should not just be removed altogether, as that would be equally unrealistic. i.e. 100% penetrable trees is as unrealistic as 100% impenetrable trees.

After the pop and pull-down and visually identifying the target I 'MSL STEP/NWS' to CCIP, pickle, and fly the planned pull out and egress to OAP2. Since starting this thread I have played with VRP/VIP and OAPs quite a bit and they are pretty useful for precise pop-up attacks.

Thanks for looking into it. The CBU landed long, so I think that's why they survived that one. As you say, you've got to admire the balls on those cupola gunners returning fire though! Not sure I would have the nerve to stare down an offensive A-10 like that.

Park it up on the ground and we'll see how she does.

You are right, T-72s, not 64s (no 64s in DCS). I scored 180 hits on two target tanks at <1nm range, before taking 9 rounds of 12.7 in return, losing an engine and limping home. So at least one T-72 was still combat effective. I don't have a track but I've included my Tacview file FWIW. Tacview-20230127-183743-DCS-IA-A10CII-Caucasus-Easy East Georgia.zip.acmi

Ha, yes. Understood. Defo tanks, not Apaches.

Not tried strafing any helicopters, I'll give it a go later. It kills everything else just fine.

You are all massively overthinking this. All you need is to map LMB, and keep the mouse cursor locked to the VR cursor. Then just glance up, and click the option. Takes literally no time, no mouse interaction, no effort. I've been playing VR for 4+ years, and not once needed to use the mouse. The menu system works much better than Jester IMHO.

Has the HUD always been so difficult to read? I fly in VR so have to live with a bit of blurriness here and there, but it is readable in every other module, the A-10 just seems really bad. Is this normal or just me? Also the gun. I played through the easy IA mission last night to refamiliarise myself with the a/c and systems, and on the final waypoint with the convoy I made a couple of gun runs against the T-64s. According to Tacview I got over 80 hits on one of then (from a couple of different directions), without scoring a kill. Is this normal? I remember the gun being a bit more effective than that. It kills soft stuff fine, but has tank armour received any work lately, as 80+ seems a huge number of AP 30mm to just shrug off and return fire. Other than that, I'm really enjoying getting back in the 'Hog. There is just something calming to performing low speed, low level CAS/interdiction, having been spending so much time zooming around in the Viper lately.

I would say in my limited experience, the explosions in DCS are far more realistic than the video you posted. Big fiery 'Hollywood' explosions are pretty unlikely, unless you are bombing POL facilities. Ammunition causes more secondaries, which are already modelled, but could be bigger for some units.

It doesn't take long until you are <$1 per hour in the module. Fantastic value if you ask me.

It might only be 5 or 10 minutes, but for example, the latest Beta installed the new Mirage F1 EE, I already have assigned all the controls for the almost identical F1 CE, but I need to start again from scratch for the EE. There are a lot of modules which have different versions of the same aircraft, and that's even before you consider the commonality between all aircraft. If I install a new HOTAS, then that's 5-10 minutes for every module, which is easily hours of work. As suggested above, JoyPro might be the answer.

Yep, so many could be in a 'common' category. Eject, views, axes, basic flight controls, kneeboard, trim, etc. JoyPro looks good, but it would be nice if we didn't have to keep going to 3rd party solutions and workarounds.

Thanks. It's working just fine at the moment, so I'll just leave it alone.

As a Rift S user, this means I can biff off the Oculus App, right? My question is why? What is the benefit of using openXR over the Oculus App? (non-steam version).

Looks interesting, might give it a try. How use-friendly is it?

I wish DCS would allow common control assignments. I don't understand why when I allocate a control for 'Airbrake Extend', or 'Trim Nose Down' it can't then apply to all aircraft with that function. This is especially time consuming for multiple variants of the same aircraft (Why do the A-10C and A-10CII for example require different assignments?). Perhaps there could be an 'Override Common Assignment' next to a control if you want to deliberately allocate something different to a particular aircraft. Or a pop-up asking 'Apply change to all modules?' when you change an assignment. Obviously some aircraft have specific requirements, and that is fine, but there is a huge amount of commonality between modules, that it could be a great time saver for new installs, or HOTAS hardware changes.

There was a good idea on the F-15E thread suggesting an overhaul of the bort number system, to include colour flashes, Sqn badges etc, overlaid on a standard grey scheme could go a long way to improve things, particularly on the USAF a/c which are all very similar in appearance. It is nice to have variation in schemes, but the current system is a very inefficient way to store '50-shades-of-grey' liveries.

I think the main argument against hypotheticals, is not that it shouldn't be done, it's just that it by their nature, they are difficult to do right. Adding an untested or untried weapons system will mean applying guesswork, to a greater or lesser degree. The devs are unlikely to have any hard data on how that a/c performs with an untested load out. There is more to it than W&B and drag factors. Aerodynamics come into play, and without flight test data, then how can an accurate simulation be made? It may be as simple as a couple of lines of code, which will physically add the weapons in the game, but the aircraft will not be flying in a realistic manner (for all we know) for that particular loadout. And if we are saying we are happy with guesswork, then it is a slippery slope. It stops being a high-fidelity simulation. There is nothing 'hardcore' about wanting DCS to remain a simulator. There are other options out there for people who just want a more casual experience, and there is nothing wrong with that, and there are of course non-official mods which offer all kinds of untried and untested alternatives, if that is your particular cup of hot beverage. Let's just keep the official stuff accurate and legitimate, so as not to dilute the authenticity of DCS.

A bit off topic, but for anyone interested, this is over beautiful Northumberland. The reservoir is Fontburn https://goo.gl/maps/BsMCVFeA795UdkhV8, and Simonside Crags are in the background. I know that area well, and I am often dodging F-15s out of Lakenheath.