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How to start playing DCS (and not ruin your bank account)

Suchos

By Suchos
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Suchos

Suchos

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Introduction

Over the years, i have installed and tried to learn how to fly in DCS multiple times. After couple of hours sorting keys for the free SU-25T (with Cyrillic labels in cockpit and HUD), watching multiple guides, going through tutorial and several deaths on the first mission in campaign, I gave up and uninstalled.

About year or so ago, i installed DCS again and decided to buy FC3 right away and start with F15C. All that, because i felt like it’s the only way I can learn this (with English cockpit, it will be easier). And in the end – i did it. Because of the money spent, i did not gave up so easily and i spent hours playing with settings, reading and watching guides, testing, flying, dying and playing with settings again.

I used to fly planes and helicopters in ARMA before, so i thought, i already have experience in „combat fly simulator“ ... looking back, how ARMA looks arcade-ish now, boy was i wrong.

Reason I am making this „guide“ is to give DCS newcomers – like i once was - a head-start. There will still be a lot to learn to fly in DCS, but i wanted to share my experience and help people, that like to fly in military games like ARMA, Squad etc., to step into new level of combat flying and enjoy this unique simulator faster and have better experience starting and show them, how to do all of this without building entire cockpit in your basement.

Disclaimer: I would like to say, that are things mentioned bellow are my subjective opinions how I see and experienced things. I am still a beginner in this game (as i don't play it frequently) and i don't have all the knowledge about this game, but that's the kinda the point of this post.

Game and modules

First we need to install DCS – I recommend installing standalone (no steam) beta version. I have always used this and never had any issues – i don't see reason installing stable version.

About modules. After login on DCS website, you can go to E-Shop - > Modules and there you can „Trial“ any plane or helicopter for 14 days (and after 6 months you can do that again).

I started learning in F15C, but i can not recommend it now, because Russian planes from Flaming Cliffs 3 are just easier to fly. I recommend starting with SU-27, SU-33 and J-11A – these 3 planes are EXTREMELY similar, they all can do Air-to-Air as well as Air-to-Ground combat and they are easy to fly and easy to land. This way, you will have 6 weeks of free flying and you have enough time to learn everything.

If you decide to buy, please don't forget, that you have 50% off on first buy. I do recommend to buy Flaming Cliffs 3. With the sale its about 25 dollars. For that price, you get multiple jets to fly. Yes they are all low fidelity models (non-clickable cockpits), but that's a good thing for start. Starting on full fidelity plane would be complicated and overwhelming. I play DCS (not frequently have to say) for about 2 years now and i am now considering buying first full fidelity plane.

Please also note, that the sale is for the ENTIRE first order, so consider testing any jet you like before actually buying something, because you can save 50% of that full fidelity plane/helicopter price too.

Peripherals

Another big topic. You really don't need expensive hardware to play this game. That said, i don't think it is possible to play this game on keyboard+mouse only. There will probably be people, that will disagree with me, but even though it can be „possible“, i think even cheap joystick will work better for gameplay, overall experience and it will be more immersive.

So, what do i play on?

I have Thrustmaster T16000M. Bought this joystick way back for flying in Arma 3. In my opinion, this is best entry-level joystick you can get. I have mine for about 8 years and it still works like new. I actually just bought another T16000M with throttle, so now i have joystick+throttle for planes and double joystick for space sims.
The most important keys can be mapped on the joystick itself, rest of the functions can be controlled on keyboard with the left hand.

When i started, I used joystick hat to look around. It was ok-ish for flying, but combat was absolute nightmare. So i started looking for the cheap headtracking. I didn't want to invest into trackIr or similar „hardware“ tracking devices, because i wasn't sure at that time, that i will stick with DCS.

After a while i found Aruco tracking. How it works is, that you have to print sort of „QR code“ and put it on top of your head (headphones) and opentracker then use webcam to track this QR code. After using it for a month or two, i still was not satisfied. The looking was twitchy and light (or absence of light) was making issues with tracking. For example, i have window on my right and when i looked right, the light reflected by the paper QR code made it unreadable to my webcam and headtracking in game lagged.

After that i discovered AiTrack and after more than year flying, i can say, this is best headtracking available (if i don't count TrackIR and other rather expensive hardware solutions). Took some time to get the settings right, but it works like a charm, it has no problem with too much light or too low light. I wear glasses and it works well with them too.

For the headtracking i use my old Logitech C720p HD WEBCAM (i don't think they even make them anymore). If you don't have webcam, you probably can use your phone (or old phone) with proper app or you can go and buy some cheap webcam. I actually have my webcam resolution down-scaled to 640x480 to maintain stable 30fps. If you are going to buy webcam for this purpose, look more for FPS than resolution, if you can.

Here you can check my video to see AiTrack in action along side with the modded SU-27 cockpit

Learning how to fly

Just briefly, because there is tons of materials on this topic.

  • If it is available, do the in-game tutorials for the plane you want to fly.
  • If there is no official tutorial, take a look on Custom files on the DCS website. There you can find user-made tutorials similar to official ones (like this one for F15C for example)
  • Look at the Youtube (i recommend Grim Reapers).
  • If you know how to control the plane, you can jump on some PVE multiplayer server first. I like 4YA servers, where you can test and train your skills in a persistent pve scenario and cooperate with others as well.

My „starter pack“

I have put together this „starter pack“ and this is main reason i wanted to make this post as i believe, that this pack will improve the experience for new players.

If you have T16000M joystick and webcam, then this .zip file will have everything you need to get you started.

Inside you will find following:

  • Keybinds for (i think) all FC3 planes for T16000M joystick in form of exported files – so you can simply import it and you are (almost) good to go
  • Word file containing schema of these keybinds for each plane (not so good looking, but usefull and editable)
  • Headtracking (AiTrack and opentrack installations) including setup guide
  • Profile for opentrack i use (i have flat settings in DCS and all tuning is done in opentrack) – you will probably want to modify this soon or later, but i think this is great starting point
  • Kneeboards, Liveries and mods:
  • ReadMe file with notes and installation guide

 

My „starter pack“ can be downloaded here.

 

I hope, that this guide will help at least some struggling pilots jump into the DCS, but i have to warn you. Once you learn how to fly and fight in DCS all the other games will look like arcade game for kids 🙂

 


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