Complicated, I didn't know the meaning of the word until I tried the A10!!

[Raven Morpheus]

Hello

 

I recently got gifted A-10C, well the money for it whilst it was on sale, so I thought I'll give it a go, can't be more complicated than the Ka-50, right?

 

Wrong!!

 

Apart from the slightly difficult nature of actually flying it (especially when landing) the UH-1H is a breeze, flick a few switches, hold a button, move a throttle slider, and you're pretty much ready for takeoff! Easy compared to the Ka-50 and A-10, and the A-10 seems orders of magnitude more difficult than the Ka-50!

 

With the help of a tutorial mission (how to takeoff and blow stuff up I believe it's called, can't recall who it's by) and an associated pdf guide I managed to learn the Ka-50 systems required to fly and engage targets fairly easily, all I need to do I think is refresh my memory on my X52 profile setup.

 

However I've been doing a few of the tutorial missions for the A10 to work out nav and combat and it just seems so complicated that I feel that because I don't play flight sims 24/7 I'll be forever doing "refresher courses" each time I play with the A-10!

 

Anyone else get that feeling? Anyone got a way around it?

Edited September 8, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[Buzzles]

It's not called a study sim for no reason! :)

 

Honestly though, the basics of the A-10C in DCS aren't that hard to learn.

 

Learning start up, learning how to use the TGP and Mavericks and a bit of the stores management page isn't hard. Rockets and bombs are fairly straightforward as well.

 

The tutorials will cover that and you'll have it down in no time :)

[Blooze]

Click HERE for some tutorials that I found to be the best available. Build your Saitek profile one step at a time as you go. After you have learned the basics of the TAD, TGP and weapons it will go a bit faster if you can fly with some real people on a multiplayer server using Teamspeak that are willing to show you the ropes. Click HERE for some helpful documents. You will probably need to learn the Thrustmaster Warthog lingo and convert the commands to keystrokes so you know what functions they represent before you can set up your Saitek profile to duplicate those functions.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Blooze

[MadDog-IC]

Hello

 

I recently got gifted A-10C, well the money for it whilst it was on sale, so I thought I'll give it a go, can't be more complicated than the Ka-50, right?

 

Wrong!!

 

Apart from the slightly difficult nature of actually flying it (especially when landing) the UH-1H is a breeze, compared to the Ka-50 and A-10, and the A-10 seems orders of magnitude more difficult than the Ka-50!

 

With the help of a tutorial mission (how to takeoff and blow stuff up I believe it's called, can't recall who it's by) and an associated pdf guide I managed to learn the Ka-50 systems required to fly and engage targets fairly easily, all I need to do I think is refresh my memory on my X52 profile setup.

 

However I've been doing a few of the tutorial missions for the A10 to work out nav and combat and it just seems so complicated that I feel that because I don't play flight sims 24/7 I'll be forever doing "refresher courses" each time I play with the A-10!

 

Anyone else get that feeling? Anyone got a way around it?

 

 

Same for me, just preferred the ka-50 (choppers) more than aircraft, so I persistantly played it as I seriously wanted to learn it, played with a couple of online friends I meet in Multiplayer and we shared notes and tried out different things.

 

The A-10c I dabbled with, my first problem was the tutorials with the game, the voice overs with acronyms, etc TMS, DMS, CMS, DSMS, china hat, boat switch, etc, etc, the voice just grated on me, so I looked more to A10c youtube videos, next was setting up a controller profile for the x52pro that was similiar in operation to the Ka-50 profile. The shear amount of multifunction hat switches the A-10c has is hard to memorize for me.

 

Today would be the third time I have taken to the A-10c to try and learn it in earnest, but certain bugs in DCSW are making things harder, this time it was the F-keys for radio commands and views not working at random - (Tried air to air refueling), forgot to open the refueling boom first up, I had the boom lock in position in front of me, then I couldnt get radio command to work for pre contact, etc.

 

Earlier attempts had things working quite well, I just didn't know what to do exactly, was doing it from memory, but I have only tried refueling twice, and am going off memory of some videos I looked at months ago.

 

The best work arounds to learn is Youtube videos, Even tutorials are helpful to some degree, make online friends or join a squadron with knowledge, persistance and the will to learn it no matter what. Just learn little bits at a time, repeat repeatadly until you can do it in your sleep with one hand tied behind your back, and then move on to another area of the sim.

 

 

I feel you pain brother, all the best

 

Cheers, Ian

[Exorcet]

The A-10 isn't as bad as it looks. There is a lot to master, but you don't need to know everything in order to fly it. I actually learned the A-10 quicker than the Ka-50. More interested in fixed wing and more familiar with western avionics.

[Davros23]

Stick with it Raven, it's worth it. The more you learn the easier it gets. My advice would be to ditch the tutorials and create some simple missions of your own. If you want to learn something specific use YouTube tutorials and back it up with the relevant section of the manual. Learn in bite size pieces. For weapons I suggest you start with Mavs, GBUs and Gun. Target aquisition can also be tricky at first but with your KA-50 experience you should have ahead start on that I'd guess.

[Raven Morpheus]

Thanks guys. I'll revisit it in due course, I just got rather confused today whilst going through the GAU-8 tutorial and felt like giving up.

 

I can takeoff, I can fly around, I can land, I can even get the gun to fire. Don't have a clue when it comes to the targeting stuff though, and I got confused with steerpoints/waypoints as I couldn't figure out that I either need to use the rocker on the UCS (?) panel when TAD is SOI or set the hud as SOI (Coolie up I think that was?) and use the up/down keys that are set to my POV 2 hat (either DMS or TMS can't recall if I have to press my pinkie shift switch or not).

 

When it comes to X52 profiles I'm currently using the one by Smoothie available on the ED site in the user files section. Seems to be quite logical, and doesn't require changing modes all the time (the one thing I find annoying about the Ka-50 - I'm always in nav mode moving switches I don't want to be when I should be in combat mode selecting weapons and firing them!!)

 

I don't get the references to the pinkie switch in the tutorials though - Smoothies profile has that set to X52 Pro slider, and I had to assign it in the game (none of the controls would import as per Smoothie instructs in his readme), so I have set that to pinke aft, pinkie forward and pinkie centre.

 

The CMS Push button he's listed also has me slightly confused, so I set that to CMS Z axis...

Edited September 8, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[Fakum]

I originally flew the KA50, moved onto A-10C few years back. Because I dont have alot of time to Fly, maybe an hour or so a day, bit more on the weekends, I find myself going back to training and tutorials more often then I care to, but I find its very brief, only because its that simple something you forgot, then it all comes together again. I have a statck of 'How Too's" on my desk so I can quickly reference something in my own short wording, like "how to reload my DSMS after rearm" or " how to switch to Air to Air mode and switch between boresight and scan. Takes alot of time and reading and watching youtube, but its a labor of love! It is overwhelming at 1st, but in time it will be much easier,,, keep up the training, that is key

[jcbak]

Understand that you aren't going to learn the A10C in a matter of a few hours. For me the most enjoyable aspect of it is that you never really stop learning. You can go as deep into it as you'd like. I agree with Blooze.....take your time and focus on the basics. Try to fly multiplayer when you have a reasonable grasp of the fundamentals. There are plenty of folks on MP that are willing to help. Don't give up.....its well worth your time.

[Tone71]

My advice would be to set up your own x52 profile, rather than use someone elses. Get used to the controls of the A-10C and get a feel for what buttons you need to map to your stick; try also to map buttons/hats as close as possible to the real thing, then use spare buttons as you see fit.

 

This might also help:

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=119086

 

It's a blank template for the x52 pro. Print off a few and fill in with your mappings; they'll change a few times before you find a comfortable set that matches your play style.

[PFunk1606688187]

My advice for learning controls is to print out or have some hard copy of everything in the A-10C manual on pages 88-89 and 91-92. I have a sheet with those control indices on it from when I first taught myself the aircraft and of all the things I wrote down its the only one I still keep handy and reference.

 

Its the most important reference sheet you can have when learning and re-learning after a time away from the sim.

 

Making your own control scheme for your X52 that allows you to use every control on those pages will make learning it also much easier. By programming it yourself you also learn it better than when learning someone else's scheme because then you have to reference the A-10C chart to know what control to use then have to try to remember where some other guy put that control in the profile. Instead you should just make it yourself then you will be your own reference to where the TMS hat has been programmed or what you've used for the CMS or the Coolie hat and so on.

[MadDog-IC]

Update to my earlier post.

 

There was no bug with the DCSW radio commands, a long forgotten programmed SST profile macro feature for the speed brakes on my x52 pro was interfering with things.:doh:

 

I apologize for the misleading comments.

 

P.S. Finally managed to air refuel the A-10c, well at least for a short time, with several unintended disconnects.:thumbup:

 

Regards, Ian

[cichlidfan]

10% Manual

20% Included Training Missions

30% YouTube Videos

40% Practice missions (for whichever thing you are learning) that you make yourself

[Archer7]

I thought the A-10 was easy as cake... up, up and away we go...

First time I tried getting the Ka-50 off the wrong I just wobbled and exploded though.

Everyone's different ;)

 

Oh and if you're trying to learn to fly this using the X52 joystick immediately maybe you should start off using the keyboard so you can use the built-in tutorials effectively until you understand what the coolie is for example.

Gotta understand the switches.