Headspace

I'll bite. My apologies of course--may be relatively new to this community but I've been active in other FS communities in the past, and I've been active with the ArmA games for years and the same "it's not a game, it's a sim" mentality shows up in that community as well. Why aren't they games and why is it important for someone who might be new to is particular genre of gaming--who is reasonably concerned about the complexity involved--to remember that "it's not a game?"

I have not yet had a chance to play around with JTAC enough to test this (lately I haven't even been using the weapon systems, instead just screwing around with general flight stuff). But I think the question here is whether or not a CAS scenario warrants storing target locations for a period of time, given that these targets are likely to move away, you know? I'll mess around with it when I get a chance though.

150kts is a little on the fast side. As of beta one I can get it into a landing configuration at around 110kts when the airplane is loaded light. With landing, you want to keep it at a fairly uniform AoA and then use your power to control sink rate. The whole "power for altitude" principle being applied in this case. The AoA indicator is useful, as are the lights to the left of the HUD. Get the airplane into a config where you're maintaining a fairly constant airspeed, adjust your sink rate using throttle to get on the glide slope, and stay there until it is time to flare. If you are at a higher speed than you want, increase pitch. This may seem counter intuitive but you will soon see AoA increase and your speed is going to drop off with an accompanying increase in sink rate. Just remember not to stall.

You raise a valid point, and I should point out that that's actually how the manual says you should do it. It is really a matter of preference. If I knew that I was not going to need to reuse the markpoints quickly, I would use that method (using the MARK mode). If I needed to cache my target points, I would use the method in the video. Either way works. However, it isn't immediately obvious how to stick markpoints into flight plans, so I figured I would include that in the vid so that viewers know it's an option should they choose to use it.

Hey there. I've received numerous requests to make additional videos about DCS A-10 since the multiple JDAM drop video. I enjoy making these. Feel free to suggest what topic you would like covered next. Gonna consolidate these into a master list of vids. As of now, there are 4 "main" ones, with the Targeting Pod guide being the latest: The above video describes how to range targets and create more accurate markpoints with the targeting pod. I made this fairly (as study sims go) newbie-friendly vid to show how to land. Part 1 is a basic VFR approach from the pattern; Part 2 has a crosswind landing and missed approach + additional info on crab angle calculation. I have introduced my personal preferences into the procedures very slightly, so I'm sure it'll deviate from the official Landing training mission. But, this is how I usually do it. I am not going to get particularly hardcore in the landing series of vids, because they're meant to be a starting point to practice and not an encyclopedic repository of pitch-perfect landings. Lately I've been experimenting with the trim system and MRFCS, and so I made a video about that. There was some confusion in the openbeta forum about how these systems work. It's also motivated by my desire not to end up in the state of confusion that I (and many others) were in about Black Shark's trimmer. I went into the A-10A manual that's linked in the "A-10 documentation" thread, read up on the trim/MRFCS topics in that, and then compared it to the functionality in the beta. The result was that it works as described in that document. Which is very cool. Please note that since the MFRCS is still a WIP item, I'm not going to do part 2 until there's either a good way to portray it as WIP, or until it's finished. The original JDAM video; shows the user how to launch multiple JDAMS and explains how the markpoint system can be used to input new navigation waypoints for flight plans. _______________________ I'll annotate any technical errors people find.

I found it. It's 0.75 mach. It really does tend to want to pitch down after you pass this mach number in the game. That's pretty cool.

Lobo, can you describe when mach tuck starts in the game and better yet link any documentation you might have about mach tuck in the real A-10? I'm interested in experimenting with this. Thanks.

Oh my...all those times I played the "target range" mission. What have I done???

That too!

Man. I had F-19 and the sequel (F-117, which got made after the F-117 was revealed). I also remember buying M-1 tank platoon around the time I got those. That was when you got this really thick manual having very little to do with the game.

My 2 cents. I consider this to be a game just like the ArmAx games are games. Something can be a sim and a game at the same time, but really, quite a few games are technically real time simulations these days--you have frames being calculated against some sort of physics model, objects with different physical characteristics that react, and so on. Even a game like Hawx is a sim from a technical aspect--it has to be in order to have the presentation layer that it does, with real time interaction, physics, and everything else the market expects a game to have. But, it's a game. Usage pretty much dictates definition in this case and it's being used for an entertainment purpose. And so is what we play here. The fact that we derive enjoyment out of reading the manuals and learning how everything works in detail does not detract from that, nor should it be taken to mean that people who game in DCS are somehow more elite than those who choose to play MW2 or whatever. I haven't played MW2 but I do have Bad Company 2, and that's very easy to pick up and zone out on, which is what you tend to want to do at times if you have a busy schedule. The rampant ego nursing that goes on in some of the "hardcore" communities (flight sim, military 'sim', etc) can be a real turnoff for the casual player who may not yet know if he or she would be interested in learning the finer details of some of the more complex games out there. I remember in the 90s around the time Falcon 4 came out, and even before, you had a lot of roleplay-based stuff going on, where people were taking it incredibly seriously. I've been out of the loop for many years, but to the casual observer, that sort of thing comes off as incredibly goofy. I totally believe that this is, in part, why these games are forced to serve a niche market. I wish it was not that way, but the barrier for entry into this genre is far higher from both a financial standpoint and a time commitment standpoint. Adding elitism to the mix won't help that. I really do think it's awesome that ED can afford to bring these high fidelity sims to the consumer market but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that it's closer to the reality side of the spectrum than the gaming side--it may be a few nudges closer and immensely enjoyable (for those of us who dig this sort of thing) as a result, but let's look at it for what it is. If the FAA says it's cool to start logging sim time or instrument sim time using this game then I guess I would start considering it a simulator in the "classic" sense for that purpose. But I doubt that will happen anytime soon, and for good reason.

Not my intent to spam or anything, but the guide I made to dropping JDAMs also explains how to save markpoints to the CDU. CDU specific stuff is about 3 minutes in. Pay attention to the left side of the CDU screen and what gets typed into the pad.

Frogfoot, is it possible you set SPI to something other than your steerpoints? That has tripped me up before. Make sure MAN REL is showing up on the left side of the HUD before you pickle. Otherwise nothing will happen.

That's right. 1200 is the standard VFR code. But you have to squawk what ATC gives you if you enter controlled airspace (i.e. go into class B or C, get squawk code from approach).

Not sure if anyone here remember's Parsoft's A-10 attack and A-10 cuba, but they were revolutionary for their time (I'm pretty sure the first one was on the Mac only) in terms of flight model and other aspects. These games came out in the mid-1990s and were the hot thing in flight sims, at least on that platform. They were pioneers of the genre, featuring things like clickable cockpits and high fidelity flight dynamics (they passably simulated spins, slowflight, etc). After 14 or so years there's finally a successor to those games.

In the same vein of mower's question, does the mic switch actually do anything in terms of in-game comms, or will tuning the radios suffice?

I made a guide on how to do this (it assumes basic familiarity with the training material, but you can jump in it from there) and threw it on youtube as per request: It's not gospel on how this is done, but the method I'm using seems to work pretty well. I like the fact that you can store target data in flight plans.

I noticed the device, noticed it was quite obviously a transponder and assumed that due to such its was classified and that's why you can't really interact with it. Good point though about it showing up in the manual; I hadn't noticed it there.

To save a markpoint into the CDU, you can create a flight plan and add them or add them to an existing flight plan as waypoints. To switch to using markpoints as steerpoints, you can switch the CDU knob to MARK. The PVI-800 is harder to use than the CDU, but the latter takes some getting used to.

I get the same thing as well, always when landing, throttle back to idle position and brakes engaged.

I found that a really useful method for JDAM delivery is along the lines of what people have already suggested but I added an extra step: If you know that the target is going to be stationary for some time, you can make your marks with the TGP, and then save the markpoints in a seperate flight plan. Then you can simply switch to this flight plan with the CDU, and call it up when you're ready for JDAM delivery. The nice thing about it is that the plan shows up on the TAD with each steerpoint a target, and you can store an arbitrary number of plans (if necessary). It's a pretty simple process but if anyone's interested I can throw up a youtube vid showing how it's done.

I fixed mine by reinstalling XP. It was crashing during some call to Opengl32.dll.

Yes, I have the November redistributable installed.

XP SP2 here. No vista. I've already done the whole driver reinstall thing. It doesn't appear to change anything.

I'm having the same issue with not being able to unpause my game in MP as well. This is the first piece of software I've bought in forever that simply will not work out of the box with no indication as to why. It's very discouraging.