Cgjunk2

Yup it’s the only thing I do on DCS lol. I just enjoy exploring all the modules at the edge. My favorite spot to fly is in the mountains north east of senaki. Nap of the earth flight, 100ft agl at 15,000 feet msl over the top of the crests. Seeing your own shadow on the peaks as you lob yourself over them ballistically at 60kts. What an insane sight! Literally gets my blood pumping. In VR it’s better than having an IMAX movie theater strapped to your head. My previous fav in the mountain “skatepark” has been the Tomcat. But since release, the fulcrum has been the only plane I’ve flown. I just can’t bring myself to spend my DCS time on anything else, at least not yet. It has a fantastic feel in the air.

Are you on VR ? Unchecking sequential mirrors and choosing the higher resolution option every frame returned performance to how it was for me before the update. But Im on VR

Thanks for the explanation. I won’t say I’ve fully digested it yet lol, but I have a better understanding of the other factors involved. Edit to add: it’s a bit mindblowing to think, not only of the interplay of the different parts of the control architecture, but of how that interplay changes in different flight regimes. It’s quite an orchestra that aerospace engineers are putting together!

1. That is very interesting. I hadn’t thought about the possible effects of the aileron being tilted up on yaw tendencies when rolling. But, I’ll be honest, I’m having a time understanding what factors go into negating the relative difference in lift/drag on wings being commanded to roll. Not saying that it doesn’t do what you say, but just that aerodynamics are complicated and I cant wrap my head around it. 2. So the rudders aren’t used at all in the simulation’s FCS currently? I could have sworn I’ve seen and felt them moving around.

I don’t know if I’m missing something or if I’m losing it, but the Mig29 doesn’t control roll through spoilers. It uses ailerons. Also, I haven’t heard the word “proverse” being used to described yaw tendencies. Generally speaking, only adverse yaw occurs when ailerons are responsible for commanding the roll. Ailerons will always cause induced drag on the wing that rises because anything being lifted results in more drag. That drag “pulls” the lifting wing backwards, which is the same thing as saying it yaws the airplane opposite of the roll direction. I know aerodynamics are complicated (especially on fighters), but I don’t think it possible for ailerons (being used on their own) to induce a yaw into the roll direction. The “proverse” yaw you’re seeing is probably the rudder input being commanded by the FCS/stabilization system. Most large/heavy airplanes have some sort of system that commands inside rudder to cancel out the adverse yaw and keep the turn coordinated. Recently I did see someone comment about both ailerons both resting at a positive angle, but for the purpose increasing the washout effect of the wing as a whole (not to address adverse yaw). Washout describes the amount of twist built into a wing. With the twist resulting in a wing that has less AOA near the tips, than it does near the wing root, which is meant to guarantee the root stalls before the outboard portion of the wing, which theoretically results in milder/more controllable stall charcteristics. Setting those ailerons to have the positive angle sounds like a neat little trick the designers used to simplify the process of producing the wing. As I would imagine that allows them to build a flat wing instead of one with a twist. Or say the wings are built with washout, using the ailerons in such a way could fine tune the intended effects if the designed washout twist was found to be insufficient during flight testing.

A little late to the party on this thread… I agree that the F-1 is very sensitive directionally on the landing roll out. However, I view this behavior as a very good simulation of what you would expect with tall, narrow track-width gear that are mounted so closely to the longitudinal axis of the fuselage. Essentially, the airframe can rotate around its long axis much easier than it could on gear mounted further outboard, or on the wings. And when you add the fact that trailing link landing gear often allow for a longer suspension stroke, it ends up in keeling around turns like a 1970s Buick Station wagon without sway bars. The F-16 has similarly mounted gear, very close to the long-axis of the fuselage. But the suspension design has a much shorter stroke (and is firmer) compared to the softly sprung trailing link arrangement of the F-1. A firm, short stroke limits how deeply the F-16 leans when turning at speed, making it more stable on roll out. It will still flip over, but it doesn’t lean as much before doing so. The F-18 also has fuselage mounted gear, and a trailing link arrangement with a very long suspension stroke. However, it probably feels way more stable on roll-out because the gear are mounted further away from the longitudinal axis, and the airplane is seems relatively lower to the ground with full weight on wheels. These both contribute to making the plane more stable, because it can’t roll about the longitudal axis as easily when experiencing side-loads. Basically, this behavior is what makes DCS awesome. It shows you can model the unique behaviors expected for different types of landing gear designs/arrangements. From my point of view, this is definitely a not a bug, it’s a feature (it’s not to say I can judge the minute details of the modeling, because nobody has lent me their F-1 to fly around. But the general behavior tracks with what you’d expect for its configuration). (Sorry, pun lol).

Please accept my apology, because I see now that you were clear in your first response saying that it would be revisited and improved. It seems the combination of me responding before having my morning coffee, and my memory of previous discussion of this topic, led me to not read and comprehend what you plainly stated above. As far as how long it takes, I’m content to wait until you guys can devote the time needed to the issue. HB has a long history of continuously improving their modules, so I’m confident it will eventually be addressed.

Does that mean that the real airplane does not actually have a stick-pusher? Or does the 17kg of force get pulsed through the stick every time you reach AOA limit ?

I appreciate this topic coming up again, because your previous responses say it works as intended. Personally, the explanation for the desirability of this reflection behavior don’t make any sense to me in light of the perfect mirror behavior of fhe F-14 and Viggen. I haven’t seen any VR users say this is a desirable feature in the F-4. In fact, it’s vertigo inducing and uncomfortable in VR. I don’ fly this module anymore because this, along with the lagging stick movement responses, create a very uncomfortable VR experience, unlike any other module in DCS. I guess what I’m hoping to see in this thread is an acknowledgement that mirror lag is a problem, not a solution to a problem I didn’t realize existed in any other HB module. That’s why hearing your response as a HB representative saying that this issue has been previously reported, but that it’s working as intended, is not comforting. It’s just saying that HB aren’t going to change it because it’s by design. I’m giving HB user feedback saying this particular design choice is creating some pretty significant problems, and solving none (at least based on not experiencing reflection problems in other modules). If HB is solving a problem with this reflection behavior, it’s completely unclear to me what the problem actually is, at least based your current explanation.

Hmm, that’s odd, since it’s in VR (Quest 3) that I notice the large orbs. I saw the orbs a little over a mile away. If you zoom out more, does the light rendering pop back in, with excessive blooming/brightness? From what I’ve seen, the rendering of nav lights will change from OK, to annoying, to ridiculous looking UFOs within a short span of increased distance. The easiest way to see this is to simply look at a plane in external view and zoom out. In VR, it seems it’s all messed up regardless of the headset resolution or in-game PD setting I’m using. And if I had to guess, the rendering is applied exactly the same way for 2d, and would also result in light orbs that completely block out the airplane. It’s just that at high resolution on a flat screen, it might be less apparent because the small details on flat screens generally seem to require more “observing effort” to interpret what’s on the screen. VR is literally “in your face”, and the immersion seems to make the act of observing more natural and much easier. I think it’s this immersion that makes it hard to ignore the errors in scaling and brightness of small nav lights. VR resolution might play a small role in all this, but I don’t think it’s the primary thing causing the lights to look bad. They look bad because the brightness and size of blooming/orbing doesn’t correlate to distance.

That’s true, I know this because I just bought it lol. But fixing VR seems to be a matter of just giving it a little attention. It seems to be a little better compared to when I trialed CA a few years ago. I can drive things around fine, but the weapon sighting isn’t adapted for 2 eyes, and is largely impossible. It wont take much to fix that type of issue for VR (just a fixed sight). Everything else is fine in VR from what I could tell. The issue is that there’s a lot of little issues that need a little attention. But the basics are there. A lot of it is just art, like vehicle interiors, and more binding schemes for vehicles (tanks vs cars) and weapons. The biggest thing I didn’t like is that vehicles don’t steer smoothly, in the sense that the is seems like the vehicles angular direction changes in tiny quick steps that get perceived in as low FPS. In VR it causes a bit of nasuea making left and right turns in a city. But, I think the concept of walking up to a mig29 has legs (sorry, pun). Or any other vehicle. At will. And I think CA would be a way ED can implement this functionality, and justify putting dev time into improving it.

Why not? I’ve read some accounts of the Falkland war and by all accounts it got pretty close to this with special forces sabotaging parked airplanes. I was reading a Combined Arms thread that mentioned Operation Flashpoint (Arma’s grandaddy) as an aspirational goal for CA. That game was clunky even for its time, but man was it fantastic! The singular feature that made it great is that cars, bicycles, tanks, helicopters, airplanes, mortars, artillery…everything…was available to the individual and groups of players for crewed vehicles or weapons. When you played a session online with a buddy being a forward observer while you and your other buddy lob mortars or artillery into the others online guys who are crewing a tank 2 miles away…the sense of accomplishment was great when you finally nail them. OFP didn’t need to simulate anything perfectly, good enough was perfect. Same thing with DCS, except DCS has the best aircraft simulation out there, and maps are probably good enough. If they cleaned up combined arms a little bit, you have really unlimited potential. They could even create a few OFP/Arma scale maps that are more geared towards infantry/helis/armor and CAS with enterable/destroyable buildings, and now we have a brand new sandbox to play in. Imagine somebody taking care of GCI and scrambling mig29 to counter inbound F4s or Tomcats looking to screw with an operation already in progress. The one type of situation that really got the blood pumping in OFP was flying a half dozen infantry players to an AO 20 minutes away. If you screw that up as a pilot and get everybody killed, you’re gonna have some pissed teammates! Now imagine the same in a Chinook on DCS! …Now imagine Eagle Dynamics hiring more developers for Combined Arms to steal Arma’s lunch money. …Now imagine FPS gamers coming to DCS to play CA in droves, because they know they have access to a bunch airplane geeks like us to fly close air support, transport, or logistics! The sky is the limit!!!! Walking around the airplane might seem like a gimmick, but it’s the seed of something much bigger. After all, all of our games our nothing more than a bunch of gimmicks creatively stitched together to entertain. I guess I just convinced myself to finally buy Combined Arms

Fantastic info, much appreciated. Do you mind sharing the source? Seems like it’s something that might have other fun info to look at.

Wouldn’t it be great if walking around and climbing into aircraft was a feature that could be unified across all modules through Combined Arms? That way, ED could make a little extra money by selling that functionality, and it might give them further incentive to flesh out the development of Combined Arms. I think the DCS player base has enough geek-level nerds that would absolutely buy Combined Arms under those circumstances. I know I would! Imagine being driven out to a plane, getting out, and climbing in the plane with the help of your crew chief. Or how about landing an MI-8 on a nice alpine mountain, popping the rear clam shell open, and hanging your legs off the back while you have your sandwich. Maybe it doesn’t sound as cool on a flat screen, but in VR, the level of awesomeness would be off the charts! I’ll also add, Since DCS is a digital museum, and since plenty of effort is spent with the external artwork of modules, being able to walk around them gives everyone an opportunity to admire their artwork.

That’s awesome, thanks! Probably would have taken me a while to figure out what that option meant.

Yes, I previously made similar comments on the conditions you would see perceive blooming in real life. A normal flashlight would bloom in your vision if pointed at your eyes from 3 feet away, but would not from 100 feet away. Unless it was a very focused/directional flashlight beam. A laser being the most extreme example of focused light, it can result in a blooming perception from miles away if it happens to hit your eye directly. Nav lights are not really all that directional or focused by design. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to perceive distinct nav lights on airliners flying at cruise altitude in clear atmospheric conditions (I’d guess that would be 7 to 15 miles away depending on my viewing angle from the ground). But I bet I could make them out under the right viewing conditions. You’ve given me a project for tonight! Strobe lights I’ve noticed, and I think also the white position lights on the tail. I agree, a slight amount of dim blooming, with an appropriately sized halo that matches with distance, would be a reasonable way to simulate light intensity. But I don’t think DCS is modeling it this badly because it’s an industry standard, because they are not applying it to all airplanes or light sources, nor are they applying it consistently across builds to the same lights (looking at you supercarrier IFOLS)

I got used to flying the FC3 version of the Fulcrum and have all my numbers memorized in KPH. None of the cockpit options allow for KPH units on the ASI steam guage. But it seems I’m reading that if you change the core DCS program to metric, then the cockpit instruments will go to metric? That would change everything other module to metric, correct? Is an English cockpit with KPH steam gauges being planned?

I recently found out the two spinning drums at the base of the HUD are actually meant for tracking the position the pilot head/helmet. Cool. I mostly use my Fulcrum to simulate being a billionaire that can afford a Mig-29 purely for joy-riding. The little spinning drums are slightly distracting in VR. Is there any way to turn them off in the module?

The new Mig 29A unfortunately has this problem. Tiny nav lights and position lights are rendering as very bright and very large light orbs that completely occlude the aircraft once you’re a mile away. It’s just goofy looking. I don’t think that this a problem with the base graphics engine of DCS, because other nav lights on some other planes don’t have this problem. I have heard that some people can perceive “point-source” light as bloomed, smeared, or haloed if they have significant astigmatism. Could this be a possible reason why some planes or light sources are modeled with excessive blooms, and others without?

If you deselect sequential mirrors, you can use any combination of mirrors or a single mirror and they will all render at the same frame rate as the rest of the image. Not sure if the sequential option is messed up, or if it’s meant for and works better on very low-spec computers

I had the same issue I think. I describe it more along the lines that the mirrors are rendering at a slower frame rate than the main image. I noticed it was happening across various modules. I resolved the issue by selecting the highest resolution option, and deselecting sequential mirror option, and selecting rendering for every frame. In my case, I cod click those options within game sitting in the cockpit, and the results were immediately noticeable.

I see. I do think those are cool details as well. The Tomcat is full of details like that, and it’s fun to sit in the cockpit in VR to take it all in. But for some reason, lack of those details doesn’t make me feel like it takes away from the hornet experience. Also, ironically, sometimes too much specific detail makes it look less realistic. In the sense that it might end up looking like a picture of a particular airframe parked in a particular museum. When something is picture perfect, it cam ironically seem “less crafted”. It’s fair to say that the tools you use to create cockpits are just tools, but what’s important is the final work and the feeling it gives a user. It is an art form regardless of the tools used. But everyone feels differently regarding what makes good cockpits (or good enough). As long as textures and other details are highly optimized to avoid unnecessary performance loss, it’s hard to be against the idea of improvements. As long as it doesn’t look worse lol.

I would think that laser scanning/photometry is more useful in situations when shape or dimensions are unknown, irregular, or difficult to obtain. That may be the case with the F18, but it would be surprising to me. I would think, you could do an accurate job by just measuring panels, curves, and distances within the cockpit.

Are the F-18 cockpit dimensions known to be inaccurate? I was under the impression it was pretty accurate in that regard. As far as rendering, textures and art looks great to me on the Hornet. The new Fulcrum and Hornet look similar to me, with maybe the Hornet a having slight advantage in clarity and performance (FPS) in VR. Quality is always subjective though, and it’s a balance in terms of ensuring the final product is well optimized. Insane levels of details are not fun if it ends up being a low-fps hog. Case in point, the F5 remaster got the royal treatment in terms of graphics, but the lower frame rates make it less fun to fly. My personal opinion (again, in VR) is that the Hornet is the gold-standard module in terms of cockpit art, quality, and efficiency. I think the Mig29 has come close to matching it.

I messed around with the settings a little more today. It seems that you are able to tick the “every screen” and the “ sequential mirror” options within the game. They take effect live. That’s how I was able to verify that checking either of those options causes the frames on the mirrors to drop significantly. I have both unchecked, and the mirrors are nice, sharp, and run at good fps. Maybe these options are better suited to flat monitors, because in VR it’s very hard to ignore that your mirrors are lagging. Either that, or the options work relatively better if you have a really slow computer.