Really? Nobody plays this or is enthusiastic enough to post?

[Kattz 132]

Hi, King G - Yes, I have one of those, and my sound is driven by a 965W Pioneer Elite receiver.  Lot of thump there.  You get a great effect flying the Fw190D-9 and the Bf109K-4.  Don't have the P-51D yet.  I'd like to see an add-on for the Ju87G-2 Kanonenvogel.  I think between the A-10C and the Ju87G-2 I couldn't have much more fun unless it was illegal, immoral, or fattening...

 

A port of the Milviz line into DCS would just ROCK - especially the new P-38 or the F-15E Mudhen.

[KingGhidorah 209]

The thing that is killing me the most Kattz, is the inability to actually find targets before they find me, without having to resort to either the Labels, or the F10 Map. The hand-eye coordination with all the different mode dependent switches, hats, and buttons is coming along nicely, but being able to use the targeting pod or the Maverick head to actually find anything that isn't already clustered around one of my waypoints, and not having to cheat with labels or map, seems to be almost insurmountable. I can see how these planes can fly around the desert at night and pick out a hot tank against the background with the FLIR, but in a wooded European area, with lots of ground clutter, I feel like I might as well be in a B-17 at 30,000 ft for all I can pick out.

[jcomm 5,939]

Although I always complained about it at the few WW2 servers available when I was playing the ww2 birds in DCS, I think that, with it's sometimes irritating visibility limitations DCS is actually close to reality, because, specially if under our aircraft and against the terrain, other aircraft are really difficult to glimpse IRL too !

 

And DCS was initially designed with modern air war and it's sophisticated systems in mind, not really for much visual contact... How many times even IRL don't they "shoot" without visual contact after all....

 

Users are looking fwd for EDGE to bring a new reality, but I guess they'll be "disappointed"...

 

I used to play at a nice ww2 server with some mods making LODs huge for the fighters, and hence creating a sensation of easier visual ID.

 

What I really didn't find realistic at all, both in DCS and IL2 BoS, was that Zoom function, that has no match in real life  When approaching a bullseye region, I used to zoom like a mad over the area, to start to glimpse the dots around it...

[KingGhidorah 209]

Oh, I'm just complaining. I'm really loving every second of using the A-10 and all the rest. I too think that I've got the appropriate field of view set up and that the size and distances I see objects at are close to what would be in reality. I guess in the real world, they are much more dependent on forward air controllers talking them on to the target. Anyway, my DCS kick is still alive and well, and I continue to work at it. Last week, I was overwhelmed with buttons and switches and concepts in the A-10, but I'm happy to say it is starting to come together and I'm getting better every time I use it. It has by far the most brutal learning curve I've ever seen in flight simulation. I know there must be people using this plane with controllers other than the Thrustmaster Warthog hotas replica, but given this plane's dependence on mode specific long and short presses of an overwhelming array of specifically designed 'hat' switches, I don't know how they manage without it.

[KingGhidorah 209]

Wow, jcomm and Kattz, I just spent the last 2 hours with the A-10 trying to get good with this "simple" exercise: I find a target with the LITENING pod by first pointing the diamond in the vicinity of the target while it's caged, slewing it to the target, pushing the TMS switch up into point-mode to get it to track a moving object, then pushing the TMS long to make it the SPI. And then I have the Maverick page on the other screen, click the coolie hat right to make that the Sensor. I push the china hat forward long to slave the Maverick to where the targeting pod is pointing, and finally the TMS switch up short to tell the Maverick to lock. And then WHAM! The only point was just to be able to develop the finger memory so that I can designate things and then hand them off to other systems so that it becomes automatic, and I know that is a baby step. But just think: Right now in some other topic they are telling a guy to hang in there while he learns how to start a Cherokee in FSX! I quit DCS a few years ago because it was hard, but also because I didn't have the horsepower to run it at the level of detail and fps that I wanted to. But now, as I'm actually learning how to use some complex systems, I'm only now realizing just how cool this simulation is! Sorry for the stomach-turning enthusiasm, but I guess the Avsim forum is the place to convey it!

[jcomm 5,939]

I left DCS and IL2, sold my x55 and Saitek rudder pedals, and only keep an old, half broken ( no button in the stick unit working :-/ ) X52 Pro.

 

If anyone asks, I'll say DCS and IL2 BoS are / were by far the best flight experiences I ever had in a prop / helicopter simulation ( each on it's own ). I did prefer the way flight feels in IL2 BoS, and helicopters excel in DCS.

 

Concentrating only in my RL gliding, although I am using SilentWings and XCSoar to train the use of that software in my real flights - a great use for a simulator!

 

Why? Because those hours in front of the PC doing dogfight were becoming too much of a stress to me :-/

 

I also still keep FSX:SE installed with PMDG's 777 ( which I by far consider their Masterpiece ), ASN for the weather and use Aerowinx PSX. Not having had the chance to be an airline pilot is probably my main "frustration" in this life, so, I keep playing, from time to time, being one :-)

[Kattz 132]

See, King, I told you that you would get it! 

[KingGhidorah 209]

!

[~Craig~ 10]

On the original question; the technology looks good but I have no interest whatsoever in military aircraft, or combat.  So therefore no interest in this platform in it's current carnation.

[KingGhidorah 209]

Go away ~Craig~.

[jcomm 5,939]

DCS is, IMO, the best overall flight dynamics offer for fixed and rotary wing aircraft. That's a reason for a simmer, even coming from the FSX / X-Plane brands, to profit from using it, even with the limited flying area and the fact that it is aimed at Air Combat and not Civil operations...

 

I was one of the "voices" at the ED forums asking for civil modules, but this is not in the priority list of DCS developers, and I can perfectly understand that they have a lot more to focus on right now...  The same happens when we ask FSX devs to consider porting their civil modules into DCS - PMDG for example refuses to develop for a platform that doesn't offer World coverage for a start...

 

The main "problem" for me was that, from a few leisure flights in my first DCS module - the mighty P51d, and also using both the UH-1H and the Mi-8 for simple circuits or short flights between aerdromes, I became an air-combat addict

 

Nothing really wrong with it, other than the fact that it is ... addictive .... Hours in front of a PC screen, with a fancy device in your head, shooting at other virtual aircraft.... 

 

IL2 BoS joined this party as an offer from the same fellow who got me into DCS   Yet another great flight simulator, I'd say certainly not behind DCS when it comes to flight dynamics modelling of prop aircraft, and I actually find it, in some aspects, superior in this area.... But, again.... hours of seeking for the enemy across those huge white snow-covered lands.... 

 

Combat flight simulators can take a huge amount of time ( spare time, but sometimes not only !!! ) and although civil flight simulation can also occupy such amounts of your time ( specially if you fly online and use ATC.. and like to vly long hauls with all of the bells and whistles.. ) I never found it so addictive as combat flight... 

 

But truth is nothing.. NOTHING you can name for FSX, X-Plane can come even close to what you get with DCS modules or il2 BoS, and I have never felt so close to my RL flying experience as I do when I used to takeoff and land those powerful prop aircraft in DCS World or IL2-Battle of Stalingrad, although IRL I do not fly such aircraft and mine do not even have that spinner ahead :-)  ( at most, a bit behind of where I seat... )

[Kattz 132]

Craig Bennet sez "On the original question; the technology looks good but I have no interest whatsoever in military aircraft, or combat.  So therefore no interest in this platform in it's current carnation."

 

Why bother posting that?

 

@ jcomm:  Agree, and nothing makes you fly better than a spiralschnausen on the spinner...