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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjY-9lkgzVs Trailer for an Ace Combat-esque campaign for DCS. Fictional countries with real planes, voice-acting, music from the guy that does the Ace Combat games, etc. Looks super cool!
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Nov 23, 2020 18:00
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Shine posted:The IL-2 Great Battles series has good VR support. On Steam, you have to buy Battle of Stalingrad as base game, then additional modules as DLC. On the dev's website, you can buy and run any module without getting Stalingrad first. Battle of Bodenplatte is my favorite, because I am a P-38 junkie, but get whichever module has planes you like. Stalingrad is good though and has a lot of iconic WWII planes like the Stuka or the namesake plane. You can see the list of planes that come in each version here. Moscow has earlier war planes and is my least favorite. Kuban has mid-late war eastern front planes and has the best map IMO, with lots of mountains and beaches, plus anti-shipping missions. Bodenplatte is the newest and first Western Front game. It has the a lot of the most iconic late war high performance planes like the P-51D, Spitfire Mk IX, Tempest, 109 Kurfurst, and even the ME262 (which is fun but easy to break). Though I don't play Moscow much, it is really fun to see the evolution of the fighter lines. I never appreciated how much planes evolved over the course of the war until I flew missions in a 109 E-7 and then a 109 K-4. It feels like going from a Cessna to a rocket ship. You can pre-order the Battle of Normandy, which is what they're working on right now, but don't bother. There are only two planes available from it and both have later-war versions available in Bodenplatte. There's also a lot of planes available a-la-carte for DLC, some marked way down. I really like the P-38 and the FW190 D-9, but there are some really unique options. Also, there's Flying Circus Vol 1 (with Vol 2 just announced a few days ago), which is WWI planes, if that's your jam. It also has VR support. You can even fight WWI planes you own against WWII planes if you desire. Finally, tank crew has VR support also. If tanks are your thing. I'm not really a fan of the tank module though. The engine doesn't model infantry hardly at all, which are a tank's main target, so the battlefield feels a little empty. Anyways let us know what you end up getting and what you think! VR is so good for flight sims.
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Dec 26, 2020 23:05
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Lord Stimperor posted:I'm seconding this summary and want to add a bit. BoS and Kuban have the greatest maps, and Kuban is the best expansion overall imo. Bodenplatte and Moscow add some interesting planes, with the ME262 being the most notable one. Map-wise, I don't like the Moscow map that much as much of it is unrecognizable in winter and Western Europe is a bit more relatable to me (it covers Germany and Benelux, and I've been to some places depicted there, that's neat). One of the things that really surprised/delighted me about IL-2 is getting a real first-hand experience of the history behind the machines you fly. It's wild flying a soviet I-16 with hand-crank landing gear and an open canopy and imagining how terrifying it would have been to go up against the nazi army with their fancy new 109s. In contrast to the end of the war, when you get in a P-51D and it has a modern-looking instrument panel that's thoughtfully laid out with a fancy gyro sight vs an ME262 with an ugly dashboard that's looks like it was cobbled together by slave labor (because it was) and has engines that flame out if you throttle up or down too quickly.
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Dec 27, 2020 01:25
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I just got into DCS for the first time, after playing IL-2 for a million hours and wanting a stronger fix. That, and I heard they're working on the AH-64D, which is my dream sim. So I've been playing over the holidays and having a blast. I figure if I master the Huey and the A-10, I'll have a good head-start for the Apache. The Huey is rad and I've had way more fun with it than I thought I would. I love that you can hop-in and get started without much fuss, and even hovering is challenging and fun. The A-10 is fun too, especially with track ir. It feels badass to set a targeting point by just looking at and pressing a button, like you're the terminator or something. I spent some time with the WWII planes too, but with so few systems to fiddle with, it doesn't offer enough over IL-2 for it to be worth it for me. Edit: I really wish some peripheral company would release a reasonably priced collective. It looks like your only options are pay $500+ or DIY, and I'm not that handy with electronics. Trillhouse fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 4, 2021 |
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Jan 4, 2021 18:10
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Mailer posted:I have barely, but successfully, landed using a hotas. I'm basically a pilot now, right? I have a t16000 throttle too. I used Froglube and it made a big difference. Plus it smells minty.
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Jan 4, 2021 18:19
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stinky ox posted:Good lord this is so much nicer in VR. Landing the drat plane is so much better when you're not having to choose between looking straight out the front or pressing the hat switch to look straight out the side whilst being very much too low to be able to see out over the nose, or just slightly too low if you press the change view button at the right time... when you can just look out the plane like a normal person lining up for your final approach and judging when to flare becomes natural and intuitive instead of something you can never get quite right. You actually start to get a feel for flying the plane. It's great. Flying the sim is so much more enjoyable. VR in a fighter plane is wild. You don't appreciate how tiny the F-16's cockpit is when you play with a monitor. With the VR headset everything is RIGHT THERE. 
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Jan 17, 2021 07:33
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IL-2 has good VR performance if you want to fly something small+fast+agile. BF-109s are like the F-16 in terms of being way smaller than they appeared when playing through a monitor. Gunfire wizzing by your cockpit is always a trip.  It goes on sale pretty often, so set it on a wishlist and you should be able to get a bunch of planes for $15. DCS has much poorer VR performance unfortunately, but it has super-sonic jets and helicopters (AH-64D is coming out this year!!!). It's technically free-to-play but the only free planes are the de-fanged training version of the P-51 and a Russian ground-pounder without a clickable cockpit (SU-25T). Sometimes they have promotions where they set all the pay planes as free for a couple weeks so if you can, try before you buy. Funny enough, VR makes mid-air refueling, close formation flying, and carrier landing a ton easier too.
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Jan 17, 2021 17:36
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https://www.ebay.com/itm/174598982937 Heads up for people looking for a new HOTAS setup. I know they can be hard to find.
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Jan 20, 2021 23:36
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uvar posted:(theres also an interview with one of the staff who wishes it had a hot air balloon I don't know poo poo about hot air balloons but wouldn't they be pretty simple? There's a lever to turn on the burner and one that...opens the top to let hot air out? Is that it? Hot air balloon goons weigh in. They had them in the last game at least. I want a Zeppelin. I want to fly one with Ron Paul's face on it through Manhattan. Amazing. Amazing. Trillhouse fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jan 22, 2021 |
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Jan 22, 2021 03:33
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St_Ides posted:I think I might be the only balloon goon. (And fixed wing pilot). Sick. Thanks for explaining all this stuff. My hometown had a hot-air balloon festival every year next to a lake. We'd go to it every year growing up, and I always loved seeing all the different balloons going up. And every year, a few of the pilots would eat poo poo and crash into the lake, which was always a delight. (The lake was small enough that they weren't in any real danger, just embarassed from getting dunked in cold water in front of hundreds of spectators.) Your post makes me wonder if they were taking up more guests than normal because it was such a big event, and maybe were too slow on the burner.
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Jan 22, 2021 23:50
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St_Ides posted:A good splash and dash is more difficult than it looks. Ideally you want to be descending with the last bit of momentum, but a hot envelope because as soon as you start getting water in the basket it gets heavier and heavier and takes more heat to get out. You also only want to make an attempt when you’re slow, as if you have forward momentum the basket will swamp even quicker. Thanks for explaining. You're jogging my memory now, I do remember people successfully skimming the water when I really think about it. There were always a few that got in too deep though! Moreover, it was an unnatural lake with signs all over saying "Reclaimed Waste Water. Do Not Swim!" which to us meant poo water. I thought it was really funny as a kid. I still think it's funny, but as a kid I did, too.
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Jan 23, 2021 18:57
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VKB announced their new throttle. Looks perfect for B-52 scenarios!
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Jan 26, 2021 19:22
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I finally felt confident in my mastery of the A-10 to start working through The Enemy Within campaign. (Mostly I have trouble with the CDU, which does not cooperate with my brain in any way and I just kinda freeze up if I have to enter a new waypoint.) Third mission, spot terrorist camp. Tell my flight to stay back, I want first crack at these guys. Do my strafing run, then tell them on comms to go ahead and start blasting. No response. They all crashed into the mountains without firing a shot. I finish the job myself, fly home, their ghost voices haunting me as if this were a normal mission, and land. Mission complete. Check the ED forums, apparently the AI can't handle mountains...
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Jan 31, 2021 18:16
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Vahakyla posted:AirGoons run DCS missions weekly and play sporadically during week, too on Reddit's servers. The above situation makes the Enemy Within campaign definitely frustrating, but it isn't in any way the standard representation of what DCS is or how it works today. Most campaigns run and work just fine, and Enemy Within's mountain bug is pretty known and should be fixed. The Raven One campaign for F-18 is considered like extra good by everyone, as an example. The Reforger for F-14, the Georgian War for F-15C are just some of the fantastic campaigns. Yeah I don't mean to discourage anyone, it's still fun and I'm still working through the campaign. I read that setting the flight to follow at a distance helps a lot, so I'm going to try that tonight. I need to play some online co-op now that I'm confident I've got a handle on the A-10. I wish there were more campaigns translated to the new A-10 module though because it's too frustrating using the original A-10C and using all the different HOTAS commands and going without the HMS.
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Feb 1, 2021 18:11
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Enemy Within Update: Putting the flight in "trail" formation seemed to do the trick and he survived the whole flight, despite the AO being in the middle of a steep canyon. And I realized you can edit loadouts. The default loadouts have the old non-guided rocket pods, so I switched them for the Hydras. I use my secret trick I'm sure no one else has ever figured out: laze the first target in a convoy, shoot rockets every three seconds during an attack run, and quickly move the laser to the next target whenever the current one blows up. If you REALLY want to be fancy, you can assign each target to a markpoint, set your AAP steer point knob to "markpoint", bind steerpoint up/down, slave the tgp to the first markpoint and then use the steerpoint switch to automatically advance down the markpoint list and laze each target. I love the Hydras, they're like dollar-store laser Mavericks.
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Feb 2, 2021 07:12
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Xakura posted:Hydras are unguided, APKWS are hydras converted to guided weapons. I didn't know that. I have a lot of trouble differentiating the weapons in this game. I literally have a spreadsheet for the other monitor with everything listed because no-way can I remember the difference between a GBU-12, 32, 38, etc. If it has a laser code under it in the DSMS, it can be laser guided, but after that I'm lost.
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Feb 2, 2021 17:19
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Excited to try out some new planes again. I tried most of them during the last free-fly event but didn't know anything about flying a post-wwii plane so their quirks/strengths and weaknesses were lost on me. Will probably get the EA F-16, maybe the Jeff and the Mig-21. I already have the A-10CII, F-18 and Huey. I also want to mess around with the Harrier some more.
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Feb 5, 2021 17:26
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I just found out that the DCS Community mod A-4E-C finally hit beta the other day. It's a 100% free mod for DCS, you don't need to own any modules so you can use it even if you haven't spent a dime on DCS. It features a fully interactive (clickable) cockpit, realistic flight model, and has working systems like radar and the bombing computer. You can launch/land on a carrier too. It's really cool and I highly recommend it if you like cold-war era jets. You can even black yourself out doing barrel rolls, which apparently is accurate to the real thing. https://github.com/heclak/community-a4e-c/releases/tag/v2.0.0-beta-1
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Feb 9, 2021 17:01
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Squiggle posted:Woof, re-reading myself this morning, I was mad. That's always frustrating to read from others, sorry gang. If it makes you feel better, I've found VR flight simming extremely frustrating to get work properly. VR in general feels like PC gaming in the 90s wrt all the weird crashes and driver issues (vs PC gaming current-day, which isn't far off from console gaming in terms of ease-of-use). It's rare for me to start a game up in VR and have it work without having to restart the game, the headset, or both. Sometimes Windows Mixed Reality forgets my settings, sometimes my headset won't track, every game flickers like crazy on load (which is great if you have a history of seizures), sometimes Steam VR forgets my settings, sometimes the head re-center function doesn't work, etc. And why are Windows Mixed Reality AND Steam VR necessary? Shouldn't one VR loader be enough?
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Mar 3, 2021 17:28
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Are there any modern flight sims where you fly a helicopter around and do (non-combat) missions? Like Sim Copter but with realistic helicopters, basically. I've been playing DCS helicopters a lot lately and I love just flying around, but I also like objectives and stuff to complete. I've found a few dynamic missions for DCS Huey, one where you fly around Syria doing random medi-vacs and poo poo, and one where you haul lumber using the cargo winch. They're really fun, but I'm new to non-WWII flight sims so I don't know what's out there. Any recommendations?
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Mar 21, 2021 18:52
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zedprime posted:Not a helicopter sim expert but assuming they're not any more advanced than the state of the art flight sim objective mods which rudimentarily hook into sim connect to give you points for being in a certain place, you may be interested in Stormworks. Its an open world coast guard sim with an element builder workbench but you can easily download a bunch of popular helicopters off the marketplace, many of which will have fairly realistic avionics and encourage fairly realistic helicopter control if you look out for the realism focused ones. This sounds awesome. I'm checking it out right now. Edit: The top review on Steam for Stormworks is negative with 2,300 hours played. lmao never change steam reviewers. Vahakyla posted:You are aware of the DLC campaigns for Huey and Mi8? Yeah I'm working through the Huey campaigns right now. Just wondering if there's anything else out there. I'm so pumped for the Hind and Apache in DCS too. Maybe the early access hind comes out this week? I hope. My ideal game would be something like MS Flight Sim, but with helicopters and procedurally made missions. "Go here and pickup car crash victim", "go here and rescue guy stuck on mountain", "Pick up water from lake and dump it on forest fire", stuff like that. Trillhouse fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Mar 21, 2021 |
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Mar 21, 2021 19:23
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Thanks for the tips guys. I didn't even know about DCS online search and rescue missions. How cool!
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Mar 21, 2021 20:57
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I really hope the Hind lives up to the hype. From the list on the shop, it looks like its early-releasing in a much more complete state compared to other recent DCS offerings.
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Mar 26, 2021 18:16
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soggybagel posted:I think its a very wannabe culture where they want their sim to be as "real" as possible but they don't actually know what real is. I have a friend is active in the navy who is an F-18 pilot. If he came over and saw me doing flight sim stuff he's not going to poo poo on me for trying stuff but not being 100 percent accurate. Its just the weird old man gatekeeper poo poo and its pretty amusing. I have a theory that the flight sim posters (guys on flight sim forums, youtube, etc) don't actually play the game, just whine about realism. I saw a post the other day about the F-18 where a newbie asked the innocent question "How do I jettison drop tanks once I'm done with them?" The first half dozen replies were lecturing him on how real pilots don't jettison drop tanks unless they absolutely have to. It took that long before someone just told him how to do it, which is literally three steps.
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Apr 1, 2021 19:08
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DCS 2.7 Patch Notes Excited to give it a shot this afternoon. I fly the F-18 more than anything lately and I find the new FLIR plus all the radar updates very welcome.
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Apr 14, 2021 16:56
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Sagebrush posted:The clouds look better, but are they synced in multiplayer yet? They should be. The don't effect radar though. Sounds like DCS is having a 50% off sale to go with the patch. Time to finally get the Flaming Cliffs package so I can use the goofy F-22 mod.
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Apr 14, 2021 17:33
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Clouds in DCS look as good as advertised. Flying through a rain storm feels great.
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Apr 14, 2021 18:20
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GreatGreen posted:What's the performance impact look like? Seems like performance has improved over 2.5, for me at least.
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Apr 14, 2021 19:19
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JayKay posted:Going to get the F-18, should I also get Supercarrier or Syria? (Already have NTTR, the OG A10, and Huey) I have both and get more use out of the Supercarrier. It's just so loving cool to see all the guys running around. Most careers and multiplayer servers support it too. Syria doesn't have any careers (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) and not many servers support it because most people don't have it so server population is low. My opinion is basically "Play mostly career and/or multiplayer? Supercarrier. Like to solo fly or make your own missions? Syria". Edit: Supercarrier comes with the SU-33 and Kuznetsov carrier too. SU-33 has a non-clickable cockpit but it's still pretty cool. Syria has a fun (but hard) custom mission for the Huey where you fly around r Beirut responding to randomized non-combat calls. I play it in the Huey all the time. Trillhouse fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Apr 14, 2021 |
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Apr 14, 2021 21:41
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:The Syria at War server is really good though, since they don't have AMRAAMs. Is it the new Hoggit one? I haven't gotten a chance to play it but it seems cool.
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Apr 14, 2021 21:47
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I played the new DCS patch last night and was really impressed. I was underwhelmed when I first heard the only major feature was new clouds, but they ended up being a much bigger deal than I expected. Not just the graphics, but the gameplay implications too. You actually have to consider the weather when you plan a mission now. It also helps the scale and atmosphere of the game as you travel through sunny spots and then dark areas under heavy clouds. It's cool!
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Apr 16, 2021 20:18
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FunOne posted:Any recommendations? I'm not 100% on how DCS operates between planes, missions, and packs. DCS is technically FTP, but has only one map (caucuses) and two planes. And of those planes, one is a P-51 trainer with no guns, and the other doesn't have a clickable cockpit which is one of the big draws of DCS. (There are some really good planes modded in that you can download for free, like the A4 Skyhawk and the A-29 Super Tucano though) Most planes come with a campaign and some training missions, though the quality of training missions varies wildly from plane to plane. A-10C and F/A-18 are the two biggest, most comprehensive modern (-ish) planes and the first two I'd recommend. The F-18 is still in early access, but it's basically complete and theres only a few little things left to add. The A-10 is for-real released The F-16 is also in early access, but is much further away from completion and I wouldn't recommend it unless you really love the F-16. The general recommendation is to get whatever plane looks coolest to you. Or to grab whatever plane has the role that sounds most fun. The F-14, JF-17, and Harrier are good. Also the cold-war era planes are generally well done too, though obviously less capable than a modern one with a targeting pod. I dunno, looking at the list the only one I really wouldn't recommend is the F-16 just because its so under-done. If you have any concerns about a particular module, just post and you'll get good feedback I'm sure.
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Apr 22, 2021 20:57
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JayKay posted:How are the Mi8 and the Gazelle? I'm thinking about picking both up while they're on sale but wanted to make sure there weren't any glaring issues. Gazelle is crazy. I don't have the Mi8 (waiting for the hind instead) but I have the Huey and the KA-50. Both of those need like 80% collective to hover. The Gazelle lifts off at around 25% (not exact, but you get the idea). It handles like a sports car compared to the other two. I haven't flown it much since I just got it this sale, and haven't learned the weapons, but it's extremely zippy. A lot of people think it flies like an RC helicopter but I guess that's realistic? I don't trust virtual pilots on the realism of in-game vehicles.
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Apr 23, 2021 16:34
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V for Vegans posted:So this week, YouTube started suggesting DCS videos to me, so I downloaded the game to try the free planes and then this sale popped up so now I spent last night doing some frogfoot trainings to see if I want the F18 like everyone suggests, but my biggest issue is I couldn’t figure out how to zoom into my dashboard. I use track IR so I can look around easily, but when I tried to lean in to look at the different knobs, the track ir would lose my clip lights and I’d be far away again. I saw a zoom function in controls that said to use + and = for in and out, but it didn’t seem to work. Do they not allow zooming in while using head tracking? Or because the frogfoot isn’t a clickable plane, does it have simplified cockpit functions because it assumes you’re doing everything with shortcuts. I just found it hard to see the different functions that the training was telling me to look at like which bombs were armed or how far away a waypoint was because of how small they were on my screen. Look for the zoom axis in axis bindings, or "Zoom in slow" and "zoom out slow" in the button bindings. I usually use the zoom slow button binds and bind it somewhere easy to reach on my joystick. Sounds like your TrackIR is messing up. Make sure the camera is centered on the clip lights, and move them around some so it doesn't wig out. I also calibrate it so if I'm looking at the right bezel of my monitor, my view is 180 degrees rotated to the right and vice versa.
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Apr 23, 2021 17:06
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgWFDP8s3Bw Cool new free 45C mod with clickable cockpit. Surprisingly well done and, well, it's free.
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Apr 24, 2021 21:33
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https://twitter.com/VIRPILControls/status/1387007714631589889 Hell yeah. I fly the Ka-50 half the time now, and am getting the Hind and eventually the Apache and this looks cool. I posted a couple weeks ago about finding good Helicopter servers for DCS. I've found a couple good ones that I thought I would share.
Edit: Speaking of helicopters, a DLC Bell 47-G2 is coming to MSFS on the 30th. Trillhouse fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Apr 27, 2021 |
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Apr 27, 2021 17:10
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Got my first A/A kill in the Ka-50 by taking out a Hind with an anti-tank missile. Pow, straight in the cockpit. My new favorite DCS server, Rotorheads, switched over the Syria and this is my first time flying the map multiplayer. It's such a nice change from the Caucuses. Highly recommend if you want to do PVE CAS. Despite the name, they let jets fly too so you can have some fun in an F-18 or A-10 without worrying about constant RWR pings from Migs and Su-27s.
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May 8, 2021 23:05
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DCS just announced a new free to play promotion.quote:Digital Combat Simulator World 2.7 Free to Play is now available. Standalone version (aka not-Steam) only. Might be worth a look if you want to try out a plane on DCS.
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Jun 11, 2021 15:41
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Hind-D Early Access just got released on DCS. I can’t try it until I get home but I’m pumped for it. Pro Tip: it’s available for the new free 2 week trial system if you want to try it without paying for it. Gonna recreate Metal Gear Solid and shoot down two F-16s with it and finally kill Solid Snake.
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Jun 16, 2021 18:27
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DCS has a big sale going on right now. A few weeks ago I said you should consider the super carrier over Syria, but I've done a complete 180 on that. Syria is really good and the latest update added Cyprus.
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Jun 18, 2021 16:33
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