StrongHarm Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 In this thread/poll the manual was discussed. Roughly half the people polled said they found the manual and deep understanding important. The other half found they didn't care much to have a full understanding of the A-10C. I ranted a bit about how much people are missing if they try to click their way through instead of gaining a deep understanding. Let me clarify: I have to digress and explain why I'm so passionate about stressing the value of the manual. I've been callus and less than helpful. I apologize. Up until a few decades ago, digital wizardry wasn't available. PCs were little more than glorified calculators, and phones had cords and radial dials that created sparks to communicate with routers as big as a house. During the emergence of this technological utopia we now comfortably inhabit, we were excited. There was something in the near future that was going to change everything. We couldn't wait to see what was next. Enter the military aircraft! They defied laws of physics and understanding as we knew them. How can that aircraft fly to a target at faster than the speed of sound, engage and destroy an enemy with ruthless efficiency, and return home with a grinning pilot? Black boxes.. intense mathematical calculations.. expensive new alloys.. secret sauce. We all wanted a taste of it. It was our gateway into this future we now know. Digital wizardry!.. and we could have a small peek inside through, what at the time, passed for a flight simulator. This digital wizardry persists. These aircraft remain the most complex and effective machines ever built. But when you wake up and pay your bills, check the weather, watch the news, and make a significant purchase.. all within five minutes from your smartphone.. it's easy to forget that these steel dragons exist. Slow down and open your eyes to this wonder. Read the manual, understand the hardware, THEN you can truly take flight and revel in the power you wield. Look closer and be humbled. The Warthog and ED will not disappoint. P.S. - 4 It's a good thing that this is Early Access and we've all volunteered to help test and enhance this work in progress... despite the frustrations inherent in the task with even the simplest of software... otherwise people might not understand that this incredibly complex unfinished module is unfinished. /light-hearted sarcasm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClearDark Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 Agreed. For me reading and understanding everything is 50% of the fun. It's not about "What do I have to click to get <insert combat action here>". Its "Why do I have to do these steps to get <insert combat action here>". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkStar Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 agreed, good post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stalintc Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 I tend to read the manual more fully when I have a paper copy.... When dealing with PDF manuals, I tend to read digest and then go and try. I find reading PDF manuals highly painful. A more in depth reading of the manual will take place when\if ED release a ring bound manual like the one for Black Shark. Until then, phased learning for me :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4c Hajduk Veljko Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 Excellent post! Thermaltake Kandalf LCS | Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R | Etasis ET750 (850W Max) | i7-920 OC to 4.0 GHz | Gigabyte HD5850 | OCZ Gold 6GB DDR3 2000 | 2 X 30GB OCZ Vertex SSD in RAID 0 | ASUS VW266H 25.5" | LG Blue Ray 10X burner | TIR 5 | Saitek X-52 Pro | Logitech G930 | Saitek Pro flight rudder pedals | Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hassata Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 :D Highly recommended [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
galagamo Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 Well I made it to Pg138:smartass: I just don't have time to sit and RTFM, it's seriously cutting in to my flight time:pilotfly: I have the start up procedure memorized, unfortunately unlike with the KA-50, that's the easy part. Louis C.K. is brilliant:lol: [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] OS:WIN7 HP X64|MOBO:ASRock Z68|CPU:I52500k@4Ghz|RAM:12Gb 3x4Gb GSkill Ripjaws 9-9-9-24 @1600Mhz|GPU:ASUS GTX580|HDD:2x128Gb Crucial sataIII SSD raid0|PSU:Antek 1000watt|Case:Antek 1200|Peripherals: TMWH|Saitek ProFlight rudder pedals|TrackIr4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrongHarm Posted October 10, 2010 Author Share Posted October 10, 2010 Thanks Hajduk! I hate to stray off topic.. but could you rate your SSDs in Raid0 as a percentage of total performance gain? I've been considering the upgrade. It's a good thing that this is Early Access and we've all volunteered to help test and enhance this work in progress... despite the frustrations inherent in the task with even the simplest of software... otherwise people might not understand that this incredibly complex unfinished module is unfinished. /light-hearted sarcasm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
power5 Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 SSD in Raid0 is exactly what Louis CK is talking about. SSD are faster than god can move and people still find ways to want them faster. :) I wish I could get a single SSD for my system. I want a paper manual. If the beta manual was the final, I would actually go to kinkos and get it printed and bound, but its going to change so I am not printing a 650+ page manual that will be wrong with final release. I also Hate PDF manuals. Way to hard to flip back to pages you want. One of my biggest gripes about the trend toward D2D crap. I printed the BS manual which is twice as big as it would be since I do not have 2 sided capability. But it really helps learning when I can ear mark pages. [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Aaron i7 2600k@4.4ghz, GTX1060-6gb, 16gb DDR3, T16000m, Track IR5 BS2-A10C-UH1-FC3-M2000-F18C-A4E-F14B-BF109 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fastfreddie Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 :D Highly recommended Awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlakBait Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 I miss proper paper manuals. Did any of you guys play the Lucasfilm flight sims back in the 80s and early 90s? (BattleHawks 1942, Their Finest Hour, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe) I used to take the great manuals they came with to school with me and read them. I was in 3rd-6th grade when I did that. Sadly those games weren't even complicated and it's hard to really even think of them as sims now. Yet they had nice thick printed manuals with a lot of history and information in them. Now that we have highly complex simulations that practically REQUIRE a huge manual, we don't get a proper printed manual. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t-stoff Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 Falcon 3.0 was my first one... and cause i had some trouble with a virus affecting the EXE on one of the floppys (11 if i recall lol) I couldnt play till someone got me a copy... early 90s no one I knew had that type of complex game installed. I had the hardest time reading the manual and not being able to use that knowledge... i carried it everywhere, the result I had almost mastered it before i even played ! You can imagine what happened after I finnaly got it... : )) Changed my life! [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] "The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightlynx Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 I love huge manuals and complicated sims. They allow me to experience something that I'll never have the chance to do in my life for real. The more I feel like a real life pilot the happier I am. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hassata Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 Falcon 3.0 was my first one... and cause i had some trouble with a virus affecting the EXE on one of the floppys (11 if i recall lol) I couldnt play till someone got me a copy... early 90s no one I knew had that type of complex game installed. I had the hardest time reading the manual and not being able to use that knowledge... i carried it everywhere, the result I had almost mastered it before i even played ! You can imagine what happened after I finnaly got it... : )) Changed my life! Was that back in the day when we had to create boot disks to get enough ram to even fire the sim up? [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaos Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 Was that back in the day when we had to create boot disks to get enough ram to even fire the sim up? Ah yes... QEMM, LOADHIGH and whatnot. Those were the days... :-) Tornado anyone??? Real life got in the way, 10 years ago, and I haven't had the time to fly sims since then. Now I'm flying DCS:WH on my laptop, with the arrow keys as a stick... It's not good enough so I'm thinking; "should I buy a proper desktop/HOTAS/TrackIR"? Hell, yes! "It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stickers Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 For anyone that has an iPhone, I recommend the GoodReader app. You can upload PDF's wirelessly with the app and view them with it on your phone. I have the manual with me at all times! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zenra Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 For anyone that has an iPhone, I recommend the GoodReader app. You can upload PDF's wirelessly with the app and view them with it on your phone. I have the manual with me at all times! :D +1 Love this on my iPad - reading (the excellent) DCS A-10C manual on it now... Zenra Intel i7 930 2.8GHz; ATI HD5850 1GB; 1TB Serial ATA-II; 12GB DDR3-1333; 24 x DL DVD+/-RW Drive; 800W PSU; Win7-64; TM Warthog HOTAS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrongHarm Posted October 11, 2010 Author Share Posted October 11, 2010 Was that back in the day when we had to create boot disks to get enough ram to even fire the sim up? > run A:\falcon.exe >Not enough memory to run Falcon. .....grrr.... >MEM /C /P ... grrr... mscdex still loaded in high mem.. can't have my CD ROM driver running because it takes too much memory > edit autoexec.bat > REM DEVICEHIGH =C:\CDROM\MSCDEX.exe reboot ... <whistles> >MEM /C /P .. grrrr.... >memmaker.exe ... <whistles> ... A-HAH! > Loading FALCON. . . 256 colors... niiiiiiiiice... my landing gear looks like four square blocks instead of just one! It's a good thing that this is Early Access and we've all volunteered to help test and enhance this work in progress... despite the frustrations inherent in the task with even the simplest of software... otherwise people might not understand that this incredibly complex unfinished module is unfinished. /light-hearted sarcasm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t-stoff Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 yeapppppppp those were the days.. I was searching for that section who specified the amount of memory needed and found this lol http://hideout.dvru.ru/Games/354/Files/falcon3_man.PDF [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] "The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrongHarm Posted October 11, 2010 Author Share Posted October 11, 2010 Hah.. 600k then... 2,000,000k now. Flightsims back then might as well have been MUDs, but boy were we proud of our Falcons. There was so much left out back then due to system restraints, not only with graphics, but also on the physics aspect. Now with DCS I can't imagine anything was left out but the smell of JP5 and a sore ass from the seatpan. It's a good thing that this is Early Access and we've all volunteered to help test and enhance this work in progress... despite the frustrations inherent in the task with even the simplest of software... otherwise people might not understand that this incredibly complex unfinished module is unfinished. /light-hearted sarcasm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t-stoff Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 Well its already been discussed hundreds of times, but im still amazed how much Falcon 3.0 had to offer back in those days... replays and acmi, campaign, all the different views (padlock was incredible), mission editor, multiplayer, a decent manual and maps, 3 different scenarios, lots of weapons to play with.. setting the standards 19 years ago, true visionaries [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] "The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrongHarm Posted October 11, 2010 Author Share Posted October 11, 2010 Well its already been discussed hundreds of times, but im still amazed how much Falcon 3.0 had to offer back in those days... replays and acmi, campaign, all the different views (padlock was incredible), mission editor, multiplayer, a decent manual and maps, 3 different scenarios, lots of weapons to play with.. setting the standards 19 years ago, true visionaries I totally agree. I was an Aviation Structural Mechanic Environmental Systems Technician in the Navy at the time. We used a terminal in the shop to enter MAFs and such, but PCs were still for hobbyists for the most part. I heard about Falcon and saved for months and months to buy a 386 so I could fly in my barracks room. I occasionally got time in the real supercomputer driven F14 or F18 flight sims late at night, and still found Falcon to be a challenge. ED has made an even bigger breakthrough than the Falcon folks did in their time. Falcon was great, but it was a novelty. People are logging real flight hours with DCS. You can see the love in both products, but ED had technical freedom to add more realism and immersion.. thank GOD they took full advantage of it. <applause for the devs> It's a good thing that this is Early Access and we've all volunteered to help test and enhance this work in progress... despite the frustrations inherent in the task with even the simplest of software... otherwise people might not understand that this incredibly complex unfinished module is unfinished. /light-hearted sarcasm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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