How to get better SA?

[moggel]

Not technically related to the F-18C but that's what I'm trying to learn right now so ...

I can do most stuff now but I struggle alot with my situational awarereness. Flying with labels off seems impossible. I have zero viz on anything until they're so close it's a knife fight. Same goes for A/G targets.

 

Is there some setting I can use to make this easier without going full labels? I keep seeing videos of you guys and it seems you're doing just fine without any cheats but how? How do you find anything vsually? :huh:

[Archaic]

Flying with labels on makes flying with labels off much more difficult. You have to practice in the environment you want to improve in.

 

- Assigning a waypoint as Tgt for known position of ground targets can help. If you have the elevation right, it will put a diamond over them on your hud.

 

- Reference and make a mental note of the landscape you're entering.

 

- Communication with flight. You can set up a yardstick TACAN with your lead as well, which will give you a distance to him. If he is on 1Y AA, go to 64Y AA. Doesn't give you bearing but you can work it out playing hot vs cold.

 

- Listen to AWACS and learn to build a mental picture of the battlespace in reference to the Bullseye position.

[Eldur]

I use modified labels in SP for that... have the config attached. Has to be placed in %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config\View.

Still very hard for me to see and even track stuff in the air, even the missiles marked by a little ° instead of a simple dot (those are exactly on top of the object so they just appear a tad bigger at distance and it's not that obvious to see through the cockpit like colored labels). Goes pretty well with ground targets though, but there usually is some stuff to reference to around. Made this config before ED added the dot label option, dunno how that one looks, but it's probably similar.

Labels.zip

[Horns]

Not technically related to the F-18C but that's what I'm trying to learn right now so ...

I can do most stuff now but I struggle alot with my situational awarereness. Flying with labels off seems impossible. I have zero viz on anything until they're so close it's a knife fight. Same goes for A/G targets.

 

Is there some setting I can use to make this easier without going full labels? I keep seeing videos of you guys and it seems you're doing just fine without any cheats but how? How do you find anything vsually? :huh:

 

For air-to-air I don't so much look for the aircraft as the con trails. Once I had those drawing a line to the hostile a/c I found it easier to see the aircraft themselves. After a while I guess I learned to recognize the enemy aircraft a little more, but it always takes a lot of awareness.

 

Also, if you select the EW page on your left DDI, that will bring up a diagram that will show you a top-down view of all detected threats with your a/c in the center.

 

Seeing ground targets from altitudes beyond about 100 meters was pretty much impossible for me, personally I think it's tougher to acquire ground targets than air-to air. All I can suggest is look closely at any pictures of the target and note any landmarks mentioned.

 

Last, I strongly suggest you don't play at any resolution beyond 1080p, at least until you are comfortable. I could hardly ever see what I was looking for when I played at 2560 x 1440. I can't imagine how tough I'd find playing in 4K.

[Legendofdino]

Lots of good info here. To input my .02, it takes a lot of practice to develop what I would refer to as a workflow in the pit. Detecting and engaging bad guys requires a combination of using the sensors in the pit (rwr and radar), getting your head outside the pit scanning, using, bogey dopes to point your nose in the right direction, and probably most importantly finding a friend because 4 eyes are better than one. You have to develop a method that works for you in interpreting the data from all these inputs sometimes in situations that can develop quickly.

[Digitalvole]

I have real trouble too, especially with no tpod, but even then it’s far from easy.

I was trying to hit some armed speed boats yesterday and it was tricky enough to find them in the first place but once they stopped moving and parked up on the beach it was nigh-on impossible.

 

What I did in the end was fly low, draw fire, then make a mental note of nearby reference points. Climb and try to maintain mental image, circle, dive, drop bombs/fire rockets.

 

That doesn’t help make visual contact initially I know. I use dots only labels now with a mod (sorry I forget which one) Also I make my own missions with triggered messages that give me at least a rough idea of where the target is (with randomised group spawns so it’s no so easy to just remember where you put them.)

 

I’ve only ever played dcs with the rift though, I’ve no idea what it’s like on a monitor.