Raisuli

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.

Guns and air-to air missiles. Cut me off in the pattern, will you! Take this, you pathetic Skyhawk!!

I've never had much trouble aligning the F-5 or F-86 on a cold start. One of the charms of flying those aircraft, in fact. A little nose wheel steering and I'm aligned. So we have full fidelity or not full fidelity, pick your favorite. When the full fidelity -29 comes out that was going to happen anyway. Not seeing any cause for heartburn here, seems pretty clear cut.

I thought it sounded awesome because we already know ED is hard at work updating the underlying code for maps. With some nudging from one of the best terrain developers in the business I can see that happening sooner, and with better effect. We might not get all the eye candy today, but it's coming and the eye candy we get will almost certainly be my primary background once we get the EA.

I have other Orbx products, and they're top shelf. Really happy to see them in DCS; hope they do well and continue to produce more content here!

I'll send it in to the virus company I use and not use the module. I don't think that's ever been an issue with the app as a whole, just modules, and even then it just tweaked some heuristic; usually in a DLL. I have a lot of DCS modules, and even more than one simulator, so if something is questionable I go on to something else. It's rarely a problem for more than a week or two. As for SRS, since I can't do multiplayer anymore even if I wanted (I rather rudely export displays and even *gasp* edit the default countermeasures program on the F-18. I know; not worthy to live) it's not an issue. Not sure when I loaded it last. Maybe I'm an exception, because playing a particular game isn't a top priority; it's how I relax and blow off a little steam. Or large amounts of virtual ordinance. I have several ways to blow off steam and relax.

Gosh, I sure hope not. No offense, but I don't think most of the people around here are that good at driving. I'll let the load masters handle that part and take over once the vehicle is back on solid ground. Would like to watch it happen...once. It's a bit like watching paint dry from what I've seen in videos. Sit around for half an hour while they drive at glacial speeds, then tie everything down...

Trusted programs...like Solar Winds? I guess I've been in this business for too long, but I don't trust any program. Too many places in the ecosystem for someone to sneak in and make changes, and far too many sites hosting malware do so without the owner's knowledge. If something in DCS tweaks my virus scanner it doesn't get used until that's resolved, but it says something about society when games are so important to people they'll take whatever chance necessary to play them. Neil Postman would be impressed how far we've gone since he wrote 'Amusing Ourselves to Death'. An app so poorly written that it needs to run as admin shouldn't be run at all, especially a game. Install? Sure. Run? Forget it. I'll install with my virus scanner set to kill, though, which of course implies that I trust my virus scanner. There has to be a line in the sand somewhere...but that doesn't stop me from checking on that now and then, too... Our developers write software in admin mode with no firewalls and no limits, then they run into me. My boss also runs development so sometimes I lose, but not very often.

I think it was the F-18 BFM practice; supposed to engage a few different bandits guns only, killed the F-4, then crickets. Couldn't find a tanker, or another opponent, flew around a while, got bored, quit. Haven't tried again, but I probably should. Probably me not knowing how to trigger the next steps.

The difference is UAC, which is the last line of defense against apps doing things you don't want when your local account is admin. Before they got that dialed in malware gleefully did whatever it wanted with no input from the user. Running anything as admin is generally a bad idea, but so is turning off your virus scanner and I see people suggest that all the time. Can't get your key in the lock? Just leave the whole house unlocked. What could possibly go wrong?

They do fly low...but are so loud there's no trouble getting out with a camera before they fly over. Had a Crashhawk circle once, my guess is because I more or less appeared out of nowhere with a BFL pointed at him. Guy on the left's face was visible, so I Gimped it out by copying the masked man on the right.

The easy(ish) way is Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer Then look under Windows Logs for things in Application and System, but Flappie has a valid point. There comes a time when you almost have to rebuild Windows; refresh is okay, but I tend to start over when it gets to that point and everything is butterflies and roses for a year or two... I'm putting off Windows 11, kind of like how I put off 3.2, 3.5, ME, Vista, and ME v2 (aka 8). I have a doc to get me through the worst of setup (from when I gave it a try) if it ever comes to that, so if you reinstall pick your poison!