Topgun505

The weapons training missions are exactly that, weapons training only. Starting up and getting all the systems up and running takes a good 5-10 minutes. I didn't want a new pilot having to worry about getting all the systems set up correctly when they are just trying to get the hang of weapons employment. The weapon missions are meant to be quick missions that focus strictly on weapons employment only. As such, all aircraft are runway start so you don't have to go through engine startup. The Mixed Training missions (all 4 versions), however, DO have a set of aircraft which are ramp start, so you get to practice everything from start to finish.

As mentioned at the beginning of the thread, you must launch this as a multi-player ... not single. Since a lot of people seem to be having trouble with this I will go ahead and add an additional aircraft to each mission as a Player aircraft so these can be run from the single player client as well. Hopefully will have it done later today.

Oops My apologies to anyone who flew the Maverick mission before the release of the 1-3 version ... as you probably got surprised by the easter eggs ... which were supposed to be static targets and were NOT meant to take off. :) That's been fixed.

I saw this a while ago but I'm just throwing my 2 cents on here just so I can give Glow a rep +1 :) Honestly I think that is the best game-vid I have EVER seen. Absolutely stunning.

I don't know how you fly it at those settings Strong. I tried it and while that may be excellent for landing or AAR I found it far to sluggish for combat maneuvering. But that's just me. To each their own. I kept backing Sat and Curve by 5 unit intervals during test hops and I eventually ended up at 100 Sat and 20 Curve. Will proceed to test that under combat conditions and then landing and AAR and see how that goes. But everyone here is definitely right ... in order to do AAR at least some tinkering with these settings is going to be needed.

Some of the external views were not set in some missions. Corrected. Also added a low amount of Civ traffic and birds. Added additional logic to the first Maverick mission as well as a little easter egg. Added a 2nd takeoff and landing mission with dynamic weather.

Ok now I don't feel bad. On a recent mission I started up and took off. Fenced in and at the IP got a target on the TGP ... just as I hit the switch to make it SPI my right MFD and HUD blinked off and my CICU caution light came on. I know I hadn't gotten close enough yet to be shot at (but just to be sure I checked external view for holes .... nada) ... so this musta been a random failure. But yeah ... quite annoying spending 20 min getting the bird warmed up, all options set, and getting in to the target area, only to have to abort and RTB.

Thanks all. I will probably do a mod to the maverick missions in the near future. Will probably add a moving convoy which is composed of some APCs, ZSUs and a few other targets. The intention is so you can get practice selecting out a specific target and hitting it from range before you get within the threat envelope of the defending units. Will post them as additional attachments as they are completed. EDIT: Ok, here it is. I only modded the first Maverick mission, simply because those aircraft are armed with 6 Mavericks each whereas the ones in Mav 2 only have 2 each so really just don't have enough Mavs to pick apart the convoy. Training Maverick.miz

Since this was developed as a squadron tool it was developed with multi-player in mind. However, it can effectively be played solo by running it as a multi-player. Just choose New Server from the menu at the bottom of the screen when you run the Multi-player client. Since you are just playing it as a single player you don't even care if you have the right ports open or forwarded correctly on your router, nor care what your internal IP is, since nobody else will be connecting. Really doesn't take any longer to do that than to run a SP mission. But, if you really want to run as a SP then run A-10 as SP, go to the Mission Editor from the main menu, open the mission you want to convert, and choose the Player 1 aircraft and change it from Client to Player and save. Done. If you find any problems with the existing missions or have suggestions for additional missions let me know. At some point I will be looking in to making a more realistic mission which includes JTAC and dynamic target assignments. And probably an air refueling mission (although I will probably wait on that since it sounds like the KC-135 AI logic is still pretty buggy). EDIT: Yes, Jessi1, I'm sure you could run them that way as well.

EDIT (1/21/2012): I've added a new file along with the existing training pack (as a separate file). This file is a training mission that includes both A-10C and Black Shark 2 and supports up to 33 aircraft at once. This mission incorporates pretty much ALL weapons and air to ground and air to air roles you can expect to face (including air to air refueling). Me and some of my squadron have been working on a set of training missions for a little bit now and I figured maybe the rest of the community might get some use out of them as well. These are fairly short missions which you can go through pretty quickly and most are very focused so you can concentrate on one particular aspect until you are ready for a more general mission. All of these missions are made as multiplayer so you can either play on your own server as a multiplayer solo, or fly with friends. Included are: Takeoff and landing - Up to 12 aircraft are supported. Here there are 2 sets of aircraft. One set ready to takeoff from the runway (so you don't have to worry about startup), and one set as air-start. In each of those groups 2 aircraft are nearly at 100% combat weight, 2 are at about 50% and 2 are clean and near empty so you can practice takeoffs and landings under various weight/aerodynamic configurations so you can get used to how the aircraft handles in all conditions. Weapons training missions. In each of these there are several target groups of static targets including soft and hard vehicles, as well as light and heavy structures which will take varying degrees of accuracy to ensure a kill. The following weapons are covered: Iron bombs: (low drag and high drag for CCIP and CCRP employment). Cluster bombs: General purpose, anti-armor, wind corrected general purpose, and wind corrected anti-armor employment. JDAM bombs: GBU-31 and 38 employment. LGB bombs: LGB 10 and 12 employment. Maverick missiles: Covers employment of light weight versions of the IR and electro-optical models. Maverick missiles 2: Covers employment of the heavy-penetrator versions of the IR and electro-optical models. Rockets: Covers employment of the Mk1 High Explosive, Mk5 Anti Tank, M151 Anti Personnel, M156 White Phosphorous smoke Once you have mastered the basics you can move on to the Mixed Training mission. There the aircraft are ramp start so you can practice cold starting the aircraft and are armed with a wide mix of weapons. There are a wide variety of targets (and a LOT of them so there will be plenty of targets even if you have a number of people in the mission). There are also moving groups that spawn when you enter certain areas. There are also air units which spawn which vary from unarmed helicopters all the way up to top of the line air superiority fighters depending on various conditions. There are also groups of air defenses to practice against including AAA, IR SAMs and Radar guided SAMs as well as naval units. I have provided 4 versions of the mixed mission. Day LoDif (Day time, low difficulty). All external views enabled and all units showing on the map to ease new pilots in finding targets. Night LoDif (Night time, low difficulty). All external views enabled and all units showing on the map to ease new pilots in finding targets. A-10s are also armed with a pod of illumination rockets for practice of illuminating an area. Day HiDif (Day time, high difficulty). All external views disabled and all hostile units are hidden. Night HiDif (Night time, high difficulty). All external views disabled and all hostile units are hidden. A-10s are also armed with a pod of illumination rockets for practice of illuminating an area. This is still a WIP and not every missions has been exhaustively tested as of yet. Will post updates if there is interest. Topgun505 Training Pack 1-6.zip Training Mixed Weapons A10C BS2 LoDif Day.miz

So I fly Black Shark regularly and A-10 as well. For the longest time I have battling my x52 Saitek controller. At the time I didn't have rudder pedals so was using the twist function of the stick for rudder. If I try and fly straight and level, without wind, and both with and without using Flight Director mode I have a pretty significant yaw. The turn/slip ball is nearly pegged to the right and I had to constantly twist the stick or try and trim it out. The thing is ... I do NOT remember this being an issue when Black Shark first came out. It just happened one day. Of course I tried to use the Axis tune to recenter the stick. Re-calibrated in windows as well. Even attempted to set up a dead zone for the rudder to see if maybe it was an uncommanded yaw from the stick which I figured was dying (it was 1-2 yr old and pretty beat). But now I picked up Saitek rudder pedals and the Thrustmaster Warthog. And STILL I have this issue. Not only that, but in A-10 when I go to take off I have to keep a fair bit of rudder inputted in order to remain straight down the runway ... even tho the scenario as 0 wind at ground level. Does anyone have any idea what the heck is going on here? This has become truly annoying. I've uploaded a track of the Battle single player mission where you just jump in air-start. I turned on the control input graphic. You can see 0 rudder input and some left stick being inputted and yet the turn/slip is pegged to the right. oddcontrol.trk

@Lixma ... I don't believe at any point I turned off the IFFCC after making the changes. Will have to try it again though to double check. @mic ... straffing with the CCIP pipper?? Has anyone else gotten this to work right? Or are folks generally straffing with the gun cross and not the standard gun pipper?

When I try to do a gun run on a target, as I bring the piper to bear on the target the target designation diamond disappears. Very annoying. I'm assuming that the setting in IFFCC for Gun Cross Occult controls this behavior. When I try to get in to the IFFCC to change the setting for the CCIP Gun Cross Occult it appears to take the change, I hit Enter and flip the IFFCC switch up to On, and the it's doing the same thing as before. I go back in to IFFCC and the value is back at the previous value so it doesn't appear to be saving. Two questions. 1. Is this setting in IFFCC in fact what controls this behavior in the first place? 2. What am I doing wrong that this value isn't saving in IFFCC? Or is this a bug?

Will A-10 and/or DCS Black Shark at any point support/utilize Direct X 11 ?

Things I would like to see. AH-64 A. I'd love to see the 64D but that's too classified at this time to do accurately. I love the Ka-50, but you can't throw that thing willy-nilly across the sky at high speed due to the prospect of rotor-clash. The 64 doesn't suffer from that problem ... would love to see what that thing would be capable of. F-15 A or C. This would be great to see as there hasn't been a high fidelity F-15 sim in a long long time. I would think by now the A would be declassified enough to pull off. F-16 A block 52. Lead Pursuit made a good sim of this aircraft, at least in regards to the aircraft itself. And the campaign system is top notch. But the AI is rather iffy in how it was implemented. I'd love to see this aircraft redone using todays technology and DCS's know-how. And as was mentioned, this aircraft does both A-A and A-G so would be a good fit with the rest of the aircraft up to this point.

Question. Is DCS: A10 going to have its own integrated voice chat system so we don't have to set up a separate Teamspeak server?

Clutter. Does this mean I can stop playtesting our missions for a little bit and dodging all those ATGMs? My helo is getting awfully tired. :)

If someone is firing ballistic weapons at you (MBT gun, machine guns, etc) at you, you have an advantage being in a helicopter. You have all 3 dimensions in which you can travel which you can use to foil the firing solution of an attacker. Mess up his aim in nearly any one of these dimensions and he is likely to miss. Mess with multiple axis at the same time and he's nearly guaranteed to miss (unless you are right on top of him). So if you see some tracers headed your way, or you get a LWS warning and you know it is likely MBTs which is lighting you up then you need to do a few things. - If you are attacking a target and actively guiding a weapon to it, unless the missile is only a second away from impact then ABORT THE ATTACK. You generally do not have time to continue with the attack at this point unless you want to be walking home. - Change your direction of travel. I would say at least a 45 degree change in direction. But do NOT travel directly away from the target. You want to present a crossing aspect to your target. - Change your altitude. If you are more than 50m AGL then chop your collective to suddenly drop some alt. If you are already down in the weeds then add some collective to climb up (but be careful not to climb too high and unmask and end up exposing yourself to additional attackers that are lurking in the area). Every few seconds change your alt. Dip down 20-40m ... then after a brief bit climb back up. Repeat. - Change your speed. Preferably the faster the better so that you're heading away from your target (again, at an angle) in order to get out of its effective range asap. With all of these you are complicating his calculations for range to target, bearing to target, elevation, and you are accelerating ... and all of these variables are changing every few seconds because of your maneuvering. By modifying all these variables you will be throwing off the firing solution in the attackers fire control computer and he will likely end up firing where you WERE, and not where you ARE. That's the key. If he misses in any one of those dimensions, then chances are he's going to miss ... so the more dimensions you screw with ... the harder you make it for him. The key here is to identify quickly that you are under attack, where the attack is coming from, and reacting quickly.

One thing to note. The Dogs of War campaign has quite a bit of randomization within the missions so if you go through the missions once, odds are they will NOT be quite the same the next time through so you should probably play through the campaign twice to get full effect. This should give the campaign high usage in regards to replay value.

The first portion of the story is true in the fact that India did at one point consider buying a number of Ka-50s. And of course the terrorist attack in India did happen. Everything after that is fiction ... albeit it very well could have happened. :)

Another question ... though this might more pertain to KA-50 and any other helo-based DCS titles in the future. But, MBTs these days have a rather comprehensive defensive suite. The T-90, for example, has LWS which automatically dispenses smoke grenades in the appropriate direction in order to try and shield it from being designated by lasers. It can even attempt to automatically plot a firing solution with the main gun vs the unit that is lasing it. Obviously we already have tanks trying to swat the Ka-50 with the main gun, but there is no attempt thus far for tanks to launch smoke screens or take evasive action when they are being painted. Is any of this being considered for future releases (or patches to Ka-50)?

Quick bump since it's been over a month. Ok ... at last mention the time frame has been stated as 9 months ... so early 2010. #1. Are things progressing ok and they are holding true to that timeframe or not so much at this point? #2. Is this 9 month timeframe to the download release or on the shelf copy? #3. Is an English version being released first this time, and other languages later, or are all versions coming out at the same time? #4. Has there been any options discussed about producing a separate hard copy of the manual? #5. Is the design team testing on the Windows 7 RC? Or are they not going to attempt to test on Windows 7 until it the retail edition hits the shelves in Oct? #6. Are there going to be any significant changes to the mission/campaign editors? Lastly, if I may make a few requests. If the mission editior is similar to what we have now. Would it be possible to add a new filter? Specifically I'd like to be able to select a single unit and the filter would show ALL activity regarding the unit (as far as what it has fired at, what has fired at it, all on the same page of results). And maybe also have an option to list all units and their status at the end of the sim (alive, damaged, dead). This one is probably nit-picking but it'd be nice to add in a result of "Miss" in regards to units that fired, instead of a blank result.

In regards to the zoo (i.e. Shilka), you would pick up the warning on the RWR long before you got in range of its guns (in open terrain) allowing you to see it and avoid it, or to help find it and kill it. And if you are flying low in the weeds and zip around a hill and one happens to be parked in the trees where it's hard to spot, it's pretty darn likely you won't know about it until you are hearing the pinging of shells hitting your craft. Whereas if you had a RWR, it would start squealing the moment you rounded the hill giving you at least SOME warning. So a RWR WOULD be useful in the Ka-50 in that respect. Sadly, that is not to be. As was mentioned by the mods earlier on another thread. The SAM logic is going to be tinkered with and is going to be considerably more lethal. Spamming flares after the missle has locked on to you will be considerable less effective as compared to spamming them BEFORE it locks on thus preventing the seeker from locking on the correct target, or (if they model it) may prevent the missile from being fired at all because the launcher might decide they can't be sure they have a lock on the actual aircraft. Thus ... flares will be more important as a preventative, not reactive, measure. Chaff would be useful in much the same respect. There are a number of radar guided threats in BS. It would be nice if you know you have to pop up and expose yourself to get a shot off at a target, that some chaff are bundled with the flares that you are spamming out in order to give you a window of survivability while you conduct your attack and then get out of dodge. In short, chaff would have its uses here. Maybe not as much as flares, but still useful.

I have to agree with Pole, for now. I hear a number of folks say they have 64 bit and all is great. But I've heard just as many or more folks say they moved up to 64 bit and regretted it as they had to deal with endless amounts of problems. I'm sure that 64 bit compatibility issues have gotten better over time, but it simply boils down to this. I'm in the process of building a new PC, will be putting Windows 7 on it, and I have the option of putting 32 bit or 64 bit on it. From past experience from endless releases of Windows I know that there are generally fewer issues with 32 bit editions of new Op sys, and issues with 64 bit have generally taken longer to iron out. So the deciding factor is ... $$$. Do you spring for 64 bit, which may or may not work well? And if it doesn't you either have to hassel with it, or wait an age while MS and all the vendors iron the problem out. And if they can't iron it out in a timely fashion, end up purchasing 32 bit so you've shelled out the $ for 2 operating systems. Or just pick up the 32 bit, which is more likely to work out of the box with little to no tinkering? I don't have the $ to be buying the 64 bit and then turn around and purchase the 32. I'll stick with the 32 bit until 64 bit becomes more maintstream. By the time my new pc is due for some upgrades 64 bit will probably own the lions share of the market and can tackle it then.

AFAIK you generally do not encounter rotor strike unless you are going blazing fast and then make a turn and crank on the rudder hard at the same time. Go easier on the rudder and slow down a bit and that should reduce the likelihood of a rotor clash.