Smoky

Interesting...I need to mess with it some more then. I've only ever been able to see it cast light at low alt, and only on nearby objects. The light does not seem to travel very far though.

TrackIR is one of the single best mods I've even bought for simming, and I buy lots of simming cr@p. Besides, if you also race cars on your PC, I can show you how to easily convert your pedals to act as either pedals for driving or rudder for flying with the flick of a switch. That's what I'm doing with my ECCI pedals as I prefer not lug those 30pound pedals in and out of my cockpit frame.

Hi folks I'd like to use this post to track questions about "what settings should be used in my sim to equate to the real world Ka-50?" There may not be many. But the ones I've seen floating around are interesting. And some of you may have more. To start off, here are two I have collected: 1. What axis settings should we use for the cyclic for the three most popular controllers which would most closely result in the input "feel" of the real KA-50 ? -Thrustmaster Cougar -Saitek -CH Products 2. Is the current spotlight as bright as the real KA-50's spotlight? If not, how can this be adjusted?

AH-66 Commanche F-22 F-35 In fact, an integrated series geared towards ultra-modern warfare would be fantastic...

Seems fairly realistic to me... albeit I agree maybe a slight bit dim. But it might not be that bright of a light on the real heli. What luminosity are you expecting? Do you feel that you should see the light on the ground from higher up? I find that the amount of light from the spot seems very realistically tied to the amount of ambient daylight present. However, if it is meant to be as bright as the multi-million candlepower spots that police helicopters typically use, then yes it is absolutely too dim. This is inspiring me to start a "what are the real world settings" post, as this has come up several times.

This is one of my fav mods for BS! But what happened to all the download links? TR: You post above that you have another update, and show screens. But neither that post nor the first post seem to contain the latest download link anymore. If it isn't too much additional work, could you please use the first post to provide the most up-to-date info about the mod? Basically just a mirror of whatever you use in the mod thread to capture the most recent offering. That way everyone knows where the mod can be easily found, without searching or surfing through pages and pages of a thread (your mod is POPULAR! It no longer scales to post updates at the end of the thread. I only request this because I love the mod so much and always want to have the latest version of your fine work. Cheers

You can, but it'll be more enjoyable for you if you discover it for yourself. ;)

My throttle is linear. The Cougar has a long throw, and 3/4 travel will break the heli, so I don't want a curve ramping up on me at high pitch. The cyclic is curved. Although I have a question buried in a post somewhere requesting info on what curves should be set to mimic the real Ka-50 cyclic and collective feel and response rate. But those curves may react so variably to different controllers' pots that it may not be possible to make a recommendation unless a curve profile is offered for each controller type available (or at least widely in use).

I reverse the throttle axis on my Cougar and use that for collective. It works and feels fine. It's a matter of suspension of disbelief. When you are flying jets, you are positioning your hand and thinking about the movement in a different way than when using it as a collective in a heli. Play in the dark, you'll feel like you are pulling up/pushing down instead of sliding forward/backwards. Most HOTAS, like the Cougar's throttle, have quite an arc in the throw. Most modern jet fighters do not have this arc, and move along a plane. So IMHO the arc in the throw is a nice compromise to allow us to gain the feel for either heli or fast movers. I have a heli collective I could use. But it is not well made, and would require modification to gain the "feel" of my anti-stiction'd Cougar, and this IMHO outweighs the "feel" I gain from the up/down motion of the collective. Another point to consider about using "real" collective motion in a home cockpit... most folks do not have the space or ergonomics to use a proper collective with accurate amounts of travel. Usually the collective ends up too far below your seat, or too far away for comfortable up/down motion. You really have to build your seat frame around your collective or vice versa to get it "just right". This is another reason I opted to stick with my Cougar.

The shooting range mission in the multiplayer directory is good for this. You can edit that mission can create multiple shooting range missions...day, night, rain, wind, dusk... and then you can add some bad guys that shoot back.

If anyone has a team of developers ready I'd consider opening a startup! My background is in UI design, aside from gaming on (what were at the time) sims for 32 years. I agree it would be daunting...both from development and from a player perspective. I've considered this as well, and in my vision the game engine would moderate things like assignments, default unit formations (as well as custom formations, for those with "clans"), etc. On the base level, the engine should be capable of simulating all military branches across all involved theaters to the point where there could be only a single person online, and they would still see a fully immersed battle environment. On the next level up you leverage that engine to moderate and coordinate the theater engagements. That was the "strategist" does not need to be engaged full time. Promotion/demotion/court-marshal parameters are used to mitigate AWOL activities of vehicles and troops like one seems in ArmA. Similar to Warcraft (but much, much cooler) one would get a mission (a quest). You earn xp/promotions by working as teams to complete missions. A second level of mitigation for the ArmA syndrome is to offer multiple battlefields. "Bunny slopes" mini-campaigns for intro, training, and screening. People who can't keep it together do not make it out of the Bunny Slopes campaigns. People who cannot follow orders will be demoted from using the full-theater campaigns. Keep the allowances intelligent and fair, and you avoid the Nascar2k3/iRacing problems where skilled and motivated players are penalized for others' mistakes (eg one Ka-50 pilot straying off the assigned routes will only penalize that pilot). And of course, pilots could submit for court marshal appeals to have their flight recorders (and campaign logs) reviewed. For a long time I kept all this stuff to myself. Seeing that it is likely *I* will never be the one to execute this dream I now say what the heck. If someone else can do it then I'd be happy just knowing it finally exists.

See, hearing you guys talk about this almost makes me ill. In a good way. I have been wanting exactly that for a long time. Like I've mentioned in other posts, this was Gilman Louie's initial vision with Falcon...a multi-role simulator. In my version, as you guys suggest, there is the ground layer, which could have ArmA or COD or GRAW fidelity. The marine layer would include subs and ships, destroyer, and carriers. And operations involving carrier/plane interactions of course. The air layer would include what DCS is reviving from that old Spectrum Holobyte dream... multi-role air sims that can work together in multiplayer. Then I add a strategy layer...this would allow folks who aren't into simulator but who are into third-person perspective/top-down strategy games. Those guys would drive the missions and battle operations of a campaign. We as pilots, infantry, and naval operations would carry out their orders and mission objectives. All of this would take place in a living and ongoing campaign environment. If you blow out a bridge with your A10, then when you come back in a week it is still blown out, and still impacting trade/travel routes. If you come back in a month or so maybe there has been time for it to rebuilt... that kind of day-to-day resolution is critical to making a believable and functional campaign. And my ponderings go into much deeper detail than I'll bore you with here. I've got duty assignment schedules, promotion and authority structures, unit management... I've got tons of stuff worked out in my head. When I saw ArmA for the first time (and sort of with Battlefield series) I thought "now we're getting somewhere". And now with DCS's objectives with the air layer, for the first time I feel that the scenario I describe above may just be possible yet. In 5 years the bulk of us gamers will be on 100mb+ lines (in some areas this is already possible, eg Docsis3 has rolled out in my area). Computing power is more than sufficient. I hope we get to see a new war genre. I've been calling it Massive Multi-Role Online War Simulation, or MMROWS to compete with the Warcraft'ing audience. :D

I'll caution you that you won't find a lot of folks willing to spoon-feed you info like that here. Folks here are happy to help with questions, and always do... but usually a level of self-motivated RTFM'ing is required. Questions like that suggest you've not read very much on your own, neither in the manual or the forum. Like most sims, there is a folder for saving missions inside the primary application folder. Might be a couple levels deep (I'm not looking at my directory right now...different pc), but it's easy to find if you just try to look for it.

+1 = +3 That's gotta be worth somethin!

thx for the new profile! I finally got it working last night. But there is a problem because in my 'pit I am surrounded by speakers. Flying the heli is loud, and I like it loud. I guess that isn't going to bode well for speech recognition. For instance, every time I'd order my wingman to tighten the formation, or to go to combat formation, VAC would recognize the command to install nvg or or helmet sight. Seems really cool but it's not quiet enough in my in-game environment to use it it seems. :( I really enjoy using the voice commands though. Would it be stupid to think that if I re-trained Speech Recognition with an audio loop of the heli engine sounds going in the background that it might improve accuracy?

Thx for the link. I'd see that one. Not much setup advice. My problem is that VAC isn't even sending key commands, not even to notepad. The Test Phrase feature works, but nothing beyond that. I just need to experiment some more. Probably something simple.

So I've seen a few videos, and ping'd the authors, about using VAC in Black Shark. Looks extremely effective for wingman commands. Is anyone using VAC in Black Shark successfully here? I've been trying to get it set up and am having a tough time just getting VAC to work properly. It recognizes test commands, but does not output to anything. Anyone have any VAC setup tips? I'd love to talk to wingmen and tower with voice instead of using the keyboard (the only thing I have to touch the keyboard for as well!) Thx

This is the most valuable tip for managing trim, imho. If you don't try to achieve perfect trim in one shot, and instead do a general trim, followed by a more precise fine-tuning trim action, the results are MUCH better. If you see it as a constant maintenance thing (as trim is in many aircraft...conditions change, trim changes) then it is easier to operate and understand how it operates the way it does. Take off has one trim. Cruise another. Hover another. Landing another. And in between you have to fine tune it to deal with winds, terrain, alt changes, route requirements, etc. And it does help a great deal to tune the axis. Set a dead spot that allows you to use your joystick's targeting controls (skvhal, designate, hardpoints, master arm, etc) without actual causing an axis to move. Set your curves to the response rate you prefer. If you find it difficult to control during slow maneuvers then slope the curve so it is flatter in the middle. This will make the heli very stable and smooth to control, but also more sluggish and less precise across all range of maneuvers. What is the real-like Ka-50 stick like I wonder? Is it a mechanical connection or fly by wire? Is it a linear control or driven through a mechanical or electrical ratio, resulting in a config like our axis curve? What axis curve would best represent the real Ka-50's control feel?

Very excellent pictures! I too have a new desktop now. Thanks!

Thx!

Corei7 965 OC'd, air cooled 6gb DDR3 PC-1600 2 x 295 GTX OC'd, air cooled Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Banchetto 101 Bench case Nixim Racecraft GT cockpit 2 x AE1000U projectors (running single atm until Matrox drivers catch up with the 295's) Thrustmaster Cougar ECCI wheels/pedals (pedals used for rudder in BS and other flight sims) TrackIR4 Clark Synthesis Transducer mounted under seat 5.1 surround sound Custom made dash panel, buttons, switches, Xenarc touch screen, etc driven by BU8036 and third party tools (eg. Touchbuddy) Here are pics in "racing" mode. I need to take pics of "flight" mode but I'm waiting on driver updates so I can use two projectors again for widescreen. http://www.thewayiplay.com/mainforum/index.php?topic=250.0 In dual projector mode I've been running 2880x900 due to technical limitations. In single projector mode I run 1920x1080, and am starting to think maybe that is enough. It would be nice to never deal with Matrox headaches again.

And I think that Falcon's "bubble" model of campaign design could be leveraged to make the integration of ground and air possible without much a hit to performance. To recap, Falcon did not render the entire "world" of activities at one time. It rendered them in bubbles of behavior, and then "summed" the results of the behavior within a bubble, and across merging bubbles, to create the data needed to evolve the campaign. For example a pilot's world did not include a bridge destroyed in an earlier conflict until the pilots bubble merged with the bridge's bubble, unless that bridge being destroyed prevented an enemy bubble from advancing, thus changing the pilot's mission profile creating an indirect relationship. A similar model could be used here. The ground bubble presents itself one way to the players on the ground...they could see "ArmA" graphics or even COD quality graphics. While the players in the sky could see the level of detail they have now. You only need to translate the pieces that interact so they appear in both worlds. The Ka-50 pilot may see two groups of infantry, just some dots on the ground and some tracers, but to the infantry players it could be much more detailed and involved experience. Then you just pass data between the bubbles as needed, so each world sees what it needs to see in order to interact. Regarding the review, I think it will be good to wet everyone's appetites for A-10. Isn't it supposed to used a new engine for rendering the ground textures?

Ok cool. That's what I understood, and what I was hoping for. Your post sounded like it was going the other way. Add-on (aka "Expansion"): An additional module to an existing stand-alone platform. An add-on requires the "stand-alone" version and cannot run on it's own. Stand-alone: An individual platform, capable of running on its own. Integrated series: A series of stand-alone platforms capable of running within one another's environment. I was just saying that the terms used in the discussion were tough to follow because it *seemed* like everyone was talking about an integrated series but folks were using terms like "add on" and "stand alone" interchangeably with "integrated series". That's why I got confused, and concerned. Glad it's cleared up though, and I can look forward to participating online in a variety of vehicles after the next few years' of development. Now, what about that ground forces series? :D I'm hoping ED takes DCS in the long-term towards the MMMultiRole simulator route.. What ArmA tried to do but has so far been only mediocre at accomplishing... Some guys in planes. Some in helis. Some in tanks. Some in convoys. Some in T92s. Some on ships and submarines... Some guys commanding (for those who prefer Strategy to simulators), some guys on infantry (for those who prefer Call of Duty to simulators or Strategy), etc... ED is the only hope to accomplish a high-res world like that. By the time they have released their full line of air combat products bandwidth availability will be through the roof. It could be done.

I think I know what you are saying but I want to clarify anyway, just to make sure we are talking about the same thing... "Add on"s and "stand-alone" are different from "integrated" which is what I believe the question was about. I think however you are using them interchangeably and saying what I think you are saying and that "the future 'chapters' of DCS will be 'stand-alone' but not 'integrated', ie. a DCS Black Shark player will not be able to join a DCS Apache player." Is that what you meant? Do you have this first-hand from ED? This would really surprise me because it would be a very, very stupid move to keep the sims independent. Or worse than stupid, it would be disappointing. But it does sound realistic. A true Multi-Role online world with vehicles of this depth would be hard to pull off. But I really thought that is what DCS was meant to be. If they really wanted to own the combat simming market they would make a ground-forces series as well. But I don't see that so maybe this is true...DCS sims will never play together? That would be very sad.

Thx for the link, info, and profile! This is excellent! Should be included with the sim IMHO (for wingman, tower, and maintenance commands)