MP Noob question

[mdmasters]

After 10 years with DCS, I've just started to look into multiplayer.  I have no idea which airfields to spawn at because I don't memorize all of their locations, and I don't know where the front lines are at any particular time, so I am guessing at an airfield spawn, and often I find that I am far away from the front lines.  This really sucks when flying helos.

Is there some way to see the server's map after I join a server and before I choose a slot? 

 

Thanks,

MM

 

[Maverick87Shaka]

This is not your fault, but I guess some pain point of DCS that can be improvement in the next upcoming release (not short term unfortunately)

The only way to enable player to show maps in game (F10) is to enable observer slot, but it's something that on 95% of the server will be disable to avoid unbalance PvP, or get PvE to much easy, since with observer slot enabled, you'll be able to see all units, red and blue, no matters what the maps settings is (for of war, allied only etc...,doesn't apply to observer slot).

Some more advanced server typically had a website where you can check "realtime" map, airfield status, etc, so you can get idea of what is happening.
We ware usual to have this method in place, but since it's really complicated develop this feature, it's currently offline (the map) for code refactoring.

The only "workaround" or suggestion that I can tell you, is keep a slot of the same type that you want fly, don't start-up, open map and then check what is going on server. Then change slot in the appropriate airfield. It's annoying, but as soon as you keep the same aircraft type, it's not wasting too much memory, and switch should be "faster" than keep a module for the first time.