Bushmanni

Do you think it would work as a useful 3d pointing device for operating switches and buttons in 3d cockpit? Could you swipe a switch up or down to move it in respective direction or "push" a button with your finger with good accuracy? Can it detect a pinch gesture and rotation of your hand to operate turn knobs? Can it track your both hands in front of and at sides of your body in large enough space where the virtual cockpit would be? I don't think we need all kinds of fancy finger gestures for this to be usable but the stuff I'm asking about is something you would need for DCS.

If you can't read the raw data from mouse but have to rely on windows cursor position, you can just hide it and force the windows cursor position to the center of the screen and after a while (like one frame time) read how much it has moved and then re-center it again and display another cursor for the player. In principle I like the idea of cursor position tied to cockpit coordinates instead of screen. There might be a problem when you need to move the cursor large distances in the cockpit as depending on the settings the cursor could be too inaccurate or too slow. If this is a problem it could be made to always stay inside the screen borders so that turning your head will not leave the cursor too far behind. While the position of the cursor is in cockpit coordinates the coordinate system for movement should be oriented to the screen so that moving mouse up still moves the cursor up on the screen.

If you destroy your tail boom the tail rotor sound stops but the main rotor still keeps making noise so the sounds are already separate. Not too much to fix I hope.

You can save fuel by using lower RPM in some situations.

Buildings don't seem to block optics LOS for AI. I used the new SSE functions to see when the AI sees me and what sensors can see me and outputting it as text to the screen. In the track you can see that AI sees me instantly in the beginning of the mission and flies straight to me and tries to shoot me through a building. At one point he also flies through a building. So far I haven't seen any definite indication of AI requiring some time to see me. If I'm behind his 3/9 line he doesn't see me and when I get in front of that he instantly spots me as long as I'm close enough (about 12km is the largest starting separation I have had in my tests and always got instantly spotted). When the AI follows last known trajectory he doesn't stop when the trajectory is above open featureless plain with no place to hide. There should be some kind of LOS check to a point in the ground under the targets assumed current position in order to detect this condition. When the LOS check determines there's LOS the AI could fly the route between points where the target was last seen and where he should have appeared again but didn't. AI Spotting Bugs.trk Test AI spotting urban.miz

Good stuff!

I assume the bell crank (where the control rod is connected) is connected to a (spring loaded?) valve that controls how fast and which direction the actuator is moving so that the actuator basically follows the movement of the pull rod. How much movement the valve has and how much force you need to apply to fully open it? How fast the actuator moves when the valve is fully open? I don't really need to know all this but I'm curious and I'm interested about stuff that affects the feel of the controls. Maybe some day when I have money and time I will build myself a set of proper helicopter cyclic, collective and pedals with force feel trim mechanism and I want them to have realistic feel. KAU-30B and PA-60B seem like they have the same body but PA-60B just has some extra stuff attached outside, is this correct? You don't get this detailed look under the bonnet of a helicopter everyday. Thanks a lot for your trouble.

Remove enemy fighters from fast mission by modifying the mission generation parameters as A-10 isn't supposed to fight fighters. Fast missions aren't built just for A-10 but they are randomly built according to the selected parameters. With default settings you often get some pretty hard if not impossible missions regardless of difficulty setting.

Just saw this picture and remembered that I had seen helicopter blade tip vortexes also on a video. It's quite shaky but couldn't find a better version. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuhuLLNMgus

I have been thinking about that but don't know how to do it or even how the scheduling works in detail. Could you PM me a general idea how to do it so I can search about the details of the implementation on my own.

Maybe this is what you are after? I modified the message system I use in my DCS Battlefield mission into a simpler version. It will show multiple messages and each message for individually specified time on screen. In the original version you can specify if the message is for all, red, blue, or for a group (you give it the group name) but it's a bit more complicated to use and it takes lot more time to figure out how the actual message system works. I haven't tested these functions but they are based on tested and working functions so there shouldn't be big problems. To use you just do the script file and then call addMessage(string message, number duration) to show messages. Feel free to edit or use it in any way you want. SimpleMessageSystem.lua

These are amazing. Keep them coming. I'd like to see this kind of details about control systems, force feel trim mechanisms, etc.

I posted a video of helicopter air to air fighting with guns only, me in Ka-50 vs. 4x Apaches. The engagement is pretty ridiculous in regards to tactics as only the flight lead is trying to engage me, and when he gets hit, he makes an evasive maneuver during which I get into his six and he forgets about me. Meanwhile his wingmen just keep flying formation on him while I position myself for the final sweep. First of all the shooter in the group should be changed if the current shooter is in some way not able to shoot and there's someone else in a better position. Targets aspect, range and altitude difference should be considered when choosing the best unit to shoot. Basically figure out whose going to be able to get a good shot at the target quickest. There should be some delay for selecting new shooter so that it doesn't get swapped around multiple times in a second but so that it would take 3-5s at least to choose a new shooter, basically simulate the delay it takes to communicate the change. Most ATGMs can be dodged by flying fast enough perpendicular to them. AI choppers should try to dodge these missiles like that unless they can kill the shooter before his missiles can hit. Apache should be able to use this technique while guiding Hellfires. While it might be too much advantage in air-to-air against Ka-50 for playability, it should be implemented at least for the excellent skill level.

It's silly that the wingmen just fly formation with the lead as he's dodging my shells instead of engaging me. I hope that with the new AI spotting algorithm the tactics side gets beefed up to make up some of the lost ability. Group AI should be able to change the shooter if someone else is in a better position or the current shooter is somehow busy or can't shoot. I know who's the leader from experience, but before that I figured it out by seeing who is facing me and who the others follow. I don't remember ever getting shot at from 3k out with a gun by an AI helicopter. They used to open up at 1.5km and at some point it changed to 1km. Are you sure it wasn't just an erroneous range reading as thats pretty usual in air-to-air? That's the reason I lase before shooting just in case the range reading is bugged to get best chance to score a hit.

I'm kind of proud and bummed by this video as shooting down AI choppers kind of ain't easy but by exploiting AI weaknesses it's a turkey shoot. BS vs. 4x Apaches in a guns only air to air engagement.

As long as the resolution is high enough to read instruments and see far off enemies, FOV is at least 90 degrees and head tracking is of good quality VR helmet will revolutionize flight simming. Seeing the world in 3d is a major benefit in flying and aiming the guns in addition to the immersion it creates. While a pit with multiple projectors might be better than a VR helmet you will need lots of space and expensive equipment for it that most of us can't afford. And while projectors and GFX cards might become more powerful and cheaper in the furure, so will the tech for VR helmets. I just can't see how multiple projectors can ever be cheaper than a single VR helmet. I don't mind the people who can see only the negative in new stuff but ED needs to seriously check this tech out as it has huge potential..

I found the missing files, they were created at the root of the drive where the selected folder is and filename containing the supposed folder name as a prefix. It could be that the recorder doesn't automatically add a backslash after folder path and uses the last folder name as a prefix in the filename instead.

Put autopilot in path mode and when doing the attack run, point your velocity vector towards or slightly above the target group and engage autopilot. This will effectively ground stabilize the maverick seeker and you can lock the targets with ease by slewing the seeker. If you start from max range you can fire all your mavericks this way before getting too close if the group isn't too spread out.

That game had great potential but I was expecting a tactical squad leading simulation and got an action puzzle game instead. Would have loved to see the Army version as it supposedly didn't have all the stupid things the consumer version had. But anyway, doing something similar with DCS infantry might not be too bad idea, as long as the infantry AI is updated to meet the demand. As DCS World consists mostly of forests, mountains and fields the gameplay can't be copied directly from FSW as it dealt only with urban environment. Back in the days (maybe 1993) there was a game called Seal Team that had somewhat similar idea but environment being Vietnamese jungles. The graphics weren't that great but the idea was pretty cool. Here's a video of the gameplay. A crossbreed between Seal Team and Full Spectrum Warrior in DCS World would be sweet.

I have same problem. Can't make it to work. Would like to know if it works for someone else so to know if it's in DCS or my system.

The tracks in the older thread have been made with older version so it would be expected that they don't play back correctly. When I used POV hat (8 way digital) for Shkval I programmed my stick to send keyboard commands for the in between positions so that Shkval would slew also diagonally ie. up-left position would send Shkval up and Shkval left keyboard commands simultaneously. If your stick isn't programmable you might be able to use Autohotkey to do the same. The video would have been more impressive if the two remaining ones would have fought back as well. I'm kicking myself to the butt for not noticing that it obviously wasn't normal behavior before it was too late. I'm pretty confident that it wouldn't be too hard as I can win all the sub-battles of that kind of engagement quite consistently.

bump Very weak effect with Vikhr to an Apache. I got a direct hit right to the nose and Apache kept lobbing Hellfires at me like nothing happened, all he got was some holes to the nose. Hopefully this gets fixed soon. Hellfires are probably quite effective at hitting airborne targets as at least British Apache crews train to use them as an air-to-air weapon. That's probably also the reason for no dedicated air-to-air missiles on most Apaches. Granted you can't shoot down enemy fighter with them but trying to do it with any other missile wouldn't change much as Apaches chances would still be very bleak. Against helicopters Hellfire can be very deadly.

OK, I tried this thing again and my Vikhrs didn't seem to be very effective. Either they missed an easy target or event if they got a direct hit to the nose of an Apache it didn't kill him or even damage enough to prevent him quiding Hellfires at me. There's definitely something broken in the game currently.

I suspect there's some problem with the tracks as your second Vikhr salvo is shot in the air on both tracks and the Apaches butcher you as a consequence. You seemed to fire your first shot at ~9.5 km which is slightly far. While you can kill them at that distance, it's not a certain kill as if the target maneuvers too much the missiles won't be able to reach him. The other thing which you might already have noticed yourself is that only one of the Apaches attack you at one time so if you shoot them in a correct order, you can always kill the one who is attacking you and avoid being hit by a Hellfire. Other than that, it's just about being quick and not making any mistakes. I find it takes too much time to try to lock the second Apache or any of them after that so I will fire my missiles while manually tracking the targets. Because of the range estimation system in Ka-50 the Shkval tends go crazy if you try to track targets at co-altitude manually so I used HMS to get over the problem. If you watch my video you can see that I don't use mouse to do anything after my initial setup as I have all the necessary controls mapped to HOTAS and keyboard. I also have my zoom control in a joystick slider so I can zoom in and out quickly. You need to be able to operate everything without thinking ie. you notice some switch needs flicking and your finger does it on it's own without you needing to pay attention to it. This will require time and practice so you shouldn't worry about it too much as you can't have results overnight but you will certainly have eventually if you just keep practicing. In my video you can see that the second Apache got its tail rotor destroyed by my missile and it started to spin but didn't exactly die so the rest probably didn't even try to engage me as they considered the spinning one to be still in the fight. For some reason I didn't realize this but only some time later when someone else wondered about it. I try to make a track where the two last ones also engage me.

http://www.dynamicflight.com/aerodynamics/flapping/