Oh, yeah. Had to buy that to properly review Falcon 3.0/4.0. ;-)
So good :)
Book is one of the best Iāve ever read. So freaking good.
Havenāt read the book, but I HAVE watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCFMX5z-ed4
I feel like this video is probably the 1 hour TLDR version of the book :D
I hate that one. I finally found a way around it by using the CH Control Managerās mapped mode with virtual joysticks which correspond 1-1 with my physical ones. That way the hardware IDs are always the same.
Seriously, though, they really need to redo the input stuff. Itās only marginally better than the Falcon 4 input system.
The Harrier trailer looks pretty cool, though.
They redid it within the last year or so. You can adjust your controls in flight now which was never possible before. Also, you can save your control settings to a file that can be imported again later if needed.
But you still canāt define your basic controls and assign them across all planes. :(
Thatās because:
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Controls are not 1:1 across modern planes. Controls that one plane has may not be present on another. I suppose there are certain basics that are common across each butā¦
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Different planes are made by different developers. That means their stuff isnāt necessarily compatible with each other in that way.
Basically you do it once for each plane, save the profile, and then you never have to worry about it again. If this is too much of a barrier for you, maybe flight sims arenāt for you :P This is nothing compared to the probably hundreds of hours Iāve spent over the years installing, configuring, tweaking, modding, etc the various flight sims. Thatās just how these things work! :)
Iām aware, but itās still the only game that sometimes breaks your control mappings for no reason, and last I checked, the control profile files are per device rather than per aircraft.
And old files sometimes break when modules add new features, and DCS updates sometimes require you to redo control mappings. And the default mapping, which puts primary flight controls on every controller with a single axis or more, are actually worse than no defaults at all. Itās a mess.
So I have an X-55, which has a separate stick and throttle. Standard HOTAS. Each is plugged into a separate monitorās USB port. So every night when I turned those monitors off, they get disconnected. And then reconnected again the next day when I turn them back on again. Iāve never once had what you described happen. That does sound like it would really suck though :(
So how will this new career for IL-2 work? I picked up Stalingrad during the sale. Will it be patched in, or is it going to be DLC or what?
Gosh golly, maybe youāre rightā¦ Thanks, General Yeager!
Yeah, with detailed systems, every plane needs to be tweaked. But having to set up the axes for my stick, throttle, and pedals, on every plane, is really annoying. Iām going to set up certain buttons to be the same on every plane ā primary/secondary weapon, speedbrakes, gear, flaps, chaff/flares, etc. It would be great to be able to set up a base profile and then tweak THAT for every plane. It would save 5-10 minutes per plane, which adds up when you have 10+ planes installed and you get a new controller.
Well we can wish it be better till the cows come home but in the end weāll just have to adapt and overcome. Like the man said itās a part of the hobby. Not my favourite part tho.
The career thing is going to be more or less exactly what Rise of Flight has. Itās not DLC but will get patched in.
Il2 BoX never gave me any of the traditional pc simming grief by the way. Ymmv.
So, I have tweaked and fiddled and twiddled and dumpedydummed and my cow did come home. I have reinstalled DCS and all the things i own for it except the Nevada terrain because i just flat out refuse to have two seperate DCS installations to maintain. One is enough of a hassle as is. Iāll revisit Las Vegas when the new version of the Caucasus map comes out and DCS gets merged back into one single thing.
First i mass-renamed all of the control config files to the current controller ID using a renamer utility.
Then I built a mission that loads and then gives me the choice of plane to fly. Itās a training mission with a bunch of targets things on the ground to shoot and some in the air; some choppers, a couple of docile Phantoms and a herky bird. Something for everyone :)
Then I tweaked those control configs because one needs VR zoom, and handy access to wheel brakes and nose wheel steering and the F5ās dogfight mode.
Flying the crap out of that mission, I have been studying some of my planes some more, and have (re-)learned how to usefully employ the Su-25, the -27 and the -33 on the red side and the F-15 and F-5E on the blue side.
Now the mission includes cold ramp starts, and getting the hardcore planes going is taking some serious study. I started out with the easy one, the F-5E Tiger II. Having a whale of a time learning how to get it going, taxi it and take off and then shoot stuff with it. VR is so good for gunnery. I was gunning down those choppers with single short bursts on the very first pass!
I am happy to report that at least the F-5E is perfectly doable in VR. I use VR zoom a lot to read the labels on the switches and buttons in the pit, and that works just fine. I also uploaded its entire manual to the kneeboard.
I am happy as a pig in shit and apparently my life is currently in such a way that I have the peace of mind to effectively study these things and gain fulfillment from that.
Thereās a ton of great things on the horizon for DCS, maybe even more so than for Il-2. Thereās the coming merger of the versions that will not only end the three different DCS installs one can maintain but also bring it right up there in the graphics department with new explosion effects, physics based rendering, vapor effects and so on. Thereās a AV-8B Harrier just about to be let out the hangar. A mite further away are the F/A-18C and the F-14A. Beyond that, work is ongoing on very interesting machines such as the Mi-24P and the F-4E. Good times to be a armchair fighter pilot.
I have a training mission that does a similar thing to yours, with many of the current flyables included and some respawning targets for fun.
Ohhhh, that looks fun. Have you played it, Tim?
No, just saw it posted somewhere.
Goddammit. I need a DCS 12 step programme. I just gone and preordered the AV-8B and bought the Viggen. Only have the Mi-8 left on my wish list. The rest are all future modules. I have no interest in the DCS prop jobs because Il-2 does those in a better suited engine.
Viggen is fucking awesome. What a monster of a machine. I have killed myself three times in it today, just by being hamfisted lol.
Iāve also been studying up on the mirage. For some reason the two phantoms i put in my training scenarioās hate mirages and turn south as soon as I take off in order to agressively prosecute me. A big delta does NOT fight well if loaded down with bombs and rockets!
Itās one of my favorites. It really, really moves down low.
Iām fond of the Mi-8. Itās a very easy helicopter to fly; the stability augmentation systems really tame its trickier characteristics, while not getting in the way quite as much as the Ka-50ās.
I expect to be fond of the Harrier, too; I like quirky planes.