How doable is this for me do you think?

[Pajeezy]

I just purchased the A-10C on a whim, partly because it was on sale. I have high hopes, but I'm trying to keep realistic expectations as well. So I come to you folks with this. What does it take to get anywhere in this sim? I'm an aircraft buff, and the A-10 is one of my favorites, but I'm also an avid PC gamer in general.

 

Most of my time is spent doing something on here. Only problem is, there's a LOT on my to-do list (or at least stuff I'd like to get done) as far as other games. Would I be able to learn this aircraft and do well in it without giving up the other things I do? Are other people on here gamers in general as well that don't spend all of their gaming time doing just this? Another problem is the fact that I don't have a HOTAS, or TrackIR or anything beyond a basic joystick and keyboard. What is everyone's story on the subject?

[Bee_Sting]

Do the training and read the manual! Get the stuff you need to fly this Big Hog and make no excuses. To be good at something you must make the time. I have this game and I love it and I made no excuses I did what it took to be a Big Hog Flyer.

[Pajeezy]

Do the training and reading the manual! Get the stuff you need to fly this big hog and make no excuses. To be good at something you must make the time. I have this game and I love it and I made no excuses I did what it took to be a Big Hog Flyer.

 

Now that's an enthusiastic response! Haha. I mean I guess I'm down to try and learn it, but I still don't have the proper equipment to make my life easier :( It'd be quite the steep investment...

[EvilBivol-1]

Not having the best HOTAS and TrackIR does take away a little immersion and perhaps makes it a little more difficult to remember all of the HOTAS commands and shortcuts, for which you will be using more keyboard commands, but I don't think it ultimately makes much difference in how long it takes you to learn the sim. It may only take a couple of days to get the basics down to where you can fly, shoot, land, generally do most of the essentials. Then it becomes a question of depth - if you want to learn the functions of each MFCD page and how to operate the nav system, configure weapon profiles, avionics displays, etc., that will take longer.

[Flagrum]

How doable is this for me do you think?

 

What does it take to get anywhere in this sim?

 

Well, basically you gave the answer already ...

 

I'm an aircraft buff, and the A-10 is one of my favorites

 

Just take your time, don't try to swallow the Hog at once :o) and you will come back to it, again and again. :D

[PFunk1606688187]

One thing I can tell you is that when I finally jumped in fully to try and learn the A-10, starting in a pit with a friend talking me through start up, continuing with avid focus, playing hours for pretty much every day straight through over a month, by the end of that month I had run out of things to read, basic technical things to comprehend for the MOST PART. I knew the overview and I knew a number of tricks. I felt comfortable in the pit and I didn't feel like there were a lot of things that I couldn't at least passively comprehend.

 

However, thats just understanding systems use, button pressing, GUI interaction and management, and airframe familiarity and competence in control of it under various conditions. Beyond this there is a new depth of detail that requires tremendous patience. That would be the tactical execution of all of those systems' functions. This is a topic which is in itself where the art is, and it is one which is unfortunately the least well documented one. You can learn the ins and outs of a correct 30mm gun attack against a tank, how to properly utilized your various payloads and how to use the systems effectively to manage target info, but the subtitles of the tactics are the most elusive topic.

 

Most military documentation relating to ground attack tactics appears to be closed to us, while much of the systems documentation is more readily available. This means to become a true pro at using the airframe realistically to kill stuff likely means either a LOT of trial and error and more reading of the elusive documents, or just of finding good friends and playing with them and learning the tactics bit by bit, from people who know stuff that isn't much published, and also people who've done this enough that in a few years have used trial and error to piece together intelligent Ground Attack Tactics.

 

Yea, big mouthful, but its the truth. The technical side also involves a very severe bit of skill and knowledge decay. You can't walk away from this sim for a few months without coming back to huge gaps in your knowledge, though the more often you relearn the less difficulty there is in relearning and the smaller the gaps themselves become. I can remember coming back from my first break, when I felt very competent last I played, and sitting in the pit staring at the buttons and completely forgetting how to even turn on the engines. I did remember quickly as part of the process of becoming competent is internalizing lots of repetitive flows and muscle memory that allows you to forgo consciously needing to recollect much.

 

Ultimately its a VERY VERY rich game to invest in, and for the price you paid, on sale, its a helluva bargain, one of the best you may ever have. It could take you months to just run out of things to learn from the manual, and you could play for years with other wingmen without ever mastering every skill.

 

Its as bottomless as you make it. It is daunting, but frankly its not all that hard if you look at the skills and systems individually, its just big and deep as a whole. It requires long term investment. You are not going to be a pro in a week, but every hour spent learning is in this game I a far greater investment as you will receive in return something which you can't have in most games. Most games you get diminishing returns very quickly. This game is not so shallow as to allow you to hit the ceiling even in your first year.

 

Good luck. I wish I could start all over again, just for the thrill of learning so many new things. Much advice can be mined from these forums as to how to crash course yourself in enough key things so that you can get off the ground and not languish in trying to learn the wrong complications before they're of use to you.

[Yurgon]

My experience is that I just love to get into a new sim, but even though doing so does usually mean I'll commit a lot of time into it, I don't drop other games at the same time. I hardly invest more than 3 hours at a time into flight sims, partly because I tend to lose focus after that and partly because holding the HOTAS all the time isn't too comfortable (no sim pit here, simply a side-stick on desk setup).

 

If you like to fiddle with hard- and software, you might be able to get a face-tracker working for little (or no) money, just look at the FaceTrackNoIR project. IMO head-tracking is more important than or at least as important as a decent HOTAS.

 

But basically it's my experience that my gaming focus does change every now and then (hell... haven't even flown any DCS module in weeks) and I enjoy committing to new stuff and then returning to other games later on. I wouldn't say DCS will soak up all your gaming time for months to come, it's really up to you how much time you wish to invest. :thumbup:

[Cedaway]

Learn to fly it before trying to consider it as a war beast.

Just learn how the hog respond to your inputs. Do the training missions and read the manual.

 

If I have one advise, go gradually.

There is no need of super sophisticated HOTAS. The basics (my own opinion) is to have a joystick (X&Y axis) and a 'Z' axis for the throttle. All the rest can be manipulated with the keyboard (but it's less easy and comfortable for sure).

[Guest Izoul123]

I dunno, I kinda disagree with the 'stick with basic only' joystick advice. I started playing this sim with a Logitech 3D extreme which yes, will let you do the very very basics, but you WILL still struggle with views and tons of keyboard commands, at least I did heavily, and I'd like to think I have a good 30 years of general flight knowledge + PC flight siming under my belt.

 

Maybe tinker around with it for a month or so. If you have a passion for flight simming/learning the A10C, then consider taking the plunge for "The Proper" hardware needed. So use that 1 month to set some money aside each week, even if only saving 1/2 amount needed before you decide.

 

If you want more of a casual/arcade "Blow shit up instantly for 15 min once every other week", you'd be better off just playing Battlefield 3 or 4, for a quick arcade fix. You could even just do the instant action mode non sim mode with DCS that it comes with with a basic joystick to do some gun runs and leave it at that if that's what you want.

 

Now if you truly want to learn and 'pretend/simulate/immerse' you are in the actual A10C, and have a flight immersion experience doing as close as we can to the real life deal, then you need to make a decision to commit. If this is true, then I'd STRONGLY recommend, no DEMAND (lol) you take the plunge and get Track IR5+TM Warthog. This is where I will disagree with people saying stick with basic setups. Yes it's an investment, but almost required in my opinion, unless you have unlimited time and patience to do it the utmost hardest way...yes you heard me, it's ridiculously harder to learn this sim without TMWH+Track IR5...that much of a difference hands down.

 

It will WILDLY increase your learning curve/enjoyment of learning the simulator. Using a basic keyboard, mouse, basic joystick is VERY cumbersome/the utmost hardest way to learn the simulator. TMWH...it's not just for 'looks', it truly teaches you how the systems are all intertwined, which is impossible to replicate on a keyboard. Not to mention, you will have to retrain yourself if you become to use to your keyboard/custom joystick mapping even on a cheap HOTAS should you upgrade to TMWH, so why waste time? Track IR5 is probably the more critical item to be honest as you need to be able to look around quickly/press buttons without it being cumbersome. It should be as natural as real life movement would be if you were in the cockpit. I for one was more interested in mastering as much as I could, as quickly as possible treating it like a war beast to level some shit ASAP proper like. If I wanted to flight sim lolly around the sky, I'd go back to a Cessna in MS flight sim. I'm not discounting learning 'just flying'...but lets be honest, the fun is pulling that trigger at the right time with the big fireball is really the goal/good stuff is it not? That and if you don't have basic flight knowledge already and this is your FIRST experience to flying/flight sims/combat sims, hell even air combat arcade games, DCS-A10C might not be the best place to start lol. Maybe just me again...

 

I know it's a catch 22 to decide if you want to, as you may/will say to yourself: "Man, this takes to much time, is to cumbersome, to hard to use, I don't know if I want to spend the money on the Warthog + TIR5!"

But after you buy the above, you will say "Man, I don't know why I even bothered attempting to learn/play it before this! Now it makes sense, is fluid and fun!"

 

I hate to say it, but I've said it before, I kinda wish this sim was ONLY sold with TMWH+TIR5 as a requirement bundled, as then people could truly understand it/actually enjoy learning it vs all the you-tube videos of people struggling. Think of the price you payed for the software as more of a 'glorified demo'...kinda, to give you a taste of the actual experience with proper hardware. It's not a basic sim/arcade game folks, you need the right hardware to learn/enjoy/use it fluidly. I can't tell you the amount of "Eureka/AHHHH now I get it, NOW it makes sense!!!" moments I had once I had TMWH. Maybe that's just me.

 

So, long story short you have these options to decide:

 

1. You want to just blow shit up for 15 minutes a few times a month with no care of weapons functions etc: You don't want to learn/take time to dedicate learning actual cold startup's on the ramp. Just insta in the sky and pull the trigger. Your primary interest is 15-30 minute max single player sessions 1-4 times a month.

 

Answer:Stick with basic setup/use instant action, do gun runs or play BF3/BF4.

 

2. You want to fly DCS A10C as a simulation. You want to start her up from the ramp, load it up, and go on simulation missions taking up to 1 hour plus if needed. You want ingress and egress flight times monitoring systems, AA/SAM issues, and you want to return flight home after the mission to land/re-arm. You also might want to do this multi-player online.

 

Answer: Get your credit/debit card out and buy at least TIR5 first, but TMWH in addition/both at once if you can do it it and prepare for the most epic flight simulation of your life. I promise you it is worth the price tag(s) if you want a simulation experience unlike no other that is awe inspiring. Again, worst case scenerio buy TIR5 first, as you can surely (don't call me Shirley) at least use that with many other PC games, so you're not out for spending money on that. It works wonders with ARMA and lots of other titles as well. After spending some time with the A10, TI5, and your basic joystick, you will be salivating for the TMWH, and will inevitability order it.

 

Good luck and I hope this helped.

 

Izoul

Edited December 31, 2013 by Izoul123

[Pajeezy]

Man...all compelling arguments. Honestly, because I'm a gamer at heart, I will probably have to shelf this for the time being :( I wish I could commit to it, and I do want to play it, but I don't want to give up everything else that I do for it. If I were to play it, I'd want to actually invest in it and be good at it, and would settle for no less. So unfortunately, I must pass...

[davos]

I dabbled with a10 for about a year and then really got into it. I spent $100 on a second hand hotas, built a freetrack setup using a ps3 camera ($25)and built my own rudder using an old broken joystick. I suppose what im trying to say is, once you invest the time dcs is the by far the best game out there once you give it some time (you do need to invest time in it) and you don't need to spend a lot if money

[Guest Izoul123]

Man...all compelling arguments. Honestly, because I'm a gamer at heart, I will probably have to shelf this for the time being :( I wish I could commit to it, and I do want to play it, but I don't want to give up everything else that I do for it. If I were to play it, I'd want to actually invest in it and be good at it, and would settle for no less. So unfortunately, I must pass...

 

Trust me, I'm a gamer at heart to. It's what I do for a living...I sell LOTS of games, and oddly DSC series is the one title I make little to no money off of (Steam client), but I personally promote the most out of any company/title for anyone who mentions 'flight combat'. Lets say they have a soft spot in my heart I'll promote no matter what.

 

If this is true and you say you are a gamer, I know you'd unleash those skills here to. It's just a matter of the right/proper controls/hardware. I'm sure if you were sat down in front of a high end gaming PC with TMWH+TIR5 with this sim you'd be insta sold, as I've done to many guys/gals who claimed to be only hardcore "COD/BF" console players in the past who just didn't realize what DCS could do for them until I sat them down in my house with a drink and showed them how to start the A10, and then kill some shit.=Insta converts. I've made console gamers convert to PC 'study' air simmers. Rare feat. It's simply because it's not main stream and they don't know it exists. Once you show a 'hardcore MATURE console gamer' this....if they are mature, it's like showing them the promised land they were looking for all along.

 

Ask people of they know what 'motion response' is for gaming. Ask them if they've ever started an A10C with their Wii or Kinect via motion/head tracking. Lot's will cock their head to the side....Ask them if they've placed their hands on cold metal of the A10C throttle and stick quadrant on their console "_insert any game here_" and actually started it up correctly.

 

Anyway, maybe some day you will join us.

 

 

Godspeed.

 

Izoul

Edited December 31, 2013 by Izoul123

[camsr]

I gotta say that if you don't have a sim pit, don't bother with any joystick less that TMWarthog. Too much shuffling from keyboard to joystick and back will make your head spin. As if learning the sim itself wasn't enough. With the TMWarthog stick you can almost eliminate the keyboard from flight control, leaving only that and the mouse to run the game. A simpler joystick will up the ante to 3 devices to swap around. Not fun.

[davos]

Id disagree with this im flying with an old x45 and it works great. Plenty of buttons to spare and hardly use the keyboard. Saying that I would love a TMWarthog

[bart]

I got A10-C on disk about 18 months ago. Prior to this I'd never heard of DCS!! Being ex military (fast jets) I understand aircraft systems and how they work. I love immersive sims that are complicated so this was right up my river so to speak.

 

Anyways, I wanted to do this right and get the very best from it I could so I bought a HOTAS Warthog stick and throttle (this fits the sim like a glove and makes the whole process of learning it and flying it much easier as the controls are already mapped out for the hardware). Then I got rudder pedals, these make taxying on the ground much easier although I don't use much rudder when flying. Then I got the Thrustmaster MFD's and put them on two 8" Lilliput screens to have both MFD's in front of me (this make's it much easier to pick out detail of targets and adds a great deal to the immersion factor).

 

Overall I must have spent £700 on this sim.......was it worth the money and time invested in it?? ABSOLUTELY. This sim is as close to the real deal as you will find without joining the military!! It is a great experience and I'm now a big fan of DCS.

 

To add to the pickle pot I've just gone and got the Huey module. I have never had anything to do with rotary wing in my life and so I'm finding that I have to put a lot of time in to learning to fly it accurately but I'm having a ball with it. Complicated flight model....yes.... Hard to start with....yes Worth it.....OH YES.

 

Then comes the online multiplayer. That's just great....really good fun. I was on the "online aerobatics" server last night. Around 15 others were on it too. Some were in the A-10C, Two were doing AAR one guy was beating up Batumi in a brightly coloured MIG 3 folk including me were over Batumi in eggbeaters (Huey's). I put it in a rather wobbly hover and had 3 fast jets doing fly pasts on me!! LOL.

 

This sim is so much fun it just eats time. The forums are good and full of folk from all sorts of back grounds all willing to pass on knowledge. It's a great way to pass some time with a hobby that we all have in common.

 

My advice is to go for it. Learn the A10-C. Yes it takes a long time but is very rewarding in the end. This sim (DCS World and all it's modules) is getting better and better all the time and is a real credit to it's developers and all the folk that have brought it to life and to us, and you never stop learning stuff so it NEVER gets stale.

 

SIMPLY BRILLIANT.

[PFunk1606688187]

I gotta say that if you don't have a sim pit, don't bother with any joystick less that TMWarthog. Too much shuffling from keyboard to joystick and back will make your head spin. As if learning the sim itself wasn't enough. With the TMWarthog stick you can almost eliminate the keyboard from flight control, leaving only that and the mouse to run the game. A simpler joystick will up the ante to 3 devices to swap around. Not fun.

 

I've found that my X52 programmed properly allows me to forsake almost all keyboard commands. The only exception is in non combat situations like engine startup. In fact, off the top of my head I can't think of a normal control other than engine ignition which I cannot find on my X52 or is a clickable switch in game.

 

I'm pretty sure that a TM Warthog doesn't alleviate the need to use the mouse in the clickable cockpit. :joystick:

[AtaliaA1]

The short answer is no.

If you want to seriously learn A-10C or at least its basics to destroy stuff online or offline, and get decent at it within a reasonable amount of time, before you get totally frustrated and give up, you need to forget about other games and focus solely on this simulator.

 

 

I was wondering the same thing. So I downloaded the PDF for A10c and read it several times, thinking this is difficult. But found the more I read the more I understood and wanted to give this a go. In part it was ego for me, if others can do this so can I.

[ShuRugal]

The short answer is no.

If you want to seriously learn A-10C or at least its basics to destroy stuff online or offline, and get decent at it within a reasonable amount of time, before you get totally frustrated and give up, you need to forget about other games and focus solely on this simulator.

 

Crap. I picked up basic competency with the KA-50 (navigation, hover to engage targets, labels on) in about 10 hours of game time spread over 2 weeks. Making the next hurdle (achieving combat effectiveness) was much more difficult, and was hampered by my hardware, but still did not require me to spend all my gaming time with it.

 

When i picked up the A-10, it was much the same. I ran through all the tutorials a couple times and that got the basics down. I would generally do 1 or 2 flights per session, then unwind with other games and come back later once it had sunk in a bit.

 

I would go so far as to say that devoting all your gaming time to learning this sim is -bad- advice: you will burn out. Like studying anything else, after a couple hours, your brain doesn't retain anything and you just start getting frustrated. I'd say the best thing to do is keep playing your other games, and just throw some DCS into the mix.

[Krunkskimo]

I would recommend learning the aircraft before investing in a HOTAS and TIR.

 

I've played Blackshark and A-10 for quite awhile with just a basic Saitek AV-8R joystick and mouse for vision. ive only recently upgraded to rudders, x-52 pro and track IR and while it does make the game much easier enjoyable it's not necessary to learn the aircraft.

 

You dont have to dedicate your time solely to DCS to learn an aircraft either. The time it takes just depends on the pace you set so dont think you have to burn yourself out on the game to learn it. Just understand its a complicated system and the reward is reaped in weeks and months not hours and days like other games.

 

I saved the boring stuff to last when i began. I started with weapons systems, how to use each one effectively, moved on to navigation, and just learned every console and system one by one, saving start-up for a day i was feeling particularly motivated.