msmith301 Posted July 17, 2020 Posted July 17, 2020 Right now I have been learning just the F-5E. Although my son did by me the F-14 Tomcat for Father's Day while it was on sale. What a good son!! Anyway when I'm dogfighting against the other F-5E I have found by playing with the different keys that the [F5] key gives you an exterior view from your plane to the target. The camera follows the target plane while keeping your plane in the foreground. You are also able to zoom in and out on your plane keeping your target in view. QUESTION: Is there a way to use this view where you can have this same feature from within your cockpit? We used to have this in the older flight sims from years ago. They called it "player to target". Your view would stay locked on your target while you maneuvered your plane to bring your nose around to your target. I used to switch back and forth between these two views. Was a great way to dogfight so you're not always looking around for the enemy when you already know where he is.
Sprool Posted July 17, 2020 Posted July 17, 2020 doesnt F8 give you the target view? May need to have aircraft locked up first?
sthompson Posted July 17, 2020 Posted July 17, 2020 Right now I have been learning just the F-5E. Although my son did by me the F-14 Tomcat for Father's Day while it was on sale. What a good son!! Anyway when I'm dogfighting against the other F-5E I have found by playing with the different keys that the [F5] key gives you an exterior view from your plane to the target. The camera follows the target plane while keeping your plane in the foreground. You are also able to zoom in and out on your plane keeping your target in view. QUESTION: Is there a way to use this view where you can have this same feature from within your cockpit? We used to have this in the older flight sims from years ago. They called it "player to target". Your view would stay locked on your target while you maneuvered your plane to bring your nose around to your target. I used to switch back and forth between these two views. Was a great way to dogfight so you're not always looking around for the enemy when you already know where he is. That would be "padlock mode." I haven't used it for a long time and I don't know if the F-5 supports it. Not all modules do. In the old days when I played Flanker 1.0 I used this all the time and found that an essential complement to it was the "mini-Hud." The Mini-HUD showed you the view direction towards the nose of your plane so you could maintain spatial orientation even while looking over your shoulder at the enemy creeping up from behind. Without it padlock mode is much more challenging. There is still a mini-HUD option in DCS if I recall correctly, but it doesn't work in most modules. Unfortunate in my view, since padlock mode would permit one to overcome some of the view limitations of DCS. I'm Softball on Multiplayer. NZXT Player Three Prime, i9-13900K@3.00GHz, 64GB DDR5, Win 11 Home, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 24GB, TrackIR 5, VKB Gunfighter III with MCG Ultimate grip, VKB STECS Standard Throttle, CH Pro pedals
msmith301 Posted July 18, 2020 Author Posted July 18, 2020 That would be "padlock mode." I haven't used it for a long time and I don't know if the F-5 supports it. Not all modules do. In the old days when I played Flanker 1.0 I used this all the time and found that an essential complement to it was the "mini-Hud." Yes it was called the "Padlock" view. Padlock player to target. It was widely used in the older games. Gave you the feeling of flying around while looking out of the cockpit at your target. You could also set a control that let you toggle targets until you found one that you wanted to go after. In DCS the [F5] keyboard command (not the plane) gives you the padlock view from the player to target but only from the outside of the plane. Helps you to maintain orientation to both your target and situational awareness. Flying on a computer is not the same as real life. You don't have the orientation to your surroundings the way you do in RL. In my opinion.
msmith301 Posted July 21, 2020 Author Posted July 21, 2020 Found it. Was looking in game settings for something unrelated and they actually have the ability to select padlock view using certain controls. What I like is the ability to be able to padlock missile launches from the ground. Some of these are so hard to find. Realize it's not completely realistic but at 57 and my vision gone from 20/15 to around 20/40 that little spec can sometimes be hard to see. When I get better at the game and know what I should be looking for maybe I'll turn it off. Give credit to the guys in some of the D.F. video where these guys are tracking a camouflaged Mig down below them down in the trees. I can't see a damned thing..lol.
Alphamale Posted July 21, 2020 Posted July 21, 2020 That would be "padlock mode." I haven't used it for a long time and I don't know if the F-5 supports it. Not all modules do. In the old days when I played Flanker 1.0 I used this all the time and found that an essential complement to it was the "mini-Hud." The Mini-HUD showed you the view direction towards the nose of your plane so you could maintain spatial orientation even while looking over your shoulder at the enemy creeping up from behind. Without it padlock mode is much more challenging. There is still a mini-HUD option in DCS if I recall correctly, but it doesn't work in most modules. Unfortunate in my view, since padlock mode would permit one to overcome some of the view limitations of DCS. :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
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