Gaming Digital Combat Simulator Thread

[Donamy]

Still no joy here. :shrug:

 

[Urwumpe]

Still no joy here. :shrug:

How much memory does your GPU have?

 

[n122vu]

I've discovered that at least part of the Mi-8's in-flight instability I was seeing is my own fault. It seems that years of flying without rudder pedals with my old Force Feedback Pro has caused me to retain the habit of twisting the joystick for rudder input when flying, resulting in the X52 and the pedals fighting for control of the rudder axis (resulting in the 'dancing' I was seeing).

Figured this out when I started seeing similar control behavior in the A-10C. Once I un-mapped the X52 assignment for rudder input, the A-10C flew perfectly. Just need to do the same for the Mi-8 this evening.

 

[Urwumpe]

OK, managed to hover above the pad and land on the first base without problems, I finally get some feeling for the Mi-8. Sadly I still crashed on the second or third base (I got lost)

 

[Fabri91]

Some more helo practice on the Kuznetsov with Richy

 

[Fabri91]

Last evening Richy and me tried the default CSAR multiplayer mission, and it was...interesting, to say the least.

First try:
got shot down almost immediately

Second try:
got shot AT almost immediately, loosing the cannon.
Manage to take out an APC with a CBU, but a later attempt at taking out the other two of the three that were closing in on our downed pilot without a cannon sees me flying VERY low over one to drop a Mk-82AIR, missing, and losing my right engine, which now looks like swiss cheese.

Despite some problems with the radio comms in multiplayer we call it a success and head home.

 

[Richy]

And here from the other vantage point:

 

[ex-orbinaut]

Well, looking at this thread again the other day, I gave in and downloaded DCS, though not without establishing for myself beforehand some rigid anti-addiction practices, mainly limiting myself to just one flight a day, and two consecutive days a week of not touching it. So far I only have one 25 minute test flight in the Frogfoot (a type which incidentally I have always rather liked, so I had no qualms about the DCS core being, basically, an Su-25T sim). That is all by-the-by, though, and this will probably be my only so-detailed post regarding my experience. Just wanted to share it this one time!

My download (via torrent) and installation experience was good. For the record and for comparison purposes, my system at present (with the somewhat meaningless WEI numbers, where applicable), home built as all my PC's have been since 1994;

Main board: Gigabyte M68MT-D3
Processor: AMD Athlon II x4 635 (WEI 7.3)
RAM: Corsair XMS3 1333 MHz RAM, dual channel capable but used unganged for 4 GB (WEI 7.3)
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 650, 2 GB (WEI 7.4)
OS used: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit (retail, obviously)

I spent more or less two hours in reading the manuals (Game Manual and SU-25T's FM pdf's) in preparation for my first flight, taking notes, and watched the introductory training video (which is a 1.6 GB, or so, download after installation). Then fired up DCS, apprehensively expecting CTD's or BSD's, but all loaded up without a hitch. I might now bore you all with an extensive narration of some results of the very basic first flight. First, all invulnerability turned OFF, I wanted to force myself to be very careful. I made a Quick Mission from Batumi (easy location and wide runway, with reference to the CHARTS pdf), and all threats turned OFF so I would not get "disturbed".

After a quick taxi test up and down the runway, I took off, flew out over the Black Sea, climbing to 4,000 meters. First thing noticed was that odd Russian Attitude Indicator, which references the aircraft and not the horizon! Also a bit "uncomfortable" to start with were the metric units for speed, altitude and VSI, though previous Orbiter experience helped to assimilate that pretty quickly, albeit mentally moving the decimal point where speed was concerned. I jettisoned the weapons that had been loaded by default (wasting taxpayer's money, :lol, as I do not know yet how to use them, and took the aircraft through a brief handling test. Headed back home, establishing some cruise figures between 4,000 meters down to SL, and establishing a referencial VNE (incidentally, the FM pdf is lacking in aircraft limitations and performance figures). Found Batumi easily with some case applied DR navigation, and entered a LH pattern for RWY 31. The first approach was not well stabilized (slow and low), plus there are some trees rather close in to the threshold that I had doubts about clearing. So, I performed a rather flamboyant go around and tried again with a steeper approach to clear the trees. Success this time, though the shap eyed ones will notice in the following screen shots how I nonchalantly sailed over the aiming point fixed distance marker, despite speed brakes as from 100 meters. Nonetheless, the touchdown was inside the TDZ, and the use of the drag chutes made the application of wheel brakes unnecessary to stop well within the LDA. In all, a pleasant 25 minute first flight with no major incidents, and the preflight preparation focus really paid off in making it so.

Computer performance-wise with my rig, the GTX 650 did not even break a sweat, as evidenced by the screen shot below (max values for the session). The processor fan did speed up during the flight, but its temperature never exceeded 50º C at any point. Frame rate was excellent.

Some other things noticed in the course of events. The Mission Planner looks brilliant. I was also pleased to find that the focus of the sim is not rigidly online multiplayer, as WT was; that's great. The flight model is superb. Finally, I am not at all satisfied with the default keymap. It has secondary flight controls (eg; trim) activated with combined key presses, and critical operations, like fuel dump, with single key presses. However, the assignable "switch" function seems a good way to put many vital key commands onto the joystick buttons and hat. I will take the time, soon, to figure out a more satisfactory keymap.

Thanks where thanks are due for introducing such an excellent sim! It is right up my street.

 

[Izack]

Just had my first flight with the Su-25. Very nice experience, very different from the WWII fighters I'm used to with IL-2. The game runs well, though the loading time is incredibly long sometimes. It doesn't seem to be nearly as hard to fly as expected. Haven't tried firing any weapons yet though.

 

[Urwumpe]

Haven't tried firing any weapons yet though.

Just remember the important line in the manual before you curse. "You have to hold the trigger for a second before a missile is fired". And it is a long second, when SAMs and AAA are aiming for you.

 

[Izack]

Lessons learned so far:

• Taxiing off the paved area is a big no-no.
• That climb indicator was actually an AOA indicator. (Flight ended very quickly.)
• It is indeed necessary to understand Cyrillic to operate a Russian vehicle with success.
• Laden ground attack aircraft do not have great handling characteristics.
• High graphics settings make for very short, laggy and very painful flights.
• The RADAR warning sound being sometimes annoying is not an excuse to disable your RADAR.

Now... would anyone be up to flying a (free version Su-25T) DCS mission or two with me? I should be available from around 13:00 to 16:00 UTC tomorrow.

 

[n122vu]

I would be, but I'd only be available from around 21:00 until 23:30 UTC.

 

[Izack]

Actually I'll probably be around then too.

 

[N_Molson]

Just remember the important line in the manual before you curse. "You have to hold the trigger for a second before a missile is fired". And it is a long second, when SAMs and AAA are aiming for you.

I remember that in Falcon 4.0 . Very long second indeed. When attacking you'd like to fire everything you have in a big salvo, then make a hard 9G 180° turn to get back home at full burners. It's why I always loved dumb-bombs, even if they are imprecise

 

[Hielor]

Been having a lot of fun reading about everyone's adventures--thanks for sharing, guys! I need to get my flight controls set back up and get back into simming...

A question about DCS...in multiplayer, does everybody need to have the appropriate DLC in order to see the correct vessel? For example, if I only had the free Frogfoot, but someone else wanted to fly with an A-10, would that be possible, and if so would I actually see the other guy in an A-10?

 

[Urwumpe]

A question about DCS...in multiplayer, does everybody need to have the appropriate DLC in order to see the correct vessel? For example, if I only had the free Frogfoot, but someone else wanted to fly with an A-10, would that be possible, and if so would I actually see the other guy in an A-10?

No. It should also work with the vanilla DCS:World. You just lack the flyable aircraft and you can't select special player roles, like you can because of DCS:Combined Arms.

 

[Fabri91]

It's possible that I'm remembering something wrong, but doesn't one need to have at least one additional module in order to access multiplayer?

 

[Scav]

When attacking you'd like to fire everything you have in a big salvo

This . . .

. . . must be duly avoided.

Not to jack the thread overmuch, but does anyone still do anything with CFS3 at all? It's the last game/sim I actually purchased (I can rationalize this by the fact I spent $10 on it and I actually got what I wanted out of it for once!) and I'm still enjoying it.

 

[mojoey]

This . . .

. . . must be duly avoided.

Not to jack the thread overmuch, but does anyone still do anything with CFS3 at all? It's the last game/sim I actually purchased (I can rationalize this by the fact I spent $10 on it and I actually got what I wanted out of it for once!) and I'm still enjoying it.

I did have me some fun with the P80 back in the day

 

[Scav]

I did have me some fun with the P80 back in the day

It's not about discovering the fact the campaign engine is based on reading and writing to XML files. It's about realizing what one can do with that fact. :stirpot: