Nayles

1.021 released. SPAD7 new flyable with two versions. Come up against enemy aces in the new dynamic career mode. Plus other stuff.....

I'm no expert but I'll try and answer your questions mate. The new career mode is an attempt at a dynamic career experience way beyond what the old career mode offered. First impressions lead me to believe that this new career mode has little to do with the old career mode. The new dynamic career mode is only multiplayer in that a central server compares your career results with other players and shows how you compare in a ranking system based on points accrued to date. When you are in the game world you are the only human player, everything else being under the control of AI. As you state you can now see the name, rank and unit of all those shot down by yourself and your squadron mates in the reports, squadron and personal pages. How these details are arrived at I do not know but I'm hoping they are based on AI pilots engaged in their own careers rather than being randomly made up on the spot. In my experience so far playing the new career mode, whilst you may not be tasked on the first mission of the day you'll be involved in at least one of them. Simply hit the Next Mission button until you get to your mission. This allows you to view mission results as they are completed by your AI squadmates. You won't fly on every mission available as this is just not a realistic representation of how Air Ops were/are conducted. You can only have one player controlled pilot in any one career instance. The new graphics options only give fairly subtle changes as the graphics were already top notch with not a lot of room for improvement. There is a new option (extreme rendering?) to get rid of shimmering plane textures but this is only recommended for very powerful machines otherwise it will hit your performance badly but by all accounts it certainly fixes the issue. The objects distance option now allows the rendering of distant objects without the need to zoom in - subtle but brilliant - and it works without impacting performance. New Autumn textures etc etc etc too much to go into here. I like you am using my old graphics settings but with object draw distance up to 100% - absolutely gorgeous! I've got to say - the dev team responsible for ROF 1.019 have a great deal to be proud of. Hope that helps.

1.017 is out. The new Gotha is a real beast and beautifully modeled. Plane sale on until the 6th also (all scouts $2.99, Bombers $11.99). Can only hope the dynamic campaign will be in 1.018 and soon! Once the dynamic campaign is in (and if it delivers) then for me ROF will be the very best sim ever made. :D

I might give the download a try. I'm quite ken to get this going again so will try practically anything. No overclocking.... everything at stock speeds. Thanks again. :thumbup:

Thanks for replying. unfortunately I've tried that. Same error as if I was installing from Disk. Also this is the second version of Win 7 I've tried it on as I had a main HDD failure which required an OS reinstall. A real head-scratcher this one. I'm doing a hardware upgrade this week so will try again.... here's hoping.

After recently upgrading my system I also upgraded my OS from XP to Win7 (32 bit). I have tried installing BS from my retail hardcopy (hardly used, looks new) but always have the same problem. At different points in the installation process I get an error message telling me there is a problem and that my media is possibly corrupt. Here's the thing. I decided to try installing on XP and had no issues at all. Game runs fine, installs fine and patches fine. So why on earth doesn't Win7 like it? I have tried installing in XP compatability mode with no luck. Same problem as before. I just wondered if this is a known issue and if there was an easy fix? It just doesn't make sense to me that one OS lets it install and another doesn't. Obviously the media isn't corrupt otherwise XP wouldn't like it either. Of course, if it wasn't for the pesky DRM I could probably install in XP and run it in Win7. As it is I'd need to make manual changes to Win7's registry I suspect which is a little outside my comfort zone. Anyone else have this issue and found a resolution? Anyone got any workaround ideas? If, as I suspect, there isn't really anything wrong with my install disk then replacing that isn't going to help - If I thought it would I wouldn't hesitate to buy another copy. Fantastic sim and I miss flying the Shark, especially now as I've just acquired some rudder pedals and a throttle quadrant. Thanks for reading.

I'm finding it impossible to score DCS:Black Shark without caveats. The principle reason being that ED have produced what I can only describe as an evolutionary leap forward in the combat flight sim genre. In comparison to what has gone before, DCS:BS merits a score between 95-100%. However this would suggest that DCS:BS is perfect 'as is' when it clearly isn't for reasons any regular visitor to these forums will probably be very familiar. So to summarise DCS:BS is the best I've ever seen but hopefully just a taste of things to come. I'd like to add that the Black Shark was an inspired choice and I look forward eagerly to flying more exotic eastern bloc kit as opposed to the same old sterile western kit that have largely dominated the combat flight sim world to date. But I imagine I am now straying into controversial territory ha! ED have made a rock for their own back I reckon. By raising the bar so high ED have unwittingly similarly raised our expectations - very nearly the ultimate in compliments! :D

Really bad idea tbh. What is it you most enjoy about DCS Black Shark if it isn't the realism? :doh:

There is a slight distinction between what something is percieved to be worth and what an individual can afford to spend. For entertainment value, attention to detail, immersion and the sheer joy that is DCS:BS you could say $50 is nothing.... but your Bank Manager might disagree. I would imagine that you won't start seeing a drop in price until a few months after the retail box release by which time retail discounting may have had an impact.

Someone made a post previously that stated that the INU will not accumulate errors like it would in RL. Therefore the 'Nav Fix' facility is functional but doesn't have an obvious effect owing to there being no errors to fix. This I believe to be the case but am happy to be corrected.

Does FD have any effect if the AP channels are off? Must admit I've never tried it.

I have found that with the AP enabled (with or without FD on) the controls feel 'soft' to me. I would certainly place trim hold above a less responsive stick. Whilst it may be a bug I'd learn to adjust to flying with the default axis curves - less than ideal - but the trim hold really does feel good when you have it working properly. When I think about it most of my joystick control inputs are tiny... I'm guessing that a lot of little stick movements are better than just a few big ones? Feels like a helicopter to me! :smilewink:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think you can ignore step 7. I've only ever hit the 'enter' button once all the coords have been entered. In fact I don't think the 'enter' button is lit until all coords are in.

UPDATE: Well I have pretty much got Hammerheads down now. Experimenting I found that if I reduced collective between 50-80 degrees of pitch up and then feed the collective back in at the top of the climb this was enough to induce the yaw necessary for a quick 180 degree turn once initiated by a flick of the rudder. I have certainly got the horizontal ballooning down to a minimum which is nice :D. Rolls and loops are a different story however. Loops are easier and I have managed both but without any real elegance. The problem I am having is that I seem to temporarily lose control (or coordination or both) when inverted. I also find that in rolls the rotor blades will almost always clash when feeding back in the collective when rolling out from inverted. This seems to be the same for right and left hand rolls the only diffference being that rolling to the left seems a lot more sluggish than rolling to the right. I've got a feeling I am being too heavy handed owing to lack of experience. Split-S are fun to do and I think I'll get those down before I have rolls sorted. Not tried the funnel yet but I watched the airshow and Shepski tracks last night and I think I have the theory clear in my head (pitch forwards with a little bank and full opposite rudder). And to those questioning why.... simply because you can... and also I don't think you can say you can -really- fly an aircraft until you are completely comfortable flying on the ragged edge with experience enough to know what that aircraft can and can't do. Added to which killing things isn't the be all and end all - not for me anyway.

I hope I don't come across as a smartass but my MSFF2 worked straight out of the box and the ONLY change I made was to swap the axes in the options in game. I didn't mess about with the Sidewinder software setting return forces to 0 or anything... and it works perfectly. I'd be suprised if it was a DCS software problem and can only suggest that you keep fiddling with your stick setup, and possibly testing it in other games to see whether your stick is functioning correctly (i.e. not broken). Wish I could help more because I know this must be driving you up the wall. Goodluck :thumbup: