coolts

I’ve started playing AF again to give my Cougar MFD's a workout and its great. There is room for both and they both have their strengths and weaknesses. DCS avionics, DCS flight models, DCS damage models, DCS sensors, DCS graphics, Falcon Campaign and immersion, Falcon ATC & comms, Falcon campaign continuity, etc (I can feel a spreadsheet coming on, you have been warned!) Now A-10 may up the ante in immersion for ED games I hope, as that is one thing about Falcon that grabs you immediately, the chatter and feeling of being part of a war. Not easy to replicate otherwise many games would have done that in the past 12 years. However, ED are chipping away at Falcons throne and once they get comms sorted and a proper dynamic campaign then, and only then........yadda yadda Anyway we can enjoy both without going into armed camps can’t we? :) Oh, to hell with it! Amiga’s were better that Atari ST’s and Spectrums were shit compared to C64’s !! :P (Doors clank as coolts retreats into flameproof bunker with fully stocked beer cooler)

There will be a thriving market in ebay-ed Cougars getting snapped up for spares. The gimbals & pots are gone, (YAY), but the switches & handle could be the same. Ive been getting spare bits and bobs from TM direct. Takes a month but V cheap. Installed a nice tight new H4. Old one was slacker than a tramps back teeth!

Good news. All you really want is the throttle i reckon as you have a mega modded stick dont you? Hopefully someone at TM sales will have a lightbulb on over there heads and think, "we can make more money here by selling throttles seperatly to modded cougar users". kerching! ££$$** **in an ideal world

Hiya Conuk - hows tings? your new little'un giving you any free flying time? The page has vanished but the pre-orders stand, (for now). I haven't had the "order cancelled" email yet. Ive been half expecting it to be honest. I reckon TM told Amazon to remove the page until they have a definite release date. Maybe the speedbrake switches are misaligned ;)

Mastiff. thats the weird thig. it works fine now i'm using 1.0.13 (latest), or whatever. Only thte "rolling fore" campaign works though, i reckon they will fix the others soon. C

SORTED - Me being a doofus! My AF updater wasn't working properly. It was telling me that i didn't need any updates when i was actually at v1.0.6 instead of v1.0.13. SUBS - Got the PMC theater, it looks very interesting. A bit flat but a nice change from all that green! :music_whistling:

Its nearer the fridge and TV :thumbup:

Ive been showing that vid around at work to general ooohs and ahhs. A few more customers. Of course, I will need a 27" monitor to ease eyestrain when hunting targets on the FLIR. [will donate current TFT to GF to deter wrath] Medicinal purposes you understand :geek:

you mean 80? (20 per mfd x 2). not that i am aware of. maybe when the new TM progrmming software emerges along with the TM Hog

backlit switches metal backlit switches metal weighted backlit switches that go "thunk" apparantly Also, (bringing myself off my cloud a little), DCS:A-10 will use ALL of those lovely MFD switches and buttons straight out of the box. No more "LSHIFT-RALT-T, (NUM LOCK ON)", key combinations. My other half spied the amazon page with my order the other day and was "shocked" that I was going to pay £320 for a hobby. A quick few queries into how much she spent on handbags, etc because she needed "something to go with...[insert other expensive item]", shut her up. Honestly! If i was spending that kind of money on druge every week, people would be patting me on the back and giving me leaflets.

Thanks for your input James. It’s good to have some substance to these discussions otherwise we end up gnawing the same bones to death, (me included). From my perspective, on the software side, we worry that the new SW will be either dumbed down and restrictive, (like other HOTAS i have used), after Foxy allowed us to do basically anything, or initially daunting and time consuming, (also like Foxy - thats the challenge for the devs?) The ideal solution would be for something to get us up and running as quickly as possible then as deep and configurable as needed, allowing scripting, conditionals and macros. From your posts, this looks like being the case. Lets hope the included docs for whatever scripting & configuration capabilites are included are as concise and complete as your manuals for Foxy were. I printed all those out and refer to them to this day. Rock on!

My trackIR still plays up. I think it draws more power than its letting on. My left MFD sometimes wont wake up either and needs to be unplugged / plugged back in. All power related IMO. I may borrow a powered hub from work and try it out. USB power (from normal ports) has always been feeble and patchy.

Got mine a few weeks ago. They rock. Ive had to go back to Falcon to use them properly though, (till A-10 comes out). One thing to be careful of though is that you dont overload your USB ports as each MFD chews up 250mA, (1/2 of the available power of each USB HUB). Once connected, go into device manager --> USB controllers (at the bottom) and double click your "xxx USB HUB" entries. Check the power tab. you may have to do some shuffling between USB ports so you can even out the power draw, remember 500mA per port max or you will get weird drop outs, (you wont damage anything though AFAIK). Whilst you are in the USB hub page, go to "power msananegent" tab and untick "allow the computer to turn off this device". That played hell with my HOTAS when the PC went into standby. Have fun!

From Amazon: Please be advised that we have a revised delivery date for the items you ordered on July 27 2010 (Order #026-5152565-7607522). "Thrustmaster Hotas Warthog Joystick and Throttle for PC" Estimated arrival date: October 29 2010 Amazon usually get these revised estimates right, (for me anyway). Might book a few days off work for the "warthog familiarisation**" period. **switchsturbation? ewWWWWW

Cheers Mastiff & SUBS. Done that. Probably an NVIDIA thing, (the gfx), coupled with a win7 x64 thing, (the error). that prety much scuppers FF for me. Ho Hum. Mower - Meh, I'll agree its not "DCS-Nice" but for its age, it aint bad, (with an Ayes pit). And to be honest, for SA, its better that FC as its so quick, and the F-16 bubble canopy is, well, a bubble. I can see everything, and get shot down much less than in the FC2 F-15.

i can chose a theatre, (note corrupted gfx on right) but once in there, i try and load the USE_THIS_SAVE saved game and get this reinstalled from clean. no other mods apart from hitiles and ayes pits :(:(

Looks so smooth, I'm wondering if ED have shifted some of the workload to the GPU this time. Might give our GFX cards a workout. Either that or GA's machine is a 6-core westermere! Well done mate. you da man! ps. mmmmmmmm new explosions mmmmmmmm

ANYWAY. Has anyone actually tried the new skunkworks mod? I cant get the damn thing to work. Looks interesting. Like the man said, untill we get DCS: FastJet, F4 is going to be there. Besides, revisiting it, the radio chatter and general feeling of being part of something alive, something big are unsurpaeed IMO. Sigh.

Sure, wait till the reviews are out. If the financial outlay means a few months of sacrifice then it stands to reason that you should be sure of the benefits that such a sacrifice should bring. This holds true in all things really. I want an iPad, but for all their seductive charms, they are just too limiting and too expensive for what they do, (and do well), to make sense to me. I don’t go on apple sites and rant about Steve jobs fanboys though, nor slag my workmates for having them ;) To be honest, my pre-ordering is based on a few points; Those who have tested it have all praised various technical points which add up to a convincing whole, (not just “its shiny and lush”). ergonomics, authenticity, flexibility, accuracy, weight, build quality, software flexiblility and scope, ease to use, fast setup, good support. The. Most. Buttons, switches and hats. Ever. I have read other posts from these people and respect their opinions on these matters, (as being far more experienced than me in the flight sim world). Pre-ordering now forces me to budget for the 2-3 months before release. I know I won’t spend that money on beer, curry and boys toys because I can’t. It’s booked. The price is high, but not relatively higher than any other high spec item in its particular market. And a £40 price hike in TEN years over the Cougar given the current financial market is actually very good IMO. How much were cars ten years ago? How much was beer? Its my hobby and bollocks to anyone who tries to tell me what i should or should not spend my money on. I earnt it. If it turns out to be a massive disappointment then who will I blame? Me of course. :smilewink: (before sending it back to Amazon and dusting off my sulking Cougar)

Well said. when A-10 comes out with plug and play for the TM hog, can you imagine going back into FC2 and spending a fortnight getting the controls to work? mind you, if the new software is as good as it looks, it might be a pleasure. Besides for ED to do a profile for a TM stick......(there is a bit of "its yours", "no yours" going on there). At least with DCS:A-10 ED can say "thats the button you press on the real A-10. As as side note, I have never found an "official" profile that i stuck with, so i will tweak it anyway. born fiddler me. :joystick:

Yeah, I suspect they are just updating the page with more details. Now that someone mentioned the theory that the relationship between TM and ED might surprise us with a Combo A-10 + TM Warthog deal, I am now paranoidly checking for updates in case i miss out. Damn forums and their damn propensity for rumour mongering! My iphone 4 has a perfectly good signal! .....hello....hello...hello

UK amazon site today (link for HOTAS btw); Looking for something? We're sorry. The Web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site. Go to Amazon.co.uk's Home Page I Guess they are updating it. My pre-order stands and i havent had a "I.m sorry" email from them. [A BRAINWASHED TM FANBOY] [bRAIIINNNNNNSSSSSSSSS!!!]

<BRAINDUMP> The cost IS comparable with TM's competitor’s prices for their top of the line gear. Fact. So, cost isn’t an issue in itself. (Just in general). Let’s not get into the "things cost more nowadays" argument. Price won’t "come down" for a long long time. Cougars were still £300 after TEN years till about a month ago. Previews have been overwhelmingly positive across the board. Add [ "TM fanboys....."] argument, but we all have our own opinions and judgement. (Ive had CH, Saitek, TM an Logitech and dont consider myself a particular fan of any of them. Tools for the job.) Stick designed for DCS: A-10 but not limited to that in anyway. I can use my Cougar to play ARMAII easily. (and find uses for all those extra hats and switches in other sims. looking forward to it - INNER GEEK) No FFB, but has there EVER been any proper implementation of that, matched with a game that used it properly? (IL2 worked pretty well for me, but.....). Witness the g940/DCS:BS trim debacle. Also, FFB will break, (i had about 3 x Saitek’s in 5 years that all popped). Having a piece of metal / plastic throwing itself about inside the controller on purpose is not an engineering recipe for longjevity, (unless you are Nintendo. My N64 rumblepak still works). No pedals, but 80% of forumites here already have some sort of pedals that we can reuse, and besides, it would have added another £130 to the price right? You CAN use your massively modded and costly Cougar stick it you want! That’s a great move from TM. They didn’t have to do that. Would other manufacturers do that? </BRAINDUMP> ps. If its crap "take it back" (within 7 days)

Blimey mate you are going to pap your pants when you get some proper pedals, it makes that much difference. not kiddding. suddenly landing is easy and in the shark, you can pivot on a sixpence get a set of USB CH Pro pedals off ebay for about £60. they are rock solid and simple mecahnically. (less likely to break). my theory was, "they sit under my desk so im not spending loads on them".

Thats me that is! Just started creating a profile for AF. After a few weeks it will be done. Then the tweaking starts. Wouldnt it be nice to just get a stick and a a game that are made for each other. Oh wait........ As for pedals, cant you just re-use your existing ones? Do they have a USB connection?