Where are you guys?????

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

Thx David, will certainly give it a try!

 

For me, and in order not to completely turn a MP session into an arcade mode, and to overcome the difficulties we presently face to visually identify other aircraft, a dot will be just great. This way I will still have to learn many other aspects of online combat in DCS World, but at least be able to glimpse the friends or foes :-)

 

BTW: can we make those dots colored according to teams?

 

One other question regarding the DOW server, and the fact that sometimes icons are visible, in 3d and in map view, while in other circumstances they're not. Is there a schedule for each type of server sessions? For instance - thursday sessions are "clueless", etc... ?

[Merlin-27]

One other question regarding the DOW server, and the fact that sometimes icons are visible, in 3d and in map view, while in other circumstances they're not. Is there a schedule for each type of server sessions? For instance - thursday sessions are "clueless", etc... ?

 

Right now it's up to the discretion of the DoW pilots on the server. Several members have the ability to load/restart missions and you can always request a change if you see any of us flying. Also there are some built-in time limits and restarts on some of the missions. Right now it's a bit random as far as what mission you may encounter when joining but we are working on a standard configuration for daily missions and DoW events. We have discussed having a regular rotation and weekly events so that you would know what to expect at specific days & times and then at that point we can publish a schedule of some sort.

 

We will get there :) Thanks for visiting the server.

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

Ok Merlin,

 

one thing I really have to try is to be able to stay online for a while more, and start using TS too!

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

yes jump on ts!we may shoot, but we dont bite! :)

 

in regards of mission settings...

 

ive built a new mission, Dogs of WWII, where the settings are full real.no icons on the map, no labels, no F5.instead i tried to build the mission the way, that people will still find each other.there are many flak zones as well as ground targets.

so far, the people who tested the mission didnt seem to have problems to find the enemy...hope you enjoy it guys.

Edited July 10, 2014 by 9./JG27 DavidRed

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

yes jump on ts!we may shoot, but we dont bite! :)

 

in regards of mission settings...

 

ive built a new mission, Dogs of WWII, where the settings are full real.no icons on the map, no labels, no F5.instead i tried to build the mission the way, that people will still find each other.there are many flak zones as well as ground targets.

so far, the people who tested the mission didnt seem to have problems to find the enemy...hope you enjoy it guys.

 

David,

 

the mission is great, and I've actually been there with you today :-), but whenever I believe I'm beginning to find the right way to spot the opponent, he / it appears from my 6 and shots me down, or family calls... Well, maybe later tonight, or tomorrow early morning I can give it a new try.

 

One question: can I use the AN/APS13 RWR? I switched it on for a while and all of a sudden the alarm sounded, but I was flying accross mountain tops, and this can also generate false echoes (?)

Edited July 12, 2014 by jcomm

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

yes you can use it, and it works correctly...but just like you noticed, it will "trigger" also if you are too close to terrain(to low, or between mountains).

 

i was almost sorry to have shot you today.your teammate was flying on your six, and he was the actually the first who received some bullets by me...he broke away into a dive, so i decided to follow you instead of him....i gained slowly on you while you were flying straight.i expected every second that he will warn you with a short "6" message on the chatbar...but nothing....it took me about 30-60seconds from shooting at him to get on your six within bullets range....so he had plenty of time....well i guess, your only fault was, that you flew straight and level for such a long time.hope you didnt leave because you were annoyed though!glad you like the mission.

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

yes you can use it, and it works correctly...but just like you noticed, it will "trigger" also if you are too close to terrain(to low, or between mountains).

 

i was almost sorry to have shot you today.your teammate was flying on your six, and he was the actually the first who received some bullets by me...he broke away into a dive, so i decided to follow you instead of him....i gained slowly on you while you were flying straight.i expected every second that he will warn you with a short "6" message on the chatbar...but nothing....it took me about 30-60seconds from shooting at him to get on your six within bullets range....so he had plenty of time....well i guess, your only fault was, that you flew straight and level for such a long time.hope you didnt leave because you were annoyed though!glad you like the mission.

 

Hehe, believe me, I wasn't even aware that I had a teammate on my 6 :-/ Whow! I really have a lot to train....

 

Sure I didn't leave because of being shot down .... Wife was calling, already at a few minutes... and she was approaching my 6, and of that I was very aware :-)

 

Will try to fly the trainning missions that came with the p51d I bought some 2 yrs and never flew...

 

I really liked this mission on the DOW Server! Thx!

 

EDIT ( 2014-07-13 ):

==============

But today early morning, I left very upset with myself :-(

 

What the heck am I missing here????? I joined the Red forces, took off on my P51d and climbed to 17000'. All the way up I kept rocking the wings to look down trying to see any hint of another aircraft - nothing, NADA!

 

Well, I dived at high speed, and flak started. A few seconds later some guy at my 6 shot me :-/ Where the heck did he come from? Why couldn't I see any hint of it's airplane when descending?

 

Are you using any other ( tacview? ) tools that can show where other aircraft are ? Trully, I'm about to seriously consider that there's something wrong with my capacity to glimpse other aircraft around me in DCS.

 

I also still have to get the "Zoom" view functions set to some of my joysitck buttons because presently I have to use the mouse wheel for that - not very practical...

 

Next step will be learning the aircraft maneuvers that can help me get that guy out of my six before he shots me down :-)

 

I've just recently entered air combat simulation, and it was more through IL2 BOS, which I play almost 50 / 50 with DCS World. There is yet another install on my disk waiting for available time - Rise of Flight :-)

 

In IL2 BOS, even on the Expert Sessions ( MP ) while it is still difficult to find the other aircraft, and above all not to shot down friendly ( as I did already twice :-/ ) I at least have some success in identifying them. Not making a sort of excuse out of this sentence, but there really must be something too difficult in DCS in as far as visual identification of other aircraft goes...

 

Then, there's another problem I am already considering once I can positively identify other aircraft in the DOW server - finding out if it's friend or foe .... Since we can't yet fly the Fw-190, it'll be a p51d, just like mine, so, how can I tell, when for instance there are two of them already involved in a dogfight, which one I should aim at?

 

Well.... A Sunday will certainly leave me a couple of 15' time slots to fly online ...

 

One request for the DOW admins - making it possible to pick aircraft that are spawned already airborne, saving the player who is looking fwd to learn this sort of things the startup, taxi, takeoff and initial climb to level? This would be great, at least for me...

 

But, Above All!!!, I am thankful to the DOW team for making this superb server available. It has actually showed me a completely new / unexplored view of DCS World!

Edited July 13, 2014 by jcomm

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

hey jcomm!

 

making airspawns-well we had this in pretty much all of our other missions.i did on purpose avoid that in the Dogs of WWII mission.i feel, that when people have to start up the plane, take off, and fly towards enemy territory, they will take more care of their aircraft than if they just spawn in the air.its a mission design i did for a reason, and so, while i can understand your request, i will probably leave it as it is.

 

identifying friend/foe- ok if you were lucky enough to finally spot something in our missions :), then you still have to identify them.

 

the red forces p51 in all of our missions have the german "training staffel" skins.they wear the Balkenkreuze on their wings and have an orange belly.

 

in my Dogs of WWII mission, the blue-forces P51 use the "desert rat" skin.they have a pretty similar, if not the exact same main colour, but they have a red/orange spinner, as well as white invasion stripes on the wings.

 

spotting aircraft-well, just as you already recongized, it is hard.really hard, and yeah its harder than in real life.

 

while ive read on this forum, that some seem to use tacview for their advantage while flying, i wouldnt even know how to do that.even if i did, i think it would distract me more than beeing helpful.besides it probably isnt considered as fair gameplay.

 

zoom can be very helpful though and definitely is recommened to have it mapped properly, so that you can easily make use of it while flying-though i have to admit, that i was too lazy to remap it since my hardrive died on me three weeks ago and i didnt feel any disadvantage not using it since then.

 

and here we come to the settings...depending on your graphics card there are probably a couple of things you could adjust to make spotting a little easier...but especially in dcs itself you can make your life easier.

there are a couple of threads here in this forum, and to my surprise all of them suggest the exact opposite from what ive experienced...

 

MSAA-when in medium to close range it makes the dots a little bigger/easier to see against terrain, BUT, it decreases the range from where they become first visible.so personally i definitely prefer to have this disabled.

 

TSAA-cant really comment on visibilty here, but i am convinced, that it isnt improving visibilty, and sure it takes some frames away every second-have it disabled.

 

field of view-you can adjust this in your server.lua, if you want everytime the same default zoom, or just zoom around if you have it mapped properly.obviously, the narrower your field of view is, the further out you can spot planes.but of course, you your situtional awareness suffers if you use a too narrow zoom.

 

resolution-here is the thing where all the threads seem to disagree with my experience.the threads all suggest, that the higher your resolution is, the easier you should be able to spot targets.i personally have the total opposite opinion.for me just like in other sims it seems easier to spot planes, if you lower the resolution.it seems, that as soon as you lower the resolution(even if its only 1pixel) it will increase the contrast.but it will also make planes visible in farther distances.the big downside of this is of course, that the game wont look as nice anymore.

 

sweetfx-i would recommend instead of using the HDR feature of the game, to better use sweetfx.there is a already tuned JSGME compatible version by PeterP somewhere here in this forum....it definitely makes the game look way better, but also improves visibilty of planes somewhat

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

David,

 

thx again for taking your time to give me some more, very useful, suggestions.

 

Regarding having to start, táxi and takeoff, I agree with you, and that is actually something that makes me feel much more "at home" in DCS than in other sims. Also the detail of the aerodromes in DCS is so close to RL that it's a true pleasure and a lot more immersive to go through those procedures.

 

The reslution hint is something I really am going to try. I have a very low quality monitor ( led ) and 1920x1080. When I try to set it at lower resolution the effect is not always very tempting, but I never did that in DCS.

 

SweetFx is another very interesting hint. Never used it with FSX or X-Plane, but have heard the best about it. Beieve it's free too ( ? ). I will investigate.

 

I have a Geeforce GTX 650 Ti 1 Gb GDDR5 graphics board. I believe it can cope with SweetFx. Is it heavy on FPS?

 

The other aspect is really trying to:

 

1) Start my sessions when the probablility of being interrupted by outsider affairs is very low, so that I can concentrate and stay at the server for a reasonable amount of time, training with the others;

 

2) Read about combat flight techniques. A friend got me a copy of Shaw's FIGHTER COMBAT Tactics and Maneuvering, a precious source of info.

 

I am also using even the default p51d vs fw190 mission to train against that very smart AI oponente ( piece of cake to most of you, but not for me... yet :-)

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

yeah, sweetfx is free to use, and hardly has any impact on performance.i think there should be a thread by PeterP somewhere in the mod section where he already altered the default sweetfx settings to his likings(very good!no further adjustment needed anymore!) and even made it JSGME compatible.

i do not believe you will even notice a performance hit using it.

 

about good readings....while there is lots good stuff to read out there, it will still not make you a better pilot online.at least as long as you understood the basics of energy states...a good read though i would recommend over any other in regards of online flying is definitely In Pursuit.there is a free version of it, and really is a good read.i would recommend this one over Fighter Combat Tactics and Manouvering anytime, because it focuses more on the important things.still, you will have to fly to actually get better in flying :)

 

there is nothing wrong with using the default missions which ship with the game for training!

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

David,

 

from the SweetFx support page I just visited I got:

 

"SweetFX is a universal image improvement and tweaking mod, that works with almost any 32-bit DirectX 9, 10 or 11 game or application."

and further down their page:

"It does not work with 64bit game executables yet, however 64bit support should be coming in the near future - so far use the 32bit version of your game if it gives you a choice between 32 and 64bit."

 

How can we use it with DCS W, which is already 64 bit only?

 

Thx for point me into "In Pursuit" :-)

Edited July 14, 2014 by jcomm

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

well, this is "old" news.there is already a 64bit version of it.i will send you a pm hang out!

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

Got it!!!

 

Thx David!

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

you are welcome!

[Iberian]

DoW guys are very good pilots!

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

DoW guys are very good pilots!

 

Yep! They are :-) and that's why I am trying to learn at their Server, something I strongly recommend to p51d players in DCS W.

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

One more question...

 

In DCS W Graphics Options it is possible to set:

 

- VSync

- Full Screen

- Disable AERO interface

 

What do you recommend? Presently I have "ticks" on "Full Screen" and "Disable AERO interface" only, and set the PPS limit of 30 in the lua settings file.

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

i have vsync and full screen enabled, and disable aero interface unchecked.(made some trouble when alt-tabbing out to desktop)

 

i dont know why so many limit their frames down to 30.i tried that once and didnt like the result at all...i leave the graphics.lua at default, and just use the vsync function....50-60fps feel way better than 30.

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

David,

 

I am going to give your suggestions a try.

 

Regarding the FPS limitation, this is an inherited habit from FSX, X-Plane, etc... and since I had read somewhere that Vsync was causing problems in DCS W, around 1.2.6, I chose to disable it and limit the FPS myself.

 

My monitor is an ASUS Led monitor with recommended resoltuin 1920 x 1080, but I have just set DCS to 1600 x 900, thus maintaining the same ratio.

 

I will report back my findings

 

Thx again for your excellent hints and help.

 

EDIT:

Well, setting FPS to default, with VSync ON doesn't work very well for me. The frames are not stable at 60, and keep varying sometimes between 60 and 42, and that cause stuttering, so, although I still have the VSync option ON, I have reverted to the manual 30 FPS limit ( and latter I will disable VSync because this way it is not really needed... )

 

I also made sure that the default "Black Shark" in Nvidia Inspector does not set anything special other than "single monitor" performance.

 

As far as lowering the resolution, while my ( cheap, low end ) monitor isn't exactly crisp at 1600 x 900, I noticed that I could more easily indentify the Fw190 in the p51d vs Fw190 default mission, so, I will stay with this resolution, and have actually set it also for IL2 BOS :-) - thanks again for a very good hint David!

Edited July 15, 2014 by jcomm

[WildBillKelsoe]

hey man I flew against you the other day under alias "Ortho". Nice flying skills you got there dude. Perhaps you can teach me?