blaster454

Consider a squad ... there are quite a few so that it's usually possible to fly any time of the day or night. I'm biased, but may I suggest the War Hawks? We're a group of mature sim pilots that enjoy realism and fly DCS:BS, FC2, RoF, and IL2. We're currently developing tactics for (A|H|G)FAC-controlled CAS missions for the Ka-50, A-10A, and SU-25T in anticipation of the A-10C. Lots of fun.

I can appreciate that but it's not clear to me exactly what this means. I always assumed it meant that this was the max number of possible entities of each type that could be in the sim. Where are, for example, the 5 VORTAC facilities located and how can I tell that they are working? Have you been able to monitor Morse ID's for anything other than the inner and outer marker beacons? And are there really 4096 beacon broadcast stations in existence or is the theoretical maximum? As far as I know, the only usable navaids in BS are the two beacons located at the approach ends of runways. Is anyone aware of other navaids in the DCS area?

Some clarification is in order. I did see the italics on the word "some" but feel that the comment was too generally directed against the OP and other posters. First, I am NOT bashing this sim or the developers. I merely commented on a thread regarding nav systems on the new A-10C. I strongly feel they would add to the realism of what is undoubtedly going to be a most realistic simulation. But, as stated, Ed has a history of detail development on the airframe and its systems and not necessarily on world details. This is neither good nor bad ... it is simply a statement of what I believe to be fact. Second, I have in a past life held a private pilot's license and was fairly well completed on instrument and commercial requirements. I can assure you that I know what navaids are and for what they are used. I have also been flying both commercial and military sims for a good many years. While far from being an expert, I am also not without some experience. My comments were meant to reflect my opinion on what would make this sim even better. Can you envision mission planning using real-world navigation systems? I can, and I think it would be great. And remember that it does little good to accurately simulate navigation systems without having functional ground systems modeled as well. This is where I think the sim has a chance to fall short--and that is not meant to mean that it will be a bad simulation. On the contrary, I expect it to be one of the best produced to date. Hopefully, ED will put in the necessary hooks to allow 3rd part developers to add and embellish the needed ground systems if they can't get it included themselves.

I agree that having the Navaids would make this sim that much better. Precision navigation is not just for cross country. It has uses in tactics and delivery procedures, as well, and it makes multi-ship and multi-package missions so much more realistic setting up push points and merges. I'm not too hopeful, though, since there has not been any mention of these features. ED have a history (a good one!) of getting all the details on the simulated airframe and weapons package as spot on as they can ... but they are not known for delivering world details that would add to the battle package. I wonder if the Air Force contract called for working navaids?

The Nevada terrain is looking awesome ... enough to cause virtual homesickness since that was my last duty station in the USAF before I retired back in '81. I wonder what features will be included with the terrain package? Some that I'd like to see include: + Static (and maybe dynamic) airfield features - Airfield flight line lighting (maybe functional) - Maintenance and support vehicles - Taxiway and other airfield directional signs - The T-birds parked while grabbing lunch at the club :megalol: + Nellis Range features - Different target facilities for bomb and gunnery practice - Ranges marked with distance circles or markers for assessing accuracy - Range support buildings and roads modeled for realism Any chance of learning some of the terrain features?

I'd just like to comment that I don't consider this to be "sorted" nor do I consider it to be a feature (at least not a positive one). The English Betty mod does not return the language localization to the same state as we had before. It only changes the Ekran and some other minor communications. Unfortunately, if you fly in a RU coalition you will get Russian transmissions from your wingmen, AWACS, and from the towers. That, in my opinion is not acceptable. Sub titles are not an acceptable response either since they can be difficult to read in the heat of a mission. If this were just the Ekran messages, I could almost understand and make the effort to memorize a few Russian Betty phrases. But, with tower, AWACS, and wingman communications in Russian, it is almost unusable. Am I the only person who cannot understand the communications from the AWACS, tower, and wingmen? How does anyone run through the campaigns and understand what is being said? I would really like to see the option to revert back to the way we had localization implemented before ... give us the option ED to have it the way it makes the sim most immersive for us. As it is, I have temporarily stopped playing anything in DCS that includes RU coalitions for the player--which unfortunately includes most all the prepared missions and campaigns ... and that's a shame! This doesn't affect the MP players too much if they don't use AI but the SP pilots are left in the cold if they cannot understand Russian. This is way too good a simulation for it to be this way! :(

Make sure that you have the centering spring turned off for Black Shark ... that plus the default high force setting would make the stick very stiff and hard to move.

I wonder why you split the axes into eight parts? Wouldn't a split into three with the two ends with your commands at 10% or so and the middle 80% empty work as well? Just curious.

Dragon, thank you very much for your work for this great community! :thumbup: A question, please ... is it possible to add to your English Betty mods to include Wingman, AWACS, and Tower transmissions? In other words, to have only English transmissions and responses regardless of coalition? I tried just swapping out the folders but it seems ED has treated the RU and EN responses differently. There are differing numbers of files in corresponding folders and ED has provided a number of different voices for the RU tower controllers but only one for the EN controller. There are other difference in the AWACS and maybe other speech folders. When I tried a one-for-one swap of folders (copy EN speech files into the RU speech file folders) I get mixed results. The transmission of my pilot's voice is in English (all this is in an RU coalition) but the tower transmissions are not there at all (just a click) and the Wingman/AWACS transmissions are still in Russian. I tried making multiple copies of the EN tower speech files to duplicate what is in the RU folder (Voice1, Voice2, ...) but that didn't seem to make a difference. I was wondering if you had looked at this and have any ideas. Thanks for your assistance.

Thanks, Frederf! It is close but apparently ED used multiple voices for the RU tower controllers and one voice for the EN controller so it is not a one-for-one exchange. Swapping out the EN and RU folders does work for most of the other functions, though (wing men, maintenance, betty, etc.). Just need to play with it a bit I think.

Is there some straight forward way to change all the voice responses in the sim back to English, regardless of which coalition I am flying and regardless of which mission or campaign I am flying? The mod by Dragon seems to change some of the responses to English (Betty) but I am still getting Russian dialog from tower, wingman, and AWACS. I purchased the English version of the sim specifically to be able to have cockpit markings and dialog in English. Is this as simple as putting the all the English .wav or .ogg files in bith the EN and RU sound dialog folders? Is it safe to assume that the same fix would work for both DCS:BS and FC2? Appreciate any advice so I can change this back the way it was.

Very nice precision approach! !S!

Is this tool functioning with FC2.0 or DCS:BS? This seems to be an excellent utility and there is very apparently a lot of work in it!

Setting up a persistent profile in the Logitech Profiler is the only way to go. Sims like FC2 and DCS:BS use a separate launcher and 3D executable and the Logi profiler can't handle that. The separate controls configurations in FC2 really have me baffled. I think there is more commonality between the aircraft controls assignments than there is individuality. I find it difficult to keep the in-game config files consistent although I keep trying. One think I might be seeing is one aircraft's .lua file overwriting another aircraft's config ... but I can't nail that down yet and it easily could be something I am doing wrong. :) It is possible to create multiple G940 profiles to handle the differences in aircraft ... might be possible to get away with one for the RU aircratf and one for the US aircraft.

I currently have the Lomac disk and FC1 English download on DVD. I have an install on my system now that has FC1 patched to 1.12 and with some mods installed under Modman. I understand that I can install FC2 two ways: Over my existing Lomac/FC1.12 install -- and that it will install FC2 in a separate folder allowing me to play either 1.12 or 2.0 as I wish. I assume the mods in FC1.12 will be untouched. Over a fresh install of Lomac 1.0 ... I assume it does not have to be upgraded to 1.02. Is there any advantage to either of these installs? I would prefer to be able to play FC1.12 in addition to 2.0 so I assume method 1 might be better? Anything else I may be missing?

Definitely interested ... but my concern is shipping cost. A tube to the U.S. has to be expensive, even if sent as Kon Tiki cargo! ;)

Yes, it will be very interesting to see what TM comes up with for a programming solution. This seems a nice product that has a definite niche market for combat sims of all kinds (and with some "pretending" adds a slew of easily-used hard buttons for any sim and some games). But it cries out for programming software (and hopefully will have the logical power that Foxy provided for the Cougar).

I find that VAC works close to perfectly for me. It uses the Windows speech recognition engine and I have been able to use it in a number of sims and games with no speech training required. I've not actually counted, but I'd estimate the recognition is well into the high 90% range. It helps to read the manual and construct your spoken commands in multiple words. Single word commands (e.g. "Fire" or "Outside") are not as reliably detected as multi-word commands (e.g., "Fire Cannon" or "External View"). VAC is a little different from the other speech recognition programs in that it does not have a "Push to Talk" feature. Instead, it uses Activation and Deactivation commands which can be assigned to almost any key combo you want. It is also possible to assign keys to VAC On and VAC Off commands to completely disable or enable the speech recognition engine. I set mine up to use my Team Speak PTT key (I use Left Control - Scroll Lock) as the VAC Deactivation key. So, my speech recognition is active at all times except when you are using Team Speak. It works very well for me but I think a headset and microphone are necessary to avoid background sounds being misinterpreted as commands ... will depend on your situation. IMHO, this is probably one of the best investments I've ever made for my sim/game system (right up there with TrackIR and rudder pedals! :thumbup:). And the support is pretty good ... I've had my VAC for about 4 years or more now and it kust keeps on working.

Well, I'll be number 1. I don't particularly dislike the Soviet era fighters but there are any number of airframes I'd rather see first ... most especially ground attack airframes. As for a good reason for disliking them, I am unfamiliar with most of the soviet fighter aircraft and their employment history and tactics, and I have a very difficult time with cockpits and huds in Cyrillic. And although I think the Russian combat sim market is big, I don't think the Western market is so small that it can--or should--be ignored. I think the successful niche market developer would be one who covered their niche as thoroughly as possible--and I do think ED is in that group of developers now (although they might not have been earlier in their history).

Strongharm, First, thanks for the thread and inputs ... I agree that VAC is an excellent tool both for simming and gaming ... and it has a few other uses as well! It's well worth the purchase price. :thumbup: I noticed in your profile graphic that you have a keystroke set for your VAC ON/OFF and nothing set for the Push to Activate or Push to Deactivate functions. Do you keep a hot mic all the time with VAC? Do you use VAC in conjunction with Teamspeak or Ventrillo? If so, I wonder how you "separate" VAC from the VOIP application (keep them from interfering with each other)? This is one place I've been struggling since the Push to Activate isn't really a true PTT like a VOIP app might use--the VAC developer says he'd need a HW switch to do that. I've tried to do things like make my TS3 PTT key also deactivate VAC but that seems to require a "reactivate" command when the VOIP PTT key(s) is/are released and I don't see that level of control in either VAC or the VOPI apps -- maybe a third party keystroke manager with macro capabilities? Or running VAC and the VOIP app on separate machines with a mixer to keep the audio going to the same place? I have not yet figured out a good, elegant solution to using both VAC and VOIP together and wonder if you had worked this out yet? I'm also having fun (NOT) with Win7 and audio mixing ... I used to always direct comms audio to the headset and sim/game audio to the speaker system using the what-you-hear mixer with my Creative card but win7 has made that a bit harder, I think. I am now using a USB sound card headset and the Creative X-gamer card to drive the speakers. Getting a particular application to use one or the other has been a challenge. Anyone having similar experiences? Any solutions?

I, too, can recommend the Flying the Warthogs book. I am just finishing the last chapter and it has been both an exciting and insightful read. From the long flight over the Atlantic with descriptions of close formation flying on their tanker through a thunderstorm to the surprise at finding nothing in the way of support at King Fahd airport when they first arrived, the book leads you through the development of the A-10 Warthog tactics in a mission environment requiring very different oilot skills than what they trained for in a central European conflict. From NOE ingress to pop-up and delivery and then more NOE egress that was the requirement for the traditional mission profile, these young (and some not-so-young) pilots developed combat tactics that put them at Angels 15 and diving attacks through the clouds with their minimum floor at Angels 5. They developed tactics for (then) non-traditional A-10 roles including interdiction and night missions and even low-level combat recce. IMHO, it's an excellent read!

Hope that bumping this is OK here. Has anyone seen this product available at a US distributor or retailer yet? I don't understand why Thrust Master would make it readily available in EU and not include the U.S. or Canada? Any ideas?

Thanks, Icarus2. This one will have to wait ... 30 Euros shipping is a bit of an over charge, methinks!

Has anyone seen these from a U.S. distributor? I have someone who put these on a Christmas list but I have not seen anywhere to obtain them outside EU. Thanks in advance for any info :thumbup:

Make sure you have edited the file: \Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\Config\Producer.cfg to change the force feedback setting to true. Use a text editor like Notepad++ to make the change.