Raisuli

I got the RWR to export, but not where I told it

I have 4 screens (MFDs) used for MFD stuff; one of which is dedicated to RWR. Any time I try to export the RWR, to any of those 4, it reverts to the right center of the main viewport. It's almost as if the F-4 doesn't recognize screenspace that's not on the main viewport. This is, so far, the only module that's shown that behavior

Making progress...maybe. I get the RWR to 'export', but rather than going on the secondary monitor it appears on the main screen off to the side and scaled far too large. Makes me wonder if there's a bug, but without more evidence I don't want to blame something else. Haven't found the radar (or anything else) but just started looking; today is my first day back from vacation.

Couple Malikhits, couple Rubins. Most people can't tell a Victor from a Sierra from an Akula from an Alpha, other than those things a tiny. At least one slab-sided beast. At 5,000 feet and 600 knots while doging SAMS the big missile carriers, Charlie IIs and their ilk, are all the same, then a few simple skins as needed. I know. I'm submarinist... Fun trivia; Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me featured the Thresher. Look for 593 boat. I just don't think this is worth a lot of time, but some variety is always pleasant. Murmansk is a Soviet/Russian Navy geek's dream come true and it's sometimes hard to remember I'm supposed to crash fly over it, not stop and stare. I've heard, don't know if it's true, other nations paid Russia to clean up the mess. Still have those RCs and a whole boat or two in the Kara, but I've heard they might move those as well. Moving them at this point may or may not be a good idea. Sometimes it's better to leave the mess alone rather than try to spread it around. To my uneducated eyeball this looks a little like the Russian version of Trench 94 at Hanford null

I have no desire to limit anyone, but why would ED spend tens, or hundreds, of thousands of dollars on a corner case at this point? I'm absolutely sure there are guys who live for those long, hard missions and honestly have nothing but respect for them; I'm tuckered out after a couple hours in close formation. The people who really flew at that tempo, and the guys who want to sim it? Amazing endurance; I'm all for you! Based on commentary from guys who would know there's no graceful way to get a body of water big enough for a CV on that map with the current limitations. Kinda like NTTR, and there is less distance between NTTR and the California coast than from the extreme southern border of Afghanistan and the Arabian Sea. It's a bummer, but it's the reality we live in. Some day I hope to see those spherical maps, and we will be able to park a boat off Karachi (nice town, by the way) or even the Arabian Gulf and run all the way north, or the Med and have that version of Sinai, Syria, Iraq, PG, and Afghanistan linked together. Then we can simulate El Doado Canyon (still think they should have taken an extra squadron of F-15s and flown over France ) Of course 11 days after that there was a little industrial accident in south central Europe. I was in the Bering sea chasing boomers when all that happened...

I hear a lot about how horrifically terrible DCS maps are, and they do have issues (like that miserable mirror surface excuse for water) but at least ED is working on them. Then I go fly, say, Simulator M and the differences are far out-shadowed by the similarities. Spent some time around Bodo in both sims, and was really, really impressed with the DCS map by the time I was done, and that's a low res area in DCS from what I hear. Mind you I wasn't counting blades of grass or doing building by building comparisons in towns. I just flew at about the same altitude on more or less the same path and gawked out the windows. I'm sure if you want to find problems it's not hard, but I found more than a few in that other sim as well and had to resist the urge to post unattributed screenshots to see if anyone took the bait. Now, generally, is Kola ready for prime time? No, not really; a little bit sparse, with far too much distance between theaters. Performance does need some tweaking. If you're looking for action ready it might be worth a wait unless you're after the price point and have faith. It is my training map, though! Need to build some formation flights through the crinkly bits on that left coast.

Slartibartfast!! Love the crinkly bits. Great job!

Just finished an inspection of one of the seemingly endless boomers, many of which are in the dock so there was some concern about material condition. Dock time is normal after a deployment, or meltdown, but there seemed to be an excessive number of boomers in need of repair. Pretty obvious these are soft-shelled turtlebacks and the flow noise must be horrendous. Also noticed, and this makes the map almost unflyable, they replaced Rosatomflot with something else entirely and the big icebreakers that should be there with generic bulk carriers. Oh, horrors <cue dramatic music>. Parked the Kuz where it belongs just barely south of those piers, large chunks of (available) Russian hardware to the north, added a couple Kilos...almost have a navy, even if it's all welded to piers.

You should see the difference in price for X3 (nuke) parts in the Navy. I can neither confirm nor deny one of our reactor plants was down for want of a resistor that cost less than a dime at Radio Shack and a few thousand times that as an X3 component. I can also neither confirm nor deny someone (not me this time) bought a set of two from Radio Shack, threw one overboard, and caused a huge stink when the other one was 'discovered'. I finally got tired of looking at it and finally found this thread. At least I know why it's over there driving me slowly crazy. Can't stand dangly things that move around in my peripheral vision, because I cue on movement and they distract me!

I've been debating an updated version of the 1918 invasion. The British, mostly, were in Murmansk and the Americans in Arkhangelsk, but a little mission designer license can change that. Though realistically apart from Otto Preminger (or Arnold Schwarzenegger) who would want it? In the winter you freeze important body parts off, in the summer mosquitoes swarm whatever is left.

Worth noting that we train hard on the Kola map. No goofing off or joyriding.

When they recycled CVN-70 they used that fiberglass deck to make submarines. I've seen a lot of submarines. I've seen a Delta III at less than 100 meters running on the surface out of Petropovlovsk. I can still smell the amine and morpholine and hydraulic oil and those guys who think "90 days endurance' means you wait that long to take your next shower... Those look like cartoons, but I like them anyway! Lots of exploring to do. Always wanted to play around in a soviet-designed sub, and Malakhit does make them pretty!

This. I've spent most of my time over in those low detail areas so maybe they already know the aircraft shelters are transparent to landing lights at Bodo, but it's not worth figuring out their site to tell them about it. Even if they don't touch it again this is a step up from Caucus and it's the one I'm going to use for a while. With a bit of work (and a few more airfields) it could be epic.

I looked at Rovaniemi and Monchegorsk, and yes, they're higher detail. Boring, but higher detail. Ran my first mission; a pre-dawn raid out of Bodø to Bjerkvik, which currently has streets but no town. Some BadGuysTM of unknown origin have set up a base there, complete with SA-11s. Landing ships, some helos... Results were mixed; going to do it again with a different loadout; last time I did something similar I waited longer to set my targets and used 154As. This time I tried to lock on farther out and used -154Cs, but that is what these missions are about. I've been almost that far north and forgot how odd the sunset/sunrise can be up there! Went up on deck before midwatch and saw the sun setting, went back on deck after watch and the sun was already up! I've run into lots of little issues, all of which I chalk up to using the low detail area on an early access map so I'm not too worked up over them. Eventually my mission footprint will get bigger and I'll go into the high detail areas for things that don't need pretty scenery (like this little pre-dawn raid) and I'll use the nice end for other things. Flying over there is a bit like driving in western Norway in general; the scenery is so nice you sometimes forget to keep an eye on the goat path they call roads. More details, more data. Just assume the map will grow and plan accordingly; if Orbx gets their way it will grow quite a bit.

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...>