coder1024

there is no dynamic campaign in DCS Black Shark, you build a bunch of static missions and put them in a campaign and can move through the campaign and the mission outcomes effect the campaign state, but nothing that I'd call a "dynamic campaign" since that term suggests something like what Falcon has. I'm hoping they add this in the future, as imo, a dynamic campaign is where its at. let the battle unfold around you dynamically, none of this scripted nonsense :) seriously, though, its a great sim, and worth buying. but if you're a Falcon fan you might miss the dynamic campaign.

I like the way they've done it. It gives the customers the choice as to what they want and want to pay for. Pricing the sim as it is with a PDF manual means I'm not forced to pay for a printed manual if I don't want one. If I want a printed manual then I can choose to pay for it. I can either pay to have the PDF manual printed (this may be very cheap depending on the individual and their situation), and/or I can order the enhanced printed flight manual. So its a win-win I think. You choose how much you want to pay for the items you want. As opposed to raising the price and forcing everyone to buy a printed manual which they may not want. And, as was said, I haven't seen ANY game recently which came with a printed manual (other than the small pamphlet quick start guides they usually come with), so its hard to say this should be different.

Thanks for the update! I think I'll keep an eye on Amazon.com and wait to see something there.

if you go to the TFC page, and click on the shop, it takes you to a page which lists DCSBS. If you click that, you're taken to a different site on a different domain (kengray.co.uk). And on the TFC site there doesn't appear to be any obvious contact info which would apply for this item. anyway, this is why I hesitated. I guess the web site and online shop isn't their strong point :)

no, like some indication from someone that they received a shipping confirmation or actually received the manual :) ED said the manual would be out mid-May but the US amazon site still says "out of print".... I see that comment from JimMack, but nothing on the TFC site indicated this from what I could tell. Anyway, as I said, when someone actually gets the manual, it'd be nice to know.

I see you can purchase it on the TFC site, but I didn't see anywhere that indicated it was actually in stock and ready for shipment. If anyone receives it from TFC please post here so we know its actually available and shipping.

I see some posts here which seem to imply this manual is already shipping out to people. Is this true? The US amazon site shows only that its "out of print". I checked TFC but it wasn't obvious to me that the thing is actually available now. Can anyone confirm that they've actually ordered it and its shipped to them? Or is it still not available yet?

there are really 2 questions. 1) head tracking? 2) which head tracking product? Head tracking no longer necessarily means TrackIR. There's FreeTrack (you have to build your own target with LEDs) and then Cachya (you just print out a target and tape it to a hat) which both use your webcam and are low cost alternatives to TrackIR. You'll find a range of opinions on which head tracking product is best and whether or not its worth paying for TrackIR or getting one of the alternatives. However, I think most will agree, going with a head tracking product greatly improves the game. Regardless of which one you go with, you'll find it to be a whole different experience. So, yea, I'd say definitely go with some sort of head tracking product as its definitely a game changer.

The amazon.com site still shows the manual as "out of print". http://www.amazon.com/Ka-50-Black-Shark-Attack-Helicopter/dp/0956183603/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243078223&sr=1-1 Anyone know when this printed manual will be available for purchase?

The quality for Ventrilo can be really good. Its all in which codec you pick. I've used servers which only provided lower quality codecs and the sounds was much worse. If you use a higher quality codec the sound is really good. So I don't think quality is an issue with Ventrilo at least (been ages since I've used TS).

Runs fine for me. The loading times are a bit long. Also I've noticed while in game the hard drive cranks away at a fixed period. Almost like a 1Hz pulsing sort of sound. Even if I'm just sitting on the runway doing nothing. But I don't think I'd say I have any issues running the game. Pentium D 2.8GHz 4GB RAM eVGA GeForce 9800 w/512MB RAM 10k rpm Raptor HDD Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Gamer Windows XP SP2 I haven't yet tried multiplayer. Still in basic training for the aircraft :)

right, by "new engine" I took it to mean revised/new _version_ of the engine for the new aircraft, not necessarily throw everything out start from scratch :thumbup:

I think so. But they've also said its modular and compatible with BS. So I suppose the new engine will see that you have BS installed and use the assets/content from that as well. Prob will be an improvement even if you're flying the BS with the new engine.

wow! looks nice! when do we get to fly this? :)

ah ok, thats a relief. I'm not deep enough into the sim yet to understand how to do what you described, but as long as there is a way to be in the same flight and use the datalink with other human players and see them on the map, then that's workable. Having a hassle on the mission design side is annoying, but as long as you can eventually get into the same flight then its not as big a problem as I thought when I first read this.

yikes! I guess you could call that a feature if you want, but honestly, that sounds like a rather big bug. I'm still learning the sim and haven't yet jumped into multiplayer, but being able to have multiple human pilots in a single flight of helos sounds like a very basic requirement for multiplayer in such a product. I mean, if you're gonna fly with a couple friends you're gonna want to be in the same flight and be able to send each other waypoints (I mean the info you send with the datapad to the rest of the flight), etc. Hard to believe that wouldn't be allowed. Maybe that's something that will get addressed in the patch?

In the controller options screen, use the horizontal scrollbar at the bottom to scroll left and right and look at all your listed controllers and make sure that the view axis functions aren't _also_ assigned to another controller for which they wouldn't apply. I've observed a bug in the controller settings (see http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=41465) and perhaps this has hit you as well.

enCOderDECoder software which allows you to see/hear video/audio files. when video/audio is encoded it is done so with a particular codec which must be available on someone's machine in order to view/hear it themselves. people install codec packs which contains a whole ton of these for various formats.

Also, please allow multi-selection in the controller options so I can pick 3 assignments and clear them all at once rather than having to click each one. And let me use the mouse wheel to scroll through the list.

I've seen this multiple times, so I thought I should post something about it. I'm running Windows XP SP2, 4GB RAM, eVGA GeForce 9800 w/512MB RAM. I have my controllers plugged in before launching DCS Black Shark. I was using a Saitek X-45 HOTAS joystick, CH pedals, and cachya which creates its own virtual joystick for head tracking. I enter options and of course have columns for all 3 controllers (pedals, cachya, X-45) plus the mouse. I go through and setup all the mappings and axis. I then click save profile, and save it and then click OK. I run the game and things work great. Next time I load the game and go back into options to double-check things. I see my settings which I previously configured, but a number of mappings have been copied (duplicated) from one column (controller) to the one to the left of it. So now my collective and cyclic mappings are also showing up in the column for the pedals. I tried clicking load and manually loading the profile I had saved earlier, but to no avail, this changed nothing. So I have to manually clear the erroneous entries. So it seems every time I launch the sim I have to go in there and check all my mappings to see if they've been messed up and redo them. Someone from ED responded when I mentioned this in another thread (in the general discussion area) and said this behavior was expected and that I had to save the profile and click OK. Just want to clarify that this is exactly what I did and I still see the issue.

A dynamic campaign is one big piece that I love in Falcon that I think I'll miss in DCS Black Shark. I've only just started playing, but that's a big hole. I know they say their campaign is better in some ways, but I think thats partly spin to explain away why they didn't do the dynamic campaign. I think at the end of the day nothing beats a campaign which runs dynamically on its own and where you can just jump into the battle and see what happens :) Having said that, a dynamic campaign is something which might not have as much real-world-training appeal. Their military customers are looking to train specific scenarios and perhaps aren't interested in the "fun" aspect of a dynamic campaign. They want to control the environment and know whats happening in the training so they have repeatability. Sure, you could say real life isn't like that, but real life isn't exactly like a dynamic campaign either. The dynamic campaign is more for the "fun" factor. So maybe this is why they haven't done it with DCS Black Shark, there's not enough overlap to justify the cost.

I'm curious as to how this will work. So say I already have DCS Black Shark and I then install the A-10 module. Will I be able to setup multiplayer missions with others that also have both installed and have some of us fly the Ka-50 and some the A-10? They've talked about them interoperating and all as modules in the series, but I'm curious how tightly integrated they'll actually be. Of course if I install both Ka-50 and A-10 I can fly one or the other, but can I do both?

The page counts for the PDF files which come with the game are: Flight Manual - 383 pages GUI Manual - 162 pages If you look at the TOC posted here, the printed manual is clearly the flight manual with a lot more content (536 pages). The GUI stuff is not included. Anyway, all that to say, if Simware is saying the page count is 536 its most likely the same one not just a printout of the PDFs which come with the game.

http://www.amazon.com/Ka-50-Black-Shark-Attack-Helicopter/dp/0956183603/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241828584&sr=1-1 I printed the manual, but will definitely order this. From skimming the TOC and considering the page count, it looks like this has much more than what was provided in the PDFs with the game.

no, I've setup everyting, then saved it as a profile and clicked OK. then next time I launch the sim and go into options, they're copied over to the other columns again. Then I click load to ensure I'm getting my saved profile and they're still there. So there is some sort of bug with the controller options.