Trying not to be salty, but...

[AcroGimp]

So I have been getting to know the F-5E and really like the model, BUT, everyone has a big but, let me tell you about mine.

 

BUT, I can't fight it for crap. Never any energy, no matter how much smash I carry into the merge the AI opposition is wrecking me, literally 1 kill for 30 attempts today. I have lost to the AI F-14 at NTTR, and to the AI F-5E in Caucasus. They ALWAYS have more energy, and always get to maneuver to the WEZ.

 

I am trying not to be salty but I have flown actual BFM and ACM in my Yak-52, I am formation qualified, I fly formation aerobatics, just don't seem to be able to turn that into killing in DCS and it is pissing me off a little.

 

TrackIR5 doesn't always help translating my head movement into accurate pointing, and then being able to maneuver the aircraft with only the sky/ground and my intended target (eventual murderer) visible is also hard without mother nature helping like she does in the Yak.

 

I know DCS has a steep learning curve but for a real pilot, with decades of flightsim experience, hundreds of hours as a real-world pilot with actual dogfighting experience this is pretty aggravating and awful humbling.

 

Not looking for sympathy, just looking for recommendations on TrackIR settings, good tutorials, tips of the trade, anything from my Brethren Tiger Drivers to help me feel just a little better about my chances when I venture out into MP servers.

 

Don't bother calling the Wahhhmbulance, I am already in it and on the way to crybaby hospital.

 

'Gimp

[razo+r]

AI is usually harder to fight against in terms of energy.

 

Players use the same flight model as you, but the AI, depending on the skill, they have a bit better or worse physics than you.

[RED]

+1 razors advice

 

don't wait to get into MP. In MP there are a lot of things different. Real life experience might help you a lot more as your opponent has human limitations. Read the briefing and ID every target! Joining the corresponding teamspeak of the server to get some help is always a good idea.

ACG Cold War Server is perfect for getting shot by experienced mig drivers!

Good luck!

[Emmy]

So I have been getting to know the F-5E and really like the model, BUT, everyone has a big but, let me tell you about mine.

 

BUT, I can't fight it for crap. Never any energy, no matter how much smash I carry into the merge the AI opposition is wrecking me, literally 1 kill for 30 attempts today. I have lost to the AI F-14 at NTTR, and to the AI F-5E in Caucasus. They ALWAYS have more energy, and always get to maneuver to the WEZ.

 

I am trying not to be salty but I have flown actual BFM and ACM in my Yak-52, I am formation qualified, I fly formation aerobatics, just don't seem to be able to turn that into killing in DCS and it is pissing me off a little.

 

TrackIR5 doesn't always help translating my head movement into accurate pointing, and then being able to maneuver the aircraft with only the sky/ground and my intended target (eventual murderer) visible is also hard without mother nature helping like she does in the Yak.

 

I know DCS has a steep learning curve but for a real pilot, with decades of flightsim experience, hundreds of hours as a real-world pilot with actual dogfighting experience this is pretty aggravating and awful humbling.

 

Not looking for sympathy, just looking for recommendations on TrackIR settings, good tutorials, tips of the trade, anything from my Brethren Tiger Drivers to help me feel just a little better about my chances when I venture out into MP servers.

 

Don't bother calling the Wahhhmbulance, I am already in it and on the way to crybaby hospital.

 

'Gimp

 

C'mon John...

 

It's just 1s and 0s...

 

- Jay

[Bearfoot]

For me, the biggest reason I went with the Rift was NOT for the immersion or the feeling of "being there".

 

It is simply because my head was pointing where I thought it was pointing. The 1-to-1 mapping of head movement to perspective means COMPLETELY natural, intuitive sense of 3D space.

 

And that is HUGE for SA.

 

With enough time, training, experience, practice, etc. folks get really good at dealing with the TIR abstraction, to the point where it makes no difference. But it is an abstraction, and it is a learned skill that neither gains from experience in the real world nor translates to experience from the real world. So you could dogfight for a living in an F-5E IRL for a decade, but until you master the false "sim-ism" of TIR, you are going to not be your best, and chances are you are going to suck for a long time.

 

Get VR. Your eyes will hate you, but your brain will thank you.

[SGT Coyle]

What to do about AI in ACM, I feel your pain.

 

As far as TrackIR5, a good setup and tweaking. I started here:

Gary does a great job going through it.

 

After many years of TrackIR I have found myself in an Oculus Rift. As stated above. Once your in its feels real. I'm just playing at my desk, and I feel the pitch, roll, and thrust. The superior immersion only adds to the experience.

 

Save your cash for VR system.

[Sabre-TLA]

You finally got him! Good job.

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=201496

[Steel Jaw]

I haven't hears mention yet that the F5 was designed to be a trainer and t's BFM ability is limited.

[Emmy]

I haven't hears mention yet that the F5 was designed to be a trainer and t's BFM ability is limited.

 

Huh?

[AcroGimp]

C'mon John...

 

It's just 1s and 0s...

 

- Jay

Hah! I know Jay - starting to get it a little. As others have said, it seems like the AI have distinct advantages which are tough to defeat but I have managed a couple kills now against maneuvering targets but the kill ratio is not at all in my favor right now.

 

Going to add the BFM module for F-5E/NTTR next and am hoping it will develop some faster reactions. In reviewing the TacView for my Tomcat kill I can now see several missed opportunities as well as a couple mistakes that could have been worse.

 

Also working on studying actual tactics, my dogfighting is instinct driven right now and not all my instincts are good in DCS although they are OK in the real world.

 

Definitely dig this, lots of fun.

 

'Gimp

[Emmy]

Hah! I know Jay - starting to get it a little. As others have said, it seems like the AI have distinct advantages which are tough to defeat but I have managed a couple kills now against maneuvering targets but the kill ratio is not at all in my favor right now.

 

Going to add the BFM module for F-5E/NTTR next and am hoping it will develop some faster reactions. In reviewing the TacView for my Tomcat kill I can now see several missed opportunities as well as a couple mistakes that could have been worse.

 

Also working on studying actual tactics, my dogfighting is instinct driven right now and not all my instincts are good in DCS although they are OK in the real world.

 

Definitely dig this, lots of fun.

 

'Gimp

 

Looking forward to dueling someday...

[Svend_Dellepude]

Once you get the hang of how AI does BFM you can beat them everytime. They are not very inventive and they do make the same mistakes time and time again.

one thing you should do is to lower the saturation and/or fiddle with the curve of the Y-axis to avoid a too high onset when you pull G's. That's IMO what will help you the most to preserve energy when fighting.

These small desktop joysticks are not really built for PFM simming.

[Hafer]

So I have been getting to know the F-5E and really like the model, BUT, everyone has a big but, let me tell you about mine.

 

BUT, I can't fight it for crap. Never any energy, no matter how much smash I carry into the merge the AI opposition is wrecking me, literally 1 kill for 30 attempts today. I have lost to the AI F-14 at NTTR, and to the AI F-5E in Caucasus. They ALWAYS have more energy, and always get to maneuver to the WEZ.

 

I am trying not to be salty but I have flown actual BFM and ACM in my Yak-52, I am formation qualified, I fly formation aerobatics, just don't seem to be able to turn that into killing in DCS and it is pissing me off a little.

 

TrackIR5 doesn't always help translating my head movement into accurate pointing, and then being able to maneuver the aircraft with only the sky/ground and my intended target (eventual murderer) visible is also hard without mother nature helping like she does in the Yak.

 

I know DCS has a steep learning curve but for a real pilot, with decades of flightsim experience, hundreds of hours as a real-world pilot with actual dogfighting experience this is pretty aggravating and awful humbling.

 

Not looking for sympathy, just looking for recommendations on TrackIR settings, good tutorials, tips of the trade, anything from my Brethren Tiger Drivers to help me feel just a little better about my chances when I venture out into MP servers.

 

Don't bother calling the Wahhhmbulance, I am already in it and on the way to crybaby hospital.

 

'Gimp

 

 

I bought both the ACM and BCM campaigns. I'm not able to fight the enemies. I'm not pulling hard but my F5 loses a lot of speed and energy to the point where its not any more maneuverable. For the flight model of the ai its so easy to out maneuver me. Everytime. High and low g yoyo doenst work. Everytime the long flight to india and then no chance to fight the enemies. Maybe i'm not qualified, but for me its a joke tying to beat an enemy with such an better turn rate. Impossible for me. By the way i'm an hobby simmer since the good old days with an Atari ST an FS2 or Falcon. I spend thousand hours in flight sims and i'm flying for 30 years rc-planes.

[Hafer]

What planes are the enemies flying and what's their skill level?

 

I set up an sp-mission F5E-3 against F5E-3 (skill: high). The ai plane climbs like a rocket. No chance. Just when going head on head pull the trigger. In the dogfight i'm not pulling hard but losing a lot of speed to a point where its not possible to maneuver anymore. And meanwhile the ai is doing all stuff of high energy maneuvers looping, climbing, tigh turns. A lot of fun.. ,)

 

Tried skill level average and it's no match for me. But on high it's not possible for me.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Hafer

[Fri13]

 

TIR is the devil. The nonlinear relationship between actual and simulated head position, the awkward necessity to turn your head one direction while turning your eyeballs the other, and the total lack of spatial cues when the canopy bow isn't in your FOV is infuriating. For many years TIR was a necessity, because the only thing worse was trying to padlock a bandit using the hat switch.

 

It might be for those who have not played any other PC games where vision is changed similar manner like FPS games since the Doom and Quake. Or as in reallife like driving a car and learning to use the mirrors and reverse. As you will be using your eyes to look elsewhere where you are heading and where your head is pointing.

 

That is why TrackIR works so well for many as head is just a controller, not the pointer for direction.

But then there are those who have difficulties to separate head direction and direction of look. And they don't example have problems to adapt to eye glasses once they get them as they turn head anyways to direction where they look, but they have problem with a TrackIR kind devices or driving a car etc as they can't separate those things. But considering a real life situation then when the above one person gets eye glasses they get difficulties as suddenly their field of view is far narrower and they can't anymore use eyes to look around same way but need to turn head to look something.

 

The real challenge really is that when the FOV is so narrow that you can't see a visual point and you are using heavy curves in TrackIR so you can't even use your head direction for it. But when you have customized the curves then it is still easy as head is controller, and it is like a second nature very quickly.

 

VR is amazeballs. The resolution sucks, but the immersion and 1:1 head tracking is revolutionary. It feels like flying. And when you look over your shoulder to assess bandit nose position, your brain instinctively correlates the spatial cues as it would in real life. Of course that means you can also gives yourself some spatial-D under the right conditions. New systems are on the horizon which should correct the poor resolution of current hardware. Even today it's VERY difficult to go back to monitor flying after using VR for even 10 minutes.

 

You look over your shoulder? That is the problem with the VR that you can't do that! As your FOV is so narrow that you barely see past 90 degree and you need to do immersion breaking rotation and movement to look further your rear. But that is as well more realistic as never you really see to your six but more like to your 8-4 line and then to 7-5 line when you look upwards by leaning your head to the seat headsupport and rolling eyes. But VR is very limited in that case, while TrackIR is very unrealistic as it allows you to see directly to rear.

 

Like look a typical car situation, you are not strapped to seat at all same way as pilots are, you have more freedom to rotate your body and look rear. Yet it is very difficult to do so without changing your position or without using your other hand as support to get better rotation, like placing your right hand back of the second seat to let you rotate.

 

And many finds it easier to go fly with monitors, as DCS is not about acrobatics flying, it is about combat. And in combat your #1 concern is to spot the enemy. It doesn't matter what so ever if you know your attitude and your location, if you don't know where the enemy is or you can't see what you are suppose to aim. Who see you first, will have far better change to win.

That is the VR serious problem that you are chasing a ghost. Spending time to spot a target couple kilometers from you in clear sky, you know it is there but you just can't even see a dark dot in sky and it is frustrating. In displays you spot that dark spot when you know where to look from very far distances. So when a GCI calls you that target is 30 degree to right, 2km higher and 4km distance, it is easy to start seeking the target and really spot it. In VR you are like <1-2km distance to do the same. The difference is huge, with other you are in IR missile range, while with other you are in cannon range.

 

Where the VR really shines is that as you move your head in 1:1 movement, you will experience when does the aircraft start to stall or how your speed changes depending the target attitude and speed. That is huge benefit in dog fight, and then low resolution is not a serious problem as the target is <1km from you so you can even see the target wing positions to spot somewhat the angle of target. But using display you have far better change to see the attitude and so on know when to time specific maneuver. And that is the frustrating part of the VR that the enemy is more of unknown by their capabilities as you can't so easily see their angle to you so when they get solution to you.

 

And in dog fight it doesn't matter what your cockpit looks like, your eyes are suppose to be locked to that target, look its attitude, and control your aircraft based that what you see in hear. The VR adds that you have better idea of your own attitude as well by that 1:1 head tracking, but TrackIR gives you still far more benefits in other than very specific angles where you have no visuals of your canopy but then you are anyways in very dangerous position, but you will see the enemy aircraft attitude changes and can do based that your own attitude predictions.

 

It is more enjoyable to do the combat with TrackIR than with VR, but it is far more enjoyable to fly and sit in cockpit with VR, but again better to learn operate the cockpit again in TrackIR than with VR.

Like if that should be put in numbers, it is like TrackIR offers 75% of the experience, while VR offers only 45-55% of the experience and they overlap by a 15-20%. VR offering couple things better, but falls so short in many other parts that it ain't fun. There is still a reason why I fly mainly (almost only) with the VR, but it is more like enjoying to cut yourself to finger every time. As each time you need to start operate the cockpit systems (especially MFCD) it is like "where did I leave my glasses" while you don't wear any. Frustration to spot the ground targets, to even see the bridges or towns easily from lower altitudes, because your situational awareness being weaker with VR than TrackIR and display causes just you feel like old and slow with bad vision. It already speaks for itself how in VR it really is huge help to use a smoke rockets to mark the target areas for yourself, or use the Harrier DTM position tracker, KA-50 ABRIS map and A-10C TAD "Cake" to guide you back to the area... In dogfight with F-5E vs L-39 it is just better to enable labels so you can track the target like with display as it ain't fun that suddenly you lose the L-39 visually as it goes past 1.5km in clear sky and spend times just circling and flaring hoping that you will see the R-60M smoke trail coming at you so you can find the general direction again where to look.

 

I would estimate it takes 2-5 years before VR and DCS are in level where they can be used well, so the performance, image quality and field of view starts to be in level where it is more than poor.

[Hafer]

The AI F-5 uses a simplified FM which performs much better than yours, so at least you know that you aren't fighting an enemy who's flying the same airplane as you are.

 

I think thats the point. In ACM and BCM it's frustrating doing the (long) approach and then not beeing able to fight the ai. Maybe every 10th attempt you got luck for a flyby shot but 9 out of 10 you lose.. ,(

[Fri13]

Maybe i'm not qualified, but for me its a joke tying to beat an enemy with such an better turn rate. Impossible for me. By the way i'm an hobby simmer since the good old days with an Atari ST an FS2 or Falcon. I spend thousand hours in flight sims and i'm flying for 30 years rc-planes.

 

When the AI cheats, you are in disadvantage. You need to first learn what are the cheats the AI uses (almost unlimited power, perfect AoA control, perfect situational awareness, perfect reaction times) and then what are its limitations (does some stupid things like pulls vertical in specific scenarios so it is like shooting a turkey in a sky) and use them against it.

 

The AI doesn't have a "flexibility" in it, a dynamic flow how the BFM would really happen. And it takes lots of fun away from these modules. Be it that AI is the ground unit or the air unit, it just simplify the things badly.

 

Like how fun it is to attack ground units that sit in wide open area, doing nothing than waiting that you would come close so they can shoot you with .50cal, while next to them is town, a forest etc to give them concealment and some cover and ambush you if you dare to come close? How fun it is to do a gun run to ground units, knowing how their AI trie to shoot directly at you, instead saturate the space around you full of lead so you have no where to fly as flying randomly or straight means you highly fly to straight line of lead?

How fun it is to fly against AI that you know has no where the limitations as you have? A F-5E pushing vertically up while your F-15C stalls with almost clean configuration and 50% fuel?

 

That is what makes it joke that you should be there doing the authentic combat scenarios, while the enemy is like ignorant child that cheats and only wants to ruin your enjoyment regardless what happens to them....

 

 

Watch that, repeat and realize, AI is faster, smaller and more maneuverable... Just like enemy Migs... :megalol:

[AcroGimp]

Figured out part of my issue was a joystick curve for pitch I changed, went back to no curve and now I am not stuck in a stall condition, and still tweaking the TIR setup to be predictable and and stable. Thanks for the info on the AI, helps me feel a little better.

 

I still have less than 10-12 hours into the sim so I am still deep in the learning curve with respect to employing the plane and it has the same limitations/challenges other sims do with respect to depth perception/perception of closure rate and so on, but it is getting better.

 

I am really impressed with what DCS does and suspect I would do better with people already than the AI. Once I feel stronger with overall aircraft systems and weapons system employment I'll try some of the MP servers.

 

In the meantime I may start playing with the mission planner to create specific types of engagements since the training and instant action missions all seem to start with me at an extreme energy disadvantage which, coupled with the AI flight model and behavior is just not fun.

 

'Gimp

[Hafer]

I did a further investigation in skill levels of the opponents. My findings: low, good and high are easy to beat. The only thing that disturbes me is that they just doing stupid looping all the time. Ok, the ai-pilots are not the smartest around. But the highest skill level opponent has this extreme turn and energy advantage. So both campaigns would be much better (for me ,) if the highest skill level goes max to high.