How to practice things I've learned?

[PoppaEvil]

I get it:

 

You're doing it right by going through the missions.  It is repetitive actions that become muscle sensory after many 100's of times used over and over again.  

You're trying to learn what only a select few were ever able to accomplish in their military career.  So, what to do about it? 

 

1.  Use settings that make you invulnerable until you get it.

2.  Use settings that give you unlimited weapons and ammo and use it "non-sparingly" is that even a word? ....

3.  Move to another aircraft, learn it so-so, this will open other parts of your brain to rewire motor skills to situations.

4.  After practicing the missions, a hundred times, take the invul off.  Set a goal, if you die, no DCS for 2 days then move to the next mission live.

5.  Get a buddy to fly with you, can't stress this enough.  Two men working together to accomplish the same goal is called --bonding.  

6.  Fly with your bonded friends in multiplayer missions, see where you are compared to others.

7.  Now go back and practice again until you can literally know what the trainer message is before he says it.

8.  Make videos of your flying and promote yourself.  Gain confidence and be a leader for others that were in Your Place just two months ago.

9.  Buy a campaign and do it front to back, show the developer what you learned and give him thanks for his time creating something for YOU.

10. Don't whine in public that it is hard.  We know it's hard and it will get much harder the more serious one becomes at trying to succeed in this unique "game"

 

Poppa

 

[BuzzU]

On 6/15/2023 at 7:53 AM, PoppaEvil said:

I get it:

 

You're doing it right by going through the missions.  It is repetitive actions that become muscle sensory after many 100's of times used over and over again.  

You're trying to learn what only a select few were ever able to accomplish in their military career.  So, what to do about it? 

 

1.  Use settings that make you invulnerable until you get it.

2.  Use settings that give you unlimited weapons and ammo and use it "non-sparingly" is that even a word? ....

3.  Move to another aircraft, learn it so-so, this will open other parts of your brain to rewire motor skills to situations.

4.  After practicing the missions, a hundred times, take the invul off.  Set a goal, if you die, no DCS for 2 days then move to the next mission live.

5.  Get a buddy to fly with you, can't stress this enough.  Two men working together to accomplish the same goal is called --bonding.  

6.  Fly with your bonded friends in multiplayer missions, see where you are compared to others.

7.  Now go back and practice again until you can literally know what the trainer message is before he says it.

8.  Make videos of your flying and promote yourself.  Gain confidence and be a leader for others that were in Your Place just two months ago.

9.  Buy a campaign and do it front to back, show the developer what you learned and give him thanks for his time creating something for YOU.

10. Don't whine in public that it is hard.  We know it's hard and it will get much harder the more serious one becomes at trying to succeed in this unique "game"

 

Poppa

 

Just joined the forum and have one post. Have you done any of this?

[BaronVonVaderham]

Interesting thread!

i noticed someone staying 200-something hours in 5 years, and I wanted to add something to that:

1) to become proficient you need a significant amount of hours of experience flying your choice of aircraft. PPL takes 50 hours (depending where in the world), CPL adds another 100, then 20 for multi engine rating, and then another I don’t know how many for jet rating. Then there is acrobatics rating to add to the equation. A fighter pilot learns that in a year, maybe 2. ATPL, with some 500 hours, takes 2-4 years depending on the programme you attend. Experienced pilots have thousands of hours. soo don’t expect Richthofen skills within a month. 
2) you need to keep  practicing. Soo flying one it two hours per month is not getting you the muscle memory. You need to spend a significant amount of time in practicing a skill, and keeping up that skill. You also need to spend a large amount of time in actual studying. It’s not all cockpit time, but also classroom time so to speak. 

I’ve spend 30+ years doing flight sims. As well as a few dozen hours real flight.  For single piston engine airplanes I probably do it like a walk in the park. But for DCS I’m an absolute beginner myself and committed to having to go through those steps. (At the wrath of my wife might I add)

[Steel Jaw]

Building muscle memory is the name of the game and it takes time and repetition.

Aerial refueling is a prime example.  Like learning to ride a bike, you keep falling off and then at some point you just "get it" and everything clicks.

[markom]

AAR: amazing how the skill is persistent. I didn't use the DCS for about a month and a half recently, and then jumped into the plane and went AAR. It took me about 5 minutes to get it all sorted out again. Learning AAR is a great sense of accomplishment, I have to confess. I strongly recommend it!

[SharpeXB]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:51 PM, markom said:

AAR: amazing how the skill is persistent. I didn't use the DCS for about a month and a half recently, and then jumped into the plane and went AAR. It took me about 5 minutes to get it all sorted out again. Learning AAR is a great sense of accomplishment, I have to confess. I strongly recommend it!

That amazes me as well. Like riding a bicycle it’s a skill you don’t unlearn. I don’t really find the need to AAR very much but when I do it just clicks again. 

[Raisuli]

On 6/14/2023 at 7:40 AM, NIGHTHAWK1 said:

I got frustrated with a lot of the preplanned missions and quick star missions.   Got shot down right away, start in fog, targets overly defended etc.   I just went to the mission editor and simplified some of the missions and renamed them.  That made the learning process so much easier.   I questioned why they had training missions made so difficult that you couldn't survive unless you were already an expert!!!!!

Because some of the people using them are, and if you die enough times so will you.

Mission editor.  Again.  It's WORTH the time to learn.

Right now I'm doing AAR, so four tankers in parallel orbits (KC-135MPRS, KC-130, S-3B, Il-76).  Set bingo to 7k, take off, hit a tanker.  Dump to bingo while I move on to the next one, top off, then dump to bingo while I move to the next one, wash, rinse, repeat.  Got into a situation where I was at 4k (doing CV ops) and couldn't get on the S3, so switched to the KC-130.  Plugged in with less than 2k and topped off.  That ended up being a 2.5 hour hop, and landed back at Tel Nof after sunset.  Eventually I'll work on refueling from something other than the left wing, then add wind, but I've started to remember to switch to the right wing and fly formation for a while.

Trigger zones for for air-to-air.  Want to do guns only BFM?  Fly into the right trigger zone.  Want to hit a ground convoy?  There's a trigger zone for that.  Typically put TACAN stations at the center of the TZ so I can find them easily.  Formation practice?  Trigger zone spawns a fighter that flies a route, then lands.  Even have a Bear raid on one map so I can work on switching between targets.

CV ops?  Supercarrier and the Kuz are 4 nmi apart.  Take off from one, land on the other.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  Case III?  Just set datalink up; SC is already configured.

Different AC?  I use 'take off from ground hot' and stack them all in the same place.  Navy on this side, those other guys over on that side.

Cold start?  Add an aircraft cold and dark.

Take off and landing?  Set some challenging crosswind and do touch and goes.

Helos?  Got some spotted, and a cone or two laying around for hover practice.

These missions get edited, and added to, as I go.  Time of day, wind, weather, new targets, SAM sites, whatever sounds fun to work on.  The mission editor part takes a few minutes, and with trigger zones one bit doesn't get in the way of other bits unless I fly to the right TACAN point, so that S-300 site isn't going to be a problem when I'm refueling.

Right now the hardest part is deciding if I want to build on the Syria training mission or the Sinai mission.  Both maps are just amazing, but with the Syria updates coming I might switch back for a bit.

[Str][ker]

What I found really helped solidify my knowledge is..

 

1) Hop onto a training server online to practice. I really like the Hoggit training server on the Caucuses map. There are all kinds of targets there and you can spawn your own targets. Some targets shoot back and some don’t (it explains this for you on the server). So when I needed to practice the JSOW’s or laser mavericks, this was a great place to try it out plus I could listen to others talking on SRS (in game communications software but is separate from DCS), watch people flying around attacking stuff and have a safe environment to practice using these weapons and sensors. 
 

2) I found using campaigns really helped force me to learn aspects of the jet which I may have ignored. Specifically I loved the Raven One campaign. It was a lot of fun and it forced me to learn stuff I had forgotten. 

[CBStu]

A couple of comments; 

- L Shift R is your friend. When you get shot down or otherwise screwed up just hit L SHift R and start over.

- Do like I did and mess w/ your screen size numbers (and set DCS to 'play in a window') so you still have that lower band across the screen w/ your internet browser and file explorer icons showing while you are in DCS. When I need help I hit pause, then I go to my 'SIM FLYING" folder for stuff I have saved. Or I hit the web for 'Chucks Guide' or any of 100s of youtube tutorials. I often swap back and forth maybe once or maybe 5-6 times between DCS unpause make a change (learning a new bomb or missile setup) pause and go back to my help. 

- There are times I get frustrated and think, OK screw this, I got into this to have fun. So I get out of whatever is frustrating me and spend my last 15 or 30 minutes flying a mission I enjoy.

[Sedlo]

Self promotion, maybe... but the mission I made is a good way to practice just about anything with the Hornet (or just about any other module)

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3331603/

[Steel Jaw]

On 7/2/2023 at 1:49 PM, Raisuli said:

Right now I'm doing AAR, so four tankers in parallel orbits (KC-135MPRS, KC-130, S-3B, Il-76).  Set bingo to 7k, take off, hit a tanker.

Brother, can you please reward my laziness and send me that mission file?

[Raisuli]

1 hour ago, Steel Jaw said:

Brother, can you please reward my laziness and send me that mission file?

What map do you want it on?  I'll throw some formation flights in there as well; those are the same thing only different.  Both of them use pretty much the same skill set.

I'm always amazed at how tired I get from an hour of close formation with a lead that doesn't tell me which direction the next turn is...or when...

[Steel Jaw]

11 hours ago, Raisuli said:

What map do you want it on?  I'll throw some formation flights in there as well; those are the same thing only different.  Both of them use pretty much the same skill set.

I'm always amazed at how tired I get from an hour of close formation with a lead that doesn't tell me which direction the next turn is...or when...

Nevada preferred please.

[Mr_sukebe]

If I remember, I’ll upload a mission late that I use.  That mission has:

 - no air threats

 - a bunch of static ground targets

 - a flight of 4 aircraft for each weapon type for each aircraft already in the air, roughly 20-30 miles from the target

The implications being that if I want to practice say laser GBUs in an F18, that I just jump into one of the 4 of that flight called F18 - GBUs.  It’s already in air, waypoints in place.  So all I need to do is jump in, ready the weapons and drop them.  No mucking about with startup or lengthy flight times.  When that aircraft is out of weapons, just jump into the next aircraft of the same flight, which also has the same weapons.

It takes a bit of setting up, as some aircraft have upto 10 ground attack weapon types and I have a lot of aircraft.  However, once done, it’s done

[Raisuli]

13 hours ago, Steel Jaw said:

Nevada preferred please.

You start hot at Nellis with three bags and a couple A2A missiles for looks.  I didn't add any of the ground fluff I usually put in as eye candy; pretty bleak!

Zero wind, some cloud for decoration but they should be no factor, sun high in the sky.

All four tankers run ~200nm race tracks.  That's good if you have trouble hooking up, and bad if you need gas badly.  This is NTTR, though, so lots of airfields.  My usual, obsessive, stubborn method is tank, dump, tank, dump.  If all you're doing is A2AR drop the bags; shouldn't need them.  No TACAN on the tankers; never works for me and data link/radar should solve that problem for you.

There's a formation flight in there; fly over the TACAN to trigger it.  I usually put an F-14A as lead (big, nice to look at, just enough smoke to find it easy), but replaced it with an F/A-18 in case you don't have the -14.  Small, hard to find, but if you do it right she's right there in front of you.  It's a slow, 460nmi run, but watch out for terrain!

Details are in the briefing.  Button numbers, frequencies, all of it.  My missions have set rules for frequencies, especially tankers and AWACS, so if I know the call sign I know the freq.

Nevada - Formation - A2AR.miz

[Theodore42]

Operating a Hornet in war is like playing the piano at a concert. A pianist thinks 0% about the keys he is pressing and 100% about expressing his emotions. A Hornet pilot thinks 0% about the buttons he is pressing and 100% about expressing his will to kill.

It's called a "study sim" because it requires lots of thinking and reasoning BUT it is also true that flying and warfare are performing arts.

I learn to do things in DCS like I learn a piece of music. If you've ever learned a piece of music, you're going to have parts of the piece that are easy and parts that are hard. Identify the hard parts and then practice them over and over. I had one music teacher that had me repeat the hardest measures over and over without stopping until I got it. I had another music teacher that made me play the hard measures backwards and forwards, and then flipped the music upside down and made me play THAT backwards and forwards. In a performance there isn't time to think about every note.

To learn something that's a performing art means being able to do it without thinking about it. To learn how to use the Hornet in this way, METHODICALLY go through every button, page, state, etc of whatever system you're studying (Fuel system, ILS, AA Radar, ATFLIR, HSI, left MFD, etc) and understand what it does. Just go through the buttons as fast as your brain can understand what the point of pressing each button is. At first say literal words in your head but eventually turn it into a meditative, intuitive understanding of the meaning behind the buttons. I do this like I practice music: the faster my brain understands the systems, the faster I go through the buttons. Imo this serves to program the brain to have an intuitive understanding of what the button presses do and no thinking is required to play your instrument of war.

That's just my hard and fast way of learning all the button pushing. It's probably not what you meant by practice BUT if I'm fumbling through buttons or don't have a clear understanding of something then that's how I deal with it. For example, the stupid SOI in the Viper has annoyed me a few times so I took about 60 seconds using the DMS switch to flip through all the sensors and situations I could remember that annoyed me and now I own the DMS. And now I get how it's useful when I never used it before. Not really an impressive feat but not something you want to think about when performing combat. Spending 60 seconds in practice is worth it to save 5 seconds in a mission or multiplayer situation.

I know that probably isn't what you meant by "practicing things I've learned" but the modern tradition of music is 1000 years old and I think this level of detail translates to fighter jets. People aren't used to thinking this deeply about a video game but the manual for the Hornet is 900 pages and is 100% about pressing buttons and 0% about expressing your will to kill. May as well see if you can go from reading "how to play piano" in a book to playing "Pop Goes the Weasel" on the piano.

To practice flying as a performing art of war:
Keep things simple. For example, when you practice dropping bombs at the range, you aren't practicing for a mission, nor are you practicing the ingress, you aren't even practicing the attack. You are only practicing the dropping of the bomb on the target. So do THAT. And do it over and over as fast as you can. Pick any bombing mode and do variations on it: practice the attack at different speeds and different altitudes and various dive angles. Use the unlimited ammo. Understand how to get the bomb to the target and you will always be able to either get there fast or you will quickly realize it is impossible and disengage. Check accuracy at the different ranges and speeds. Get a feel for the WEZ.

You get more value out of your practice time if you spit it up. 30 mins a day is better than 6 hours over the weekend. Brains learn faster during sleep. They also recall what was done 1 day ago better than 1 week ago.

Record your performances. Professional athletes do this commonly. It's difficult to tell how good or bad you are in the moment. Watching back what you've done is a great way to identify mistakes or correct bad habits. I started my YouTube channel posting recordings of myself narrating BFM. I had a real bad time remembering what the hell I was thinking while reviewing my dogfights so I just started narrating what I *thought* I was doing in the moment to remind me later.

It's a game, have fun. But if you're playing a study sim then you probably are looking for a little extra. Practice a few things you want to get good at a few times a week and record your weekend missions. When you watch back you will see more clearly how it all needs to come together. [Spoiler alert] Everyone sucks at multitasking. LOL!!