Habu23

I'm currently on TDY and have not flown DCS: A-10C since probably the April or May time frame. If the drag indexes were incorrect for stores, that's an easy kill for the cause of the reduced performance. My issues previously were with ITT's and fuel flows as a cause but I will revisit those in game and post again when I return home. 15 Celsius at sea level are good test parameters. I fully admit that not citing source documents, the internet factor, and going with feel alone will raise eyebrows, I get it, and thanks for listening to me. To put you all at ease, Wags has verified my credentials. I want you all to know that sim devs and fans should probably pay more attention to intangibles like "feel" at least as a consideration if you want the best experience. Power limitations over time for WW2 German engines immediately come to mind, where you always see discrepancies between technical orders and testimonies. SME consultation by DCS and other sims has probably been invaluable for a lot of the WW2 modules. I'll get back to you all, thanks for the good and promising testing!

I fly the A-10, and the power available in game is noticeably less than real life. I'm not going to cite documents but just take my word for it. The jet should be able to fly at 280-300 KIAS on a standard atmosphere day from the surface to 10,000 ft. I routinely can do this with a SCL (loadout) of two TGM mavericks, a rocket pod, LITENING II pod, an ALQ-184 long pod that is heavier than the 184 in game, a LAU-105 with an AIM-9, and two empty TER's. I've reached out already to the devs regarding this performance limitation but other modules are taking priority. The power limitation in game is crippling when it comes to Turn Level Turn safe escapes, low altitude maneuvering, and medium altitude holding. From what I see the ITT's of both engines are generally too low at max power at sea level and the fuel flows are too low. It's entirely possible that a simple revisit of the engine modeling with actual pilot consultation is all that is needed to fix this.

Hello all, Just to provide an update a few months since I last posted. There are currently two missions in progress: a Georgia Bactria-esque mission with a heavy emphasis on JP 3-09.3 Close Air Support and ground integration, and a semi-randomized spec ops/conventional focused mission in Persian Gulf. The latter will likely be released first because the Georgian mission is already 10mb with only ONE tasking complete, that should give you some idea about the immersion and audio file quantity. The first mission is A-10 and Harrier, the second mission is A-10, Harrier, F-18/14 depending on which jet is a more finished product on mission release. Regarding the existing Bactria, as far as I know it should be 100% full up with recent patches but some of the static object placements might not make sense or are nullified by the placement of trees in recent patches. Those would need to be fixed and I'll look into it. For those that want to fly Bactria with different jets, it's very easy to do by simply replacing the jets in the editor with the type you want. The trigger structure should not change as long as you keep the original A-10 units on the map. Recognize though that the coordinate structure is still issued in MGRS, so that might complicate things. Make sure to save the mission in the editor with the latest DCS version to keep things stable. Thanks all for the support. Habu/Force

In real life our 82AIR weapon profiles which come pre-loaded in DSMS will have Pilot Opt 1 selected so that for diving delivery profiles only the nose fuse is activated and for high drag deliveries the tail fuse is actuated to deploy the ballute. With weapon profiles no other input is needed by the pilot with regards to fuzing. Any other fuzing combo is rarely used. Habu

In real life we avoid manual wind profile inputs because LASTE does a very good job sniffing the winds as we climb and applying it to its default and extrapolated wind model. We also do a "delta update" by double tapping enter on UFCP (not modeled) before employing at the range for example to allow IFFCC to correct for altimeter error and "sniffed" baro alt vs. GPS alt. If everything works properly, it should not be necessary. Habu

Thanks to you and Sandman for the glowing endorsements. Believe it or not a major sequel to Bactria is in development that promises to be more immersive and awesome than ever before. My goal is to make it the definitive CAS experience for DCS featuring the A-10C and AV-8B or F/A-18 support on day one. Expect it to be a more focused and immersive experience rather than a sandbox. Of course, learning to fly the hawg in real life has taken away a lot of my free time recently but rest assured it's in production and it won't disappoint! As for modifying the existing Bactria mission, that's something that I can do hopefully in short order. The major issue seems to be foliage and changes in units since it was last released back in 1.2.x. Habu/Force

Thank you very much for your appreciation. I think its fitting to deliver the following news. Last night I learned that I will be flying the A-10C after the longest, hardest, but most rewarding year of my life in USAF pilot training. I'm glad to hear that this mission gives others as much enjoyment and fulfillment as it has for me. As promised and in celebration of the above news, expect a remastered version of Bactria taking advantage of new editor features and possibly a brand new mission once the 1.5 and 2.0 integration is complete! Habu

I recently purchased the push through mod made by Debolestis and I was very impressed. Apart from being slightly too thin (not a huge factor at all because the load from the throttles wants to move the part longitudinally and not laterally) the pressure and AB range feels great. I fly the T-38 and considering that most PC joysticks and throttles require significantly less force to move compared to real life, I have to say that the AB "push through force" is very accurate for the Warthog throttle in proportion to the real life force. The part can be improved by making the part wider, bottom rounded to sit flush with the part assembly between the throttles, and for a slightly bulkier push through surface. If more clarification is needed, I can provide photos. What is in fact more interesting is that the mod provides a more realistic "mil power" setting compared to the stock "lift over" detente. I tested this on the Nevada map at 31 degrees Celsius at Nellis field elevation (~1800 ft). The stock Warthog detente at mil power gives me 100% RPM, 20% nozzle, and 2100 lbs/hr fuel flow. With the mod installed, I get 103% RPM, 16% nozzle, and 2500 lbs/hr fuel flow as depicted. This matches the Dash-1 ops limits for mil power: What was also interesting is that the brakes did not hold me at mil power when I was clean at either the stock or mod AB detente. With two AIM-9P's, a centerline tank, and two GBU-12's the brakes held up ok. Habu

I fly T-38's and it is procedure to have speed brakes extended and gear doors manually extended after landing for maintenance purposes. After engine start it is a team effort between crew chief and pilot to test all flight controls for proper movement (trim, stabs [including trim disconnect at max deflection], ailerons, rudder, speed brake operation, flaps [all configurations], and pitot heat). We cannot see well behind us so the crew chief moves his arms to indicate how flight controls are moving and checks to make sure they are operating and moving correctly. Habu

Hello all, I have read about the above issues that you have presented. When I last wrote "1.5" was considered the end state of DCS versioning but now we are all anxiously awaiting "2.5." Due to various bugs and such that happen between patches, I have suspended doing the final bug sweep until the DCS build is in a state of stability. A week a go I hosted Bactria as a private server and everything worked as intended, but I am not sure about the dedicated server situation. One thing to always do is save the mission in the editor after patches. I will be beginning real life Air Force flight training in a few weeks, so time will not be on my side. I do pledge, however, to make Bactria fully functional once the DCS dust settles. Who knows, maybe you can expect a brand new, similar type mission in Nevada? :smilewink: Habu

Hello all, I have not forgotten the task of updating this mission to ensure it functions 100% correctly in 1.5. Before the last patch I couldn't even open missions in the editor, so that was a decisive blow to productivity. Regarding the indestructible buildings, when Bactria was first released a single 500 lb. bomb was enough to destroy it. Somewhere in 1.2 after development for Bactria ceased, it was no longer possible to instantly destroy the building used in this tasking. The building WILL die, it just takes about 5 minutes or more after impact to explode from my experience. It doesn't matter how much ordnance you drop on it, it will take this long to die. In a future patch I'll try my best to replace it with one that explodes instantly. Force

Hello all, Thanks for all of the positive feedback since my last response. I have been away from home since early September, and I have not had a chance to take a look at the mission for 1.5. A friend tested the mission for me, and he told me that the biggest problem seems to revolve around infantry spawning. I am hoping that this is simply a bug with the game, and will not require a lot of tweaking on my end. For starters, make sure to save the mission in the 1.5 editor before loading it up. This may help significantly. Things will be getting very busy for me in 2016, and as I announced earlier, I believe Bactria is maxed out in terms of available content (mainly file size restricted). When I return home, I promise the community that I will do everything I can to get this mission 100% compatible with 1.5 and fix any outstanding bugs (very few I know of that are left). This update will most likely be called Op. Bactria v3.3 since no original content will be added. I always appreciate the huge amount of positive feedback I received, and I am glad that I provided so much entertainment to you all. Habu/Force

Just to chime in as the author, Tusk flight is the most realistic and immersive, while Hawg and Pig flights require more ordnance usage and has a more varied target environment. Tusk flight is fully functional, although one of the taskings was glitched from a DCS patch many months ago. One of the UAZ's you have to track does not continue on past a certain waypoint. This is fixed by expanding the trigger zone radius "Task#36_VehicleInZone" to 350m, although you lose some immersion because the car will not actually go to the enemy camp. Habu

Note to Mods: This is not the same issue discussed in the thread "[REPORTED] wings break off at 4g", although it is likely related from a development standpoint. I was dogfighting in multiplayer and pulling moderate G with the Bf-109 when all of a sudden I felt my wing snap, something that is sadly happening too often. Only, it wasn't exactly a snap. According to Tacview, this incident happened at 523 km/h in a sustained turn of no more than 6.5 G's. Version is 1.2.15.372 (Release). Please see below: In the aftermath of the incident, I had no aileron authority but my rudders and elevators worked. I felt a sharp left roll sensation but I was able to correct for this with right rudder. I eventually dropped the flaps to provide extra lift to correct for this problem. I was even able to land, and I recorded video of me doing it if anyone is interested. Track File Available Here (Incident occurs at 07:25:26 game time / 37:57 into the Track) Tacview File Available Here (Incident occurs at 07:25:26 game time / 37:57 into the Tacview) Editorial Notes: First of all, I have been extremely sensitive to the wing snapping issue discussed elsewhere. It usually occurs at moderate G conditions (5-6-7) AND high AOA conditions, i.e. when the airplane begins to shake. This bug happened during these exact same conditions, although the outcome was significantly different. I sincerely hope that the devs reexamine the wings of the Bf-109 as soon as possible. It is highly likely that this bug and the "wing snap" phenomenon discussed elsewhere are correlated. Habu

I'm personally withholding all mission making development until EDGE and Nevada are released. Once it is, I'm planning on making a Bactria-like sequel for this map with a more conventional-oriented twist to the combat. If there is any desert in the world to model, it's Nevada. It's not a flat sandbox like Iraq or the Sahara, there is plenty of terrain, foliage, altitude, etc. to go around to make it interesting. The real question is the Normandy map. If the devs are putting a lot of time to model Northern France, I have to ask them consider expanding East to at least the Oder river. This will satisfy the "Cold War gone hot" junkies like myself, and also making the entire DCS: WWII project complete. It would be a true, dual use theater. Habu

Excellent mission MBot. This is a ground breaking mission that is truly revolutionary. When many official voices said that a dynamic campaign was impossible or simply not worth the effort, leave it to an amateur modder like yourself to give flight sim veterans like myself something that we have been wanting for years: a dynamic campaign in DCS. The execution, progress saving, and procedural debriefings are incredible. My squadron has been flying this every Sunday for the past few weeks as an event. We noticed one problem: Sometimes when we press F10 > Confirm End > End Mission, the mission does not actually end and nothing happens. We are using the older version of DCS v1.2.14.357 to work around the unit creation problems of the latest version. Any reason why this is happening? Thanks again MBot. Habu

Hello all, Thanks all for your bug reports. It is patch-related problems like these that have stopped me from releasing any new missions or significant patches for Bactria. I have noted all of your reports and have put them into my mission build. By the way, I'm curious if everything works properly for Boar Flight, the 2-Ship? I have not flown that particular flight in a long time. Habu

Operation Bactria v3.2 Released Download Link, v3.2 Compatible with latest version of DCS: World but only guaranteed to work 100% with much older versions of DCS: World. I will overhaul the entire mission once EDGE gets released. Hello all, Today I uploaded a new version of Op. Bactria into the user files section of the ED website. As I have said before, I'm not a big fan of having to issue patches because I prefer to release large, complete updates that add new content. The only addition in this version is the option for players to end the tasking they are on via a F10 radio action. PLEASE ALLOW 5 MINUTES FOR NEW TASKING TO BE GENERATED, AND NOT EVERY TASKING WILL PROVIDE INSTANT, VERBAL FEEDBACK WHEN THE TASKING HAS BEEN ENDED VIA F10 ACTION. New tasking will, however, be created within 5 minutes of pressing the action. The circumstances around this "hotfix" are rather unfortunate given the fact that the latest DCS patches have broken a tasking in Tusk flight where a UAZ drove to a compound. I cannot guarantee that this tasking will work again in v3.2, but at least players can opt to end the tasking if it is still broken. All other taskings should work normally. Again, when EDGE gets released, expect an overhaul and new missions using the Bactria-style framework. Habu

Regarding the problem with the UAZ, I privately added a feature where a user can cancel the existing mission with a F10 radio action to begin another one. This would be useful if players get frustrated with a certain tasking, but more importantly, it future proofs the mission from bugs that come up with new patches and issues that mission makers cannot control. When EDGE comes out I will re-release this mission and hopefully remove these patch-induced bugs. Habu

This was absolutely an amazing campaign. There was never a dull moment and with the added dimension of PVP, at any time you could be the hunter or the hunted. It demonstrated that with enough ingenuity and creativity the DCS environment could be dynamic. The flight planner application that allowed squadron leaders to create custom steerpoint positions that could be uploaded to the data cartridges of the various aircraft was most impressive. Force

I also feel that the BMP cannon and the machine gunners of tanks are simply too accurate even at low AI difficulty settings. I don't necessarily have a problem with them firing at aircraft, but as it stands now they are almost more effective than Shilkas in terms of hitting their target. They will hit you at high altitudes (~4,000 feet in some cases) and during high G jinks in both the vertical and horizontal axis. At times I have had to factor in BMP's as virtual air defenses when designing missions and a threat environment, something that should not happen at least for aircraft. Habu

Few questions: Which flight were you in? If you were in Hawg, Pig, or Tusk, then it is likely that you didn't kill all the units you needed to in order to progress. Sound files will always play once a particular condition is met to lead you to the next tasking. If you were in Boar flight (the 2 ship) where the in-game JTAC is used then sadly I cannot guarantee reliability or stability. With every patch the way the JTAC processes and assigns target seems to change, causing many issues with this flight in the mission. Habu

With my tests I was able to get the speed down to about 14 knots at 10 meters above the ocean. If I went just a 100 feet higher, the wind speed increases drastically to double the speed set in the editor, 24 knots. I understand that a gradient needs to be modeled to correctly and realistically progress through the various wind gradients, but the way it is now is more of a multiplier effect than a gradual, normally distributed gradient. If I set wind speed at 6 m/s on the ground in the mission editor, as a mission maker I would expect that the wind will blow at 6 m/s (+ or - a few knots, not double its wind speed) on the ground up to at least 4,000 feet, simply because I wanted it so. With the current system, I am forced to put in a value half of what is desired in order for the wind to be consistently 6 m/s from 10m to 2000m above the ground. This isn't entirely obvious, and may lead to unintended consequences for mission designers not fully aware of how wind is implemented. I hope you all understand what I am saying.

Interesting discussion by all, but please understand that this is not an issue of the IFFCC computing accurate results or if wind is realistically implemented, because as you all have mentioned it is so. Instead, there is a disconnect between the value entered by a mission maker for ground level wind speed and the actual wind speed seen in game (multiplied by two). Habu

After practicing CCIP and CCRP attacks with dumb bombs, I was becoming increasingly frustrated when my bombs were flying very far off course. Over the past half year, many people were convinced that the A-10C's LASTE system was to blame for bomb inaccuracy. After 1.2.6, I was only able to hit targets when I turned the wind completely off. Whenever I set a consistent wind speed and direction on the ground, 2,000m, and 8,000m, I could not hit anything. It turns out that this was not LASTE's fault at all. In fact, the wind speed that you set at 10m is multiplied by two in the game regardless of the value set in the editor. It is entirely believable that there is an accidental (x2) in the code that is making this occur. LASTE and calculating systems of other aircraft are indeed computing a good solution, but an unexpected and incredibly strong wind layer in the last few thousands of feet are causing bombs to fly off course. Let me demonstrate: Editor Settings: CDU wind readouts and bomb results: Bombs hit way off the mark downwind of the target: Now ground level wind speed is set to half the desired value: Editor Settings: CDU wind readouts and bomb results: Bombs hit right on the mark! In each test three bombs were dropped with 30 feet dispersion via level CCRP release at 6,500 feet to minimize error margin in experiment. Results are consistent with any wind speed inputted in the editor. Conclusion: There is definitely an issue with ground level wind speeds being multiplied by two while in the game. This problem does not occur when dynamic weather is used. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next patch. Habu