saving HMCS setup

[skypickle]

In the A10C_][ it is possible to change which symbology is provided by the HMCS and whether it is occluded by the HUD. In which lua file is this information stored? I would like to save a setup so I dont have to spend time at the beginning of each mission click a bunch of virtual buttons.

[scoobie]

AFAIK, currently it's not possible and that's why people are asking ED to cater for "user cartridge(s)". I'd welcome such feature, too. However, I think such user cartridges solve one problem (the one you mention), but create a few more.

Let's say you are just about to fly a campaign mission - up till now the cartridge auto-generated from the mission file has been loaded into your plane. If you get the means to override this with your own "favourite" cartridge, you may also override settings important for the mission. The easiest example would be the flight plan. Now what? Should ED seriously elaborate on it and create a new window shown on mission start where you pick particular settings: take these settings from my cartridge and those from the mission cartridge (etc.)? A kind of "cartridge blender" machine - 25 "categories" to choose from? Sounds a bit complex, so then ppl will ask for the option to "remember my choices", because they won't like to choose all 25 categories each time they want to fly a mission (even if there were 5 such categories - they still won't like it). Thus you get another layer of complexity.

Now, what if you mess up your choices? You'll then come to the campaign forum and file a bug report "the mission doesn't work" and the author will have a nice puzzle, maybe he'll fly the mission 3 times to try and spot the error you reported (unsuccessfully)?

See? The thing seems easy to wrap your head around ("just add user cartridge to the game"), but becomes a bit problematic if you dig into it. I'm not claiming it's an impossible feature to have, but it needs a little bit of consideration to sort out all such intricacies.

 

[Yurgon]

14 hours ago, skypickle said:

In which lua file is this information stored?

I've searched quite extensively and couldn't find a single mention of the HMCS occlusion settings anywhere in the game files. It seems unless ED implement the data cartridge feature, we'll have to change these settings every single time, or use the "Prepare Mission" feature (haven't tested whether that works, but it should be well suited for this).

4 hours ago, scoobie said:

The easiest example would be the flight plan. Now what?

Players can already change their flight plan in the Mission Planner before every mission. I don't see how a data cartridge would introduce a problem that doesn't already exist. Plus, the A-10C can have multiple flight plans. Who knows, when players enter a changed flight plan in the Mission Planner or anywhere else, ED might even decide to store both the original and the modified flight plans in the CDU.

[ASAP]

Isn't that the way it worked in Falcon 4.0 BMS? I didn't a play it a whole lot but I remember being able to set up DTC like options like what screens would load up on the MFCDs, radio presets and stuff like that.

17 minutes ago, Yurgon said:

Players can already change their flight plan in the Mission Planner before every mission. I don't see how a data cartridge would introduce a problem that doesn't already exist. Plus, the A-10C can have multiple flight plans. Who knows, when players enter a changed flight plan in the Mission Planner or anywhere else, ED might even decide to store both the original and the modified flight plans in the CDU.

I would love this. I think in general the flight plan that mission designers develop should get saved as a flight plan so the mission waypoint database can be used by the player for target area stuff, which I understand would be more realistic.

I also can't see how having another tab or two in the mission editor to set up HMCS and HUD settings and weapons profiles to the users liking would break the mission any more than the player having to spend 10 minutes on the ground pressing virtual buttons to get the exact same result (and miss take off time).

[MstrCmdr]

WE NEED A DC.  Its so annoying having to switch settings before every mission.  In my vFS I prefer very specific HMCS, TAD, and HUD settings that make flight management over a battlefield possible.  I spend 10mins on startup creating profiles and switching settings etcetera but in cases of quick takeoff I will always forget something when completing this enroute.  And its near impossible to fly form and edit/create these head-down.

The scripting for it doesn't make sense in my situation as I don't fly a specific airframe but any slot.  A DC would make any slot adopt my settings.

[skypickle]

1 hour ago, Yurgon said:

It seems unless ED implement the data cartridge feature, we'll have to change these settings every single time, or use the "Prepare Mission" feature (haven't tested whether that works, but it should be well suited for this).

Is there a simple 'how-to' on this for setting HMCS settings?

[ASAP]

2 minutes ago, MstrCmdr said:

 And its near impossible to fly form and edit/create these head-down.

What formation are you flying? Fly in wedge, its much easier to do when your a mile + away from the FL

[Ready]

For this purpose I use a workaround using Voice Attack to program my HMCS. When I say a specific command (in my case 'display'), or press a programmed HOTAS combination it executes a string of controls for the HMCS. Takes les than a second to execute the whole list.

For example see below video. I put it at the correct moment. 

 

 

[Yurgon]

12 hours ago, skypickle said:

Is there a simple 'how-to' on this for setting HMCS settings?

Nothing specific to the HMCS.

In the Mission Editor, use "Prepare Mission", apply ground power or APU + APU generator, set the HMCS settings you want, quit the mission, and then after saving it, when flying it again the HMCS settings should already be set. At least it works that way with TAD, TGP and radio settings. But I haven't yet tested it with the HMCS, so if anyone finds the time to test it, it would be great to get feedback!

[thunderchicken02]

12 hours ago, Ready said:

For this purpose I use a workaround using Voice Attack to program my HMCS. When I say a specific command (in my case 'display'), or press a programmed HOTAS combination it executes a string of controls for the HMCS. Takes les than a second to execute the whole list.

For example see below video. I put it at the correct moment. 

 

 

That's awesome, thanks for sharing! Would you be willing to share your voice Attack commands so others can replicate this? 

[skypickle]

agree w thunderchicken.  Id like to replicate but have got nowhere. Currently struggling to make a streamdeck macro for this.

 

[Ready]

On 1/11/2022 at 7:15 AM, thunderchicken02 said:

That's awesome, thanks for sharing! Would you be willing to share your voice Attack commands so others can replicate this? 

Sorry I forgot to respond. I just recorded the clicks I did on the right MFCD, browse to the HMCS menu and changing the settings using the OBS buttons. 

Here is a screenshot of what I did. The list with commands is very long, because I changed about every setting in the HMCS menu. Hope it helps to get you started.

 

[thunderchicken02]

9 minutes ago, Ready said:

Sorry I forgot to respond. I just recorded the clicks I did on the right MFCD, browse to the HMCS menu and changing the settings using the OBS buttons. 

Here is a screenshot of what I did. The list with commands is very long, because I changed about every setting in the HMCS menu. Hope it helps to get you started.

 

Thanks for sharing. Is there a reason that you had voice attack do individual key presses instead of multiple keys at once with pauses in between?

 

[Ready]

12 minutes ago, thunderchicken02 said:

Thanks for sharing. Is there a reason that you had voice attack do individual key presses instead of multiple keys at once with pauses in between?

 

No specific reason. I just recorded my keystrokes and put them in there. It seems to work.