Horrible Training

[TeeSquar]

"Now I just need to learn how to land correctly ..."

 

Landing the A-10 is the easiest part of this sim. Not appearing as a flaming crater or grease skid on the runway is the challenge.

 

My biggest assistance in training is the "active pause" and "pause" function.

[EtherealN]

Here's what my flight instructor told me (from memory, and I think this is actually a fairly traditional proverb in aviation :P ):

 

"If you live to fly again, it's a successful landing. If the plane can fly again, it's a perfect landing." :)

[BTTW-DratsaB]

Welcome to the Forum and DCS:a10 Feldwebel :)

 

I'll be the first to admit that the manual puts me off. So I rely on the tutorials a lot, then go and read relative sections of the manual to clarify or get more info, which inevitably leads me on to looking at some other part of the manual. :book:

 

My main method of learning are the Training missions though. I will just keep playing them over and over until they get burned into my brain. It takes me ten minutes to read and understand a new or complicated concept, but 2 minutes if I see a practical demonstration or get to try my self.

 

Also, you may not have The Quick Start manual if you only have joined the Beta. You can get it from here:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1015424&postcount=2

 

It's a great intro to the sim and gives you the ability to do a lot.

[Bahger]

In the world of PC gaming, one of the most refreshing things about a really good, deep study sim is that it attracts mature, serious gamers and repels those with severely limited attention spans and/or bad manners. "Study" sim is exactly what the word implies; you will always be confronted by learning curves so steep that you won't see the top until you get there. Between the manual, the original training missions, the much-improved amended training missions and, most importantly, a great deal of expert assistance from members of this forum and others, I have now learned about 80% of the necessary systems and procedures of the DCS A-10. Although it has been frustrating at times, at no point have I felt it necessary, or desirable, especially with two whole posts on this forum under my belt, to shoot from the hip about some feature being "horrible". If I felt that way about the training missions, I would find a constructive way to communicate it, (i) because, like most people here, I value civility and (ii) because it is the best way to troubleshoot an issue. The OP appears to have a bit of a blind spot about this and seems to feel an inappropriate sense of entitlement. I hope he apologises for his boorishness but I am not optimistic.

[coder1024]

I've found a good approach is as follows. Start by reading through the short manual. Its very quick to get through and actually gives you a very good frame of reference for all the more detailed info you'll plug in later.

 

Now that you've done that, fire up the takeoff training mission. Skip the startup one, you don't really need to worry about a ramp start if you're just getting going.

 

Then move onto other missions, going back and scanning the short manual here and there.

 

Eventually you'll want to dive into the full manual, but I wouldn't start there if you want to get in and fly. If you're getting frustrated with the interactive training, chances are the full manual will trip you up as well.

[Vaporblast]

Also don't forget that real life military pilots have to read their manual before they go on a training flight. Actual flight time is costly so they make sure you read and know what you're going to do and what will be talk about in flight before the actual flight. So in real life, you would have read the manual, and you would have know what the instructor is talking about in during the training session.

[Steel Jaw]

Feldwebel, this a study sim so there aint no shortcuts. You should read the relevant manual sections first THEN go to the in-sim training which is meant as a supplement to reinforce.

 

If you have been with AF as yousay, you should know this.

[reilar]

Also don't forget that real life military pilots have to read their manual before they go on a training flight...

 

...and train a lot in DCS: A-10C:smilewink:

[EtherealN]

Technically, in DTS: A-10C. :P

[-fox-]

I like how the tutorial-information in Falcon 4.0's (original) handbook were presented.

[feldwebel]

In the world of PC gaming, one of the most refreshing things about a really good, deep study sim is that it attracts mature, serious gamers and repels those with severely limited attention spans and/or bad manners. "Study" sim is exactly what the word implies; you will always be confronted by learning curves so steep that you won't see the top until you get there. Between the manual, the original training missions, the much-improved amended training missions and, most importantly, a great deal of expert assistance from members of this forum and others, I have now learned about 80% of the necessary systems and procedures of the DCS A-10. Although it has been frustrating at times, at no point have I felt it necessary, or desirable, especially with two whole posts on this forum under my belt, to shoot from the hip about some feature being "horrible". If I felt that way about the training missions, I would find a constructive way to communicate it, (i) because, like most people here, I value civility and (ii) because it is the best way to troubleshoot an issue. The OP appears to have a bit of a blind spot about this and seems to feel an inappropriate sense of entitlement. I hope he apologises for his boorishness but I am not optimistic.

I have been reading over everyone's responses and have been very pleased with your helpful comments. Unfortunately, the quote above wasn't very helpful and is quite possibly the most snobbish thing I have read on these forums. I think you're the one who is feeling an inappropriate sense of entitlement; read your post carefully if you want to know what I'm talking about. As for you even considering me as having a sense of entitlement, can you give me an example? Was it because I chose to use the word "horrible" like I am magical and made it so? Let me retrace my steps and walk more carefully through the eggshells of my ignorant banter and your ironic post.

 

With that aside, thank you everyone for the helpful comments. I'll be honest with you all, I was under the impression that everyone on here was a complete tw*t after going through a few of the threads and reading what people had to say to each other. I figured I would try and post a topic that somewhat addressed something I thought could be improved and be a tw*t at the same time in order to get some answers. I don't want to go into my entire thought process concerning my rudeness, but rest assured I regret being a snatch.

 

Feldwebel, this a study sim so there aint no shortcuts. You should read the relevant manual sections first THEN go to the in-sim training which is meant as a supplement to reinforce.

 

If you have been with AF as yousay, you should know thi

Yeah, I know. I do know it and was feeling frustrated and generally being an asshat. I do play falcon; I was frustrated at first; and, I got tired of being confused and went crazy studying the game and came out of it all feeling very accomplished and proud of having had actually learned something.
Edited December 7, 2010 by feldwebel

[159th_Viper]

Keep it Civil.

[element1108]

 

But that said, a PhD isn't actually about retaining a lot of information in your head, it's more about research methodology.

 

. ;)

 

The Ph.d was a quote I pulled from an F-16 program I caught on tv, that's why I said "they say" heheh. But you're right about what exactly a ph.d is. I guess they're trying to articulate the amount of knowledge required to fly/kill/operate effectively in modern day fighter plans.

Edited December 7, 2010 by element1108

[Woots]

At NASA, if you sign up for a simulator session without reading the subject material first, the instructor can cancel the class.

[Moa]

PhD vs military flying vs civilian flying

Actually for a PhD you must retain a lot of information (I have one in Physics/Astrophysics) as you need to see a big picture and tie things together (like remember much of the detail from 200 terse research papers in your literature search so you don't end up re-inventing the wheel).

 

Before that I was in the RNZAF as a pilot (flew, but did not complete Wings. The RNZAF trains all its pilots to fighter pilot standards and can choose only the best). Flying is not intellectual at all - it is not even in the same ballpark as an Baccelaurate let along a PhD. Military flying is very different to civilian flying as well - you must learn (physical skills) extremely quickly to graduate military flight training whereas civilian flying you will always graduate provided you have the money. My point is they are different things requiring different skills (and one is not necessarily "better" except for a limited purpose).

Reorganization required

These days I'm a developer but also occasionally do technical writing and training of complex subjects (eg. enterprise software systems and applications such as accounting systems for mega-enterprises). Hence I feel qualified to offer a professional opinion on this debate.

 

As a technical writer (trained in the "Information Mapping" methodology, eg. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_mapping for a brief overview) I actually agree with the original poster. The manual is laid out poorly compared with the Falcon manuals. The differences are subtle so not everyone notices, but some do. It is not a problem with the quality of writing, simply that the organization is naiive and not set to well known principles of learning. I'm suggesting that the manual is adequate but can be improved by a re-organization (clearly too late for A-10C, hopefully done for whatever is the next DCS module {DCS:Hornet, I wish :) }).

 

The DCS manuals give you a whole bunch of background stuff that is of interest but actually mostly useless when you are in the cockpit. Embedded in that are some useful things, so you end up having to read it all and sorting the wheat from the chaff. It is assumed you want to read the entire 600+ pages before you get started. That is simply not the way people learn technical skills. The material needs to broken into chunks far more and organized so that you can easily find all the relevant information on a single topic (without having to read all the proceeding topics either). In fact, this "breaking into chunks" partially arose from studies of pilot overloading in the Vietnam War when great progress was made on the psychology of learning and task management.

 

Reorganize with a more procedural/task-based orientation

Note also that even real pilots learn things broken into seperate chunks; basic circuits, basic comms; basic emergencies; basic dead reckoning; then they move to night flying; formation; aerobatics; cross-country navigation; low-level flying; etc then finally progressing to operational flying (tactics, BFM, strike etc as needed). They learn things by the *tasks they must perform* not jumbled as a mass of reference material.

The A-10C manual is a step forward for ED manuals since it includes a lot more procedures. These procedures (mostly in the form of checklists) are quite brief though and are more aided at memory joggers (as real aircraft checklists are) rather than learning tools (which would have slightly more information to assist the learning process). For the entertainment market I believe the latter is in order (always know the level of audience to write for!).

 

Procedures are more instructional and easier to create and maintain than videos

While video instruction serves the role of a real instructor the effort required to produce it is enormous. As a result the coverage of video is quite poor. Video is good for orientation and introductory material but that's as far as it good. Video also is a pain if you want to go over a point within the instruction as you have to watch the same thing again (a very slow way of learning).

 

Rather than more video it would be much better to have properly written procedures to learn from (the Falcon manual had some of these in its tutorials, and exercises to put it those into practice) - these procedures are:

* faster and less effort to create

* contain a lot more detail than video (in the form of notes and branching paths)

* can be reviewed and scanned quickly when trying to recall a specific point.

* can be organized so that related material is in the same place in the manual (eg. a section may be on different ways of using the TGP, another section on the Maverick Seeker, another on different ways of navigating).

When properly organized this allows you to quickly locate a task within the manual and learn that task (eg. navagation) *without having to read the entire manual first*.

 

Note: excessive screenshots are also a maintenance hassle. There should be some for orientation and reference purposes but they are not required (nor recommended) for every step of a procedure.

 

Final points

So, IMHO the A-10C manual has great information but what it really needs is re-organization along the lines of proven learning techniques such as Information Mapping. A mere re-organization can turn the same content from hard to learn into easy to learn (in stages).

 

Please don't give feldwebel a hard time. He actually made an extremely valid point that unfortunately was not accepted by some who appear slightly defensive in their outlook (hey, we all love these sims ok) or have never seen a technical instruction manual done properly (so cannot imagine how a manual could be improved from the current state). When you see a technical manual done properly you'll see that the A-10C manual could be improved enormously for both us 'hard core' sim-junkies as well as more casual users - it is possible!

 

nb. notice how by the simple use of labels I could break an enormous chunk of text into bunches of related concepts that you could easily navigate between? A similar simple and quick re-organization would similarly improve DCS manuals. The most important thing is that this can be achieved with little effort (economy of effort to write and maintain a document is very important).

 

Finally: real pilots learn this stuff over 2 years and then perfect it over a career. Some of us have a couple of hours a week. To be effective the DCS training material and manuals cannot be exactly as real pilots are trained as the time available is smaller - the DCS material should not necessarily be exactly as terse as real checklists since the audience is different [again: write for your audience].

Edited December 8, 2010 by Moa

[159th_Viper]

 

Please don't give feldwebel a hard time. He actually made an extremely valid point that unfortunately was not accepted by some who appear slightly defensive in their outlook (hey, we all love these sims ok). When you see a technical manual done properly you'll see that the A-10C manual could be improved enormously for both us 'hard core' sim-junkies as well as more casual users - it is possible!.

 

feldwebel referred exclusively to the training tutorials in his OP. As regards to the manual, his viewpoint seems to be the polar opposite to yours.

 

Be that as it may, the manual is there and the vast majority of users have no complaints. Granted, there will always be complaints, valid and constructive at that and I am by no means inferring that yours are not. The point I am making is that I would love to see people actually step up to the plate and contribute towards a cause where they feel a valid complaint is justified.

 

Manual not technical enough? Step up, improve and/or amend it and submit the draft for consideration by your peers. Until then and at the very least, quit complaining and deal with what you've got. Until then, all complaints do, constructive or otherwise, is to add to a general feeling of belittlement of the author's work. Add enough straw and the Camel will start getting irritated.........

[element1108]

Individuals learn at different strengths as well, there is no one universal method so it would be difficult to write. Most technical manuals I've read are terribly confusing for my learning strength. It is true that you have to learn in chunks. For me to read the entire A-10C manual without applying the practices would be a gross waste of time for me (that I could spend flying). Read a bit, try it out, read a bit more, try it out.

 

I actually didn't find the Falcon manual any better in terms of understanding the process, they've both been an entertaining challenge to go through.

 

I'm definitely not one to understand or say how the masses should learn, I just accept what has been given to me and my own abilities will carry me the rest of the way.

 

:)

[Yskonyn]

Furthermore I don't think anyone is against constructive criticism. The thing I have come across often here -and it does seem an issue all over the internet on forums, not just this one- is that people just throw out their gripe without any nuance, use caps a lot or otherwise bring their view in a rude manner. That ticks off people and rightly so, in my view.

If we can have a civil discussion about an issue I am all for it. Drop every comlaint. Afterall this is is a discussion board. But just because you can, it doesnt mean you always have to drop every gripe on here without some forethought, nuancing or getting the facts first. Its already hard to read text like its meant, because we dont hear someone speaking or look at their face. No tactile inputs. Its proven that the message does not come across like it was meant when it was put down, but rather it comes across as how its read by the recipient. Another reason why we should think.a bit more about how to write things down on a forum.

Besides, it becomes much more effective as well if we all think a bit more, before posting. Friendlier atmosphere and faster results/solutions.

[Moa]

feldwebel referred exclusively to the training tutorials in his OP. As regards to the manual, his viewpoint seems to be the polar opposite to yours.

 

Be that as it may, the manual is there and the vast majority of users have no complaints. Granted, there will always be complaints, valid and constructive at that and I am by no means inferring that yours are not. The point I am making is that I would love to see people actually step up to the plate and contribute towards a cause where they feel a valid complaint is justified.

 

Manual not technical enough? Step up, improve and/or amend it and submit the draft for consideration by your peers. Until then and at the very least, quit complaining and deal with what you've got. Until then, all complaints do, constructive or otherwise, is to add to a general feeling of belittlement of the author's work. Add enough straw and the Camel will start getting irritated.........

 

Note that the vast majority of users won't complain because they simply don't know any better. This is not their fault, they've never seen a state-of-the art low-effort manual - except maybe for Apple manuals that also follow the principles I espouse [eg. notice how Apple use illustrations sparingly but appropriately due to the maintenance overhead - this is excellent tech writing and part of their overall design quality].

 

So I don't think the argument that "user's don't complain" invalidates the fact that the manual could be written better and once re-organized would allow users to learn directly from the manual (and the thread topic is about improving the training - which is why I suggest the way the real pros do it).

 

Yes, I'd love to write a decent procedural manual for this sim. There are several barriers in the way:

 

1) Ownership. I'm guessing the original author may be required to assign copyright to ED if the work was a substantial part of the product. There are licenses out there that would protect both ED and the original author - but the situation is unclear and it seems ED's position (at least in the past) was that stuff built on their products should result in a substantial revenue percentage to ED (which means they have a conservative view of how an ecosystem can be built). This has discouraged me from spending the effort writing a substantial training manual for LockOn using a proper methodology.

 

2) Time. I've just spent months working on a stats system which I intend to share with everyone. I've spent so much time working around bugs in the logs produced by FC2/BlackShark (and there are a lot) that I simply don't have any spare time over and above the 20-30 hours a week I devote at the moment making LockOn resources to make a manual as well. I think there will be a lot of strange additional bugs that will crawl out of the woodwork once the stats go live and that doesn't mean I'll be free after release either. Oherwise, I'd do exactly as you say and shut up and sort the manual myself (although I'd certainly be berated on these forums for doing so - suggestions are often met with a large degree of hostility here).

 

3) Who receives the money should write the manual. My post was a suggestion that a low-effort re-organization of the manual would make all the difference in the world. I attempted to explain why I felt like I was qualified to make this suggestion in the hope it might allow the efforts of the *existing* team to be more efficient and produce a higher-quality output if they learned a proper technical writing methodology (eg Information Mapping, which takes 0.5 to 2 days to learn, so not too onerous). This was never intended to belittle the effort of the team in any way, just say that improvement could be made for little additional effort by the existing person/people that are *paid* by ED to do this job (or already volunteer).

 

I have suggested minor non-contentious improvements to the documentation in the past but they have been rebuffed in a dismissive manner. From that I gained that there was no point in me doing anything greater - it simply wouldn't be understood enough to be appreciated. No problem, but no contribution to the docs either.

 

I can only give you the benefit of my training and experience in this field with suggestions (lead horses to water etc.) - but cannot sort it out personally since I'm tied up contributing to DCS/FC2 elsewhere (hundreds of hours of effort to get real-time stats that are maintenance free and with low enough overhead they can be run on the same machine as the game server).

 

The tech writing methodology I suggested is sound and better than what is being done now. Please take the time to check it out otherwise the current writers missing an opportunity to go from good to great.

Edited December 8, 2010 by Moa

[reilar]

@Moa

Thanks for a very interesting and informative post. I have agreed with OP from the beginning though I also see the point of some of the criticism that others have on him - you can always be a little more humble when you criticise things whatever it may be. But I also think the DCS: A-10C manual needs some sort of reorginzation because it's quite heavy to take in.

 

I would love to see an effort from someone who seems to have the knowledge to do it - and I am unfortunately not the one who have that knowledge I guess.

[159th_Viper]

...Yes, I'd love to write a decent procedural manual for this sim. There are several barriers in the way...

 

I'd definitely suggest that you revisit the topic once you have the intent and will of overcoming said barriers. Your ideas on the face of it seem to have a lot of merit and would no doubt supplement the work done to date.

 

Until then, you'll have to forgive me for treating the submissions of the Armchair Critics with a certain degree of circumspect.....they certainly do little to aid in the furtherance of the subject-matter.

[Moa]

I'd definitely suggest that you revisit the topic once you have the intent and will of overcoming said barriers. Your ideas on the face of it seem to have a lot of merit and would no doubt supplement the work done to date.

 

Until then, you'll have to forgive me for treating the submissions of the Armchair Critics with a certain degree of circumspect.....they certainly do little to aid in the furtherance of the subject-matter.

 

Of course. All the "I want x, but want someone else to do it for me" must drive you guys bananas - and yet the ED testers are always here answering questions. Awesome.

[fubar2niner]

@Moa

 

I have read this thread in it's entirety, and have to agree I also find the manual as stands heavy going. Before I am accused of 'not being bothered' , 'whining' , 'laziness'. When I say heavy, I mean memory overload. It was with most interest that I read your post, if you ever find it in your power to re right, condense or make the whole manual study thing less daunting, please may I become the first in the queue to order a copy. I too played the original Falcon 4, and found it far easier to follow in regards to training.

 

Best regards

 

fubar2niner

[VMFA117_Poko]

These training tutorials are considered as the best of flight sims trg by many of my colleagues. Warthog is a study sim. Don't expect it will be easy to learn all of it at once. But it's a part of fun - to be closer to reality. If this does a hard time for you I'm sure you wouldn't get through real flight training. Be honest - thing is just not for you as you expected. Sim and the aircraft are so complex and there's no shortcuts to master them. But again learning it is not a hell but part of a fun. Good work ED & RTFM!

[fubar2niner]

These training tutorials are considered as the best of flight sims trg by many of my colleagues. Warthog is a study sim. Don't expect it will be easy to learn all of it at once. But it's a part of fun - to be closer to reality. If this does a hard time for you I'm sure you wouldn't get through real flight training. Be honest - thing is just not for you as you expected. Sim and the aircraft are so complex and there's no shortcuts to master them. But again learning it is not a hell but part of a fun. Good work ED & RTFM!

 

 

@Poko24

 

These training tuts may well be "the best of flight sims trg by many of my colleagues", however many here have posted they could better if they were broken down a little. Please note I don't say simplified . I don't expect things to be easy to learn, just a little easier to digest without my brain exploding :music_whistling: Regarding my ability to pass real front line flight school is moot, I wouldn't even pass the physical. Does that mean because I lack the physical attributes that I should not consider playing this sim ??? I am not saying the training tuts or manual is bad, just that the layout and vids themselves could be broken down as @Moa so eloquently suggested :thumbup:

 

Best regards.

 

fubar2niner