WynnTTr

I was told to hold trimmer, make your maneuver then release. Every time you need to make an attitude change, hold trimmer release. There was a big thread about this and posters that actually work with Russian helis and a black hawk pilot say that you hold the trimmer. Check out his vid - it's clear that the pilot is holding the trimmer down when making extreme maneuvers. http://www.patricksaviation.com/videos/Force_Feedback/485/ People kept telling me not to use the FD and keep the 3 APs on - like real pilots do irl. Holding down the trimmer enables you to fly this way... and I believe it's the correct way of flying.

There's always Hawx. Or if there's some way that data is available for these aircraft - which i'm pretty sure there isn't. If there isn't, then what you're playing may as well be Hawx, cos anything without real data won't be realistic.

Would you trust an autopilot at 4m or less? Or would you rather trust your own skill. If you're flying an attack chopper, there's an assumption that you can fly a heli pretty well.

Actually the BS is pretty sturdy. It's all just a matter of knowing the aircraft. When I first started I felt that it was like trying to fly truck. Now I can do aerobatic moves and really push the Shark. Give it time, you'll see what I mean.

Dunno why the 64D is in there. It's still classified. so you'll never see the Longbow done for a very long time.... we're talking years. ED only works with de-classfied data as they don't want to be guessing as to how an aircraft will perform. The standard has been set with BS - and I for one am grateful that it's so high. So I'd edit any poll to realistically reflect what they are capable of doing. Not wishful thinking.

I'm not sure about this. I centre rudder, put the ball in the middle and literally can take my hands off the cyclic. Doesn't roll to the right at all, flies straight.

I bet it's your rudder. Press Rctrl-enter to turn on a nice little tool that show you exact positions of rudder/cyclic. Trim is hard to recreate here without force feedback gear.

Maybe you'll fall into the same camp that I did - thinking I didn't need anything other than a joystick to play the game. Then I actually got it. Now look at my sig. The entire machine was pretty much due to BS. Granted BS was an excuse (and a damn good one) to dump my old rig, but I didn't plan on purchasing the peripherals. PS: you really don't need all the fancy stuff to play the game. But I wanted the immersion factor and for that, nothing beats HOTAS/TrackIR. The game was elevated up to a whole new level with a HOTAS, and up to simming heaven with TrackIR. If you decide to get them, you will never look back - in fact you'll wonder how you flew without them.

I don't mind this aspect of the game. Makes me prepare, assess and play missions properly and not like it was a semi-arcade shooter. I find that when I put my mind to it and play smart, it only takes one go. When I'm lazy or impatient, it usually always ends up badly.

All GoW missions will be cold-start in the patch.

I tried both. Freetrack first then TrackIR. Freetrack is not too shabby, but it's not as sharp or precise. Tracking is very dependent on the quality of the webcam you're using. TrackIR is already wide-angled and just works straight out of the box. Depending on what cam you use, webcams normally operate at 20-30fps. You can use a wiimote to get higher fps (but that means sacrificing a wiimote), whereas TrackIR is already at 120fps(? - can't remember exactly, but it was 100+fps). For me, this was noticeable in how smooth Trackir can track your head movements, particularly fast movements. Freetrack would lose it alot more than TrackIR. Also if you've got an older cpu, a webcam uses alot more cycles, while TrackIR hardly uses any. Not so important for other games, but for flight sims such as BS - the cpu is important. Also when making it, you have to get high FOV LEDs. You can't really just use any LED - trust me, I made mine then realised that it wouldn't track properly. Had to buy some better quality parts. I also had numerous crashes with FreeTrack, not one with TrackIR. Lastly, FreeTrack is not natively supported. Take BS for instance, when it was first released, TrackIR supported full 6DOF from day 1. Freetrack didn't until they released a new version. All in all, if you have the time and patience and don't want to spend the money, try Freetrack. When you've got it working, it does the job adequately. If you can't be bothered and can afford it, go for TrackIR all the way. It's simpler, alot smoother, virtually no hassles, and of course, commercial quality components. Freetrack's quality is only as good as you make it.

I for one don't understand how he can rate realism at 8 when he himself statest that it's ultra-realistic, and the same score for tuning. If he's tried other sims, he'll know DCS:BS has set the bar for high fidelity flight model. Nothing attains this level of realism for the aircraft itself. And yet he still rates it an 8.

That's not a bad idea, but who's gonna want to fly the bs if apaches are available? Without a doubt, 95% of players will be clamouring for the best tech - then we'll have a game that's like BF2, where ppl were running for the jets, then some a**hole being pissed off about not getting it and starts tk'ing...

Have a google around your country code for some online squadrons - and not one that exclusively DCS:BS. Alot of squadrons fly other games as their main, but there's always 1-2 members that fly the BS. Unless you're in a country without internet, there's bound to be at least one.

Nice shots connos.

Agreed. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been from day 1. I have it running on an older laptop and it runs faster than XP on it. I'll be upgrading to the retail release of W7 for my main rig.... unless M$ stuffs things up majorly. You never know with them.

Yes, use rctrl-enter to see where your rudder/stick is. Again in real life, you'd know exactly where both is.

As Acedy says - check your documentation!!! And use your deactivations, as you get 10 of them and only 8 activations. Read the instructions carefully and take note of your re-activation code that you have to add on.

Vista in its current iteration (w/ sp1) is pretty good with a decent machine such as yours. However I wouldn't go as far out to say that it's fantastic - I still remember the early days. And if I still had a 2Gb/dual core machine, I'd stick with XP.

Use your graphics card control panel.

Download and go through the producers notes a few times. They're invaluable as training tools. Have notepad openor a pen/paper handy to take notes. That's how I learned how to quick startup the heli - just from Wags vid. Then I read the manual and got an in depth understanding of what each switch/system does and why it needs to be done. Oh and don't use lwin-home/end. Kinda defeats the spirit of the game, almost like a cheat.

Not this again. Starforce have paid for their past mistakes and they've learnt from them too. Nothing remains static in the IT world and it's highly unlikely they're going to stuff up like they did previously. Like it or not, that's what the game comes with. It's here to stay.

It's only money. In a couple of weeks time you won't notice the cost at all... but you'd be loving playing with TrackIR. Well worth the investment.

Yep. I've never viewed padlocks as cheating as sitting in front of a flat screen cannot simulate the situational awareness that real pilots have. Trackir does help a lot and I've learned not to use padlocks ever since having Trackir in any game.

Probably because the box set hasn't even been released yet. Once it ships I bet alot more ppl will know about the sim.