/tg/Station 13

...and carrying death as your cargo. 20mm cannons. Rockets and missiles and bombs.

Once again, there've been some murmurs recently about getting a group of people off the ground and into the sky to tear apart some strategic objectives.
So far that means Anton and I are going to be goofing around in Falcon 4.0 probably independently for a little bit to familiarize ourselves with it, then taking to the skies in some glorious co-op missions.

If you're curious you can familiarize yourself with the plane in about an hour. Learning mastery over everything takes a lot longer than that, but it comes with time.
The average sortie lasts about an hour. You go up, you travel, you smash some shit, stir up trouble, avoid trouble or kill trouble, travel home, and land. Sometimes they don't last that long...because you get exploded. But really you can't spend a lot longer than an hour up there because >fuel.

Why bother? If you like Arma style strategic co-op stuff flight sims like this feature that heavily. You need to fly in formation, share threat information, and cover eachother's asses. Two planes can do so much more than one. If you like playing with high-tech military toys this fucker has all the bombs, buttons, and electronics you could want. Finally flying around in shit is just liberating. It takes a lot of skill to fly well, but there's a fun sense of being a pilot of a rollercoaster 20,000ft in the sky.

Also:

YOU CAN GET THE WHOLE THING FOR FREE

If you get into it there's a community of players who run monthly pvp campaigns where they simulate one of three theaters live 24/7 and pilots can login at will to run sorties and try to help their side win the fight. Typically they seem to average around 40v40 players. This is also totally free to join and play. The game includes AI commanders that are actually pretty good at reacting to different situations and creating packages (missions) for pilots to fly to help win, though you can make your own as well. There's ground forces slugging it out as well as AI controller air forces the whole time too. You can see all that at http://falcon-online.org

I am actually in a situation where I may be able to get a joystick to check this out.

Do I need a throttle too?

I'm pretty sure there's some button you can push to increase or decrease throttle, but the key to flying well is smooth, consistent inputs.

Outside of knife fights you don't throw the throttle around a lot, you usually set it in some position that'll give you the airspeed you want to cruise at and then leave it there. Kick it up or down a little for maneuvers.

Let me know what you're budget is and I'll try to give you some options. I would recommend at least a joystick with some kind of throttle or wheel on the base. The best part of having an independent throttle is actually all the extra buttons and controls on it. Having an analog stick for slew or dials for antenna elevation and position is great, alongside all the extra buttons and hats.

i didnt know planes could stab eachother

miggles wrote:i didnt know planes could stab eachother

that is a perfect response holy shit

miggles wrote:that is a perfect response holy shit

warthunder aerodynamics

don't question how basically a wooden zero that overheats basically all the time can cut through duralumin without a scratch

ive seen that .gif a lot and i only just now realized there are two katanas on the wings

This could be you, scrubs:

[youtube]cvO1rT52nBk[/youtube]

why would i want that to be me
that looks boring as all hell

Then why are you in this thread?

You don't have to answer that, just go.

no, explain why this is fun

miggles wrote:no, explain why this is fun

No, read the OP.

flight sims are dumb

Flight sims are great

If you can fly
Otherwise it's just kinda flailing around, stalling, and then leaving a little crater or splash behind

It's fun just doing it. Just flying around and not killing yourself.

Then you add all the weapons and gadgets and shit to it, and the AI and the knife fights.
Get's really exciting.

i remember the first time i managed to get off the ground in dcs world

i was so overjoyed!

then i tried to do an aileron roll and ended up crashing

but those 30 seconds in the air were magical

oh, BMS. yeah i fly it quite a bit. if you guys want an extra guy for your wing, i'll fly with you. i can host even. i use IVC and always ramp, what weapons do you guys know?

Cik wrote:oh, BMS. yeah i fly it quite a bit. if you guys want an extra guy for your wing, i'll fly with you. i can host even. i use IVC and always ramp, what weapons do you guys know?

Word. I've never used IVC and don't know how hosting works at all. It'd probably be better for both Anton and I if you were willing to host some time and suffer through us learning/trying to remember all this shit.

yeah no worries dude. i'm checked out on every weapon system. hosting is pretty easy but if you like, i'll handle it. i'll pay attention to the thread, post here when you've got time and we can go through stuff. if you want to get acquainted with weapons system and employment there are krause's tutorials on youtube, one for pretty much every system there is in the game, including the defensive systems.

radar warning receiver:

going defensive and WEZ evasion:

AA stuff:

i don't know exactly how far you've gotten into it, but these cover the raw basics of how to know when you're under attack, what to do about it and how to shoot guys. apologies if you're already past this stuff. if you are, there's a pile of other ones covering AGM-65D, AGM-88, JDAM, etc etc. all very educational.

if you want to jump right in that's fine too.

I'm familiar with most of the AtG armaments from all my time spent in an A-10. The Falcon does have the cool ability to loft munitions at targets that I'm not familiar with, though.

I'm good on radar, RWR, dogfight mode, locking targets off boresight using the helmet HUD, etc.

I just need to refamiliarize myself with a lot of the basic instrumentation and flight controls. "Where is that damn button?" kind of stuff. Some practice flying in formation and maneuvering with a wingman would be great, I don't have any experience doing that.

tl;dr most of what I need is just practice doing ramp starts again to make sure I remember that shit, a bit of time to remember what all the gauges and info on the HUD means, and learning how to play co-op with someone.

alright, sick. you will find many similarities between A-10C AG stuff. for instance, the maverick mode i'm told is extremely similar, besides the F-16Cs radar slave mode it's apparently identical. CBU-87/97/MK20D rockeye II should be basically the same. i'm not sure how the A-10C's CCRP works (it doesn't have a AG radar, does it ?) lofting is just an outgrowth of the falcon's CCRP mode, which is normally a radar-slaved leveldrop mode, but can also be used as a INS-pinpointed steerpoint attack mode, especially when striking heavily defended targets that necessitate NOE approach.

ramp start isn't necessary of course, but i just do it for my own emulsions. i find that once you do it a few times it becomes like riding a bike.

i find that being superstrict about formation is pointless, because if you pay too much attention to it you effectively make anybody trying to follow the leader blind, considering they are always going to be concentrated entirely on formation keeping instead of looking outside the plane for threats and bandits. opinions vary on this. falcon online people for instance are usually pretty strict about spacing.

Cik are you free to host this weekend? Anton and I would be up for playing Saturday afternoon at 3pm EST.

Ill give it a shot.

not sure anon, i play dark heresy on fridays / saturdays. i'll talk with the GM in the next day or so and get back to you on saturday. in the circumstance that it's on saturday, i can play friday night or sunday (all day) not sure how busy you are?

>Ill give it a shot.

neat.

How do I keep my cockpit from becoming Lens Flare Simulator 2014?
On another note, I had a fine installation, and am (albiet slowly) acclimating. This is probably because the most advanced sim I've played until now was IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad, and this is my first sim that features stuff after 1945.

Cik wrote:not sure anon, i play dark heresy on fridays / saturdays. i'll talk with the GM in the next day or so and get back to you on saturday. in the circumstance that it's on saturday, i can play friday night or sunday (all day) not sure how busy you are?

>Ill give it a shot.

neat.

I'll talk to Anton. I'm pretty sure 3pm EST on Sunday would be fine for both of us.

Silavite wrote:How do I keep my cockpit from becoming Lens Flare Simulator 2014?
On another note, I had a fine installation, and am (albiet slowly) acclimating. This is probably because the most advanced sim I've played until now was IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad, and this is my first sim that features stuff after 1945.

Pretty sure when you start the launcher, you can go to the Configuration and toggle some visual settings for cockpit reflections and bloom off. They might be under hardware or graphics somewhere.

Also Silavite if this is too huge of a jump in terms of HOLY SHIT ALL THESE BUTTONS you could try installing DCS World (its free on steam) and playing with the Su-25T they give you for free. It's a more modern craft but it has a simpler flight model and control interface.

better to just jump right in IMO. you're not going to acclimatize much to the falcon by playing DCS, unless maybe you're playing the complex ones like A-10C. even then, you're still going to have to fill in the blanks of the non-general knowledge like "how the fuck do i ramp this?" "how the fuck do my missiles work?" "what the fuck is pitbull?" etc etc for 20 hours. better to just get over that hump immediately.

there's also the most pressing question: "what the fuck is that ringing noise?"

There's an initial investment on modern jet fighters but once you've put it in it translates.

It's not so much learning how to do all the shit over and over with each plane (though they do have subtle differences) it's learning how the general systems and weapon systems work. Scanning around with the radar system is prettymuch the same in every plane. A particular model of maverick works prettymuch the same in an F-15, F-16, or A-10.

Getting tasking from JTAC and punching that BRA offset into your CDU as a new steerpoint? Sounds like you're elbow deep in the bundle of flying paperwork that is the A-10C. If you aren't diving right into flying that fucker, you don't have to worry about what any of that shit is, though. The F-16 makes things comparatively a lot easier. Learn to enjoy the luxury of having all your steerpoints and targets mostly designated for you ahead of time (unless you're running SEAD, but leave the HARMS for the experienced dudes) because CAS is beneath you.

The F-16 is a really good plane to jump into and start with because it does everything, but it does it relatively simply compared to the A-10C, F-15E, or F/A-18C. It looks like a fucking ton of stuff but that's because you're looking at it from afar and trying to take it all in at once. When you're in the air and you're slewing your radar over a target to softlock it for TWS and get an MRAM on it...just typing that sentence out was way more complicated then at actually is:

Put the cursor on the guy you want to 'splode.
TMS up once to softlock.
Make sure it's a guy you want to 'splode.
Maneuver into position for a missile launch.
Push missile button.
Fox 3. (call happens automatically)
Pitbull. (call happens automatically)
Splash. (if you're lucky/did everything right)

you're pretty much correct about the process (though personally i turn pilot voice off so you don't hear fox 3 / pitbull calls and have to watch your indicators) but step 3 and four aren't as simple as they seem, especially against a modern aircraft (su-27, mig29S, mig-31) and target ID is complicated even more when there's no AWACS.

against a modern foe you can't really be sure of victory at BVR, and that's not mentioning all the intracacies of a knife fight.

(though, to be fair the falcon forgives many stupid mistakes in dogfight due to it's insane maneuverability. doing dumb things that would get you killed in other aircraft instead leads you into a stalemate. but that's a story for another time)

You should always have AWACS on a modern battlefield unless you're losing incredibly badly or you're ridiculously deep in enemy territory.

Asking magic for bogey dope only takes a second. Unless they're backed up by lots of calls you should get a response quickly. You should prettymuch always do this.

if you're playing anything outside the stock campaign AWACS is not certain. if russia's involved, there will be MIG-31s and they have a ~60 mile engagement range against lumbering targets, not to mention the default su-27 just pushing into friendly turf for OCA will sometimes hit them with adders. if there are russian tanks somewhere in your territory there's also the SA-11s to worry about. and that's not mentioning alternate theaters set in 1970~ somewhere where AWACS doesn't exist.

even in vanilla (tiger spirit) you will lose sentry coverage relatively often due to the massive flood of chinese su-27/su-30 coming down into friendly territory to knock out airbases / industry / sweep

other than that though it's pretty much certain. NATO EW planes have a higher ceiling than half the DPRK air force, heh.

past the initial giant seoul pileup it's not too bad though. and even AWACS isn't that helpful in that clusterfuck.
edit: clarified stuff

When in doubt, take a peak through your TGP.

I agree BVR is a joke but if you're using all your systems right you can see pretty damn far.

I would play but I'm a filthy no-joystick terrorist.
rip

20bux

litmeuplol wrote:I would play but I'm a filthy no-joystick terrorist.
rip

>not using a joystick for your airplane vidya games
you're awful

the recent slew of flight "simulators" that don't require a stick is cancer. sometimes my friends are like "why don't you just play war thunder :^)" i hate my friends.

also to be honest if you don't have a joystick to play mechwarrior with you are a casual anyway geez

btw anon3 i'm playing dark heresy fri night so if you're still on for saturday i'm game. not sure how you want to handle voice? post and tell me how you want to set it up, and how many you're bringing. if anyone else from the thread wants to come, you are welcome regardless of skill level.

I thought we were going to do Sunday at 3pm est instead?

Doesn't falcon have it's own VST channel or something in it? We can just use the hogs teamspeak otherwise.

Warthunder is fucking garbage. The physics are garbage, the balancing is garbage, and it's full of idiots who crash into eachother fighting over who gets to kill an enemy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiservi ... evity_code

If people start talkin' shit and you don't know what's up use that.

sunday is fine too, though me and a few dudes are flying sweeps right now against russia and china.

~whatever works~

if i buy a joystick ever i'll know to come here

Cik wrote:sunday is fine too, though me and a few dudes are flying sweeps right now against russia and china.

~whatever works~

Sweeps against Russia and China? What game/campaign are you talking about?

Are you part of a VFW?

nah. just some friends i poached from another (non-falcon) clan i'm a part of, and some people i know into flight stuff.

if you've never played a campaign through, once you demolish the DPRK airforce in campaign, sometimes russia or china will step in and start sending sukhoi 27 / 30 / TU-16 / MIG-31s in to fuck you up. we're sweeping like 40-60~ miles out over the eastern ocean, interdicting russian OCAs and intercepts on our AWACS / tankers / whatever coming in.

we're playing a slightly modified rolling fire campaign i hacked together.

Word. What do you use to fly? I've got a full CH products setup + TrackIR.

Asking on the off chance you might have the same setup and I could take a look at your control settings/TrackIR calibration.

I'm told for Falcon you should just set everything to "smooth" and the TrackIR but some people also say to crank it up to 30...but I have no idea what they're increasing to 30.

i'm much less equipped, unfortunately. the BMS forums might have what you're looking for though. i've never calibrated a TIR, unfortunately but i've helped a few of my friends calibrate complicated throttle / stick setups and i know how the falcon side of it works, so if you need help with that i'll be considerably more helpful.

There are some keymaps out there but they're not even trying to be 1:1 accurate with what the actual throttle in an F-16 does so I hate them.

do you have a cougar? the cougar afaik is a 1:1 representation of the f-16 stick / throttle, unless you have those you probably aren't going to get anywhere near 1:1, but i understand the desire. if you do though, i'd be honestly very surprised if no one has bothered to make a 1:1, because in theory it wouldn't even be difficult.

Fighterstick + Pro throttle.

Saitek makes some throttles that are 1:1 F-16 throttles, but they've never made a stick that is.

The CH Fighterstick is a perfect copy of the F-16 and A-10 stick aside from the dual-stage trigger. It doesn't have one, but IRL both planes do.

The Pro throttle can be made to function like most throttles aside from the twin-engine split. It has enough hats, buttons, and a fantastic thumbstick that you can map everything you need to it with a few functions to spare.

If I had it all to do over again, though (or just an extra $200 kicking around) I'd probably buy one of these instead:





>dat thumbstick
>dat airbrake slider
>dem radar knobs
>dat split

my friend has an X55. i'm secretly jealous.


i'll probably get around to picking up better equipment eventually. it's a real bummer though, no one seems interested in making a dedicated F-16 HOTAS. the cougar exists but afaik it's been out of production for a long time, maybe 10 years. i didn't know about that throttle though; interesting.

edit: i'm not sure if i like the split throttle to be fair. it seems moderately pointless unless you can lock it to scale on the same, or if it's hard to split them. notwithstanding the fact that the falcon is a single engine plane, it seems like throwing your engine states out of whack wouldn't be terribly useful, if you want to yaw why not just use your rudder?

i don't have the experience to conclusively say it's useless, or any experience at all for that matter. i guess it's nice as an option, though.