My Fing ID

I wouldn't say all that. I mean we're preordering to play the beta, not be beta testers. Not saying we shouldn't submit bug reports (clearly we should it'll make for a better product!) but I'd be kinda upset if I bought and downloaded the beta and it didn't work. Obviously I wouldn't blame ED or anything stupid like that and I'd just have to wait but still it would suck. Anyways just adding my opinion, don't take it as an insult, it's not meant to be. Oh and I'm not saying I'm not wanting to contribute to the beta, I'd be very happy if I could find a bug and help get it squashed!

Nothing to see here...

Thanks a bunch! These files move pretty quick. Highly recommend it for people who were having problems with their net earlier. It's a lot easier to download a 200mb file and lose it half way than a few gigs. Can't wait till midnight when I get paid! If things work out I'm going to have a hard decision between sex and learning how to start the A-10. Of course If I can somehow get both to work out at the same time...

cool ty. Looks like it's time to DL! With any luck I'll be flying by midnight.

Hey all, what's with the torrents? I get paid tomorrow but obviously if I can start the download now I'd like to. Is there a torrent out there and if so how do I enter in my information after I pay to unlock the game? I don't want to download it only to find I need to download it again after I buy it lol. Can't wait. Too bad the controller is like $400 or I'd be right on that as well!

I agree. I hope the next in the series is a multirole fighter. Hell I'd like to see the Harrier II, but at that point you're sacrificing performance for VTOL capability, or so I've read.

I agree that ground forces matter in other sims. I know if Rise of Flight and IL2, even when the ground isn't the objective it still adds a lot. I'm just saying the current DCS sims, both being aircraft which specifically target units on the ground, really needs that strong ground AI, where as games that are based around air combat don't need a good ground AI. I'm really happy to hear there will be improvements, it's IMO the biggest failing with BS. Not that it isn't a great sim as is, I mean it blows everything else out of the water IMO, but the AI certainly has room for improvement. I still can't wait for A10 though. Love that plane. If I were to fly for the Air Force, that's the plane I'd want to be in.

Good. Ground AI needed a lot of work. Doesn't really matter in your average sim but being that we're flying aircraft meant for CAS, it's pretty important. These changes are going over to BS as well right? In any case I can't wait. Just wish the A10 controller wasn't so damn expensive. Still I have the double trigger with my x52, but I don't know how I'm going to replace all those throttle controls.

I was running it on a laptop until I punched the screen (I hate math) so it can work.

It seems like it wouldn't be that hard if you were easy on it and knew the instuments. I mean I gotta be honest, never been in the air, but it seems like if you were easy on the controls you could take off, fly, and land. Probably wouldn't be pretty, but with ils or whatever to help you land and a good distance it seems like you could do it. Then again I'm not betting my life on it. Worst I'll ever do in an A-10 after playing the sim is start the APU at an air show and that's only if I'm ready to get thrown to the ground, tazered, and spend some time in jail. Sure as hell not going to start the APU in a KA-50 in a Russian airshow. I've seen those Russian police videos and they do not screw around at all. You could stop in the street with your hands up and they'll break your teeth. Hell you could just be driving the same car as a suspected criminal and they'll break your car, and you of course. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYnyY2YSsOE

I tried the front thing but I didn't have a real place to mount it.

I certainly hope so. My biggest complaint with BlackShark is the ground AI, especially when it comes to infantry.

Must... play... airplane...

Sounds pretty scary to me. The last thing I want are my local police flying UAVs. Cameras in the sky are as bad if not worse than cameras on the ground. Still given the chance it would be a chill job, especially if you could work from home!

Last time I ended up flying to a town up north. I selected the Airfield option on the ABRIS and found an airfield close by. It wasn't the same name but it worked. This is the night fire one where you have to GTFO right?

I know they shoot back and drive around dead vehicles which is good, however I doubt we'd see a convoy continue to move in a straight line when fired upon. I think it depends on SOP for the unit but think of how easy a target a straight line makes. It makes more sense, unless cover or friendly units are just ahead, to disperse and return fire, which is what the herring bones allows. This is especially true if we can get troops to dismount and return fire, then every unarmed truck turns into a rifle man or two. Assuming 2 people per truck (driver and commander) thats 10 rifles in 5 trucks plus what's already mounted, so machineguns and whatever other equipment is moving around. Dispersing in a manner similar to the herringbone also allows units to avoid losing 2 trucks to 1 round. How much easier is a perform a rocket run or use guns if the enemy is in a straight line? Still you're correct that if you're attacking correctly you are out of range. However I do not see this as a reason to not make improvements. For the post above regarding cover I agree that would be too much to model. I was thinking of grabbing cover more for the infantry because they could simply run into the woodline. Another trick that could be used would be setting up zones in the editor when infantry run to if fired upon. Then the check goes from the closest woodline, which there are a lot of, to the closest zone, which could be as few or as many as the mission designer wished. In any case It's good to see that there is already improvement in ground AI in progress. I do hope the Herring bone makes it because it'll be a lot more relevant when the A-10 is flying around.

Looks about right to me.

It's factual, I just named it wrong. I guess it's herringbone not fish bone.; http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/44-8/ch4.htm#s1p3 4-20. Make arrangements for an attack by moving the vehicles to opposite sides of the road to seek cover: The lead vehicle goes to the right, the second vehicle pulls to the left, and so on. This technique is called "Herringbone" (see Figure 4-7). If possible, have vehicles drive 45 degrees off the road and move to a covered and concealed position. Establish rally points for the convoy to reassemble after the attack. In cases where not all vehicles in the convoy have radios, the unit must develop a means to signal drivers that enemy aircraft are coming. The use of protective vehicle-launched or hand grenade smoke can cause the threat air to lose weapons lock or disrupt target acquisition long enough for convoy vehicles to find suitable concealed or dispersed positions. I've done training to enter this maneuver before. Convoy reactions are different I'll admit, but unless something changed this is the standard for dealing with an air threat. That's not to say all convoys need to enter into this maneuver, it would actually be nice to have options like having them speed up on contact or dismount. Unit SOP is more of a consideration than the FMs, but that would be harder to model and the FMs would be more accurate IMO. BTW that video above is awesome. It would be really cool if we could get people to abandon their vehicles and find cover or return fire. Same with infantry in the field. While you don't really want to engage an air threat, if you're being shot at it's better to shoot back and hope you hit something than sit in the open and wait to die. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/44-8/ch5.htm#s1p2 Chances are you're not going to hit anything but still. In all honesty though the current infantry model would work if they'd return fire and preferably try to find some cover when not being shot at.

Cool, I'm glad to hear improvements are in the works. For the mission editor bit (AI being a crutch for mission designers) I don't agree. AI can make the combat more dynamic, just as good editing can (random unit spawn/placement, good use of flags to change outcomes, etc). There are things we just can't do in the editor that an AI could. Unit reaction is one of these things. Unless we're going to be allowed to set how the unit reacts under fire there isn't much that can be done. We can't set alternate routes and even if we could we can't predict where the combat will take place when you have moving units. It could be before a bridge, after it, after the units have taken the objective, just no way to know when the pilot will make contact or begin the engagement, especially if you start with ramp-start. Also there's no getting around the Infantry AI. I'm going to try later to see if I can get them positioned just so, but they don't seem to want to face south towards the convoy I'm trying to get them to engage. Current AI works very well for conventional warfare. You can totally put up some tanks and helicopters, run a few fighters/bombers and some artillery and things will go great. Units will engage each other from all over and you really get a sense that you're just part of a big plan. On the other hand unconventional warfare is more difficult to do, mostly due to the infantry AI. Trying to have an IED go off and get some infantry to start shooting is difficult simply because you have to 'trick' the infantry into shooting the convoy. You also can't really make the convoy react, they'll just continue down the road, which is fine. My major complaint though is just with the infantry AI., well that and things like BFVs shooting nothing but T.O.Ws, and a lot of them at that, but that's another issue. As a former infantryman, I have been looking forwards to creating CAS missions involving them, but like I said it's hard to get them to shoot at anything.

I don't think the terrain engine would have to be involved, a simple check to see if there was a unit within a set radius of the explosion would be enough. You wouldn't have to worry about weapons in the air either, just tie the check in with the check to see if the round impacted with the ground. I think it could be done a bit better than what I'm saying, but it shouldn't bog the system too much. If you already have to check each round to see if it hit the ground, then adding a bit to check for units within X once it did hit the ground shouldn't bog the system too much. I don't know though, I could be way off.

It seems like making convoys react wouldn't be too difficult, though it really could be. I'd think it would just take a check on each round as it landed to see if a convoy was near, then sending the vehicles to new waypoints or even just create a new formation for them to go into and stop for a period of time, like a minute after they last saw the attacking aircraft. The infantry would be difficult but it would really increase the immersion IMO. However I must say you are right, the wingman needs to be fixed first. Currently all they will do is return to base. I tell them to engage air defense right after they tell me they just spotted air defense and they tell me no. Same goes for anything else I tell them to engage. They used to work, I guess they just got broke during the patch. The new sound engine is pretty cool though!

Hey, I know this has come up before and not just from myself! In a regular flight sim, ground AI isn't that big of a deal. You're mostly looking at the air battle including some ground to air missiles and AAA. However Blackshark and the A-10, the two aircraft being modeled, are both air assets with the primary mission of engaging ground targets. Due to this, I believe the ground AI should be focused on and improved. Here are some quick suggestions, and obviously i'd like input from all sides regarding this. First off, please fix the infantry. Perhaps I'm not using them right however when I put an infantry unit on the ground it doesn't fire unless it sees the unit it's shooting at. The worst part is they don't bother to face the units shooting at them. This means scenarios involving infantry are very hard to create. I can't just plop down some units by the woodline and have them light up a convoy rolling by, yet the convoy will happily kill the infantry. This in turn makes scenarios based around convoy escort through areas with insergents (rebels, whatever term you wish, local light fighters) difficult to create. Second is the problem of no units reacting to contact. This has been brought up a few times. A convoy rolls down the road and takes contact from the KA-50. It doesn't react at all, it just keeps going. Yet in the military there are procedures for this scenario. The one that comes to mind immediately is the 'fishbone', where units will pull off the road, space out, and return fire. Similarly dismounted infantry will react to an air threat. If they are in the open they'll get down and machinegunners will open up with everything they have. Once they can they're going to move to cover as fast as possible. I don't know if the AI can detect woodlines (I hear that trees have some detection problems caused by the engine), however if they can detect the infantry should run into the woods and hide when engaged by an air threat they can't counter (most units don't have AA capabilities). I'm not sure how armor reacts. Third, and this is a future consern, is marking targest with lasers. I think there should be two methods; infantry that lights up targets in a manner similar to shooting at them (they shoot a laser rather than a weapon and swith targets when the previous target dies or another becomes a greater threat) and a trigger effect to aid in targeting buildings. The trigger should have a parameter for which infantryman or vehicle will be providing the laze. In the end I think it wouldn't take too much time to make some simple AI adjustments which could add a lot to the immersion of the sim. I don't know how the code looks, nor would I even know where to begin I'll admit (still learning), but my small bit of knowledge of code leads me to believe that some of the tools are already here. For instance a check when rounds land to see if units are within a certain radius could set off the reactions I've mentioned above. With a waypoint system already implemented, things like the 'fish bone' and running to the woodline should be fairly easy to code in. With the addition of a threat system, so the unit could judge if they are still being shot at, it would allow units to continue to move on their course after the air assets have left. Sorry for the mispellings, I'm sure this is full of them. I don't have my spellcheck on this system (buddies). In any case I hope that what I'm saying comes off correct, as a helpful suggestion. If i could I'd gladly help, though at my level of knowledge of C++ (been using C#) I don't know how much use I could be. I've also been out of the Army for a while so I'm prob a bit too foggy to really be a good reference. Still my stance remains; I think improving the ground AI, especially given we're engaging ground targets, would go a long way. Edit: Forgot to add my appreciation. I saw Wags say something about it being hard to see bitching all the time on the forums and wanted to say that in no way is this meant to be a knock on the sim. I very much appreciate the work the ED team has done and hope to one day program simulations to the same caliber as they have. I'm currently going to school (I know I'm too old for school) in hopes of being able to get a job doing such excellent works as the DCS series.

Can't click the buttons in FC2 >< Black Shark spoiled me and now there's no going back. Then again once that platinum edition or whatever comes out I'll probably get it. If there was a downloadable LOMAC I'd already have it. I can't even remember the last game I bought on disk. Speaking of which the disk isn't required to play right? Part of the reason I make DL purchases is because my laptops DVD is broke (along with the screen and a few other items).

The AP takes time to get used to. You could always just turn on all the channels and the FD channel (flight directer). This way you get the stability of having AP without ever having to fight the damn thing. I remember my first real manual flight. I was strafing a convoy and took one right in the AP. Quick lesson to learn lol. Still managed to fly back and land, even got a few trucks on the pass back home.

Look at the bright side, if anything you could probably goto an air show and, if they let in tour the cockpit, start the APU, thus getting ripped right out of the aircraft and promptly thrown out of the show. Bonus points if you eject first!