Hunter_5E

@Hotdognz - No unfortunately dynamic spawn won't work. Keeps saying no free parking available. Pity we can't specify parking spots for the invisible FARP. @HannuXXL - You're welcome and thanks for the compliments. Very glad you guys like it. I found a couple tiny glitches last time I flew it - both really easy to fix though. 1. - The windsock next to the watchtower between the FARP tent and the "high bay" has sunk into the hesco and is too low - supposed to be above the top of the tower. The mission editor did this to me a couple times with other stuff after editing for a while. Loses track of what's on top for some reason. Fix - Delete the windsock and put a fresh one in it's place. This will restore the "on top" order for the windsock and it will be above the tower again. 2. - The 8 man perimeter patrol are bumping into the light just round the corner from the excavator - even though I checked them to make sure they weren't. Fix - Just tweak their corner waypoints out a tiny bit and they won't bump into it any more. Little things but they are annoying when you spot them.

Thanks for the kind words Gideon. Glad you like it. I've done some more major work on it and it looks much better. Realized it still just wasn't where it needed to be. But, I've now got it to the point where I've flown it for 4 whole days and not had the urge to change ANYTHING. It is proper done, no bull this time. Couldn't be happier with it. I've made 4 mission files for each of Caucasus, Nevada, Persian Gulf and Syria - First Light, Day, Last Light and Moon. Chose each time of day carefully for maximum visual effect. I've also added comms menu items (F10: Other) to allow quick swap between them for ease of viewing. As long as you have all 4 mission files for any map in your missions folder it will work - in multiplayer too. Also added restart for First Light and Last Light as they change quite quickly and I often found I wanted to restart whilst testing/viewing. I've added a README in each zip file with tips for best results in using it. I recommend you read it. Hope you all enjoy it. Sorry for the dragged out journey to get here but I think it was worth it. Hope you agree. Cheers. Screenshots on Persian Gulf Hesco FARP Desert 1-4 - Caucasus.zip Hesco FARP Desert 1-4 - Nevada.zip Hesco FARP Desert 1-4 - Persian Gulf.zip Hesco FARP Desert 1-4 - Syria.zip

Pasted it into Nevada and Persian Gulf - and added some lights. Sry, can't help it - all improvements though. Takes almost 3 mins to paste now and almost 30 secs to copy. Nevada Sunrise. Found a road to nowhere - with streetlights - and stuck the FARP on the end of it. Makes it fit the scenery well. Nice spot to fly at dawn. Persian Gulf - Hesco FARP - Desert 1-3.miz Syria - Hesco FARP - Desert 1-3.miz Nevada - Hesco FARP - Desert 1-3.miz

Thanks Shurik, I really enjoyed making this so it's nice to know others are enjoying it too. Surprised myself how well it came out, looks awesome all lit up. Worthy of sharing now I think. I've made another nice improvement - the lights centre of the main pads didn't fit the space. Thought of a nice solution and it fits much better. Had to share, you gotta have the latest and greatest. Hopefully that's it. Think so now. Cheers. Syria - Hesco FARP - Desert 1-2.miz

So sorry to hit you with another update but I found a couple lights that were causing performance issues so had to be removed. The lights facing the fronts of the main pads, towards the tyres were causing regular spiking in my FPS counter when flying over them. Only happened after several minutes of flying around but kept happening and wasn't good. While I was in, I added a few more exterior lights facing inwards and one between the containers by the big hide. Looks better balanced lighting now and no performance issues. I've flown over the whole thing at low level again for a while, keeping an eye on my FPS graph. It's flying nice and smooth despite the number of lights. That's a good trick when building like this in the editor. Your FPS graph will quickly pick out and highlight any objects that are problematic. For example I tried putting in some static aircraft for effect but quickly found out they're FPS killers. Static Apaches and Hueys were liveable but the Kiowa and Gazelle caused major spiking whenever I flew close to them. The static Chinook is unusable - made my DCS crash every time I put it in. Still having problems with the flyable Chinook in here too. Hmmm Been a bit of an "early access" journey for you I'm afraid. Sorry bout that. This is the proper final now though, 100% sure. Fully tweaked and checked, good to go. Any more editing can be done by you. Feel free to edit it in any way you want. If you don't like something, change it. Good bones to work on though. Enjoy. Syria - Hesco FARP - Desert 1-1.miz

Still wasn't happy with it so it's had another overhaul. This one is for desert terrain but can be changed easily for greener lands. Changed everything to desert paint as far as I could. Infantry still have green in their uniform but chose one that had at least desert colours in it. Changed out the vehicles for better selection and added a couple tanks guarding plus an MRAP patrol at the gate waiting to go out. The major change is the lighting. I've done a very comprehensive lighting install and it looks amazing at night. Jump in at the mission time of 5:10am and see what you think. Only on Syria at the moment. If anyone needs it on another map just ask. Either myself or someone else will be able to oblige I'm sure. I'm very happy with the end result. Hope you like it too. Syria - Hesco FARP - Desert.miz

Ok so here's the final versions - one invisible for the natural look and one visible for where the ground is too uneven, or if you like that look. Two mission files, each with both FARPs side by side. Caucasus so everyone has access to it, Syria to showcase the desert look. Hope you like them. Caucasus - Hesco FARPs - Final.miz Syria - Hesco FARPs - Final.miz

Had to evolve to this eventually - switched to the invisible FARP to get away from the greens on the standard DCS ones. Just don't like them and they sure don't work in desert. Made my own pads from standard DCS statics collection. Came out ok. Now has five full pads and is all natural. Needs level ground to look good. Can't get rid of vegetation inside the camp unfortunately but this FARP fits so many more locations and is great in desert terrain as you'll see in the Syria version. I've adjusted the FARP position to cover all nine squares on all five pads with repair/rearm/refuel services. No dynamic spawn on it this time as it doesn't work well on a busy FARP using invisible one. Thinks there's no free parking space . Caucasus and Syria FARPs attached below. I left the Chinook in but it now always makes my DCS stutter terminally and then can crash when I try to fly it. Major spiking in my FPS counter. Kiowa and Apache are fine anywhere on the FARP but the Chinook seemingly doesn't like something in it. Chokes and kills DCS quite quickly for me. No issues with the Chinook in other missions without this FARP, just in this one. Standard DCS statics only used, should be fine with them. @KrazyPilot - Glad you like them. I've enjoyed making them. I'll try to have a look at a Soviet version, no guarantees though. Caucasus - Hesco FARP - Invisible.miz Syria - Hesco FARP - Invisible.miz

A couple transplanted to dry spots in Syria. They look pretty good. Nice to be rid onullf the lime green. Still a bit round the single pads but a lot more bearable.

Was getting a bit annoyed with the lime green grass on the big FARP. Thought there was a desert version at some point? ED, any chance of a couple texture options for the big FARP? That lime green just doesn't fit in so many places. Had a brainwave and replaced the big one with 4 singles on the same construct. Allows you to see the natural map textures through it now. Need a good level bit of ground and try to find a spot where the textures work with it. It works well if you want a more natural look. Caucasus - Hesco FARP - 4 x Single Pads.miz

Had a bunch of ideas after flying around it today for a bit. I set to and made some improvements. Here is Version 1-1. All watch towers now manned - thought they couldn't be manned after trying with the wooden watch towers, they didn't work. Filled the empty space next to the hide tent, added some more sentries, put in a fuel tank for the generator pack, added a guy fixing the excavator. Plus a few other tweaks and additions. Anyway, I think it looks a lot better and more polished and alive. Hope you agree. Caucasus - Hesco FARP 1-1.miz

I like the new multi selection tool in the mission editor, cheers ED. It gets us around the issue of having no template function for FARPs. Now it's definitely worth the time and effort to make a nice one, just copy paste, easy. It's not exactly a "Template" but works great in place of one - gets the job done. So I had a go at making a nice FARP and what resulted is quite pleasing. Decided to share it with all you good folks. It's on Caucasus - everyone has it - and it uses only standard DCS stuff. No asset packs required - should work for everyone. It has 2 Kiowas, 2 Apaches and 1 Chinook FATCOW flyable on site. Change to suit your prefs. FATCOW is aircraft only though, no script loaded for it. Dynamic spawn is on at FARP. All you have to do is select the whole thing with the multi selection tool, press CTRL+C to copy, open the mission file you want it in, left click on the location you want it then press CTRL+V to paste. Select the whole group again after pasting then fine tune position and rotation. Bosh, you're done. Very cool. Build up a collection of your creations of whatever kind in a single mission file called "My Stuff" or something, then just copy and paste them at will to any other mission. Easy peasy. You need to be patient though, it consistently takes just over a minute to paste this FARP on my PC - low end by todays standards - it's pasting a lot of stuff so will take time. It does work though, I've also pasted my FARP into Syria and South Atlantic maps with no problem. I think it looks active and interesting. Hope you like it. PS. Hope this is in the right section, been a while. Please move if required. Cheers Caucasus - Hesco FARP.miz

Glad you guys like the idea and the run itself. Perfect for the Kiowa. Only other chopper that might fit is the Gaz. I find it very satisfying to make a good run through - love that kind of flying. Kiowa might not be fast but it feels fast down in amongst it like that. It's a rush. @Benom8 - No I don't mind at all that you made a mission. Quite the opposite, I'm happy it's peaked your interest. Feel free to do whatever you want. Hoping others will take interest as well and post runs they already know, or note any good ones they come across and post for all to enjoy. Gotta be some other good runs out there. Just need to find em.

I'm sure there are lots of you out there who like to just fly for the love of flying, like I do. Just head out and scoot around. Today I happened across a really nice 5 minute low level top speed run through Haifa in Syria, following a railway line. Flies great in both directions. Had so much fun I thought I'd post and share my find so others can enjoy it too. I'm not set up to make videos so attached a track instead. It will show you the run and where to find it. Wasn't my best run in the track but not bad either. I'm always on the lookout for good runs like this but they are very hard to find, especially one 5 mins long. If anyone knows of any other good runs on any map, please do post them here. Kiowa Haifa Low Level.trk

Reaper 1.5km diameter endless circular orbit - in hot zone I've managed to get my small orbit working in a hot zone by telling the reaper to go invisible and not react to enemy threats. "Invisible" = enemy won't target it, Don't React = won't try to evade by speeding up, changing altitude and wrecking the orbit I set up. Works great to this point. Well in range of a pair of SA-15's - no problem I'm trying to cross the last hurdle of making it a functional JTAC that will lase targets for me in the Kiowa - failing miserably despite hours of searching for solutions. Ideally I'd like to have the drone prioritise or only target missile launchers so you could take out any long range threats in a zone from good cover before moving in closer to mop up. Failing that, I'd be happy if it would just hand me any target and lase it for me. If I use "Perform En-route Task - Engage Group" the orbit works fine, drone isn't targeted and doesn't try to evade, but... I can't get JTAC to communicate with me despite having easy comms forced on. JTAC appears in the comms menu and does my check in speech but radio silence follows, no response. If I use "Perform Task - Assign Group" this breaks the invisible and don't evade commands, the orbit is broken and drone gets shot down. Tried the commands in different orders, made no difference. Been round and round in circles and down the YouTube rabbit hole but still drawing a blank. Can't find the magic formula. I need to ask for some help at this point - does anyone know how to set the drone up as a functional "Hot Zone" JTAC for the Kiowa without breaking the orbit I've set up for it? Calling on the wise and kindly out there - could someone please have a look at my mission file below and see if you can get it working for me? Is it even possible? I know the Reaper has quite a few shortcomings. Many thanks in advance for any assistance. Mission file below has what I think are appropriate JTAC settings. Endless patrol orbit is fine but can't get a response from JTAC. Endless Patrol Reaper Hot Zone.miz

Reaper 1.5km diameter endless circular orbit setup. After posting the above, I went to experiment some more to see how small an orbit I could set up. Short answer = 1.5km diameter. Shouldn't need anything smaller than that? I also realised that you use a different action for the last waypoint compared to land and sea vehicles. You use TYPE - "Perform Command" and ACTION - "Switch Waypoint" to WP1 Here is how I set up that orbit. Height 3500m Baro, Speed 222km/hr. Waypoint 3 is stepped out a bit from the "square" due to the reaper anticipating the turn a fair bit before the waypoint. Waypoint 4 is set about halfway between right and left legs and slightly in from the square as it's a flyover point - has to fly over it before it gets the command to switch waypoint. Anyway this flightpath produces a near circular endless orbit with a 1.5km diameter. If you decrease the speed the circle will be squared off a bit, if you increase speed the reaper will eventually get too far off course and strange things happen. A handy trick to see what your drone is doing is to run the mission in editor, hop into a flyable aircraft that you've placed in somewhere nearby, open the F10 map, find the drone and click on it to get info from it. You will then see it's route and waypoints and be able to see how it anticipates and makes each waypoint. Also verify that it does indeed orbit endlessly. See screenshot below. You only see this if you're in a vehicle yourself - if you just put a drone in and go F10 map and click on it, you won't see its flight path on the map. I've attached the mission file below (Caucasus map) - hop in and watch what it does. I placed a Kiowa in there - change for other aircraft if you want or need to. Note:- This is set up in zero wind conditions - in windy conditions it might behave differently and need a bit of tweaking to compensate. Note 2:- I forgot to set the reaper "TASK" to "AFAC" - you need that set to use it as JTAC. Endless Patrol Reaper Demo.miz

Using the "standard" method that most people teach, I found I was having problems with patrols often getting stuck when they passed through WP0. They just seem to stop at WP0 after one tour of the route. Standard method example: After a bit of experimenting I found that by adding a small "lead-in" from outside the route and telling them to go to WP1 from the last waypoint - set up as shown below, it works like a charm every time. Land and sea vehicles might still get stuck on stuff mid route if in a built up area or weird corners to negotiate (river banks for speedboats) but they won't randomly stop at route end. As long as they make it to WP4 they will go to WP1 and carry on forever. I've tested this with pretty long routes - 15 waypoints - and it works fine. I've also used this to make a reaper drone fly the exact pattern I want instead of going off to orbit who knows where and getting shot down. Very handy. Another tip - if you set the pattern quite tight for the reaper drone and it seems to do weird things, it's probably going too fast so can't comfortably manoeuvre to it's waypoints. Slow it down to about 150-200 km/hr and it should be ok. Default speed is quite high I think. Also make sure altitude is set the same for all waypoints, including starting point at WP0. So far I've tested this with tanks, BMP's, armed speedboats and the reaper drone - land, sea and air - all work reliably for me and never get stuck at route end or fly off into the blue yonder. If they all work then I'm guessing this method will work with pretty much anything. My method example:- Hope this helps. NOTE:- I've shown quite a short lead-in so I could get a good screenshot of everything. I'd suggest using a slightly longer lead in, especially for larger or faster vehicles. The one in the screenshot works fine for land vehicles but is probably too short for the likes of a reaper or say a carrier . If it doesn't work, make the lead-in a little longer until it does. Should work.

Just been playing around to see if I could export my RWR as the in cockpit one is unreadable if the sun is behind you, plus it's pretty small in the view I fly with. Worked first time, sweet. Thought I'd post in case anyone else is trying to do this and not succeeding. Works just the same as any other RWR export tbh, need these lines added to the bottom of the RWR Indicator Init.lua file:- (jpeg in rar file to show file location) dofile(LockOn_Options.common_script_path.."ViewportHandling.lua") try_find_assigned_viewport("OH58D_RWR") This file will be overwritten by any update so best to use a mod manager if you don't want to renew it yourself every time. As usual, make a backup of the original before editing it. Also, use Notepad++ to edit it, NOT Notepad. Plain old Notepad will break the code. Next, add the positioning info in your monitor config file in your C:\Users\YourName\SavedGames\DCS\Config\MonitorSetup folder. I've attached a rar file with the modified init.lua and my monitor config file (Kiowa MFD RWR.lua) for reference. I fly on triple 1920x1080 screens and my bezels are set to 90. My flying view extends one third onto left and right monitors. I found the video stretching too much beyond that in single camera setup so used outer space for MFD's. Kiowa RWR Export.rar

Loving these overlays - many thanks for making them available to us all. Great work. Just a thought on the getting round the lack of DCS key binds for bringing them up:- Instead of hiding each overlay completely, could you just minimize them each to a small button so they can sit unobtrusively in a bottom corner of the screen? We could then just click that button to bring it back up without having to use keyboard shortcuts or setup voice attack or joy to key etc. Would be even nicer if we could place that mini button independently of the main overlay so we could put it wherever we want - not tied to main overlay location. A blank spot on the cockpit panel or frame or such. Probly need to be an option though as those who do use voice attack etc won't want it minimizing to a button. Can this be done?

+1 Would be nice to have on exported MFD

I'm currently having a different slewing problem with the MMS. My slewing was working well in forward mode but as soon as I started messing about with pre-point mode it went wrong. After slewing to a pre-point its after you press slave again to take over manual control it stops slewing. Turns the hat into a very short press rather than a continuous press - ie. you can make it move by repeatedly pressing the hat in any direction but it's unusable really at this point as it moves in tiny steps. It didn't go wrong straight away after entering pre-point mode, think it worked for a few kills before it went wrong. Now and again it would act normally - usually just one target - then it would stop working again. I stuck with it for a while then tried forward mode to see if that would make it return to normal but it was still the same so had no slew in forward mode now either. Seems if I use only forward mode from mission start it works fine but if I use pre-point mode it breaks the slew for both modes, forward and pre-point. Anyone else having this problem?

I experienced drastic frame rate reduction when trying to land the Kiowa on a few of the Naval Assets. Happens every time I come within about 10 feet of landing. Frame rate reduces from 125fps on approach to under 10fps as I reach about 10 feet above landing point. Specific assets affected are - Troll Platform, Yacht with helipad, Container Ship (landing on containers) and Lighthouse with helipad. Most of the others I tried were ok. Seems really weird. If I fly the Huey however, I have no issues at all, nice and smooth. Only seems to happen with the Kiowa. Any idea what this is about? I've posted in 8Ball's thread as well here:-

Congratulations on the release of the Kiowa guys. It was a long and bumpy road to get here but well worth it in my humble opinion. So glad you guys stuck with it and saw it through. Total respect. It's a lot of fun to fly, feels really nice and looks great. Also a nice mix of simplicity of operation, lethality and survivability through good warning systems. I bought my copy a few days ago and another last night as a gift for my flying buddy as he's broke and it's his birthday this weekend. Big thumbs up from both of us - we'll be flying this bird quite a lot I reckon.

Hi 8 Ball, many thanks for the assets packs. Nice to have some more stuff to sprinkle on the scenery. I'm having some issues with the Naval Assets however. Downloaded V2.1 today and found that while most are ok to land a chopper on, a few cause horrendous stuttering just as you get within about 10 feet of landing. These gave problems - Troll oil platform, container ship, yacht with helipad and the lighthouse with helipad. There was one other, can't remember the name of it. Tried both ship and static object versions, tried updating graphics drivers... no joy, still stuttering. Goes from 120fps on approach to <10fps within 10 feet of landing. Weird thing is, I watched a video today of a guy landing a huey on the helipad by the lighthouse and he had no such issues. Any idea why I might be having this problem? It's quite frustrating. EDIT: I was flying the Kiowa first time round when I experienced the stuttering. Just tried the Huey and had no issues at all. Could this be a conflict with the Kiowa mod that's causing the issue? Hard to imagine why...

Here's an instance when it was just too late and a hard landing was inevitable - or was it? Could the pilot have escaped using the Vuichard technique if he'd quickly realised his situation and acted quickly enough? Hard to tell but probably unlikely so close to the ground. You'd need serious ninja reflexes to escape that one. Bell 412 settling with power Also, was that vortex ring state or settling with power? Hard to tell definitively but I would guess most likely vortex ring, given the hard flare at the end. Strangely enough, Transport Canada makes distinction between the two whereas both the FAA and EASA consider them to be the same thing. I find it a bit disconcerting that they don't all agree. I was trained in Canada so I agree with their opinion that there's a distinction between the two. I can't remember the exact definition they gave but consider this situation:- A Robinson R22 with two big guys onboard approaching a mountain top landing. Pilot doesn't do a power check before committing to landing. He makes a perfect approach at a shallow angle but as he exits translational lift over or near the landing spot, he finds that even with full power he can't keep from sinking to the ground. He's not in vortex ring at this point, just found himself outside the performance envelope of the aircraft at that altitude - the aircraft is settling with power. So essentially settling with power occurs when the performance limit of the aircraft has been exceeded in a hover or below translational lift speeds. That's my understanding of it - feel free to post the correct definition if mine is a bit off. Interesting topic. Any thoughts on this?