Raisuli

I did notice the airbases have been freshly paved; not so much as a muddy tire on them. I expect that will go away with a bit of attention. Overall everything is a lot too clean, particularly flying up around Murmansk, which is normal for a DCS map. This isn't where you go for video game tourism, but there are some industrial installations I specifically looked for near there are are, more or less, modeled. Saw some odd rectangular areas that I'll never be able to find again; looked like fencing out in the middle of nowhere... Airbases are a little sparse; right now my biggest problem, if you want to call it that, is where I make my 'home' airbase around which all the training areas will go. First thought is Bodo (I need to copy/paste the correct spelling for that somewhere) just so I can train in and around all those mountains and keep a couple CVBGs out on the water nearby. Maybe a satellite airbase out on the flat areas to the northeast for flat plate SEAD, without much to hide behind. The map is 400+ nm across. No shortage of room for ranges, missions, training, and whatever else might lift your airframe. Like SA I expect it to fill in, get a little wear, and improve as we go. I do prefer the land/sea ratio better than SA.

Flew a helo from Murmansk airport to Severomorsk, then an F-18 low level from Bodo to Kiruna. Frame rates a little lower on the Murmansk run, and entirely GPU bound. Back to normal on the west side CPU/GPU bound. On the whole, not remotely disappointed. Some artifacts, sure. Some oddities. Some performance hits. It's early access, it's huge, and it's pretty awesome.

worked for me

Yeah, I thought of that. Right after you said something... Now I get to re-save those seven scripts, twice, because I'm a goober.

Purchased, not in module manager yet. Figure it'll show up eventually; expect quite a bit of interest in this.

Turned to CV because the aircraft is in the nose? Track file might help. Since this is a startup thing, and not that far into the startup, shouldn't take much file to track it...

I use Litening on the F-18 simply because everything else uses it also. Makes it easier not to switch around and the skill set to employ the device carries, more or less, between aircraft. It doesn't hurt that I keep buttons consistent between aircraft; my F-16 has NWS on the pinky, just like everything else, so the HOTAS controls for the TGP also remain mostly consistent. Of course I have a custom hardened Litening that is certified for salt water, shock, and getting shot down and crashing. I'm also not obsessive about selective realism. I could stick it on the centerline but then I loose my only gas tank. By definition if I'm using the pod I'm moving mud, and there's no point to have the pod if I don't have mud moving shtuff to go along with it. Masking is something managed by being aware of the limits and maneuvering appropriately. As for AMRAAMs, I get that the proper way to destroy a city-sized alien spaceship is to fire a whole bunch of A2A missiles with itty bitty warheads at it, but I've never been one to follow a crowd.

32 meg track file is pretty brutal; I got about 10 minutes into it with nothing going on. In the video you guys are WAY too close; that viper had no chance at all at 5:25 flying right over the top of the launcher, and the HARM launch right after with no seekers visible, let alone locked, was wasted. That was iron bomb range. Against an SA-3 (if I heard that right) the HARM has longer legs than the SAM. Another way to look at this is with Tacview if you have it.

I'm playing with bombs. What could possibly go wrong? Reasonably soft targets; couple Toyotas, Mi-8s, Ka-50s, Su-25s, lots of mannequins standing around. 8 CBUs, a handful of mannequins fall over. That's 24 shy of 2,000 little high explosive anti-tank bomblets; based on what I see some of those were pretty much centered on non-tanks. Are CBUs on the F-18 the punch line of a joke, am I employing them wrong, or am I missing something? Sure, if I actually want to blow something up with cluster bombs I use an F-16, but why should the Air Force have all the fun? 2024.005.02 8xMk20.trk 2024.005.02 8xCBU99.trk

You and the Airboss have knuckle-dragging in common, and when you drag your knuckles over non-skid it's really bad for your hands, which might be why air bosses have such a reputation for being beastly... I seriously doubt flight deck directors will have any impact on tomorrow's patch; those are more like a 'next year' thing.

Don't hold your breath. <Just assume the rest of this post was a rant, so I deleted it...>

Heck with the streamers/DCS content creators. It's been Friday for over an hour in 'Straya, where's my map!!

I make my own , and there are several interesting missions for SA. Lots of low level through the fjords to knock out BadGuy(tm) SAM sites and clear the way to knock out other assorted and sundry BadGuy(tm) installations. Some A2A here and there. A bit of this, a lot of that, a training area to practice specific skills, some formations, A2AR, CV ops... Learning the mission editor makes pretty much everything else possible.

Given the number of times I've been under, and over, the bay bridge I wouldn't say no. When they talked about mooring one of the Iowa BBs at Treasure island an argument against was it 'might' make SF bay a nuclear target in the event of war. I recall overhearing a conversation at the Alameda mall that they would never allow a nuclear reactor in San Francisco bay. I looked up and saw -65's conning tower. Eight. Next to it was -70. Two more. Invisible were Arkansas, +2, California, +2, and San Francisco was there for fleet week, +1. 15 reactors two miles away. Nothing has changed.

Kind of a dumb question, but wouldn't that entail licensing as well as the technical hurdles? Big birds tend to be a little pricey, and I'd expect the people who put those up will want a slice for using the data they provide.

Yup, me, too. I get up early, so I'll consider waiting until I've been awake for at least fifteen minutes before serial reloading the store page. The more I see of this map the more likely it becomes my go-to, and the only concern is if they've accurately modeled the mosquitos for a summer map. If so that makes low-level flying far more dangerous. Maybe they're waiting for ED to add the little blood suckers to the weather tab in the ME. It would be like 'fog', with sliders for visibility range, density (up to ten billion per cubic meter), ceiling, and dB level on the noise, which can almost drown out a jet engine... Of course the downside is I'm also getting Afghanistan, but I can see that sitting on a shelf while I wring this one out. Central Europe is the only map in the works (I know about) that might knock this off the pole position.

Yup, and I had the post written about how I followed that video to the absolute letter. Twice. Then I decided to try again, because...I've been around long enough to know what 'to the letter' is worth. Not that I'm an incompetent goober or anything, but I pretty obviously failed to follow one or another pretty simple instruction. It works perfectly now.

Oh. Yeah. I got the upgrade for the Warthog TDC and forgot just how bad the original is. Totally agree the thumb TDC implementation is a bit unfortunate; all kinds of problems that didn't need to happen. They could have provided alternate caps for that like they did everything else, or make using one of the front controls an option, or... It's almost like they put that on the board and never gave it another thought In other news one of my five way switches isn't. Not convinced it's worth the shipping costs to fix, but if I put that in place of the three way all kinds of weirdness happens. <edit>That 5-way worked great when I put it in right, not a VKB thing, a me thing, and I don't want to blame them for something that's got to be user error! </edit>

I 3D printed some alternates, and of course I can't remember where I got the file to print that, but it was around here somewhere. Made a world of difference along with something like 40 curves. Now I can manage that beastly bit of user-hostile design! You're reloading the configuration file, which means a new driver if I understand the process correctly. If it's set to a profile with detents the red light will come on in the right places even if that center is empty; the bearings are just there for friction. The part that gets me is the whole thing will die on occasion, which means removing the cover (easy), unplugging the USB (easy), replacing USB (easy) and replacing the cover (easy). It's all easy, but very annoying! Particularly when I don't notice the throttle is dead until you want to taxi somewhere, or worse, on an air start...

Since I can't use the MP servers this is why I go offline once I'm done with updates. If DCS is set offline ED can vanish and it will still work. At least that's what BN said a while ago, and so far he hasn't been wrong.

I find that rather refreshing; maybe for once they'll let a product stand on it's own rather than push the marketing buzz to the point where it's louder than the swarms of mosquitoes in this part of the world. Of course...Orbx. The bar is already high. They are to maps what Heatblur is to aircraft; like it, don't like it, the quality is spectacular. I expect this to be my default mission map at least until we get central Europe. Just need a few extra cannon shells to shoot down the mosquitoes, or at least punch a big enough hole in the swarm to fly through...

<WAY off topic> That summer I was on a glorified frigate, but I did prototype at S3G, which represented the only US submarine with a two plant. Yeah. Chernobyl. I have a story about that one that might be better left untold on these boards. I still have a (thermal paper) copy of the TMI transients and timeline. If they had actually known what they were doing they could not possibly have made worse decisions at exactly the wrong time. Hindsight is perfect, and TMI has more than one meaning. Of all the nuke boats I've been on only one is more than an entry in the Trench 94 Walk down History Lane, and that's CVN-70. Oh, I guess CVN-65 hasn't been cut up yet, but I'll bet her reactor compartments end up in trench 94 some day as well. That poor thing had been de-rated so many times I was a little surprised it could still get the lights lit. </> There (used to be) any number of rusting hulks in fjords northwest of Murmansk. Bellona did a report (have that too) about the disaster that was the Soviet Nuclear Navy up north. Of COURSE that's the first thing I'm going to check out, even if they didn't model the mess...

I was 12 *cough* miles away from Petropavlovsk in the mid 80s. Went from Pearl to Kamchatka in about two weeks, and hit 48' seas on the way. July 4th the windchill was about -20C, broke the -40, broke 2 plant, had a P-3 from Adak bring out spare parts, then spent the next thirty minutes or so in a race with the Soviets to find the parts they dropped for us because they sucked at it. Lots of good stories from that cruise, some I probably shouldn't mention... Fun summer. Wish we could have pulled into port for a visit, though; the landscape was pretty awesome!

And to think I get bored with a 100 mile round trip, and even think about air-starting when I work on muscle memory just to compress the transit. 10 hour simulated F-18 mission? No thanks; this is entertainment, not a job. I'd rather fly nine one hour missions and throw in a little helo practice during that last hour. There are three carrier capable aircraft, plus a couple mods (A-4, T-45)? I believe two maps, if you include Afghanistan, with no CV ops and yes, you can put a CV on Normandy and Channel. If I want to fly off a carrier there's plenty of opportunity elsewhere including the other new map about to be released. I'll set this one up with ground based missions, just like NTTR. I've already logged plenty of at-sea time.

I made the mistake of thinking I might try a MP server, then found out changing the default countermeasures program and making the knee board show up where I can see it rather than some dark corner of a distant monitor are both cheating. Maybe exporting the RWR to a second monitor really is cheating, but then so are joysticks in that case. So I continue to cheat in single user. At least that puts me on par with the AI.