looking more and more like our wallets are going to take a serious pounding
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Letās seeā¦ kiowa 50, Kola 50ā¦ phantom already paid for, as is halfghanistan. Iāll be aight.
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Me: add some more $$$ for a storage medium updateā¦
Iām already getting ācreativeā with the OS linkedā¦umā¦file redirectionā¦thing-a-ma-bobā¦thing. Name escapes me but my 1TB DCS drive cup is starting to runneth over.
Ahā¦āsymbolic linkā, via MKLINK. For those interested (Iām sure itās posted somewhere else here):
From our very own @BeachAV8R explained in a manner even I can understand:
MUDSPIKE POST
Re-reading that I shouldāve perhaps used a ājunctionā, not āsymbolicā as itās all on the same machine.
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Eh, maps are justified expenses!
Kiowa Iām wait-and-see as I have the Apache, Hind, and new Ka-50 and have barely touched any of them so far.
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But The Kiowaā¦.āThis One Will Be Differentāā¦I say this about every module I buy!! 
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Choppers are fun. Light ones are more fun (ie, I prefer Huey to Hip, despite the Hip having this gloriously soviet front deck. Itās a motherloving bridge, not a cockpit!) So Kiowa oughta be hella fun.
I hope they include this mission the dude in the podcast talked about, where they used the big-arse optics on top of the rotor head to play peeping tom at a couple making love in the back of their truck thinking they were way out in the booniesā¦
But picking out the technical with the rocket launcher and lasing it for some righteous hellfire dropped by a mach-hair-on-fire mirage F1 should be almost as good 
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Iām with @schurem light heloās are very different than the heavy gunships you mentioned. Now if we had a Cobraā¦ But I digress, come on whatās one more helo compared to the torrent of planes coming down the pipe (F-100, A-7, A-1, etc.)?
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Will I get the Kiowa? Yes, i get every helo that comes out.
So far the Huey is the only one i can take off and fly around with. Landing, eh its ok if its a fairly open field
The apache i can use since george flys it.
But hey, i still try lol
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I donāt know if you use VR, nor whether youāre a āstick and rudder puristā, but flying at night in VR using the IHADSS in the Apache is an amazing experience!
Even better if youāve got a friend in the front seat 
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I donāt think the Ka-50 is really āheavyā. Thanks to BS1 and 2 I spent years flying that thing. So much so Iāve barely touched the new one due to overt ābeen there, done thatā familiarity.
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The Kiowa is going to be a very hard fit into the DCS world. Urban infantry, uniformed and insurgent, are practically non-existent. The Ka50 and AH64 are far better scouts in a DCS-land thatās much metal and no meat. Even the Gazelle is on par with it, while being more nimble and faster (not that speed matters so much). Give me a world where it is needed and I will buy it.
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Iāve had the same thought. It will be up to the mission makers to determine how to make it necessary in a way that an Apache (or Gazelle) canāt do better. I sincerely hope theyāre successful.
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My problem with DCS right now, and this isnāt limited to just ED, but all the 3rd party module makers as well, is the lack of training missions for the EA modules.
Now I understand not putting in training for weapons or sensors you donāt have implemented yet. I mean, duh.
Yet the F-14 has been out how long now? Still only has a guns and AIM-9 training mission. No Sparrow, and most importantly, no Phoenix? Also no LGB dropping with LANTIRN last I checked?
So many of these have had abilities for 6 months, a year, maybe longer, and still no training mission on how to do it? We have to rely on watching outside YT video from Jabbers or whoever to demonstrate these things and IMO that is NOT the same thing.
Obviously the same skills to code the planes and art assets and AI logic and all that are not the ones used to make these training videos. So who makes them and why the awful lag?
Itās like 50% of the training missions donāt come until 1.0 release which can mean literally years after EA starts. Some have single missions which are supposed to be some form of training but itās more like throwing yourself into the deep end to learn as itās like a training mission with the narration and control highlights ripped out.
A YT video is just watching. A training mission is doing. I 100% learn more by the latter.
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Amen brother, preach them truths!
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Agreed. Iām having a time with this right now, having to revamp more code (due to adding the Apache) than anticipated; isnāt hard to do a one-off mission (but that gets old), yet scripting it dynamically given the tools provided leaves me feeling less than satisfied with the results. Biggest hurdles:
- Keeping the red/blue dudes from, at a minimum, not annihilating each other: mostly solved
- Commās with the player: basic but limited
- Realistic, and varied, situations: TBD
Air-to-Air is relatively easy. So is āGo HERE, drop a bomb on THATā. CAS-like stuff is complicated, at least for me.
I donāt see any of this CAS-like stuff changing until they work on the AI at this level. Identifying things on the ground needs to be faster, more detailed, and more consistent across maps.
Off the cuff example: it appears like a Blue JTAC can be 20 feet away from a Red unit but if thereās no direct LOS they are oblivious to each other, requiring ugly micro-management under the hood. IIRC in ArmA the scripting thing regarding detection was less ābinaryā.
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I think Arma uses a % knows about, giving the AI more than a binary awareness of an enemy. And included āhearingā not just LOS.
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Worse, those Youtube videos often become useless after an update where procedure has been altered.
The one caveat with training missions is how often updates break the triggers.
Those two points are why I canāt live without Chuckās guides. Ctrl+F to find what I need, look at it on my phone or iPad while trying it out in my own missions.
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Iām thinking that HBās approach - having the PDF available in the 'pit - may be more useful than I thought at first glance; have one document to edit for changes/additions and itās always āin the helmet bagā, if you willā¦
I see me, inverted maybe even, active pause on, ānow, what page was the mil depression setting knob onā¦oh, thereā¦ā. Unpause, etc.
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I do the same thing. Pause at the most āinopportuneā times to go RTFM.
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Pause and Active Pause are the best features 
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