Big_les

This is great news - I d/l the new files a few weeks back but was sceptical that they would actually change things enough. Time to try and remember how to fly the damned thing now!

All of them! But currently B.P2.1. I just can't keep tabs on the attacking enemy ground units and simultaneously tackle the enemy air and air defences. I'm going to reluctantly turn labels back (currently I have them at very close range, and greyed out) and see if I can meet the mission objectives that way. I hate to do that, but without any JTAC or FAC comms to direct me, I haven't a clue where to be at a given time. So my guys get whacked before I even know they're being engaged.

I accepted another failure on that Area Defence mission, and it's given me yet another, equally impossible to complete mission. Either I get whacked by AHs or even A-10s, or they Hellfire/Maverick the crud out of my T80s, or some of the enemy vehicles enter the trigger zones and lose me so many points as to make the mission unwinnable. Maybe if my guys weren't so spread out, I could actually protect them and not get splashed myself. I'm all for the pseudo-dynamic campaign idea, and for accepting failure as it comes - but when the missions you're assigned for failing are even harder - what's the point? I'll stick at it, don't get me wrong (probably by failing until I lose and then starting Oil War campaign 2 all over again), it's just disheartening to go from kicking arse to being the whipping boy. I haven't won a mission in a week because of the OP mission, and then these two Area Defs.

I'm using Freetrack. Apart from it sometimes unsetting the option to output to "Freetrack" and "TrackIR" (both of which I need ticked to get it to work usually - easily solved by pausing, alt-tabbing, and reticking those boxes), it works just fine. Really helps with the cockpit workload, not to mention HMS employment. And it doesn't affect FPS very much either, at least not on a quad core 4gb pooter. I recommend it - although it took HOURS to set up the curves, sensitivities and other options.

Nice job! I'm struggling with the Area Defence mission I got assigned after accepting 30% on the one I posted this thread about. Boy do I regret that! Another two AHs to kill, plus another two friendly formations to protect, plus three trigger areas that you lose big chunks of score for if any enemy vehicles enter them. I managed 40% once, but then lost all of that score because I couldn't nail down the advancing enemy vehicles OR stop the Apaches from hitting my tanks AND shooting down either my wingman or me! It's just as hard as B-P5.2, but I don't want to accept yet another failure in order to have another crack at the campaign. I might as well start again at this rate. Starting to think I'm going to need to take a break until the patch comes out, unless maybe I go multiplayer.

Not a bad suggestion, were it not for the Linebacker hiding behind the hill, forward of the the Bradleys. I actually managed to nearly hit that with the gun as I careered over the crest of the hill sideways, way out of shape, with Stingers and cannon rounds whizzing past my ears. But I couldn't slew the reticle over him at that attitude and speed, so he got me. Mind you, if you're in that situation, you've already lost! Having said that, I might be able to creep up to the ridge and loft a few cannon rounds over it at the Bradleys without exposing myself (har har) to the Linebacker. So if I get the mission again (god forbid) that's what I'll try. But even then - this gives me the Vikhrs I need to finish the job covering the two convoys, but not the omniscience and god-like flying ability and situational awareness needed to actually get my 50%! I'm sure it's possible, but only if you happen to have a wingmand who's doing what he's told, enemies triggered in a favourable way, the planets in the right alignment, and goat entrails in the cockpit.

Personally, I don't see how flying with labels in a language you don't know is "realistic". Sure, in terms of climbing into a real Ka-50 and having a chance of starting it up and taking off, it's realistic. But in terms of you being a Russian national with basic fixed wing flight training, some form of helicopter flight training and more besides under your belt, I feel it's actually UNrealistic to imagine that you aren't already intimately familiar with your native language. Would you watch a foreign language movie with no subtitles for the sake of realism? OK, so that's a little smartarse, sorry. But you take my point. And if you're providing for those of us not interested in learning Russian just to play a game, I think it would be best if there was a PDF manual with the English screengrabs in it. Relative to the huge amount of work put into the sim, it's surely not a big ask. That said, I managed, and I suck! So, so can everyone else.

My Vista installation places these files within c:\users, like this; C:\Users\<INSERTUSERNAMEHERE!>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50 etc etc. So if you're placing your backups into the Program Files folder, Win7 probably isn't reading them from there, but from the above folder.

Well, I was looking at reducing the number of Bradley TOWs carried on each vehicle at least, but beyond that I'm not keen to just edit the mission until I win. Current plan is to play the step-back mission I was given for failing B-P5.2, and hope I get a different one after that! Funnily enough, out of I think 8 tries, the Apaches only got me once. My wingman and I can kill them almost every time, but not everything else required to get the convoys through. And if I look at the mission editor, it looks like the mission areas they need to roll into for me to win are way beyond the town I'm struggling with. So I just can't see me winning it.

What an absolute nightmare this mission is. I'm in the second Georgian Oil War campaign, and was doing fine, when this thing pops up. You have two columns of vehicle to provide CAS for, with Abrams and Bradleys opposing them on the other side of two bridges - these alone provide a challenge to hunt and kill with all the buildings, trees etc covering them and the TOW, cannon and main gun fire they can aim at you if you get too close. At the same time, you have TWO Apaches to kill. All that I can handle. But the comedy shooting gallery of TOW-firing Bradleys behind the hill to the left? With a Linebacker tucked behind the hill in position that cannot be engaged? Insane. All with no communication between me and the vehicles, and the most inept wingman in history. Does anyone have the first clue how to crack this mission? Because I can well imagine that despite having accepted a failure at 30% complete, I'm going to be tasked to do it again soon.

Having recently read "Ed Macy"'s "Apache", they do *use* it, just not for targetting/firing - he claims it's a great advantage in terms of situational awareness (and with no real drawbacks due to the lack of integrated air defence). If it were no use at all, they would delete it as have the US Army, allowing them to carry more weapons.

<edited because I'm a dope> Just in case anyone else is too - if you have an empty Logbook folder and you're on Vista (with default install path), it's because vista has put the working version of that folder into C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\BlackShark. Your pilot and logbook lua files will be in there.

Climb to about 2500m altitude, then either fly in Flight Director mode and maintain alt manually, or hit the R button to engage route following autopilot (after having reached altitude AND trimmed at the speed you want). you can then fly over the foggy mountains until you reach the long horizontal settlement near the initial point - you can then descend to below 2000m and begin the mission proper. If you hit the mountain still, I've given you the wrong altitude :D You could always fly in at 3000m and then descend.

Surely (assuming the Mi28s are really doomed) you don't even have to engage the convoys? It's just the two buildings marked as targets in the editor, hit each with gun and then blat the chopper - job done. Have yet to try the above mind, I've been plinking tanks and AFVs in the convoy and haven't yet got the reassignment call. But it seems to be time dependent (happens after "350" apparently), not target dependent. So I guess I'll try it. Seems that they cheated slightly to give the impression of FAC reassignment, so I think I'm allowed to play the editor :D Then again my conscience may intervene.

I realise this is beside the point of the thread, but in fact the tactic was to place the wingtip ahead of the V-1's in order to upset the airflow over it, and thereby the gyro. I'm pretty sure that if you physically nudged it, you were doing it wrong...

Did I say that it wasn't? I'm echoing the OP here, which is seeking confirmation of realism, not asserting that there isn't any. I manage just fine - I'm just wondering along the lines of the OP is all. If the rubberbanding is a product of my substandard joystick setup and relative inexperience, that's fine. Yet elsewhere in these forums, including by posters involved with ED, it's stated that holding the trimmer is not the way it's done IRL. Which is correct? I totally agree. But several of us would like to know how it's taught in the real aircraft, and so far consensus seems to be no FD, and little to no press/hold trimming. I realise you're probably getting sick of the same questions coming up over and over again, but we've all paid for this simulation and we're entitled to question it. Even if we're all wrong, this is how sims are improved these days, is it not? User feedback? Most of us are enjoying it - me included. I'm doing as well with the game as I did Falcon 4 when I first sat down to it. It's just that having played most of the flight sims released in the last 20 years, this is the first one I've had to fight just to fly manually from A to B. My current feeling is that this because of these factors; a) BS is probably the most realistic of all of them b) My joystick is rubbish, and not FF c) It's an unusual type (helo, contra-rotor, non-"Western" etc) d) I still lack experience Of these, only b) can be addressed by the developers. If the rubberbanding is not something seen IRL (and in fact I do think I see evidence of it in the youtube videos), I think there should be consideration given to a realism feature that allows moderation of it for those of us who don't wish to or aren't able to go the FF route, but equally have no desire to play the arcade mode. Hell, maybe BS is just too realistic for many of us plebs. I still think there's an argument for an optional, smoother FM, since whereas I will stick with this, I think many will simply delete the game and not try it again out of frustration with the apparently squirrelly FM. I have one friend who already feels this way, and there are clearly quite a few online who consider it an issue. The irony to all this is that I love the game. It's just when I/the helo spazzes out for the umpteenth time and refuses to turn in one motion, I can't help wondering if it's all my fault!

Every single maneouvre is fought by the AP - no doubt a FF stick helps smooth control, and maybe it is 100% realistic, but that rubberbanding effect on control inputs is clearly there, and it takes time to get used to. I assume and hope that it reflects reality, but I am somewhat incredulous about that. If you use the press-and-hold trim method or the FD, the effect is removed. I can't master the former and don't like the HUD symbology and lack of ready autohover (and other AP functions) associated with the latter though. Plus supposedly neither method is used by real BS pilots. Is the answer simply that unless you have a proper cyclic with force feedback, you're doomed to have the rubberbanding? If so, I feel like I (we?) need a "normal joystick" realism option, because even after several weeks now, I still fight this thing on every mission.

Which is what the training guy says. I still managed to have massive yaw on takeoff until I got some practice (and joystick deadzone) in.

Thanks for the advice guys - I was able to use a combination of your suggestions to get an angle on the ZSU without it being able to open fire on me. I then took out the bunkers, and flew in steadily with the cannon, trying to suppress the infantry (which is probably not modelled) and killing a few of them. The ones on the building roofs were easily dispatched. Thinking about it, long rocket bursts would have been best. I landed running on fumes, having fended off a cat attack in the "cockpit" as I was trying to set up a hover.

I wondered about terrain masking after I logged off in defeat yesterday, but the mission takes place in a deep valley - so unless there's a little ridge I can exploit, it's not an option. I can't get a lock with Vikhrs (or, indeed, any other weapon!) cos of the fog. I suppose I could do a Predator and watch where his fire is coming from, and saturate the area with rockets. But as you say, if I'm that close...

I'm just starting out on the campaigns, and have a feeling I'm not ready, since I've failed "Stronghold" multiple times (mostly by either hitting the hills or snapping my own rotors in the fog). Anyway, the only thing holding me up from completing this first proper mission now is that damn ZSU - if I climb so I can lock and engage it, it shoots me down, if I stay down in the weeds, I can't see it to get a lock. Yet I can pick out individual infantry and nail them with the cannon. Any tips? Sorry if this is major noobery.

Thanks guys. LongbowDriver - I think you have it with the wind thing - possibly because I was at 6-7 or even 800 altitude. I expect the wind is more of a problem up there! Makes it very difficult to train weapons (HMS, Shkval) on to target area/target when you're fighting the yaw. Ironically I was trying hard to remove any rudder trim, when possibly I needed some. Lesson learned - don't forget about wind!

I'm getting the OPs problem now that I'm staying in the air for longer periods of time. Could it be shifting weight as weapons are expended? As well as twitchier controls, I'm getting uncommanded yaw (have tried heading hold button on/off, checked my turn to target button and WPT buttons).

And after two weeks, I still have moments like earlier on today where I lost the plot entirely and went ring-vortex. Managed to pull out of it, but it felt like I'd unlearned something somewhere along the line. Of course, I was trying to acquire and engage targets in forward flight, so I think I just overloaded my poor brain. Mind you, I still can't work out why the heli wants to yaw in a certain direction. I've tried hdg hold on and off, AP wpt light on and off, and it still seems to be chasing some imaginary heading that I haven't told it to follow (I'm trimming the whole time).

ruprecht is right - practice will help more than anything else. You learn to anticipate where the heli is going to want to go, and find yourself moving the controls already to counter it and tell it go where you want it to go. Try mapping FD to one joystick button, and reset trim to another. That way you can try learning to fly with trimming, but get out of any sticky situations by either hitting reset trim (nose will pitch up, but you just need to gently bring it back down and retrim), or if you're really getting annoyed, hit FD and fly with that on. I think part of the problem is that until you start navigating and fighting, you don't realise how damn useful the various autopilot aspects actually are. The thing flies itself - literally in the case of route following mode, auto-hover (though you MUST have it trimmed well before engaging), and "auto turn to target". It's only really wild evasion, stunt-pulling, and pleasure flights that need the smooth control of the FD+your control inputs. I still have to turn off heading hold sometimes, because I find it wants to yaw itself even when I'm almost sure that there's nothing switched on that would cause that.