Bahger

Best M.O. is to note the exact MSL elevation of the airfield you are launching from and set that altitude value in the altimeter before startup. That way you know you have the right altitude setting for the location/pressure conditions. And anyway, does DCS A-10 model variable pressure conditions?

Guys, I posted in the Tech Support/Crash forum but there has been no response. I am 80% finished with a really promising mission, which, as usual, has taken many, many hours to perfect, but, both in Beta and in the Release, I get a crash notification on exiting the mission, i.e. on quitting the 3-D portion of the sim. It's like a semi-crash, because it still enables me to access the debrief but I can't release it in this state, as the crash usually disables TrackIR until I restart both TIR and DCS A-10. I'm going to ask for Debuggers/Beta Testers but before I do, here's the deal: - I swapped out Maverick Hs for Ds, as someone said it was Mav H video glitches that caused the crash on exit. I thought it worked at first but no dice. - I switched off "Aero" in Windows Vista 64x, again on the advice of a forum poster, and again, to no avail. - The mission is relatively small-scale but has about 20 units each of Blue and Red infantry spawning in. I wonder if this puts the sim under excessive strain. I will -- reluctantly -- eliminate the infantry if it turns out they might be the culprit. Obviously I can supply crashlogs, and the mission itself, etc., etc., I just want to get the briefing and mission goals organised so that anyone kind enough to test it can at least have some fun doing so with a well-evolved and playtested mission. In the meantime, the crash on exit is driving me crazy; please, does anyone have this issue or any idea of what might be causing it? Many thanks.

I'm experimenting with mission scores. I gather from the BS ME manual that once you create mission goals and allocate points, 50/100 is a draw, less is a loss, more is a win. So far, so good. But where do the mission scores show up?? I made all the necessary goals, points and conditions but there is no sign of the result in the debrief, no in-mission indication, nothing! I can see no evidence of the mission having been scored at all. One more thing, in every victory goal I set the goal itself and then "Time More = 1800" so that the scoring would -- theoretically -- occur at exactly 30 min of mission time. What am I missing here?

Of course it counts! Me too, not an instructor but instrument-rated PP in the 172/182. The thing I like about the DCS A-10 is that the flight model is recognizable to a small-time pilot. It's not fly-by-wire and has limitations, of thrust, of airspeed and AOA. You have to trim it. You can't fly inverted or throw it around the sky. It feels like a "real" airplane.

I'm going to make a /DCS A-10/Missions/ folder for this mission pack, put them in it and play them with LAN settings in MP.

Because you are a person of low character and morals? Sorry, couldn't resist, good luck with the update.

Aren't you supposed to arm it when it's not flashing? Question: Do you need to be still parked when you engage the EAQC, or can you save time by doing it holding short of the runway?

I have three very good friends who are F-16 pilots. To the last man, they make sure I know they hate, in the following, ascending, order: Falcon "The Right Stuff" "Top Gun" F-15 pilots (but not the F-15E pilots for some obscure reason) For years I have tortured one of them by insisting on showing him whatever sim I'm flying. He spends the first five minutes squirming and the next half hour drilling me in SAM evasion.

I've seen crew chiefs on these boards, weapons specialists, but I know from personal experience that r/l combat aviators hate to admit they fly PC sims. Will anyone break ranks...?

Good point, I put them in my SP missions file, please advise...

Topgun505, you have obviously put a lot of work into this mission pack and it's generous of you to share it with the rest of us. Downloading, rep inbound, looking forward to test-flying these missions. Thanks!

Thanks for this, Dragon, it's a very efficient way to refine one's weapons skills. I decided not to d/l Modman as I would have to register on the site but I was able to install it perfectly by making the necessary /Missions/ sub-directory in Windows. 2 questions/observations: - The third bombing task is tough! I've been trying it with CBU-97s, coming in fast and low with 3/9 consent to release, which allows for a very shallow dive and fast approach from <2000ft. No luck. Maybe I should try coming in even lower and then popping up. I can't imagine I'd do any better with a high-alt approach. Either my skills are in need of improvement or this is LGB territory! - You mentioned datalink problems with clients in MP. Certainly manual inputting of the given coordinates is one solution to this. But how is this problem affected by the NET settings for the hosts group, and how do you organise this in MP? Finally, it's worth pointing out that, in SP anyway, as soon as a wingman designates an SPI, it shows up in his flight members' TAD screen as a white "castle" icon, so if #2 finds and designates a target before flight lead does, lead can just superimpose his own SPI in the TAD over his buddy's. Does this work in MP?

Well done. What is your technique, marking each target from a distance in the TGP, then cycling through the marks for each drop?

Hmm, I got the ammo depot as my first task, just before WP 1, as usual, so I entered the coordinates and destroyed the target. However, I received no acknowledgement of the success of the attack and no follow-on tasks, just those funny error messages, as I mentioned. This did not occur the other day when it gave me the house as my first bombing assignment. Let me repeat, though: superb mission.

Cockpit res at 256 will buy you a significant FPS increase if you've set it higher.

That's depressing about the state of the campaigns, but not really surprising. As always, user-made missions and campaigns are likely to come to the rescue but programmed AI behavior is so unpredictable and often just plain broken right now that building missions in the ME is hit and miss. Let's hope they'll fix the main issues in the next patch. If they can overhaul the AI, or at least cure its more serious ills, they'll give the sim much more longevity via the community's use of the ME. Stock campaigns always seem to be a combination of over-ambitiousness, hurried design and broken AI.

Thanks Wayc00lio, very useful information. Funny how mission designers omit to brief flight freqs, especially when they are not the default. (Nice Tornado in your sig, brings back memories of another truly great ground-pounding sim of yesteryear...)

OK, well, I found the ammo dump this time, got a better picture in the TGP from 24,000ft, blew it up with a GBU-12. Then things got funky; some trigger misfired and I started getting messages about kittens! The mission spawned no more tasks so I took my toys and flew home. Will try it again soon. FWIW, through trial and error I found flight comms on 255.00 UHF.

There is a very good CMS tutorial mission, too.

Great intel, gents, many thanks. Weta43 your suggestion is a good example of how I might use a "Group Out of/Unit Out of Zone X" condition.

Thanks guys. Furious, I think you nailed it. The UHF radio is set to 225.00 so, because the briefing contains no information about UHF flight frequencies, I assumed this default would be the freq for my flight. It's 251. I proved this with my #2 and assume it applies to the whole 4-ship. Now why would a mission designer, particularly one responsible for an "official" mission, omit this freq in the brief when he notes all the other frequencies? Also, I wonder why I'm hearing flight comms on 124.00 AM (the briefed freq. for Bore flight) yet I can only transmit to flight members on UHF 251? What exactly is the relationship here between VHF AM and UHF for flight comms within my 4-ship? Any ideas?

I do not think the Version # has changed. Just make sure you have the new "Trees Visibility" (or whatever it's called) slider in your settings menu. And the better canopy close sound is a good indication, too.

I'm pretty sure I'm not setting the radios incorrectly. AM and FM settings are set by default to MAN (AM and FM settings on the selector switch are for Guard only) and I switch all radios to TK (Transmit) and UHF to BOTH as part of my startup flow. I tune the radios in, and, as I said, I have no problem communicating with either the Tower (on AM) or JTAC (on FM). I do not understand whether flight comms are supposed to be on 124.00 AM (as briefed in "Defend Camp Yankee") or, as wingmen usually are, on UHF (but no freq is briefed in this mission and the default appears not to work). Odd.

In "Defend Camp Yankee" my second element gets out ahead of me when I do cold starts, yet when I "cheated" using RWin + Home for the automated start, the flight departed behind me, as it's supposed to. It's not like I'm very slow with ramp starts, I'm reasonably proficient. This leads me to another, related, question: In the ME, how much time should a mission designer allow for the player to do a ramp start and get into the air so as not to screw up timings and miss all the action? I know you can use triggers to spawn AI mission elements too, such as when the player is airborne, but it's surely more realistic to set takeoff times for allied flights, or at least it will be when the AI circle forever over the airfield after takeoff bug is fixed, that is. Any advice?

SHift F12, Shift F7 and Shift F9 work for me. I set them in TIR and then map them to a hat in my HOTAS control software. I use the shifted slots on the DMS castle joystick hat. I'm not sure what you are doing with the A-10 control profile, however. You shouldn't have to fiddle with that (well, not if it reads commands from your HOTAS, anyway). Do not use arrow keys for TIR, they affect pitch and roll functions in the sim. You need to find spare key commands, which is not all that hard with TIR as it will accept chorded (i.e. Shift +, Control +) key combos. Hope this helps.