Bushmanni

If you don't provide any condition, it's assumed to be true. Fortunately one ground commander can command all the ground units himself if needed or some of the pilots can do it also. In this mission the ground commanders won't have to sit idle as nothing is happening. During transit you can watch dogfights above you and it doesn't take long to get in to the battle yourself.

Thanks for the ideas. I think I try the pilot rescue thing if I can make it work but it might take some time. Here's the current version for those who want to recon the battle area beforehand.

I have been trying to figure out some useful role for the Hueys but haven't figured out anything adequate yet. As a gunship the Shark is much more useful and deadly so Hueys role would have to involve troop transport in some way. That means that infantry would need to have some important role in the gameplay. One meaningful role would be to transport MANPADS and deploy them to where ever the pilot manages to sneak into. Other thing might be to force the flag capture involve infantry in some role. Currently infantry in DCS is pretty much cannon fodder so this is a bit complicated. Currently the capture zone is marked by two TV-towers, the zone being a trigger zone between them. I'm using two towers so that one is on blue side and other on red side so that one of them will show on the map for both sides.

I will put up the server again next Saturday 19-23 as before with an updated version of the mission. I'd like to hear comments about hot/cold startup. Right now with the hot start it takes about 5min to get back to action. The problem is that there's really no point to fly back for rearm or repair as it's lot quicker to just eject and respawn. With cold start it would be as fast to fly back for rearm but then it would take about 10min to get into action. I'm wondering if it's too much as one round will typically take about 50min. Then again it might give the ground pounder some break. I will host versions with hot and cold start and see what people think.

Thanks for everyone who participated. I hope to hear your comments on the mission. For me fps was down to 15-30 when ground units started to slug it out en masse and I'd like to know if it was only a server problem or if clients suffered from it also. When there wasn't too much going on I had 40-50fps. The first thing I'm going to do is reduce the number of ground units as there was more than enough available so it shouldn't affect the feel of the mission much. I also had some lua errors with respawn script. It was every time with a different unit and the errors always happened when there was lots of stuff going on. Unfortunately I didn't have time to read what it exactly said in the heat of the battle.

I finally got this mission into betatest condition. It takes the basic gameplay idea of BF but changes it quite a lot to fit in the DCS universe. The main differences are longer distances to drive and fly (although very short for DCS mission) and much more aircrafts and helicopters to use. It will take about 5min for aircrafts to get to battle area from their start location. This time only CA, A-10C and Ka-50 are included but I'm planning to add other modules later. All ground units will re-spawn indefinitely and instantly and can be controlled by pilots. I will put up a server for betatest today (June 10th 2013) and it will be up from 19 to 23 (GMT+2 +1 (summer time)). There will be 64 slots open initially. If my connection (100/40 measured) or computer can't handle it, then I will lower the player limit. Unfortunately I can't provide Teamspeak server. Welcome everyone. I would appreciate bug reports and feedback about game balance and other issues. EDIT: I'm going to attach the latest version of the mission to the first post from now on. DCS Battlefield beta 7.miz

I really can't see this as a feasible thing on a MP as most likely the ejected pilot will end up very far away from the home plate as a jet will cover lots of miles very quickly. Getting to the crash site with a helicopter will take a long time, thats why the CSAR helos have aerial refuel equipment. Even if the missions are built with much shorter distances compared to real life as the jet pilots don't want to fly the realistic distance either, the flying time for the chopper will be about four times that of the jet, ie. there's still plenty of time for the CSAR pilot to get bored on the way not to mention the shot down pilot. Who would have time for all of this? Then who's going to be the CSAR pilot? Is he waiting there killing time while being ready as in real life or is someone originally flying the mission going to be diverted to fly CSAR bird? Most likely only free pilot would be the one who just got shot down.

Surprise created by innovation and thinking out-side-the-box is a key element of a real war and the thing that makes interesting war stories that we like to read about. The problem is that to have and do that kind of stuff in the sim requires the programmer to put it in the game first. But how that can be done if its something no one has ever though about before?

AH-64A would provide all the important stuff that a proper attack helicopter needs to have and in a well thought out battle tested and tweaked platform. The weak points of Apache aren't issues for simmers (price and maintenance requirements). Longbow is just an even more refined version with radar which isn't the kind of super SA system like it's portrayed in media and games. You will still get shot down by unseen MANPADS in AH-64D just like in Ka-50 if your tactics and SA suck. Getting a simplified D model would be worse than getting a properly made A model.

I was impressed how easy it was to implement this library to respawn groups where I wanted and when. Great work, thanks.

This sounds really good. I can't wait.

The reaction delay of the AI AAA gunners is like they know you are coming. The whole idea of the pop-up attack is to surprise the enemy and bomb him before they get organized. The other thing is that pop-up tactics are meant to be used on areas where horizontal visibility is reduced due to hills, buildings or trees as on clear flat ground you can be seen miles away regardless of how low you fly. As AI can see through trees, has super quick reaction times and almost psychic like spotting abilities there's not that many opportunities to use pop-up tactics effectively in DCS against AI. Against human AAA gunners it's a whole different story though.

T-72M1 is a downgraded export version which doesn't have tube launched ATGM among other things. I don't think the soviet models we have in DCS have ever faced western tanks IRL.

I think AFM is using blade element method for calculating forces acting on a wing. In short you divide the object into smaller sections and calculate the effects of flow on each of them and then combine the forces together to get the net effect. It seems ED is also using some kind of additional model for simulating the flow not directly attached to the aircraft body. This is especially evident in Ka-50 flight model where the induced airflow has profound effects on the forces acting on the blades. The aerodynamic forces in BEM (blade element method) are calculated by finding the velocity vector of the flow in relation to the element being examined and then using tables or formulas derived from experiments to determine the resulting lift, drag and torque. You can find these tables for different airfoils from the internet or from the manufacturers of the aircraft if you have the required connections. You can also make the experiments yourself if you have access to the exact airfoil shape and wind tunnel or CFD program (both methods are expensive and time consuming though). BEM doesn't model the flow around the object like wake effects. For that you need some additional modelling. Doing it accurately requires using Navier-Stokes equations (this is what CFD or computational fluid dynamics programs do) which is complicated and requires lots of computing power and is currently not possible in real time with home computers. We are actually on the verge of having CDF flight models being reality as there's already some simple programs that can do this in real time but not with enough accuracy to model an airplane or with enough processing power left for any other calculations besides it. Having 5-10x the processing power of current high end gaming machines should do the job. Anyway for wake modelling (like propwash or induced flow in helicopter rotor) you need some kind of model that approximates the flow in a reasonably accurate manner but requires only simple calculations. I think this is the secret sauce that ED has that makes them the top dog in game industry flight models. BEM and CFD are both well known methods for aerodynamics modelling and used in engineering and science but there's no method that I know of for approximating the wake effects in conjunction with BEM.

Having free slots for doorgunners would be really nice but I don't think that co-pilot slot needs to be free.

As long as the chopper has enough speed at least some models like Apache can fly and even land (will be more like a controlled crash though) without tailrotor.

Rename the autopilot as co-pilot instead and make the hint display simpler and smaller.

Try using collective for fine pitch control. Increasing collective produces pitch-up moment and lowering collective a pitch-down moment. This way you can aim very accurately relatively easy.

Rockets are best against area targets. I think it was mission named Highway where you had to find and destroy insurgent base at the mountains. I flew there, found the base and took out MANPADS sentries with Vikhrs and then leveled the base with S-8 rockets launching all of them in one go from 3km distance. The spread was about the same as the camp size and only few infantry and tents survived that I moved down with gun. In real life you would probably usually use them to level patches of forest where you know some enemy infantry are hiding but can't see them.

RPG infantry already attacks helicopters flying slowly too close. At least they did some patches ago. Have you actually tried if still works?

If you happen to start climbing too late you can always climb in spiral turn right before the mountain crossing or you can climb while flying alongside the mountain. The reason why you need to keep 130kmh IAS while climbing is that rotor creates lift most efficiently at that speed, ie. you get highest rate of climb. At very high altitude you might not even be able to keep your altitude except by flying at 130kmh. If you slow down to give yourself more time to climb you will see that rate of climb declines and your chopper might stop climbing altogether. The other thing is that by flying at 130kmh you will use the least amount of fuel in relation to time, ie. it's the speed for maximum endurance.

+1

Not exactly a program but the best I have found. You will need to be able to record "What-U-hear" as the free demo doesn't support download. https://acapela-box.com/AcaBox/index.php

It would be useful to be able to map different bindings to the same keys on different keyboards without the bindings getting mixed. The best option would be to have this supported in the DCS itself. There's also third party software to do this to some extent but it won't stop DCS recognizing the key presses also which will lead to problems. With this you could have your main keyboard dedicated for typing to chat or CDU and the other 15€ keyboard with glued on custom labels to operate other equipment without needing to use any kind of key combinations.

You can take-off with one engine by first sliding on the ground until you reach about 100kph speed and then increasing collective more and pulling nose up a little bit. If you have landing gear down this might not be possible on soft ground. By sliding on the belly you will almost certainly wreck Shkval, doppler radar and get some other structural damage but at least you will get home.