nomdeplume

They're exactly the same thing. Which you use it just a matter of preference. Auto-lase lets you concentrate on flying and communicating rather than pressing a button at a particular time. But, you still need to be mindful of keeping a clear LoS between your TGP and the target so you're typically pretty engaged with that anyway. Latch on/off is also just a preference. It has no bearing on the auto-lase function, only for when you're manually lasing the target. Just means you don't have to hold the button down. I rarely use it personally, but again - that's purely a personal preference. There's no right/better way. So long as you don't miss, anyway. :)

That's actually what pilots did in Desert Storm using the Maverick seeker - like searching the desert looking through a straw. But they didn't have anything else, so... Basically, finding targets is hard. That's why so much emphasis is placed on JTAC, JSTARS (not in the sim) and the like. Flying around hoping you see something is very much hit and miss, but mostly miss. In the real world enemies are typically well camouflaged and hidden as best they can be, making them very difficult to spot from the air even if you know where you're meant to be looking. In the sim they don't really hide, but you're dealing with a computer monitor's limited resolution and a limited draw distance for performance reasons. So, it's still tough. If you are going visual, using the Mk 1 eyeball with zoom (pretend they're binoculars) is typically your best bet. The TGP location is marked by a diamond symbol on the TAD. If the TGP is set your as your SPI, it'll also have the SPI indicator (wedding cake symbol) at its position. The HOTAS 'Boat Switch' is used to switch the TGP between CCD, WHOT and BHOT IR. The Maverick seeker is either IR or CCD, depending on the type of Maverick, so you can't change their mode. The AGM-65D is IR. There's also another one with the larger warhead, but since I never use those I can't remember which one is the IR and which is CCD. I think for the most part you 'should' be just trying to remember it or write it down - real pilots would have a map on their kneeboard and if another flight calls out a threat they could mark the approximate location on their map. I think you'd only bother actually trying to spot it if it was directly related to your mission, or maybe if you've completed your tasking and are looking for something to dump the rest of your ordnance on. Anyway, for bullseye calls the CDU has an 'offset' function and if you search the forums you should find a few detailed tutorials on how to use it. Keep in mind though that bullseye locations are pretty coarse, so expect to spend some time searching even with the magic targeting pod. So again, unless it's relevant to your mission and you actually need to get eyes-on, it's probably not worth the time. One thing that can be useful when trying to get used to bullseye calls is to work out, prior to the mission, where you'll be operating with respect to bullseye. That way you can quickly filter out irrelevant calls for targets that are nowhere near your area.

The FAC -a task will be providing the JTAC with the ability to target anything. If you want it to only hand out specific targets you'd need to remove the FAC auto task. Also, 'enroute' tasks are executed simultaneously, while the 'perform task' tasks will stop further tasks/actions listed for a waypoint from being run until the task completes. So if you assign everything via 'enroute' tasks, the order the taskings are assigned will be up to the AI. If you assign them via 'perform task', then you can control the order of the taskings.

There's a separate AI option 'reaction to threat' which is by default set to 'evasive vertical maneuver', but has another option 'allow abort mission'. If a group's reaction to threat option is set to 'allow abort mission' it can RTB rather than try to engage in a situation it considers impossible to win. I don't know if a helo with rockets vs SA-8 is such a situation, but it might be. It's not default behaviour though, which is to do what the mission designer asked it to do.

There's a MODIFIERS button at the bottom left of the controls configuration screen. Click on that and it'll list all the configured modifiers, and let you add/remove them. So you can easily add one (or more) of your joystick buttons as modifiers, and then once you've done that, you can assign controls as "modifier button + another button".

I'd think it far preferrable for the perps to flee than for the cops to suddenly surprise them when there's hostages around, unknown weapons involved, etc. Sure it might cue them to start taking hostages and barricading themselves, but if they're willing to do that then it probably was their intention all along. But mostly the sirens and lights are to alert other traffic to their presence and urgency - allowing them to reach the scene much quicker (and more safely) than if they tried to be stealthy. The priorities for the police when responding to an emergency is 1) protect civilians from harm, 2) protect themselves from harm, 3) protect the perps from harm, and 4) protect property. Priority 4 (and arguably 3) is WAY below 1 and 2. Catching people "in the act" is great for prosecutions, but you'd never put people at unncessary risk in order to do it. If the wailing of distant sirens scares them off, that's a good outcome. Outrunning an aircraft isn't really a possibility and movement only makes it easier to spot you. Also, you wouldn't make for a very good anti-aircraft crew if your immediate reaction to the presence of an enemy aircraft was to run away. :) Much easier to prosecute targets visually, really. Plus a lot of the time they're being tasked with attacking infantry rather than vehicles, and infantry are virtually invisible to an aircraft until you're right on top of them (and perhaps even then). Vehicles also tend to be camouflaged and placed in positions that make them hard to see from altitude, and in an airplane you need to start your approach from a pretty significant distance. So, having an obvious visual cue (bright smoke marker) lets the pilot start their run-in quicker and therefore got weapons on the target sooner -- which is pretty crucial in the kind of situation where the good guys are close enough to be marking the target with smoke. The smoke also provides a confirmation of location. The coordinates might be wrong or mis-entered, or they might be right but you're still looking in the wrong place because the terrain features they described were similar to others in the area, etc. Multiple independent methods for identifying the target are always a good thing to have to avoid unfortunate incidents. I think if you're close enough to the enemy to be marking them with smoke, then ruining the surprise for them would be the least of your concerns. If they leg it the moment you put the smoke out, that's a fantastic outcome. And, it's hardly likely to save them from the air support, anyway. Win-win.

The traditional way is to put an enemy unit (usually infantry) on the bridge, or if it's long bridge one at either end. Then have a trigger to detect if one of those units is killed. It's obviously not quite the same as 'bridge destroyed' since you can take them out with the gun and the trigger will still activate, but most players when told to destroy a bridge will do that - and the infantry being killed is just a side-effect. The other way would be to use Speed's mod, which can set a flag when particular map objects are destroyed. That would be more accurate. One thing to be aware of is that the ground unit AI will route around broken bridges, by driving through the rivers; so destroying the bridge won't actually stop the column. This doesn't apply to the really long bridges crossing large bodies of water; they only ford the small rivers.

It's TMS Aft Long to reset the SPI to the STPT (in all modes). In the manual (p87) it lists Aft Short when HUD is SOI as "Set SPI Submode". It can be used to set the IFFCC as the SPI as Hender said, which makes the position of the CCIP pipper (i.e. computed impact point) your SPI. I don't do it very often though so I'm fairly vague on it... I'm not sure if it'll solve the problem, but this sequence actually slaves the TGP to your CCIP pipper, more or less. Might help to avoid the TGP spinning crazily as it tries to point itself at a point in front of your jet that might be moving above and below the TGPs forward axis. Edit: having just dabbled with it a tiny bit, the TGP does seem pretty good at keeping itself sane when slaved to the IFFCC. So, if your goal is to be able to see a nice close-up of what you're shooting at, it's an effective method. When you pull off, the TGP will of course continue to track whatever your pipper is currently aiming at. However, it will revert to the STPT when your pipper is no longer valid, e.g. you're pointing up, or you've safed the gun or something. So if you have Mark Z set as your current steerpoint, when you finish your attack you can quickly get the TGP back to where you just fired so you can see the result of your attack. Attached two screenshots showing it in action. The first was from a high altitude dive - if you're at very high altitude your SPI will remain as STPT until you get low enough for the IFFCC to calculate the point of impact.

I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind thinking updated graphical models for AI units provides any insight whatsoever into what the next DCS module will be. I mean firstly there's the fact that a pretty 3D model is like 1% of the work required to make a flyable aircraft. Secondly there's the whole "the updated USAF assets aren't a clue, only the updated US naval assets are!" thing (or vice versa) - what's the reasoning there? But more importantly, what mysterious force would force ED to release these graphical updates in the current sim? If they're trying to keep the next module a secret, then it would make sense to keep any new/updated models which hint at what the next module will be under wraps until the next module is actually announced. There's also an assumption that because a new model is being included now that it must be a recent piece of work. Some of these may have been worked on for a very long time, perhaps even before the next module was actually known - we simply don't know anything of their history. So any speculation about their deeper meaning is pretty futile. While the simplest answer is clearly that these particular models have been updated because someone felt like updating them, if you were determined to read anything into the updated models, the logical conclusion would be that they're all red herrings intended to throw us off the scent of what the next module is. So for a clue as to the next module, we should be looking at the assets which aren't being updated/added. :D P.S. I've been playing F 18 Carrier Landing on my phone lately, so I hope the next module is a hornet.

No, because waypoints have to be set at particular locations - you can't dynamically decide where to send units in the game. The best you could get would be to have one or more designated pick-up spots that the player has to get to in order to be picked up. However even then I don't think there's any way to determine if the pilot-walking is in a particular location, so you won't know when to pick the player up.

Have you loaded up the training missions in the mission editor and look at the triggers used in them?

Just use the 'radio option add' trigger action, you need to supply 1) the text that will be shown in the radio menu, 2) the flag number you want to have the game set to 'true' when the user selects the option and 3) who to add the radio trigger (red/blue/all) - for a test you can just use 'all'. The condition for this trigger can be anything you want. For a test trigger, you can just use 'once' with a condition of 'random 100%' or 'time more than 1 second' or 'unit <player> is alive'. You can of course use a 'unit inside zone' to add the option when the player or another unit reaches a particular area, etc. Then you need another trigger with a condition of 'flag X is true', where X is the flag number you used in the 'radio option add' action. That will then be executed when the player activates the radio option. The radio option will remain in the menu after it's used by the player, so you might want to make one of the actions here 'radio item remove' with the same text + side information in order to remove it. For a test trigger, it doesn't really matter. Any other actions are up to you. If you already have your mission set up so the attack is initiated when a particular flag is set, you can just have your radio trigger set that flag. If it checks for other conditions, you could temporarily add to the conditions '[OR] flag X is set'. If it takes an hour to occur because you have to wait for the units to get into position (i.e. they have an hour of travel time), then you can't use triggers to speed that up.

The F10 options aren't linked to a particular radio. These items can be activated from any radio, and the frequency your radios are set to is not relevant. The fact they're in the 'radio' menu at all is purely a UI thing, i.e. it'd be cumbersome to have a separate menu system just for these things.

Race track waypoints can be much further apart than 15 miles. The longest I've actually used and seen working are 110 km or so (~ 60 nm) for each leg. I expect they can be longer if needed though.

First, it's JTAC -- Joint Terminal Attack Controller -- not JTAG. :) The IPs are Initial Points; navigation positions defined by the mission designer which can be dynamically referenced by JTAC etc. within the mission. They should be present in your navigation system when in MSN mode (rather than flight plan mode), however if they're important to the mission it's quite possible the mission designer will have colocated waypoints in your flight plan with the nav points. "12nm SE of IP EDSEL" just means the unit (in this case, the player) is approximately 12 nautical miles to the south east of wherever IP EDSEL is located. IP FORD Heading 311 indicates the direction from IP FORD to the target (i.e. northwest). The next line gives you the distance (7 nm). If there's no convenient nav points around, then they'll use bullseye locations instead. These work in the same way, but the reference point is the theatre-wide bullseye location. Egress to Ford should be clear now. If there's no convenient navigation point to use as a reference they may just give a cardinal direction instead, e.g. "egress south". If it's not obvious from the mission briefing or your waypoint labels where these nav points are, I think they should be shown in the mission planner. In general though the briefing should include these. Knowing the location of any common reference points that might be utilised is part of the pilot's standard mission preparation.

How are you restarting the campaign? Are you sure it's actually selecting the first mission again, or just resuming the campaign? As for scores, my hunch is that when you start the campaign it'll select a mission valid for a score of 50, but I've never tested that. Perhaps the initial score is 100? For the interval you need to make sure you have a mission for every score 0-100. If you changed all the missions to e.g. 90-100 then it'd complain because you don't have any missions for a score < 90.

I don't think it means anything. Pretty sure that when I was paying attention, the 'coordinates' the player reports to JTAC when you use the 'contact' command are always the same. Maybe it's something they were thinking about implementing but then forgot about it or it got de-prioritised. Re the OP's question, yes the A-10 only supports JDAMs in target of opportunity mode. The pre-briefed mode is probably not very useful for CAS aircraft, only for strikers. The A-10 doesn't generally fly strike missions.

As far as I know detection range is dependent on the sensors available. Eyeballs are always available and can detect to a certain range, but only in daylight and in clear weather. If they have NV goggles their detection at night might be improved. If they've got some kind of targeting pod they can detect for longer ranges. If they've got FLIR, radar or similar they can 'see' pretty well at night. It's quite complicated though, because spotting a target at 15-20 miles with the TGP is easy if you know where to be looking for it. It's very hard if you have no idea it's there. And how is a generic AI supposed to know whether or not a particular unit or group is expected in a particular situation? If the AI didn't spot threats and call them out people would be fuming at the useless blind-as-a-bat AI... :D

It depends on the mission, but most have the player's airbase pretty close to the action - anything more than about a 10-15 minute flight to the target is unusual, I think. Often it's less. Depends on the mission designer of course. P.S. did we mention the mission editor? It's pretty awesome. The game has time compression so you can accelerate time as much as your PC can handle, so if you do find yourself in an uneventful flight you can whiz through it pretty quickly. That said, the flight dynamics are such that for a long time you'll probably just enjoy flying around even in the 'boring bits'. :) Others have mentioned it but just to reiterate, the startup procedure only takes a few minutes once you're used to it - beginning the taxi on the 5 minute mark is pretty common, even with all the DSMS profiles configured to my liking. This is actually one of the nice things about the A-10 -- the startup takes long enough to make you feel like you're starting up a complex jet, but not so long you're sitting around waiting for 5-10 minutes with nothing to do. The only thing you need to wait for is the EGI alignment process, which only takes 4 minutes - and there's enough to do in the interim that you often don't need to wait at all. Your typical mission will probably take about 1 hour to 1.5 hours w/o time compression. Some can be shorter or longer obviously, but I think that's pretty indicative of the average length. It doesn't seem like very long when you're flying it... and you can pause if you need to attend to something else. The game does have a track saving system whereby it saves what happens in a mission so you can watch it later, and it's possible to take control of a track you're watching at any point. However the system sometimes misses events making it pretty hit-and-miss - the longer the track plays for the more likely it is to diverge from what actually happened. So, to some extent you could use that as a "save" system (i.e. quit, save the track, then later replay it and take control near the end) -- but I wouldn't rely on it. A bigger issue (for me, anyway) is one of continuity. I don't really like playing runway-start (let alone air-start) missions because starting up the jet, taxiing, takeoff, and flying the ingress is all part of establishing the mood of the mission. Without them I feel like I'm missing something. Therefore while being able to reliably save and resume sessions would be useful at times, I'd personally use it very sparingly as it'd just kill the immersion. Finally, another ++ for TrackIR. I've got the v4 and v5 hardware and there's not really much difference, so if $$s are an issue and you can find a TrackIR 4 for cheap I'd go with that rather than a 5. Depends what other hardware you already have - a good HOTAS is a must, and I'd get rudder pedals too if you don't already have them (not really necessary for the A-10 but still definitely nice to have).

Some were published http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=76289 I don't think it's a complete list and information on how to use them properly is still not really available, I think.

You still need to create separate flights but the editor supports copy and paste now (as of 1.1.0.9). To use it, select the first flight (after you've set up waypoints, loadout, etc.). Then press CTRL+C to copy. Then leaving the flight selected, press CTRL+V to paste a copy of it at the mouse pointer position. That will be where the starting location of the copied flight will be. Once you've pasted it, you can then modify/customise the flight's properties to suit (e.g. change the loadout or paint job etc.).

You might find something useful in this thread in the research forum if you're prepared to commit some time to it...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-01/plane-crashes-into-nsw-ferris-wheel/3204912 Nobody killed or event hurt as far as I can tell - two children were stuck in one of the baskets and there were two people trapped in the plane. There's a decent close-up photo of the plane through the link.

If you can add it to the group's triggered actions list then you can activate it from a trigger action. I'm not sure if they all make sense. For example if you activate an 'orbit' task on aircraft, do they begin orbiting at their current location or the location of the previous wp? Or do you get an error? It used to be that you'd get an error if you tried to activate a 'switch waypoint' command via trigger, don't know if that's been fixed. So, you can try anything you like, but it might not work. For your particular case, there's also a 'stop and deploy to target' trigger action which does what it sounds like it does. You can use 'group resume' to resume a group's movements after applying that command to it; 'group resume' also works for "hold" tasks (although you can also have them end due to any of the stop conditions assigned to the task).

Don't forget you can use modifier buttons, if you aren't already. So you can make "pinky switch + some other button" perform a different command than that button on its own would. Very useful for quickly doubling the number of commands you have easy access to on your HOTAS. Even with the TM Warthog, I still use the paddle switch as a modifier so I can have zoom in/out/reset, and NVG on/off/gain controls on the HOTAS.