DCS Discussion

[Nefaro]

Anyone willing to connect privately to conduct training flights? is this even possible?

It would be greatly appreciated to fly with a grogheads instructor.

You should join up with Tuna & I sometime, with Teamspeak.  We'd be happy to help.  :)

Although we should wait until they patch the missing mouse cursor bug before doing multi-player.  Not being able to use the menu to respawn, or even exit the game/server without ALT+F4 has been a serious pain.  It also screws your ability to use the map screen.  Likely far worse in a 'pit with flippable switches.  DCS is supposedly working on it this week, but I'm not sure exactly when they'll 'patch the patch'.  Itching to fly MP again, so hoping by the weekend.

I keep checking for an update every day, will let everyone know when the MP bug has been squashed.   



I think Tuna created a simple mission, with just a few air-to-air targets, to get the basics down.  When we first started, one problem we ran into was a severe lack of easy canned teeth-cutting missions that would run in MP.  No suitable ones came in the vanilla install that I saw.  I'll look into making a couple different ones this week, or finding some user-created ones to download.  We really need two or three MP missions in our library which incrementally step up the difficulty regarding threats, instead of getting dumped straight into the deep end.

As Tuna mentioned, the first big hurdle is knowing & mapping the essential commands to your HOTAS buttons.  It takes some time, especially since you'll want to write it down.  For the F-15, I'll make a prioritized list of the ones I have mapped to mine.  I'm not sure what type of HOTAS you have, and therefore how many buttons, hats, sliders, etc you have available.  So I'll just list the most used ones, in order, for the F-15.

Starting with the F-15 has a couple advantages.  The first is that it's only air-to-air and the easiest to learn.  Second reason is that you can save your F-15 HOTAS profiles and load them into the other Flaming Cliffs aircraft, if you have them (Su-25T, Su-25A, A-10A, Su-27, MiG-29A/G/S).  You'll still need to double-check and add a couple extra commands, notably on the attack aircraft's targeting system commands, but most of the flight & avionics are all the same and interchangeable.  O0 

[Tuna]

As Tuna mentioned, the first big hurdle is knowing & mapping the essential commands to your HOTAS buttons.  It takes some time, especially since you'll want to write it down.  For the F-15, I'll make a prioritized list of the ones I have mapped to mine.  I'm not sure what type of HOTAS you have, and therefore how many buttons, hats, sliders, etc you have available.  So I'll just list the most used ones, in order, for the F-15.

If you have dual monitors,  I wrote most of my 'important' mappings in Notepad and always have it open on the other monitor. I was changing them around quite a bit so that I could try and get the 'most used' commands in the easiest mapping combos. This would cause me to fly the first time after a change with my gear down or air brake out, because I would forget that I changed  that switch. So having the notepad there, I can quickly 'look' at what does what.
If you only have one hat switch on your joystick I would recommend enabling some other buttons as a 'shift' key. This way you can use that Hat for other combinations of commands without taking your hands of the stick to reach for the keyboard. The keyboard is better suited to be used for commands that happen during low pressure moments.

The mission I created wasn't that although it did help me get a feel for the editor. But rather I was using the two 'single' missions that were already in the game, because they were both air to air engagements. I think one had you intercepting some SU-25's ground pounding that were escorted by a couple of Mig 29's. Then later there are some choppers and other fighters coming in. There is plenty of air to air learning in that mission. Also since you know where the planes will be, you can sort of figure out where to point the radar to learn how to 'search'.  Definitely play the singles a few times to get a feel for finding the planes with the radar and locking. There's a lot more 'action' in that mission than you see on MP, because in MP flying around 'looking' for targets. But flying MP is always more enjoyable because you're playing with friends, crashing and burning is more enjoyable when you add the banter of fellow grogs.

[Nefaro]

The F-15's radar is where most of the technical learning will be needed.  But it's not bad at all.



This old 3-video tutorial series, from the original Flaming Cliffs, explains it all in detail:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpdkwTx0l10&list=PLs894SpU1d6lyeghelC9V5QrleTg6aZ6I




It may be an old version of the sim, but it works the same way in the modern DCS World.  Only with better 3D gfx and textures.

[Tuna]

Most important thing to start with the F-15 is to assign a button to disable nose steering while taking off!!!!

[Nefaro]

Most important thing to start with the F-15 is to assign a button to disable nose steering while taking off!!!!

QFT.

I still occasionally forget to hold that down when taking off, after not having flown the F-15 for a few days.   :hide:



Here is a link to the user-created FC3 Mission thread.   

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=89879&page=4

There are all kinds for us to run privately for MP.   No need to do a bunch of editing, or slog through a bunch of mission testing beforehand.  O0

[JudgeDredd]

How about you and/or Tuna making a thread which has the date/time of the next online meet?

Is Asid OK with people jumping on his TS server? I guess so...I wouldn't think you two are taking liberties. I just thought I should ask in case there's a load more people jump on (if you both create a thread much like the SB thread).

I couldn't jump on because I don't have 1.5 installed anymore. Whilst I have the disc space, I don't want to have the issue arise with activations again...I pretty much exhausted my activations for the Mig-21 when having it installed for both 1.5 and 2. It was their issue and they gave more activations, but it wound me up no end. 

[Nefaro]

How about you and/or Tuna making a thread which has the date/time of the next online meet?

Is Asid OK with people jumping on his TS server? I guess so...I wouldn't think you two are taking liberties. I just thought I should ask in case there's a load more people jump on (if you both create a thread much like the SB thread).

I couldn't jump on because I don't have 1.5 installed anymore. Whilst I have the disc space, I don't want to have the issue arise with activations again...I pretty much exhausted my activations for the Mig-21 when having it installed for both 1.5 and 2. It was their issue and they gave more activations, but it wound me up no end. 

I'll post something when I plan to be on for awhile.  It's often not long beforehand, but better than nothing.

Asid's fine with us using his DoW Teamspeak server.  We held him at gunpoint until he acceded.  I still convinced it was my sexy gimp suit that persuaded him, however.

[jomni]

Let me know when you plan to do a session and I might join in. But of course I'm from the other side of the world so no promises.

[Nefaro]

Let me know when you plan to do a session and I might join in. But of course I'm from the other side of the world so no promises.

I think we trend towards late evenings and mornings, so the time difference may work out okay. 

Still waiting on that MP hotfix though.  I should probably take this time to map the A-10C controls and test in single-player since that still has a working cursor.  Need motivation.

[Nefaro]

MP Cursor Hot Fix posted..

Dear 1.5.5 users,

For quick fix cursor in multiplayer please copy attached file mul_chat.lua into your installed DCS (replace existing one):

c<DCS World>\MissionEditor\modules\

This fix already included into OpenAlpha. Fix doesn't affect to Integrity check. Please wait for full and correct solution.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=2956232#post2956232




Not sure why this little file wasn't sent via the auto-updater.  Better than nuthin.

[Nefaro]

Gonna be on, trying out the new fix tonight.


Open Conflict server had to cut down their player limit, due to new update's net code getting fatter.  It's been full so I'm not going to keep attempting login for it.  104th Phoenix never updated their server version, so it won't be listed on current ver.


Will be on:


-=16AGR=- USA-East Dynamic Caucasus

or

-=DCS-NL [1]=-

or

TAW.net NA public server 1


I think the #sierrahotel server is co-op only, for future reference/use.



I generally jump into 16AGR when Open Conflict and the 104th Phoenix servers are full or not listed. 

Just remember that AMRAAMs and Russkie -ER missiles aren't allowed in loadouts on 16AGR.  Old skewl!   ;)

[jomni]

Is the MP mouse issue fixed officially (not the hot fix)?

[Nefaro]

Is the MP mouse issue fixed officially (not the hot fix)?

Doubt it, having been the weekend.

There are a few other problems left over from the big update, too.  Plus some of the server hosts decided not to update so there are fewer servers available on the new version too.

I've not been on since Saturday morning.  Did some Warships instead, hoping a Patch-To-The-Patch is on the way in the next week or two.

[Tuna]

My Machine was freezing up really bad trying to enter one of the servers (don't know if it was upgrade related). Nef got into the server fine. After 3 or 4 failed including some reboots due to freezes. I tried Open Conflict and got in fine. But like Nef said we had moved on to World of Warships by then.

[jomni]

That's sad.  Maybe I'll stick to Red Flag Campaign for now.