dsobbe

Thanks 159 Viper. I wasn't aware of the Vikhr's impacting short. I'll keep that in mind. I finally spotted an enemy helo in Overwatch and was able to engage it. You're absolutely right. You have to keep your head out of the cockpit. Things didn't go well. But, I'm learning.

Overwatch is great. But, I'm puzzled by the resistance of most of the tanks to missiles. Some require 2, others 3 to destroy them. Some are just impervious to anything I throw at them. Is there a way to kill them? And, how do you locate enemy helo's "before" they kill you?

Any news report about aircraft. My favorite was hearing about a "twin" engined Piper "Cub" crash. Yeah. That would do it.

Sure fire way to avoid a midair with your wingman. 1. Tell him to, Attack air defenses. 2. Wait for him to announce, Sam launch, 10 ......... 3. Look for puff of smoke. 4. Resume what you were doing, knowing that the sky is a little safer. :-)

Another great mission. Well done. However, when running Flexible Defense under Patch 1.01 it occasionally locks up shortly before reaching the combat zone defined by the red lines on the map. Like Suppression Fire, the voice message seems to trigger the lockup. Hope this is helpful.

Simulators with 100% reliability, quick start. Reality with variable reliability, manual with check lists. Always.

I have the SP version and am getting the same lockup after waypoint 2, just as the radio message to "contact battalion" plays. This is a nicely done mission and I hope a 1.01 compatible version is made available soon.

Discussing best rate of climb, loading, etc, is getting the shovel in a little too deep. At high altitudes, rotor lift and engine efficiency drop off due to the air becoming thinner. Moisture, in the form of frost or ice on the rotors or in the engine intakes will quickly and dramatically reduce performance even further. You need to keep those surfaces above freezing by turning on the heater switches on the overhead panel labeled: Rotor Deicing Engine Deicing (up position) Pitot Ram Air Pitot Sta AOA (static port heat) The rotor and engine heaters are obvious. The pitot heaters protect the ports for the vacuum instuments, such as the altimeter and air speed indicator, from giving incorrect readings. With the heaters on you can operate at airspeeds in the 190 to 200km range at altitude before Betty starts nagging you to "check Ekran" for overspeeding.

I can get within 5km of the of the base on its northwest side and easily knock out the buildngs. But, then I get a useless message that a helo has departed the base. Great news, Boris! In which "direction" did it go? I've never seen it. My wingman found it once. But, he only reported a heading of 260, ten minutes after initial contact. Without good position reports and no radar, finding the enemy helo is pot luck. Anybody know where it goes?

Maenniskopesten, I'm having a similar problem running BS under Vista 32 after adding Patch 1.01. The lockups seem to occur while there is a heavy graphics load (smoke images) and voice traffic. Just a guess, but that indicates a data overload. I've found that running a registry cleaner, like Ccleaner, helps a lot to prevent these lock ups. The Dusk mission is similar to many of the Oil Field Wars missions in graphics load. And just to be fair, BS does pop a warning about being able to run Oil Field Wars missions on less than Cray capacity machines.

In the Dusk Mission if you arrive at about 500 meters AGL over the city on the east side of the river and about 5km directly east of the target area you will be in smooth air. From there you can engage auto hover and take your sweet time knocking out the air defenses, etc. Then, send in your wingman to clean up what's left. Doesn't work every time, but it sure makes targeting easier. When it gets dark on the way home use the Route [R] key to lighten the work load and stay on a safe flight path through the mountains, punching in your waypoints in reverse order. You did jot down the FARP and waypoint altitudes on the way out, right? That works so much better than guessing how high the rocks are piled. When getting close to the FARP turn on your landing light, request landing clearance and the landing pads will be illuminated for you. Try to remember that objects look closer than they really are in the night flying envirenment.

Hi andyfoot, I'm having a similar problem with Patch 1.01. BS is running under Vista 32 in a computer that meets the operating system requirements. After adding the patch BS occasionally won't allow a replay of a single mission. Once I play it, I have to exit BS and restart it. And, then it still may not allow a second play of the same mission without rebooting. Also, occasionally a mission loads to the starting cockpit view, but once it's unpaused the cursor and sometimes the American/English keyboard become nonfunctional. Anyone have a fix for this? dsobbe

Thanks guys, I'll have to get some of that "AI" to help me survive the deadlier enemy fire in the patch. I have to stay so low that I'm using the shkval lens wipe to push grass out of my line of sight. :-)

1.01 is great! Even better is a company that listens to its end users and really fixes and improves its products. I haven't seen that since Lotus went away. Thank you very much.

" AI as in enemies, by the looks of it - yes". What does "AI" mean? I cannot find a reference to it in the manual.

Warbird 242 Correction: Sorry about that. I meant Helping Hands. Nicely set in a city environment, short and interesting. Thanks, Dsobbe

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I guess the best bet with rockets is to set them to blow everything out of the tubes with one click and use them like a fire hose. After all, these are non-precision weapons that require more finesse and skill than technical precision. DSobbe

Warbird 242, Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, I have the master arm, etc, correctly set. And the cannon is not selected. That one also had me stumped for awhile. I usually set the Weapons Mode Selector Switch to HNY (Fixed Cannon, Boresight) when firing unguided rockets and they can be fired with the "Space/Alt" trigger. But, if I lock a target with the "Enter" key to place an aiming point on the target, the rockets can no longer be fired. What is more puzzling is that this inabiliity to fire rockets after locking happens in some missions and not others. Maybe I'm using an incorrect Weapons Mode Selector Switch setting. Is there a better, or correct, weapons panel setup for unguided rockets? Thanks, DSobbe

Warbird, Whenever I am using unguided rockets, I cannot fire them once I "lock" a target. Doesn't matter what is selected on the Weapons Selector. What am I doing wrong? dsobbe

I found a solution. There may be others. But, this works in both the Real and Game modes. Under Options/Controls, press the key you want to edit. Click on Clear, then on Add. Instead of selecting another key from the drop down menu line in the Key/Button box, again press the same key you are editing and the software will automatically assign a letter combination. In the case of my American/English keyboard the "\" comms key was given the letters "AT" and the function reassigned to the "[" key. The "]" and "\" key were automatically assigned the TV Target Frame increase and decease functions. In another case, the "=" Shkval Narrow View key did not function. After editing it, as above, the Key/Button box displayed "PREV" and the "=" key became functional. My guess is that there is a default set of commands built into the software that automatically sets edited key functions for any language/keyboard (?). Hope this helps you out. Dsobbe

Yes. I'm editing the Simulation (real) profile. I'll work on it some more and let you know if I find any other key that can be used for the Communications Menu. Otherwise, I'll wait to hear from you. Thanks again for the help.

Panzertard, My keyboard is an HP. The second row of keys from the top are, from the right to left, "\", "]", "[", "p", etc. I'm using a Saitek ST290 Pro Joystick, no profiler. I've reset the defaults without any success. It seems as if the \,], and [ keys are hard coded. I cannot change their functions, although a changed assignment will display the new symbol in the keyboard column. I can at least now use the comm menu. It would be nice to have the "TV Target Decrease Size", "[", functional though. dsobbe

Thanks for the feedback, Panzertard. It was very helpful. I have an American English keyboard. The "\" backslash key is bound to "TV Target Increase Size", although the "]" displays in the Keyboard column. Also, the "]" is bound to "Communications". although the "\" key displays in the Keyboard column. The "TV Target Decrease Size" does not function, although the "[" key displays in the Keyboard column. I have cleared each of these keys and reassigned them both manually and by selecting the Default key option with no luck. Any suggestions? Thanks again, dsobbe

I'm having the same problem as REALNOOB. The "\" key doesn't bring up the comms menu. Tried binding another key too it, different key and clearing and selecting default again, with no luck. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks