Scaring off the newbies?

[Bucic]

Like I said ... forget the triple monitor. Get a 40" LED Backlit TV. It'll cost you as much as the triple monitor and card upgrade, possibly less! :P

 

I reccomend SAMSUNG.

The keyword is: fish eye effect ;)

[redtail]

"like your private license, is a matter of putting in 40 hours in the air to qualify. More or less."

 

Trust me, it's MORE.....a lot MORE:thumbup:

 

Took me well over 40 hours to be confident that I wouldn't kill myself in a Cessna 172:lol:

 

on that note, I'm having a blast flying DCS A-10 and trying to fly it well. This is about the best flightsim I've ever laid hands on! and I've have em all...dating all the way back to my Commodore-64/Amiga 500 :)

Edited June 22, 2011 by redtail

[GGTharos]

Nope ... you're not going to zoom out that much. The screen fills a lot of your FoV and the proportions look much more realistic as well.

 

The keyword is: fish eye effect ;)

[MackTheKnight]

Agreed - I tried 2 different triple-screen setups and was never quite satisfied with them. Especially the headaches involved with setting it up. I've a 40" LED Sony Bravia now and I'm sorry I wasted money trying the triple-screen setup...

 

No regrets on the 40" Sony, though. :)

[Cibit]

Can I hijack this thread slightly to get someone knowledgeable about these LCD TV's to give an idea of what to look for. Its technology that has past me by somehow:)

[GGTharos]

Look for LED backlit unless you /really/ want to save money, then go LCD. A 60hz TV is good enough, and will really save you some money, if you can still find some.

 

Again, personally I reccomend SAMSUNG, but people are good with other stuff too. Most of these new TVs have an ethernet jack and can plug into your network and stream movies from a DLNA server as well. Personally, there I was dissapointed with SONY (they don't play a wide enough variety of formats).

 

But for gaming, LED-Backlit (they are thin and light!), 60Hz unless you want to drop cash for more, about 37-47". :)

Don't buy the cheapest piece of stuff on the market, you will regret it - always make sure you can give it back, and first test with a movie that has dark scenes and check and blacks and dark shades. If they are pixelated, give it back, buy a different one.

[Qazme]

I like to learn the hard way I suppose. I jumped into this sim without flying KA-50 or Flaming cliffs etc. I had a lot of previous flight simulator x time and a good bit of janes sim etc. years ago. When I decided to fly this sim, once you go through the training missions you have enough information to get you airborne and general usage. Everything after that is what I consider the hard learning.

 

Fly until you have a problem, can't figure it out, cuss and try everything you can then hit the forums and the manual. Doing it that way I was up to what I would have considered 100% ready until I started encountering heavy air defenses, and quickly realized I needed to learn some additional tricks. Forums/manual time once again. Now about 2 months into it all I'm pretty damn efficient with each aspect of the sim, I don't know it all but I can hang with the majority of the crowd, live through the missions, and blow stuff up!

 

As equipment goes, as the other have said you don't have to have all these wonderfully overpriced sticks etc. However it is HIGHLY advised to have a trackir and some sort of hotas. You don't necessarily have to go with the most expensive but I always tell people now at least an X-52 and trackir. I've gotten it to the point now I don't even touch the keyboard while flying!

 

I think where the guys who do spend the time to learn the aircraft get aggravated is this - we spend the time learning the navigation, weapons employments, and some of the checklists. We are heavy in battle online and some guy comes in asking where the targets are, which direction he needs to fly, or complaining because he keeps getting shot down. All we ask is either come in online and learn it the hard way, or stay offline for a month or so till you can at least get to the fight, because once we are involved we don't want to have to explain a bunch of stuff, we want to fight!!

[Frostiken]

*LIES*

 

30" @ 2560x1600 beats the crap out of your dumb 16:9 TV :D

 

I personally found the KA-50 to be extremely complicated for a few reasons -

 

- Helicopters are ****ing hard. Fixed-wing aircraft are pretty simple control-wise and the dynamics of flight are fairly common-sense to most people, especially those who have any interest in computer simming.

- It's Russian, and therefore susceptible to quirks only Russians would think to implement. Like the fact that the ABRIS and the little navicompything are not integrated with each other whatsoever.

 

I found the A-10 much, much easier, but includes the fact that I was already familiar with much of the avionics, and there's certain design in most USAF aircraft that tends to be similar in various airframes, especially those from the same time period.

[EtherealN]

- It's Russian, and therefore susceptible to quirks only Russians would think to implement. Like the fact that the ABRIS and the little navicompything are not integrated with each other whatsoever.

 

That's not a "quirk". That's simply the result of the fact that they wanted a moving map on the birds, and doing a full programme on the whole avionics suite when you have a grand total of something like 12 of them... Not worth the money. The Ka-50 is essentially an early 80's attack helicopter that later was given an MMS.

 

Think of it like how the GPS on most cars is a separate little gadget that has no integration at all, while cars that are being developed after GPS navigation became a standard feature in automobiles have them integrated. Very few people take one of those systems and try to fit them into a Volvo 240 though - instead they get one of the simple, "stand-alone", units.

 

If the Ka-50 had been selected as the front-line attack helicopter instead of the Havoc, it would have different equipment.

 

You'll find that they are a lot "better" at integration on the front-line equipment like the Mi-28, Ka-52 and newer version of the Mi-24.

 

I found the A-10 much, much easier, but includes the fact that I was already familiar with much of the avionics, and there's certain design in most USAF aircraft that tends to be similar in various airframes, especially those from the same time period.

 

That's just a territorial bias though. Russian aircraft have the same phenomenon between them.

[Frostiken]

Yes which I mentioned, but all the same there's almost no simulators for Russian aircraft, whereas the PC sim crowd is undoubtedly going to recognize more than a few USAF cockpits.

[JozMk.II]

I totally concur on what Bluepilot has to say. When I started playing Black Shark, all I had was a TrackIR and a Saitek Cyborg Evo Force. I had to constantly access the keyboard when working with the Shark's avionics and weaponry, and the overall quality of my control over the helicopter paled in comparison to that which my CH Fighterstick and Pro Throttle, along with my Saitek pedals, now allow. And yet, I was having fun learning the sim and flying the beast.

 

Heck, when I first really got into flight sims with IL-2, all I had was a Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Pro 2. Much like with Black Shark later on, I had to contantly reach across the keyboard due to the stick's sheer lack of extra buttons. And without a TrackIR, I couldn't even maneuver from the cockpit! I would maneuver in external padlock view, and jump into the cockpit view on the fly to aim and fire my guns. It seems ridiculous now, but I was having fun with the game, and that is what was most important.

 

I would NEVER have went out on a limb and purchased a HOTAS set with pedals and a TrackIR all at once without knowing if I'd get my money's worth out of it through on-going interest in flight sims in the long run. I've only purchased my equipment over the years because the interest that I acquired when I got into IL-2 has yet to die. I do not believe that most hardcore simmers today haven't ended up with all of their flight sim equipment through a similar process; casually trying out that sim that catches their eye, liking it, sticking with it, and eventually finding themselves to have sufficient interest in the genre that the asking price of that HOTAS setup they've been looking at is quite reasonable for them.

 

And of course, let us not forget importance of accessibility of flight sims to the hardcore simmers as well as the more casual gamer crowds. Accessibility which is not gained through dumbing down the whole experience for everyone, but rather making the difficulty and complexity scalable, of which ED does quite well with their customizable difficulty options and game modes in their current line of modern flight sims. Such options are essential for Joe Everyman if we have any hope of him trying out the game and perhaps even developing a hardcore interest in flight sims!

Edited June 23, 2011 by JozMk.II

[cichlidfan]

30" @ 2560x1600 beats the crap out of your dumb 16:9 TV :D

 

 

27" @ 2560 x 1440 is quite nice for 16:9:smilewink:

[LostOblivion]

GGTharos, I'm not going to say learning all aspects of genuine flying is easy for real A-10 pilots, because it's not, but what I ment to say is that in this sim, learning the A-10C operations is more likely to take up much more time than learning how to fly the thing, seeing as how most people coming to this sim from other games are likely to have flown in the past and having this come to them most likely naturally. For real pilots, however, a lot of time goes into learning about stuff that most simmers don't even bother reading up on, such as weather conditions according to cloud appearances, etc, but you're right, a lot of time naturally goes into flying as well. :)

 

Anyway, the message I wanted to spread in my original post is that new flying enthusiasts to this sim shouldn't be too much daunted by the fact that it brings a lot to the table in means of avionics and such, but jump right into it! It's not that hard and can be tonnes of fun right from the start! :)

[bluepilot76]

YEah I think the Warthog is VERY easy to fly, but I did give a mate a shot and he kept yanking on the stick and stalling in, but gernerally its fairly viceless and stable, the KA50 however... phew that thing was nasty. rotor blades always hitting each other and things, cant decide if its a helicopter or an aeroplane, crazy trim stuff and autopilot modes...and I find all the russian instruments and layout very difficult to comprehend. I feel so much more comfortable in the Warthog, but I wouldnt be surprised if some of us are so much more comfortable in the Blackshark.

 

Most difficult thing for me in the Warthog is the number of commands that are avialable on the HOTAS, that took a long time to master and even still I tie myself in knots regularly. Can always resort to the gun and a dumb bomb though, or just send wingy in!

 

Or occasionally just flying around and CANNOT see a tank that JTAC has said is close to such and such.

 

Thanks again all for contributing to the thread!