A detailed guide to the View system in DCS A10C?

[SharpeXB]

From my own perspective I certainly don’t possess any special skill or intelligence, that much is certain.

I came to DCS: A-10 with about 2 years of RoF time but no modern or even WWII sim experience at all and was still able to learn the plane in a few weeks. It’s not as daunting as it might seem, but I did come to it with a good HOTAS, pedals and a TrackIR. Those significantly reduce the learning curve or at least make it on par with the real aircraft. I have never done a flight sim without the TrackIR and maybe that helps.

Honestly I get the impression that none of the keyboard commands in the sim are really meant to be used. Like “camera snap view right” is RAlt+Num4. I can’t do that without using both hands so I don’t know how it would be done while flying.

I guess they’re on the keyboard so you can experiment with what they are before mapping them to something usable.

[Echo38]

From my own perspective I certainly don’t possess any special skill or intelligence, that much is certain.

 

Some people can do sums without pausing to blink, but can't write a coherent sentence. Others stand stupidly at the counter, staring at the coins for an embarrassingly inordinate amount of time, but can fashion a novel which thousands of people enjoy. And, of course, there are people who can do both, and others who fall anywhere between the various extremes on this scale. If you really did have no need to adjust to TrackIR (as opposed to simply forgetting how difficult it was, as I've observed first-hand many simmers do after their learning experiences are over), then I would guess that you are one of the ones who has an easier time with mathematics than most people do--and not doing so well in certain other areas (whatever they may be) could allow you to honestly claim to not be, on the whole, exceptional in intelligence. Exceptional or not on the whole, you must still be at least above average in the areas of intuitive angle conversions.

 

That's kind of irrelevant, though. The fact, which is not arguable, is that there are people (at least two have posted in this thread) who had significant enough difficulties with TrackIR that they, for a time, wished that they had not purchased it. For this reason, it is only fair to warn people that their experience may not match the glowing recommendations given by the apparent slight majority (e.g. "requires no learning at all, natural & intuitive"). Because if you tell people that they will find it easy, and they do not, then you have lied to them.

 

The only fair thing to do is give them both sides of the story, and let them make an informed decision. That way, they know what they're getting into. This is why I tell people how it is: TrackIR will give you an advantage over keyboard/hat, once you become accustomed to TrackIR, but you might have very bad difficulties with it for a long time, and it's even possible that you might never be able to work them out.

That some people (or even most!) may have no difficulties whatsoever does not change that, nor does it make it honest to tell a prospective buyer that he will have no difficulties whatsoever. Even if the majority of people have no difficulties with using TrackIR, my statement is no less valid.

 

I believe I've posted more than enough to provide fair warning to those who otherwise might have, like myself, been bamboozled by the hype into thinking that it was sure to be a miracle product which would excrete rainbows and perfume. Barring a massive misinterpretation of one of my sentences, sufficient to warrant correcting, I'm done with this enormous tangent.

Edited September 3, 2012 by Echo38

[Supersheep]

The very first thing I did after I installed my TIR is to bing up the software, put that clip hat onto my cap and was astonished by how accurate the thing is, especially in returning to center (not centering-button).

I will not forget that one.

 

 

Super out.

[SharpeXB]

I suppose if what you want is for the TrackIR to feel exactly the same between different games, for example it is almost twice as sensitive in A-10 vs RoF, and it has to be exactly mathematically the same, that would involve some complex calculation. I have no idea how that would be done. Those differences don't bother me so I've never tried making custom curves.

I just discovered a TrackIR setting I don't like. F7 (to call AWACs) turns on a slow precision setting. I thought it had crashed or something before I figured what that was.

A slower curve in A-10 would make the clickable cockpit easier to use so I might experiment with that. The default as I experience it, I can turn my head almost a 360 which is a bit too much. RoF feels about right where your max limit is about 180

 

If I wasn't using TIR in A-10 an idea might be to have a multi button mouse and map snap views to the control panels to various buttons. That would solve having to look around the cockpit.

[pixelpilot]

One of the first things i did was swap the binding for 'cockpit panel view in' and 'cockpit panel view toggle' so that num0 works as the toggle so a quick tap of num0 followed by another tap of another numpad key, num4 for left MFD for example, then when finished with that view another quick tap of num0 to get back to main view. Its all quick single key presses without having to hold modifiers. i mainly use it to get a rocksteady view of mfds or cdu when i need to click on stuff. (i love track ir except when trying to click on switches)

 

my other find that made my life easier for filming tracks is the lctrl f3 and lctrl f11 commands. rather than toggling through the f11 views at each airfield untill you find one thats near where you want simply push lctrl f11 from any view of any vehicle to turn that camera into an f11 camera which you can move around, you can revisit any view and then f11 will bring you back to this position. Now the lctrl f3 command turns any view into a flyby camera. By using these together you can quickly place your free camera anywhere you choose and turn it into a flyby camera (i think it will be focused on the last unit you viewed) great for realistic flybys and low passes.

[minimi66]

Original poster progress!

 

Hi all,

 

Thanks for all the interesting posts on both Views and TIR. I decided to persevere with TIR in the end, i downloaded Fish's TIR Profile and tried it out. It was nearly good to go for me as is but needed some minor tweaks here and there due to my own home pit setup and size of monitor etc.

 

Been using it for a week or so now and with a few more tweaks it is really good, i am fully converted now and a definite fan of TIR. I can see however how some people will shy away from it and go down other routes for the viewing system. I also agree with the many posts saying that the keyboard views are probably not meant to be used in-sim, largely anyway. Exception maybe for people editing .trk files etc?

 

I definitely found Fish's YouTube tutorial on TIR setup was VERY useful. I had it playing on my laptop screen whilst setting up and tweaking my TIR profile on my monitor. It definitely cut the time needed to get a workable profile up and running down by a great margin. Took about 1-2 hours in the end.

 

Big thanks to Fish for the profile and the video!

 

So, all good here but thanks to all for the insights provided into your own experiences.

 

Cheers.

[Yurgon]

TrackIR will give you an advantage over keyboard/hat, once you become accustomed to TrackIR, but you might have very bad difficulties with it for a long time, and it's even possible that you might never be able to work them out.

 

From my perspective, you've made your point crystal clear. It's too bad TrackIR doesn't work as well for you as it does for others. I've started with TIR4 (still in service, now with the TIR5 software) and believe that's a rather large improvement over the older TIR3. Could your problems be related to that? Did you ever check out a fellow simmer's TIR or have someone over to check how your setup feels to them? I wouldn't even rule out hardware related failures from what you describe.

 

Other than that, all I can say is that I, too, belong to the crowd who perceive TrackIR as the most important invention since sliced bread. I've kept on finetuning my profile over the course of a few years now and still see some room for improvement to make it give me more precision, but all in all it's been a pure joy right from the start. If this was a "rate this product" thread, I'd give it 5 out of 5 stars.