TED

In the teaser pre-order video there is a couple of other nice little details I just noticed. The ground units ai, especially the infantry units look to be significantly improved. Is this something we are likely to get as well at the same time as the release for ch47 / afghan map? Also the hummer driving out of the back seems to be a new feature. Are we going to see some more detailed logistic type / ai functions with the ch47? Very nice to see. Damn this is gonna be an expensive month. Pimax crystal light preordered, now afghan and ch47 too. June is going to be a great month and a whole new dcs experience for me. (edit - sorry, think I probably put this in the wrong thread. If so, can mod kindly move it over to the ch47 discussion thread)

Yeah...me too before I got into the driving seats . Best brown-out inducer I ever seen . That thing could brown out a 20 mile radius i sand and dust! Awesome aircraft.

This is a module I've been the most excited for a long time to see in dcs. As a ex mil Rotary pilot, although not chinny, I'm really stoked to see Rotary OPS take a leap forward in dcs. I worked many times with them on joint ops and one of the best ever brown-outs I ever saw was a chinook slinging in some logistics supplies!!!!! While we provided top cover. This and the Afghanistan map is making things very diverse for mission potential. An iconic aircraft in so many ways and a really nice surprise to see it coming much sooner to dcs than I expected. Thanks ED, very much looking forward to this.

To be honest everything from 1.0 up looks great. I only oversample to reduce the need for msaa and increase performance. I can run at 1.0 with 4xmsaa without much difficulty too but it just feels better oversampled without msaa.

With my 8kx and 7900xtx i can over simple to 1.6 in pimax app, then run everything max in dcs with msaa off (not needed due to oversampling), then easily maintain 75fps in the viper low level. I'm not expecting the crystal light to be more demanding than this, however I do expect a significant increase in visuals.

I don't know - i really like this concept of a stripped down version and am pre-ordering. With fixed-foviated rendering it's more than enough. I have no issues running pico 4 with everything maxed out and maintaining 72fps in all but a formation takeoff where maybe I get 55-60. My 8kx works great too. I just don't like the fresnel lenses any more. Once I had used the pancake lenses in the pico, it's hard to go back. Even the huge fov of the 8kx is not enough to overcome this. I may be wrong, but I think the performance and visuals of the pimax light will be better as its got a direct connection and inwonr be relying on streaming quality, which to be honest is still pretty good in VD with the pico. I'm pretty confident this will work well with my 7900xtx and gonna pull the trigger.

Wow...this thread went south quickly . I can't understand the griping. It's pretty simple to just not buy it if it's not your taste! Personally, I'm really looking forward to this and will preorder the whole map in EA. Its got a huge amount of potential for interesting missions and campaigns, even in the ea first phase. The tease images look very nice and another step up in dcs scenery quality. I actually like the idea to release in phases. The other option was for us all to wait another 6-9 months to get anything. This way we get to enjoy the start of a new scenery, which is still a large area in itself and will keep us busy, then in a few months another nice upgrade with the rest. This is why it's called an "early access" after all! I think this is a really positive development for ED and dcs and I am certainly extremely pleased with this announcement. You wouldn't know it from this thread, but I expect vast the majority are also really hyped for this, and its going to be an extremely popular map. Good job ED for bringing us yet another fantastic terrain to play with. Lets keep some perspective and not lose sight of how much has actually happened in development in just the last 2 years. From new aircraft, to multi-threading, improved graphics, various updates to the core aircraft and many performance tweaks and improvements. Things are getting g better and improving literally every month. Yes, there will always be more to do and wish for, but if we juat take a step back and look at how far things have come, it's pretty amazing. And let's not forget there's many more exciting things under development in the pipeline not too far away. My only issue is going to be the wife complaining about me being MIA in the mancave!

Ah perfect. I had not noticed that but it will almost certainly solve the issue until a more permanent ai upgrade and fix comes along. Thanks.

Dies anyone have any good, reliable tips on how to use the ai wingmen more effectively and stop them using fuel so rapidly then ejecting? This happens on all the modules I use regularly f16, f18, a10c2. I've tried slowing to allow them to get into formation early, and calling them in straight after takeoff. In the f16 and 18, when i release them to engage ground targets, they seem to possibly fly around in ab and very quickly call bingo, then eject. I still have 3000lbs fuel remaining in the f16. While flying a fairly short mission in the caucuses with the a10c2, full fuel in my aircraft and wingman. After 10 mins he calls ejecting. There is no threat anywhere nearby so its not possible he's been hit. I flew it again after and this time he managed to stay in the seat. Either way this happens very often, so I'm wondering if anyone has any good tips to better manage this, both in flight and maybe even in mission editor. I'm assuming in the f16 and f18 they just burn around in ab unnecessarily when unsupervised, but as for the a10 I can't think of how or why they'd just bang out.

Owning a pico 4 and an 8kx is a bit of a luxury, so of course I can’t help comparing the two. I had the 8kx first and have now had the pico for about 9 months. both are great headsets and I’d be perfectly happy with either. I thought I’d jump between them more, but actually I don’t. I just spent a couple weeks forcing myself to fly with just the 8kx to “get used to it” again. No doubt it has that lovely fov and nice colors. Then today I put the pico on again and flew a few of the same missions I had flown with the 8kx. Expecting to be a bit underwhelmed by the pico due to the smaller fov and VD with compression, I was not at all. In fact I’d go as far as to say the pico is nicer in visuals than the pimax. With the exception of the fov, the sharpness is the biggest noticeable difference. The 8kx gets very blurry away from the center quite quickly, meaning that despite the larger fov, i have to move my head more with he pimax than the pico, in order to see the details and labels around the cockpit. comfort is the other immediately obvious one for me. The pimax is not uncomfortable, but switch over to the pico and the weight difference and balance is like a breath of fresh air, as is the actual breath of fresh air provided by the little fan inside. im still in awe of this little headset for dcs after 9 months. VD works great with it and I get solid performance with high settings in dcs and godlike in VD with hvec encoder and 150mbps, at 90hz. At the price this things sells for it really is astounding. Highly recommended.

I really noticed recently, if your system can handle it, and the 7900xtx can, increasing the render quality really makes the visuals shine with the 8kx. Looks absolutely amazing.

8kx 7900xtx, 5800x3d, 64gb ddr4 3600mhz ram. almost same settings as wipeout above. msaa x4, shadows off, dcs sharpening 75% openXR toolkit disabled. pimax client - custom resolution render quality 1.5 90hz large fov quadviews

My apologies for missing the rule break. Thanks for editing out the bits that were in breach. I've been following the news letters and good to see the progress. I hope the post didn't come across as negative. Definitely not the intention. I very much appreciate and enjoy dcs and will continue to do so and support. Very pleased to hear there are tweaks in progress. One of the main things that got me thinking about it really was the usage of mission editor and the possibilities of already using that to integrate ai into mission play? Personally I actually really like the current ME format and find it very user friendly, so is there possibility for interim options there with the developers to "build in" ai functionality using that and expanding the current ai commands via comms menu? For example the wingman tactical commands to perhaps command a speed to prevent them excessively burning fuel trying to get into formation, or to drop tanks, status updates, attack profiles etc?

First - This is not intended to develop into a rant or unnecessary criticism but hopefully can remain a healthy objective discussion. So a genuine question and wish, I believe for many is a significant upgrade to the dcs ai. This really struck me lately, as I am predominantly playing sp, campaigns and liberation type play. I really enjoy the dynamic campaign route (another discussion in itself for another time!). I really enjoy this, however the frustration does remain at the very basic level of all ai elements. From wingmen to enemy ground forces. We all know their limitations, but I do feel this kills a lot of immersion and realism as they cannot effectively be used. This has driven me personally to dive more into bms, where i was immediately met with a far more effective ai in all aspects. I was very surprised by just how much more this adds to the whole experience and just what was actually possible. With atc able to direct me and even vector me for an ils, to complex instructions for my ai flight and enemy ai that acts in more realistic and even tactical ways. So I now know this is possible. So how does dcs improve on this? For me it's the single most important thing dcs could implement now. There's no doubt ED has does some amazing things recently and continues to do I'm sure, but without well functioning ai much of these improvements and developments are somewhat wasted. I know a lot can be done in mission editor to enable ai to do more coordinated things, but this is extremely time consuming and complicated. Would it not be possible therefore, for ED to program some of this, linking it to better comms menus to trigger ai to act in new and better ways? A more comprehensive wingman/flight menu for example with many more commands and orders than currently exist? I am no expert in coding and programming but would it not be possible using the current framework to have ai react more realistically to a greater spectrum of triggers? I know much of this is probably being worked on and it would appear from various threads and polls that this has been ongoing for many years now without yet bearing real fruit. I guess the real question many of us want to know is what is the real progress status on this and how much longer will we have to wait to see these things start to happen? So how does all this happen and when?

Definitely no blurring in my pico 4 either. It’s very sharp almost to the edges. Now I do have QVFR so I have deliberately lower resolution towards the edges, for performance. I’ve been extremely impressed with the pico 4 since the day I bought it.

Has anyone managed to get some sort of reliable usage out of this yet in dcs? Specifically with VD, I think there must be some interesting solutions possible here, if not for pure hand emulation then for some sort of controller emulation to click/flick switches and dials. im a little surprised this is not being more actively pursued and developed by vr users as it must be a logical step in the overall immersion of the vr experience. Previously I tried leap motion, but it was so buggy and awkward to set up and use, it really just ended up causing more problems and conflicts than solutions.

Been doing a dcs retribution campaign for the last couple of weeks with the a10. I had really forgotten how good this module is. Seems like theres been a few nice little improvements as well since I was last using it. Even the ai wingmen work quite well. I can fly lead of a 4 ship into a CAS type scenario, datalink targets, get individuals in the flight to attacked targets at my spi, allowing me to manage some kind of plan and employ loose tactics to the attacks. Stick a SEAD flight and escort of f16 in the package and you can do some serious damage to the battlefield. Now I've got to grips with the systems again, I feel the a10 has the absolute most effective workflow for any CAS/a2g platform in dcs.

That was it! Thanks very much.

Thanks. I'll check that as soon as I get back on.

Thanks and this is probably a good suggestion worth trying someday. Unfortunately here Amazon doesn’t sell them and I’m looking at 150 euros for a cable. I’m just not prepared to throw any more money at Pimax as I’m actually really happy with the pico 4. Apart from the fov, everything else is better with the pico imo. Now I can run on HVEC+ at max bitrate, it’s really smooth, clear, and gives great performance, and there is no Pimax dance and room setup for an unspecified time before flying.

Haven’t read anything about this, but I have a small issue, where in the control bindings section I see 5 different Orion 2 throttle base controllers showing up despite only actually having one. Only one will actually work for binding while the others are just thee taking up space and confusing me, as it’s never clear which one is actually the one that works for binding.

I fly a lot with nvg, especially this time of year. We are using the newer generations of white phos goggles, so the image is black and white. Just to be clear, we do not view anything in the cockpit through the goggles. If and when u need to check anything inside, we look under the goggles. This means the goggles cannot be too close to the eye. As a rule 2-3 fingers between the eye and the goggle tube is what I use. Then looking under is pretty simple and comfortable not requiring too much head movement. You can absolutely see the outer rims of the tubes when using them. Very often when new pilots start using nvg they do try to adjust them as close to the eye as possible, as it’s natural to want to be able to see as much as possible, and it feels a little unnatural in the beginning to have such a narrow fov. However training this away is an important skill and a perishable one. After 25 years of flying with nvg, I still feel rusty quickly if I haven’t flown goggles for a while. Good scanning techniques and discipline are vital as well as regular looking outside under the goggles for LED lit masts. Unfortunately many of the modern gen, whilst offering greater clarity and sensitivity, do not pick up light from LED lighting. What dcs could probably do is simulate this double environment with the goggle fov, then outside that, instead of black, it’s the normal night lit environment, with clear view of cockpit elements and outside environments according to the light conditions.

Couldn’t agree more. The a10 was the first module I really got into in dcs. Over the years I’ve learn others and really enjoyed them all. The a10 somehow always has something else for me. After probably a year away focusing more on f15, 16, 18, I got a bit bored of the fast jet stuff. Too clinical and efficient. My real enjoyment is cas and a2g so I have come back to the a10c again and I love it. The systems, the pure role, the weapons and loiter as well just the way it flies. It’s my firm favorite dcs module by quite a long way, and I’m not implying there is anything wrong with any of the other modules. They are all fantastic and have given me so much, but the a10c is just something really special.

Yeah, I just spent another morning trying to get this thing to track. Following all the specified directives, distances correct, heights good, lots of adjusting. I’m done with Pimax. This just ruins my dcs experience when I spend 30-45 mins just trying to get the headset work. All worked fine a few days ago with the 2 base stations. Nothing at all changed and now they will not track at all, so I’m done getting frustrated with the 8kx. The Pico 4 is giving me an infinitely better experience, as it actually works.

I’ve had an 8kx for a while now and have to say when it works it’s amazing. The full fov is just beautiful as is the image. There is the issue - WHEN it all works. The constant tracking issues are just a mystery. Everything will work fine one time. Next time, nothing changed, no adjustments to the 2 lighthouse base stations and it will never detect them. I’ve gone through every fix on the net and the mystery just continues. It seems since the last software update it got worse and less reliable. The strange thing it does now is that the boxes for lighthouse bases in Pimax software remain grey, but it does not say “not tracking” under the headset, even though lighthouse is selected as tracking option. If I unplug the base stations the grey boxes remain. It’s a lottery as to what it does next time I switch on the computer. It may work straight away. It may take 30 mins of unplugging and plugging in and restarting before it works or it just may simply not work at all. All this has lead me to pretty much give up on Pimax, which is a shame because I really love this headset, but the frustration is just too much. The forums are full of the same issues and there is a complete lack of any solutions. A headset such as this should be a bit more robust and user friendly. There are lots of comments mentioning how other electronics can interfere with the tracking! I mean, come on, seriously? Something designed for using in a simpit around a pc is sensitive to other wires and interference? Smells a bit fishy to me as far as explanations go. I now have a Pico 4 as well, which just works perfectly every time and straight away. The image on the p4 is fantastic and on a par with the Pimax, except with better clarity edge to edge. I just really miss that wide fov.