Are you guys taking up DCS?

Hey all I was wondering if you were going to take up DCS full time?

Hi Hooves,

Our Saturday flying is pretty much exclusively DCS now. I don't think we've done a Cliffs of Dover night in almost a year. We've been training, first on the Mustang and now with the Spitfire.

Now that Normandy has been released in early access, we will begin testing limits and possibilities with the editor and start making co-op missions for our Saturday flying night. Unfortunately, the DCS AI flight and damage models aren't exactly great at the moment.

So short answer, yes we've switched. Long answer, we don't have anything specific going on within the sim to play yet - unless we go onto another server and fly their missions. Most of what we've got so far is testing.

Rad!

I recently purchased everything, I hope I can fly with the old group!

Hooves

Looking forward to you joining the fray Hooves

Hey Hooves,

Great to hear from you man!! As Wolvie says, we're just getting up to speed with DCS Normandy 1944. Spent most of the past year learning to fly the P51D and Spit again using the NTTR map. Mustang and Spit have been a bitch to learn, but the effort is worth it. When they say full switch, they really mean it. CoD now seems more console than sim in retrospect.

We just completed a test mission last Saturday when we threw in the kitchen sink to try and crash the sim. Load times were a bit longer, but DCS held up to the equivalent of four single missions worth of triggers/air traffic and automated ATC comms.

I'm now experimenting with the inclusion of historical cockpit comms from RAF Fighter and Bomber command as well as some Luftwaffe recordings. The intent is to have these drift in and out as random radio signals throughout our missions to give these more historical flair. I'm working with Audacity software to create custom ATC comms and tested the historical triggers last night and it works fine (just need to address the file sizes). So far so good, just have to convert the .wav files I'm using now to .ogg format to save on file size.

I'm also testing ground units and several scenarios we've flown over the past months have been very successful. I sat on the runway one time just to watch the ground battle, and I know you've seen and heard weapons effects like I have and I can say that I was very impressed. This week I'm playing around with infantry ground units (currently acting as sentries to perform perimeter security at a fueling point at Tangmere) and it's insane to watch these guys run all around your aircraft while the fuel tankers and ammo trucks race up beside you. Very slick. The intent is to start to build our ability to model ground combat on the beaches and to follow the Canadian Division as it fought from Juno Beach toward Caen.

Main frustration to date is the DM and FM for the Me109 mainly. Nearly impossible to bring down unless you get a cannon burst to chop a wing off. They seem to fly forever belching steam and black oil smoke while continuing to out perform us even with aileron and rudders shot away. Also, the new asset pack lacks any German bombers, so our focus for now will be on building out a pre and post-Normandy campaign based on the provision of air support following the historical ground campaign (see my other post). If everyone chips in, we should have several very good years of flying ahead of us.

Anyway, looking forward to having you back. DCS has lots to offer and is limited only by our imagination and willingness to put some effort into scenario creation.

Cheers

Speed (the pilot formerly known as DNR!!)