The Black Shark Guide to Marital Dischord

[wickedpenguin]

First post. Just bought the sim a week ago. I'm a real-life private pilot and long time player of flight sims - IL-2, MSFS 4-X, LO:MAC - and I love getting into the nitty-gritty of operating aircraft. DCS:BS has been awesome, as it's hard to get nittier or grittier than this sim. :)

 

So I've been teaching myself the workings of the KA-50. I've got the Shkval system nailed and I can fly the aircraft fairly well (landings aside... oy), so I decide to try out an actual campaign mission. I spool up Campaign #1. Its first mission is the one where you take off, turn left, and basically wind up on the front lines within a couple KM.

 

I'm plinking T-55s, engaging ZSU Shilkas, watching the enemy SU-25s bomb my guys. Great show. I move in cautiously, work my way around to flank some of the enemy.

 

Then the helo starts oscillating along the vertical axis. I try to correct, first gently, then not so gently. I'm losing rudder authority. I've got auto-hover on and this thing is spinning like a damn top. WTF? Then my wingman calls in, "SAM launch, 4 'oclock." I disengage AH, try to regain control. The thing is still spinning. Boom! Down I go.

 

Take a breath, get the "You're a disservice to the motherland" speech, and give it another go. I'm engaging from a distance, lighting up tanks with my Vkhirs. The rest of the enemy are hidden behind AAA batteries. I need to try to take those out... again.

 

Move in for the kill. Pop off a Shilka. Readjust to engage another target.

 

Then the oscillation starts. Again. "$*%&!!!" I'm trying to wrestle control of my helo from its own grasp. The world is spinning, and I'm drifting closer to the enemy lines. Must. Grab. CONTROL.

 

"SAM launch, 2 o'clock!"

 

"$*%&!!!"

 

BOOM! Fiery bits of my helo tumble from the sky.

 

"$*%&!!!!!!!"

 

Right then, my wife walks into the office. She's looking lovely, fresh out of the shower. As fiery bits of Kamov's finest spill across the ground - and my screen - she says, "Hi, sweetie, how're you doing?"

 

My answer? A very angry, "WHAT?!?!"

 

She stops in her tracks and gives me The Look . Oh boy. I get up, feeling awful. "Wait, sweetie, it's-"

 

She walks out. Oh boy. Again. She storms back to the bedroom. From there we have an hour of silent treatment, petulant "But babies...", snappy "Just go back to what you were doings," and me trying to make nice. Add a few slammed doors for spice. All because I was severely annoyed at a (albeit difficult) game and she walked in on the exact moment of my failure.

 

Try explaining your frustrations to a person unfamiliar with the sim. "But, baby, the auto-hover just wasn't working, and I couldn't get my helmet-mounted-sight to track, and my targeting TV system kept getting swung out of range. And there were missiles. And guns! And I kept trying to throw in more rudder to counteract the rotation, and... and....and I sound like an idiot don't I?"

 

Sigh. I got over my annoyace nearly immediately. It is, after all, just a game. She took a little a longer. An hour after "the incident" we kissed and made up.

 

Browsing these forums, I now discover that it's most likely I'm fighting my autopilot. That's a system I need to study quite a bit more, obviously. I'd believed that it merely trimmed you on your pitch axis, and I come to find it takes into account your heading as well. I've also mapped "Reset trimmer" to one of my HOTAS buttons.

 

Still, I do think flying the KA-50 is akin to a marriage. It's great to be in one, pushing buttons without thinking leads to bad things, and just when you think you're in control of the situation, it's really all just an illusion. :doh:

[Dusty Rhodes]

ROTFLMAO oh how many times has this happened to me in my simming career. I think Falcon 4 got me the Stank Eye and silent treatment more than any other sim. I have learned to try and turn my simming on and off like a light switch or I get too, shall we say, emotional. LOL

[sobek]

The Look .

 

:megalol::megalol::megalol::megalol::megalol:

 

Welcome, good first post :)

[Sulman]

I've had this. "Are you alright?" After a particularly difficult and frustrating scenario. Why in God's name a flight sim should make me angry I don't know, but they do.

[coolts]

It’s best to activate the “reality trim” before answering the other half’s innocent queries. Going straight from 100% BS immersion to random spouse conversation can be tricky. I find a momentary blank look, (press pause first), then a smile usually works, (even of your brain is still raging about...the....damn....SPINNING!).

My other half cam in the other day to ask if I wanted a cup of tea as part of my joystick button, (only the collective brake), flew across the room. I completed GoldenEye, Mario and Zelda without this much frustration, so, what is it about a gently rotating heli that gets me so mad? Because Mario doesn’t bloody well spin on the spot when you don’t want him to.

[beers]

So, it's Sunday afternoon and I am supposed to go out to dinner with my sweetie, but I am napping on the couch (sleeping off a late-night session with BS). She's been on the porch for 15 minutes ringing the bell and knocking on the door and finally lets herself in with the spare key and is glaring over me as I wake up... all this is bad, and rather typical for the male of the species, but the kicker comes in when she asks why I didn't hear the door bell... my reply, coming out of deep REM sleep, is "The cobras came out of nowhere ..." so now I'm making up stories about deadly vipers ... "... and I was too far infront of my AA ..." lost her on that one "... and I could see the missle just before it hit me." Thus ended the evening and started a 3-day series of apology & explaining.

 

And I consider myself lucky in that we decided to live in different apartments just a few weeks before BS came out. If we still lived together I think there would be "rules" about when my Saitek can be out... If it wasn't so cruel I'd suggest a poll for $$$ spent on a new computer to run BS vs. $$$ spent on a lawyer to settle the divorce caused by over-play of BS.

[sobek]

Yeah, discounts for lawyers would be much more appreciated than the ones for TIR ;)

[Chazz_BMF]

Still laughing...Just a good advice put the pause button (deal with wife/ life button) on your HOTAS!!! Forget trim and weapon release this button is more important! :lol:

[EtherealN]

To be honest, you just need to get a significant other that shares your hobby. :P

 

Though, you would also have to make damn certain to have two computers, since when I got my (now) ex hooked on Heroes of Might and Magic it was damn impossible to get at my own computer. :P

 

So nowadays I am a happy single and will await civil union laws to include desktops as a spouse. :D

[wickedpenguin]

LMAO. Glad I'm not alone in this ridiculousness.

 

BTW, it doesn't do much for the running balance of your marital respect bank account to have her walk in just as you're trying out the paper cut-out for your Cachya head tracking software.

 

 

 

"Sweetie, why do you have a black and white polygon taped to your hat?"

 

"Uh... because we can't afford TrackIR?"

[Sherlock]

I've been married once so I can perfectly understand that women just don't understand. Now that I've been single a couple years, it's funny to see how differently girlfriends react. "I'm playing my helicopter sim, I'll be a bit late" is generally met with the "aw, you're cute" response instead of "You know what, forget it- I'll just call Heather and go to dinner with her!".

 

And not to rib you married guys too much, but if you think they act differently toward simming, you forget the difference in their opinion of sex!

[born2thrill]

hehe the amount of times ive had arguements with the missus over a game :D, then i try to show her how to play...only makes things worse:doh:

[EvilBivol-1]

Ah, another satisfied customer. :D

[gunslinger11]

bs sim meals with the wife

 

silent suppers and deaf and dumb breakfast!

[HitchHikingFlatlander]

Oh jeez I will say that I'm smart enough to know when to stop playing when I hear these words "honey have you seen my clothes"!

 

But I'm pretty good at deflecting negativity about my simming hobby. Its a good enough reason to print out the manual for this exactly. Show here the 300+ page manual and say "see how fun my GAME is". Works pretty well.

[Sherlock]

One more thing, is your hard drive set to basic or dynamic? Are you using any type of drive compression or encryption?

[CAT_101st]

Thats just too funy. Good post and welcome to hell in a helo sim. Don't wory too much after a few hundred houres you will get the hang of it. ;)

[Total]

LOL!!!! I love it :D

 

My wife it at least starting to fly in IL-2 :)

[joey45]

DCS: divorce

[EtherealN]

Ah, another satisfied customer. :D

 

DCS: divorce

 

:megalol:

 

To be honest, the gaming industry should stop using units sold as the metric of success for a game. It should be amount of customer divorce as a function of units sold. A lot of games will get good sales but only last a week or so on the customers' computers, but some games just never ever stop being played and will be complete homewreckers. :D

[spyda]

ha ha i love this thread.

the trouble one can find them selves in for playing BS till the wee hours in the morning.

 

the other day my girlfriend said from the other room "didn't we buy new printing cartridges the other month its empty all ready"

 

" no i don't think so there ages old" as I'm trying to hide the 6,000 or so pages I've printed for BS lol

[viper169th]

D = Divorce

C = Counting

S = Simulator

Black shark = Irreconcilable Differences

:smartass:

 

Sincerely,

Viper169th

[slowhand]

i have to say there is some funny crap float'n around this place..flight simers are a breed apart..been married 30 yrs...been flight sim'n oh..about that long too ....gents...pick your battles well...cus..if you screw the pooch...you will lose and she will get the gold mine..and you the shaft....just never tell her that fly'n is what kept you home at nite...and not out with(those dirt-bag biker brothers of mine. as she calls them..lol flight sim'n keeps you home at nite...that makes them happy..unless your a big a$$ tool and nobody likes you..lol...fly'm if ya got'm...5x5

[th3flyboy]

big note though, if you can find a girlfriend/wife who flies flight sims, or plays video games, I think it might reduce risk of divorce....

 

otherwise

 

Divorce

Creation

Software

Black Shark

[Squid_DK]

Fortunately I have a wife that shares many of my hobbies, she also have black shark (though she is waiting for me to give her that pesky X52 as a gift!!), she also builds scale models (were both members of IPMS Denmark), she reads about history, and she also plays tabletop wargames, on top of that she pregnant with our first child. What more can a man wish for?

 

Staffan