Brown Floyd

Adding the ability to shuttle the MiG-29/M2000 to the main airbase is a nice touch.

One of the great things about the S-24 is that since it has such a high velocity and long range, they'll basically go exactly where you point the pipper so long as you're in a steady wings-level dive. Here's a good video on shooting them in manual mode:

In Search & Destroy, the Blue helicopters' available ATC (F5 from the comms menu) is only populated with OIKB (Bandar Abbas). They cannot contact FARP Dallas or Lar Airbase, even when the correct frequency is dialed up. Edit: And the Mi-8s also cannot dial up their FARP from the F5 menu. Only Abu Musa Island (OIBA) or Shiraz.

No joke, I literally have the MiG-21 landing gear mapped to its own dedicated 4-way hat: up for retract, down for extend, right for neutral, and left to toggle the safety pin.

Yup, took me a few I tries but by the end I was a pro at it. There's always new things to learn in DCS!

Any chance we can swap R-60Ms for the R-3Ses on the road base L-39s in Catch Me If You Can, at least while the weapon restrictions are not in place? :yes:

And then the next phase of the new MiG-21 pilot is to think "Well, this is annoying, I'm just going to pull the gear lock as soon as I start up the jet so I don't forget." This phase lasts until the first time you accidentally raise the landing gear while you're on the apron or taxiway...

My apologies if this has been posted already, but the issue appears to be with certain recent Nvidia graphics drivers; this is why some people have said they don't see any framerate drop. If you roll your system back to an older-but-still-recent driver (I'm using 442.19, for example), the problem will go away with no noticeable negative effect on performance in DCS or other games.

I think I figured it out on Five Points Unleashed, at least: the Blue EWR sites are on 124Mhz, not 251Mhz. No responses to any comms on 251, switched to 124 and everything worked correctly. (Edit: According to Google, the EWR's comms frequency can be changed in the mission editor through the Advanced Waypoint Action tab, then Perform Command > Change Frequency.)

It might be my imagination or my overly-optimistic nature, but the last couple days with the AWACS/EWR changes have seemed more realistic to me. Going on strikes, instead of getting lasered in from 100km away by a fighter, I was generally unharassed until I got close to the target where the enemy had put up a CAP station to intercept us. I know everybody in the real world had GCI and basic AWACS in the mid-to-late Cold War period, but maybe the default AWACS in DCS World is just a little too omniscient for what Alpenwolf is trying to simulate here. Coincidentally, during the same Swedish Delivery mission last night I flew the C-101CC for the first time and, wow, what a great-looking aircraft. I was just checking it out during the free month but I'm definitely buying it next week when the Steam sale starts. My first DCS module was the L-39 and while the Albatros is better in some (but not all) ways performance-wise, it really looks dated when compared side-to-side with the C-101. Highly recommend everyone at least take a look at it soon while it's still free.

I'm half-tempted to sign up for the Merge For The Cure event with the MiG-21 to see what happens.

At the very least, they must know that sending out a one-sentence update every month saying something like "We're working on the FM" or "Bugfixes in progress; stay tuned!" will help their MiG-21 sales—even if it's 100% a lie. The fact that they can't even manage to do the bare minimum signals to me that something is wrong over there.

The last few weeks, I've also seen an increase in FARP attacks, but that has in turn been followed by an increase in the helos fortifying their bases at the beginning of missions. The first hour or two of the missions are now usually spent in shuttling SAM launchers, ammo trucks, and EWR sites around to prepare the battlefield. So one tactic is counteracted by another tactic, and the strategies on both sides evolve; that's one of the things I like about this server and its repeating missions. That said, The Desert Has Eyes is uniquely tough for the helicopters on both sides, especially with no A2G weapons restrictions. Not only are both FARPs and all the EWR sites very exposed and easy to find and attack, but the AA weapons available (Vulcans/Shilka and MANPADS) make it very difficult to protect the FARP and EWR sites. The modern standoff A2G weapons (Mavericks, BK90s, Vikhr, etc.) have better ranges than the AA systems the helos are carting around, so it's bit discouraging to spend 30 minutes hauling a MANPADS over to an EWR site, only to have the radar get plinked by a BK90 anyway. I think the easiest* tweak to the mission to fix this is to add Chapparals and Strelas to the available systems to pick up at the FARP. Having helicopter spawn points at the fixed-wing bases might also be a fun variation to try. *With the usual implied caveat that I actually have no idea how easy it is to change anything in the missions, and that we all defer to Alpenwolf in his infinite wisdom and finite patience and time available.

It's definitely going to be an Su-30 variant, either the Su-30MKI (which would match up well with the JF-17) or the Su-30SM. All of ED's denials about how it's not going to be a modern Russian-built fighter are lies designed to throw us off the scent.

Found a small error in The Desert Has Eyes. Twice when I've been Red Tac Commander, I've seen Blue attack Red EWR-4 but the message comes up that EWR-3 has been attacked. Ah, my secret is out: it's hella fun to drop an APC at one of the Abu Dhabi airfields and then drive it on the highway at 100 kph to go to the other airports. It's actually a very pretty drive along the water... If you think it's a problem, it does make some sense to limit it so that only troops, not vehicles, can control an airbase.

The alternating messages kept coming that Blue and Red holds Shahid Lake, neverending. I checked the Tacview and it started after Red had destroyed all the Blue ground units there, but before Red could move units there to capture it. So the bug might have something to do with both sides having no ground units in the area.

The same thing happens sometimes in the Abu Dhabi mission to both Blue and Red. If it's not intentional*, from my limited observation it seems to occur if there happens to be a fighter taxiing to or from the runway at the same time the AWACS is taxiing; the A-50 stops behind the fighter and then doesn't move even when the taxiway is clear. *It's not a huge deal in the Abu Dhabi mission because all the CAP, strikers, and helos end up flying in the same area downtown anyway. Good incentive to put up EWR sites and have human GCIs for the last part of the mission.

Alpenwolf, something is not working right with Two Towns on the Red side. There's no Red artillery and only two or three tanks assaulting Agara. It's been like this a couple of times I've played since the mission changed from snowy conditions, but other times it's worked fine.

My apologies if this is too obvious, but also be sure to Drop the crates from the CTLD menu first and then Unpack them.

Ah, good point. I haven't tried taking out the SAM units with ground units yet, that's probably the way to do it. In fact, now you got me wondering if we can use JTACs (well, Forward Air Controllers during the Cold War) in the vehicles to mark enemy units with smoke for air attacks. :smartass: I'd better check the CTLD notes... Only played that once for a few minutes at the tail end of its debut session.

I've now played 5 or 6 good long sessions of Five Points Unleashed, all as Red, and it's a really great scenario. A couple months ago, I would have said that I'd prefer the shorter missions over the 8-10 hour ones, but I've discovered that the long missions are nice in that you can pop in for an hour or two and do some sorties with no pressure, just doing a few things to set your team up for success later like taking airfields or dropping enemy strikers. That said, to me it feels like it's too hard for both sides to re-take an airfield after the enemy first grabs it. Most missions start off with Blue taking Krymsk and Nov., Red taking Kras-P, Kras-C and Gelen., and then nothing much changes after that. The forces that spawn after taking the bases are just a bit too strong, I think, specifically the two Chaparral/Strela units. By the way, the Abu Dhabi mission has similar victory conditions but I have had sessions where there's a back and forth with Blue and Red both taking the same airfield in turn. Abu Dhabi is otherwise very different from 5PU (aircraft mix, distance from airfields, how close the objectives are to each other, etc.) so I think that going all the way down to just 2 AAA units spawning like in Abu Dhabi is not the right answer. But maybe having just one IR SAM unit instead of two, or replacing the Chaparral/Strela units with MANPADS, will give a bit more fluidity to the battlefield.

Including the FARPs as objectives is a brilliant idea, and I can easily imagine some interesting group dynamics and heated discussions happening between the fixed-wing and helo guys on each team because of it.

The crazy thing about the F-14 is that not only would it have the best air-to-air radar on the server, making intercepts far easier than listening to the AWACS, but it also would have the best WVR sensor, with Jester giving the pilot call-outs. So even in a mission with just guns, the Tomcat could just fly towards the contact 100 miles away, get close, have Jester tell you where it is (if you don't want to lock it up with the radar), and then engage.

I think you'll find a very different opinion about the AV-8B if you talk to some Red pilots. :) They don't like that you can fly them in some missions now; I'm not sure they are big advocates of adding them to every mission. The DCS version of the Harrier is a bit too advanced, avionics-wise, for this server with its modern HUD, effective RWR, ARBS and FLIR, etc. I'm over here squinting at ARC stations on the kneeboard in a MiG or calculating the magnetic variation for Abu Dhabi in my Mi-8, and the Harrier Boyz are flying around with a moving map displayed in their cockpit... To be fair, the same can be said of the Ka-50. I don't want to speak for Alpenwolf but he has said before here that some of the aircraft included are really placeholders for when more appropriate aircraft are introduced into the game like the Sea Harrier, F-8, F-4, Mi-24, etc.

Alpenwolf, in Five Points Unleashed there are two cargo loads at the Red FARP that can be (actual-style) slingloaded. I think they were a fuel tank and a logistics box or something. Do those have any effect on the mission, if we take them somewhere? Also, small bug when you try to contact the FARP on the radio, there's no name for Kalitka in the list of possible ATCs. It's there, and you can contact it on 122.5Mhz, but the name next to "F1" or whatever is blank.