Wow!! What an awesome Sim... with the right HOTAS!!

[MatzWarhog]

I started out years ago with Falcon 4 Allied Force, but systems, controllers, etc, made that a short lived effort. I basically stumbled upon A-10C Warthog, and I'm absolutely impressed!! I had a cyborg X, and that wouldn't cut it. So, I found a G940 HOTAS system... (once bitten, twice shy) won't go there again. So I finally decided to do it up with a Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog! Absolutely incredible sim when coupled with the HOTAS! I'm looking forward to digging in deep into A10C Warthog, and aspire to be flying with all you Top Guns soon! :thumbup:

 

Any and all advice is welcomed, and I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions too! Looks like a great crowd here! Just wanted to say "Hi", and see y'all in the sky!!

 

Matz (Learning Newbie)

[MemphisBelle]

Any and all advice is welcomed, and I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions too! Looks like a great crowd here! Just wanted to say "Hi", and see y'all in the sky!!

 

Hey ther Airman, and welcome to the DCS Community,

 

well done that you made it here and you wont regeret it...promised ;).

 

As you´ve asked for advices. So I can give you a couple of ressources you can dig through. At the very first place of course, the small and tiny Flight manual :D...shouldnt keep you busy too much...may be 2 month or so hahaha...kidding.

 

If you check my signature, so you should found a few ressources. A while ago I gatherd most of the tutorials around here and put them all together in the Tutorial collection, which is a part of the wiki now. Speaking of the wiki. (linked at the very top of this page). Check this one out. It should provide a lot of help and answers to your questions...if not...you know where you can ask.

 

secondly, you´ll need a group of people who can teach you once you learned the basics.

So I suggest to take a look into the spare-time-pilots community. We got 9 servers and a non military structure...actually there´s no structure. We are just flight Enthusiast and are willing to teach those who want to participate...in this case..feel yourself welcome...follow the link, provided in my banner and register at the forums to get access to the TS details...

 

cya in the Air

 

regards

 

Memphis

Edited November 13, 2012 by MemphisBelle

[MatzWarhog]

At the very first place of course, the small and tiny Flight manual :D...shouldnt keep you busy too much...may be 2 month or so hahaha...kidding.

Memphis

 

That might not be much kidding!! :book: I'm a more "visual learner", so I'll be checking your resources out!

 

Thanks for the info Sir!!

 

Matz

[Mule]

Great stuff!! same thing happened to me. Long time Flight Simmer, combat and civ and now with the great hardware out there it changed my approach to the whole thing. Even mastered Air to Air refuelling and i never thought i would do that.

[MatzWarhog]

Awesome Mule! Hopefully I'll get up to speed soon. With a high performance system and great peripherals, it's incredibly immersive , and I'm just getting started!

[Cookie]

Just wait until you have completed your first mission, with tracers zipping past you, manpads angrily opening up on you, something ripping off part of your vertical stabilizer, all while you deliver death and destruction from above in 30mm sized chunks of love. With smoking wrecks behind you, you limp home, parts of your bird just outright missing, while others have holes they didn´t have when you ingressed. And when you finally put her back on earth, taxi back to the stand with all kinds of fluids leaking from her... then... that´s the magic moment when your adrenaline level starts going back to normal again, you sit back, release the controls which you have held on to so tight with clenched hands all the time, and when you think "whoa... holy shit!"

 

Only to start her up again and get right back into it.

[MemphisBelle]

Great stuff!! same thing happened to me. Long time Flight Simmer, combat and civ and now with the great hardware out there it changed my approach to the whole thing. Even mastered Air to Air refuelling and i never thought i would do that.

 

I still got problems with Air refueling. But I think that it is because I wont get my Aircraft trimmed propperly befor aproaching. It always keeps going up and down...I think that my X52pro (which actually is a good one) doesnt really be the good one anymore, it´s a bit shaky already at some parts, that´s why I gave up on that...although I still try from time to time...once in a day I want to get the HOTAS Warthog as well...thats my dream I got so far

[MatzWarhog]

Just wait until you have completed your first mission, with tracers zipping past you, manpads angrily opening up on you, something ripping off part of your vertical stabilizer, all while you deliver death and destruction from above in 30mm sized chunks of love. With smoking wrecks behind you, you limp home, parts of your bird just outright missing, while others have holes they didn´t have when you ingressed. And when you finally put her back on earth, taxi back to the stand with all kinds of fluids leaking from her... then... that´s the magic moment when your adrenaline level starts going back to normal again, you sit back, release the controls which you have held on to so tight with clenched hands all the time, and when you think "whoa... holy shit!"

 

Only to start her up again and get right back into it.

 

That's what I'm talkin' about Cookie!!! Might take me a year or two to get that good, but that sounds like the goods!! :D

[MatzWarhog]

Memphis... After flying several training missions tonight (several over and over, lol) I was wishing that TM HOTAS was a bit less stiff, much like the X52Pro! Man! That heavy dog will give ya a workout!! I'd still be using my original X52 if they hadn't dropped support for it. Kinda scared me away. I'm sure once you get a HOTAS all set up and loaded in your brain, it becomes second nature when flying... if it's doin' the job, wear it out!! :joystick:

[MemphisBelle]

Memphis... After flying several training missions tonight (several over and over, lol) I was wishing that TM HOTAS was a bit less stiff, much like the X52Pro! Man! That heavy dog will give ya a workout!! I'd still be using my original X52 if they hadn't dropped support for it. Kinda scared me away. I'm sure once you get a HOTAS all set up and loaded in your brain, it becomes second nature when flying... if it's doin' the job, wear it out!! :joystick:

 

Hell yeah, one day my friend...hehehe...although I´ve also heared scary things about that thing (just like that what you´ve just mentioned).

I could effort it, but at first I need a new Monitor, that is more important though...

[Cookie]

I'm sure once you get a HOTAS all set up and loaded in your brain, it becomes second nature when flying...

Yeah, once you don´t have to think about it anymore but just do it instead, you´ll be able to do things you never would´ve thought possible. Quite cool really.

 

It does come with side effects though... like for example when you sit in your car and you wanna look something up with your GPS device, and instead of moving your hand over to it you actually try to make it your SOI with your left index finger on the steering wheel while zooming in with the right thumb on the gear shift... and when the conscious part of your brain realizes what the subconscious part of it just tried to do, it makes you feel like the biggest dimwit on earth.

 

Not that anything like the above ever happened to me.. no... I... um... heard it from someone who once read about it in a book. Yup, that´s it.

[PhoenixBvo]

Your next wish will be a TrackIR. That's a complete game changer as well. I can't imagine flying without it. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but then when properly wired into your brain, the sim just kind of pulls you through the monitor frame. You loose every concept of the actual surroundings you're in, the room, the desk, all the hardware. Suddenly you ARE in that cockpit and everywhere you look is cockpit and the world outside it: your wingmen, the sun, mountains on the horizon, that smoke trail heading for your aircraft....

 

Especially when combined with the proper HOTAS, where you have all the buttons in the proper places at your fingertips, you won't be pulled back out to find some key combination, so it's a very immersive combination.

 

But beware, it causes some serious side effects as well. It's quite like Cookie's case: always when I watch a movie where some object of interest moves toward the edge of the screen, my head starts turning involuntarily to follow it. And then when the camera doesn't follow, I kind of jerk my head to make it follow. That causes some strange stares sometimes, but what the hell, it's totally worth it!

[Endy]

As for TrackIR, here's a much cheaper alternative called freetrack: http://www.free-track.net/english/

It requires you to do some soldering and simple modification of a webcam but it will cost you around 30 bucks total.

 

Everything's on that website, enjoy!

[PhoenixBvo]

Yes, that's also a possibility. I'm not in any way affiliated with Naturalpoint (TrackIR), but just to justify my choice for the TrackIR I'll list what the price difference is worth:

• a frame rate of 120 vs 30 for a webcam. This leads to faster response and smoother motion.
  
• image processing in the TrackIR. There is no CPU required to follow your movements, TrackIR acts as a 6D mouse to the computer. With Freetrack each camera image is processed and transformed to find your head motion. This uses CPU time, but if you have more than two CPU cores it should not affect the simulation.
  
• good precision guaranteed and not depending on the precision of your soldering skills.
  
• everything working out of the box and good compatibility with a large number of sims/games.
  

[Ralph2]

So is trying to drop a full one second burst of combat mix into the smacktard who cut into traffic in front of you not normal? Well... My court date for putting an LGB onto that truck from the overpass suddenly makes a whole lot more sense (and sorry for ejecting you at full throttle kids, it was you or me and ECM is hopeless against SA-boss-18's, no hard feelings right?).

[Endy]

I'll do this point by point, no offence mate but you're wrong in some cases :)

 

a frame rate of 120 vs 30 for a webcam. This leads to faster response and smoother motion.

 

PS3 Eye camera has 120 fps. It's the fastest webcam available, same speed as TrackIR, also it's very cheap. The only negative is that you hae to unscrew it and do some manual work to remove the IR filter. But it's not a big hassle. What you said is true in case of some other webcams available on the market but not this one.

 

image processing in the TrackIR. There is no CPU required to follow your movements, TrackIR acts as a 6D mouse to the computer. With Freetrack each camera image is processed and transformed to find your head motion. This uses CPU time, but if you have more than two CPU cores it should not affect the simulation.

 

Freetrack works exactly on the same basis as Track IR by following the IR LEDs' movement. The process uses 1-2% of your CPU, I imagine it's the same with TrackIR. I think what you meant was Facetracknoir which uses face tracking software on unmodified webcams and which is quite heavy on the CPU and takes up 10-15%.

 

good precision guaranteed and not depending on the precision of your soldering skills.

 

That is true. If you want to pay extra for that comfort. It's not very difficult to make the point model though, even basic skills are sufficient and there are plenty of guides how to do it. Also, you can just make another point model later without any hassle or improve the old one. But yeah, it takes some effort compared to none with TrackIR. Just think if the amount of work you save justifies the price difference. All depends on personal preference I guess.

 

everything working out of the box and good compatibility with a large number of sims/games

 

That is true. But again, I wouldn't pay the premium price just for this. With freetrack you sometimes have to use some workarounds with some games, since there might not be native support but it works fine in DCS, Arma2, Falcon BMS etc.

 

Don't take it personally, I'm not attacking you, I just see no reason to waste money this way - I do think TrackIR is waaaay overpriced due to lack of competition (niche market I guess).

It just depends on how you value your money and time. I guess for a person that values convenience over possibly saving a couple hundred bucks TrackIR might be a better choice.

[PhoenixBvo]

Hey that's fine, I'm not offended at all. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. We're just having a discussion :-)

 

I have one remark on the following point:

 

image processing in the TrackIR. There is no CPU required to follow your movements, TrackIR acts as a 6D mouse to the computer. With Freetrack each camera image is processed and transformed to find your head motion. This uses CPU time, but if you have more than two CPU cores it should not affect the simulation.

 

Freetrack works exactly on the same basis as Track IR by following the IR LEDs' movement. The process uses 1-2% of your CPU, I imagine it's the same with TrackIR. I think what you meant was Facetracknoir which uses face tracking software on unmodified webcams and which is quite heavy on the CPU and takes up 10-15%.

 

Both methods are indeed similar in that they extract the IR marker's movement from the camera images. This requires image processing to recognize the dots, exclude any other objects and to match the dot positions to the known structure of the target in 3D. TrackIR however does these computations directly in the device on a dedicated image processing chip, whereas with Freetrack software image processing is employed. It's true that the required CPU load is small for a modern multicore system.

[Endy]

You're probably right about the processing methods, though like you said and what I can confirm, the computing power required for both is negligable and doesn't cause any performance hit.

To sum up i'd say that pros and cons of both are:

 

- TrackIR - easy to use "plug and play" device, good quality of tracking and software, high price as a minus

 

- Freetrack - requires some manual work to set up properly, might require tweaking software for some games; same quality of tracking as TrackIR if you do it right and put some work into it; low priced and a good solution if you want to save money

[snafup]

All that's left is the track ir and rudder pedals.Next thing you know the better half is looking at you like you are crazy (Wait till you get the flight manual printed at a local print shop and are sitting at the dining room table going "so thats why that happened"). Many ah ha!! moments in this sim.

Edited November 14, 2012 by snafup

[Megagoth1702]

RANT INCOMING

 

 

 

Just wait until you have completed your first mission, with tracers zipping past you, manpads angrily opening up on you, something ripping off part of your vertical stabilizer, all while you deliver death and destruction from above in 30mm sized chunks of love. With smoking wrecks behind you, you limp home[...].

 

This is not DCS Call Of Duty.

 

If you do that and end up flyng back in chunks - you did it wrong.

 

Nah man, all that uber action shit belongs to CoD. This is a simulation and although you can have some risky and easy fun with it is not designed to be like that.

 

What it causes is:

-people running 6 mavericks and other horrible gear that really hurts the a-10's flight characteristics

-people having a small attention span, they dont pay enough attention to briefing and notes, and wonder why the mission failed. all they want is "go there, shoot that"

-overall skill is not improving because all that "go there shoot that" stuff does not require much thought. people like that are mostly unable to find targets by looking outside, which plays a major role in certain scenarios where coordinates or datalink is not available

 

and other stuff.

 

Obviously there are these who find it a bit boring and then dive deeper into the material and trn out to be proper "pilots" but these are rare. Look at the amount of people who dont even know the forums and/or play singleplayer only.

 

DCS A-10 should be promoted for it's realism and simulation depth, which is fascinating enough. Not for how ****ed up you can return home after doing incredibly unrealistic scenarios.

Edited November 14, 2012 by Megagoth1702

[MatzWarhog]

Track IR is already on the list!! I can't wait to be able to just "look" at what "I" wanna see, without touching the stick to get there. That and then a decent set of rudder pedals. The G940 has a great set of pedals with it, but the rest of the system left me grounded, or flying into things with no way to get my profile setup to please me. Sad they dropped support for it, because it's actually built really well!

 

All that's left is the track ir and rudder pedals.Next thing you know the better half is looking at you like you are crazy (Wait till you get the flight manual printed at a local print shop and are sitting at the dining room table going "so thats why that happened"). Many ah ha!! moments in this sim.

 

Snafup, my better half already looks at me like I'm a reclusive nut job as it is!! :megalol:

 

Yeah, once you don´t have to think about it anymore but just do it instead, you´ll be able to do things you never would´ve thought possible. Quite cool really.

 

It does come with side effects though... like for example when you sit in your car and you wanna look something up with your GPS device, and instead of moving your hand over to it you actually try to make it your SOI with your left index finger on the steering wheel while zooming in with the right thumb on the gear shift... and when the conscious part of your brain realizes what the subconscious part of it just tried to do, it makes you feel like the biggest dimwit on earth.

 

Not that anything like the above ever happened to me.. no... I... um... heard it from someone who once read about it in a book. Yup, that´s it.

 

Cookie... I've already experienced "Post Warthog Syndrome"!! After flying a good bit, I went to watch TV with the wife, grabbed the remote control, and was thinking of the "Select Button" as my Coolie. I eventually got the right channel set to SOI!!! :P I wish my wife could get as enthused about it as my daughter, but as long as I'm in my "Mancave", no one here seems to care if I'm sane or not anyway!! :D

 

Matz

[MatzWarhog]

So is trying to drop a full one second burst of combat mix into the smacktard who cut into traffic in front of you not normal? Well... My court date for putting an LGB onto that truck from the overpass suddenly makes a whole lot more sense (and sorry for ejecting you at full throttle kids, it was you or me and ECM is hopeless against SA-boss-18's, no hard feelings right?).

 

Haha!!! That's what Racing Sims like F1 2012 do to me. I can't drive my truck for at least an hour after I stop racing, or everyone on the street better watch out!! I'll open my DRS on the freeway if I can get within a second of them! :lol:

[Cookie]

Long rant

Dude, chill! Ever heard of "whatever floats your boat"? I´m about as hardcore as it gets when it comes to realism, especially when playing online, but every now and then I just feel like hopping into the Hog and having a little session of Air Quake. Nothing wrong with that.

 

Snafup, my better half already looks at me like I'm a reclusive nut job as it is!! :megalol:

Yeah, we all bear that stigma I guess. :D Oh well, cherish that mancave of yours, I´ll soon have one too and plan on going totally nuts with it... :joystick:

 

BTW, if you´re interested in a printed manual, check out this deal our forum member chaotikchiken negotiated: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=96133

For around 20 bucks it´s a steal.

[Megagoth1702]

Dude, chill! Ever heard of "whatever floats your boat"? I´m about as hardcore as it gets when it comes to realism, especially when playing online, but every now and then I just feel like hopping into the Hog and having a little session of Air Quake. Nothing wrong with that.

 

It just sounded like you are advertising YOUR way of floating the boat as the general way of awesome gameplay. Like it's the best shit out there. That set me off. Especially with a new CoD coming out... Meh. I didnt want to offend anybody it just was exactly what I didnt expect to see haha.

Edited November 14, 2012 by Megagoth1702

[Major SNAFU]

I have a Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS that I have replaced sensors in over time. I don't think the CWHWM will allow me to purchase the WartHog HOTAS seeing as life prevents me from setting up the Cougar more than a half dozen times per year right now (or so it feels).