Reticuli

Anyone find fixes to the non-clouds stuff that the LOD thing is already addressing?

Well that sucks.

ED are decent sim-makers and poor game-makers.

Hah hah... more from the ultra-realism crowd. They don't field them because Apaches haven't been operating in areas with enemy aircraft. Simple. DCS often has enemy aircraft, thus the stingers make sense.

You can get cheapo consumer home video cameras with IR sensitivity on them. Heck, on some of the Sony models regulators in certain countries required an extraneous filter be added to block it. No FLIR is a complete deal-breaker on BS3. You wanna be ultra-realistic? Well, there are hardly any KA-50s in service. Russia bought the 52 and other helos mostly instead. There are tons of KA-50s on DCS World servers. If people are wanting to go on about realism, we bought this and we'd like to fly it at night. Simple as that. Stop being so anal about realism to such a ludicrous extent. The fact we get to fly this helo in campaigns and servers is already way past any perfect realism threshold. Deal with it. I *may* be content with simply much better light amplification capabilities (NV mode) on the EO system, but would prefer both that and FLIR. On the yaw damping thing, I challenge anyone to show me proof that the mistranslated 'flight director' mode yaw authority on the real Kamovs is weaker than every other yaw damping and heading hold mode on the helicopter: One shred of proof in the form of a video of the real helo cockpit in action doing that or legit current documentation or some actual engineer from the program to admit to that obscenely-weak heading channel AFCS authority. Heck, I highly suspect the heading hold designation with 'flight director' off isn't even realistic. Seriously? Manual designation of your heading caret? Lame. If you find an actual engineer from the Ka-50 program who says you have to manually designate a heading all the time to get reasonable yaw damping without either turn-to-target or the route-following AP on AND 'flight director' mode has this useless low authority in the heading channel, I'm going to tear into them and make fun, so be forewarned. On the NVG goggles with the Pimax... I haven't updated DCS in a month or two. Has this recently been fixed? And when is Vulkan coming?

Still no FLIR? Pass. I can already use vikhrs to shoot aircraft down, though the goofy target acquisition on BS makes that tough sometimes compared to EECH. If they add a FLIR, fix the weak yaw damping, and fix the NVG in stereoscopic VR, they have themselves a deal... and I'll take the Iglas as icing on the cake.

Yaw dampers FREQUENTLY limit the available yaw authority. DCS's is clearly not, but that was my point: the raw available yaw is even too weak such that disabling the channel doesn't increase it, which otherwise could have been a way to mitigate at least the issue of weak total available yaw by just giving up the pathetic yaw damper. So the raw yaw is too weak and the yaw damping outside of the non-FD heading hold is too weak. This is too weak in Flight Director, especially in the yaw axis.

Oddly wobbly and tail puffer for yaw while in a hover seems to barely work

I don't understand. You're saying at the time you manually move the shkval reticle somehow and lock a target, you are NOT clicking or releasing any button at all as it's over the object and it's an automatic lock? I must hold uncage to get the shkval to slave to the HMS. I must also hold lock and release both at exactly the right moment to lock onto any target using the HMS. The only time I ever get any automatic lock is during the goofy, unpredictable automatic horizontal-only shkval scan thing when you just so happen to have the reticle near something, ground stabilize, nudge the shkval in that direction briefly, and then tap uncage and it may move over and lock onto an object. Half the time I haven't hit lock at the right time previously and there's no shkval symbology telling me whether or not it's ready to actually lock during the auto scan thing. And then much of the rest of the time often the rest of the circumstances aren't exactly right -- wrong scan rate, not zoomed in, wrong lock box size, etc, etc. If the shkval is not ground stabilizing, the automatic scan thing won't even do anything at all until I've completely reset the shkval with backspace.

Autotrimmer under Options - Gameplay appears to be gone now.

I don't know what click-lock is. You mean with a normal mouse and the HMS? No, I usually don't use my big mouse to acquire targets. Is that common that people do that in DCS with the shark? BTW, your video is 'private'.

Microsoft/Microvision Hololens 2 augmented reality SU-57 assembly Source: "Visualization of montages" Video Back-up of the 3 videos: Video 1 - https://streamable.com/kneiiw Video 2 - https://streamable.com/spkiy2 Video 3 - https://streamable.com/rcnkd5

I mean yawing at lower speeds, not at very high speed where you understandably have reduced effective yaw. RBS is at the limits of your helo speed. There are a lot more types of stall than just RBS and VRS. There's settling with power where you decelerate too quickly into your own underside that you just run out of power, too low a rotor RPM 'over-pitching' of the main rotor by advancing the collective too quickly (old Longbow 2 used to do this pretty well), too high a rotor RPM too quickly, coning effects on lite helos if you turn too hard, and on and on. I'm probably forgetting some. That might be contributing to some of it, which would be pretty neat actually as far as nuance and complexity goes, but much of this stuff I'm talking about is occuring practically in a manual hover type situation and is just bizarre. This is a series of run on sentences, so bear with me. It's as if there's some tiny yaw damper authority that's been fighting against some yaw moment poorly that I am also assisting with using some pedal, then as if that tiny damper authority just switches off because what it's fighting against has reached some threshold or something. Like an odd bit of programing... say if you have 8 degs/sec of total rotational moments adding up in one direction and the weak damper is capable of (let's arbitrarily say) a max of 5 degs/sec, I'm adding the last 3 degs/sec with the pedal intuitively, then a gradual little gust of wind comes along or something and I get a sense it at first slightly affects things that I can easily compensate for and then all of a sudden it's as if that 5 deg/sec max of damper says "oh, you're now at more than 10 degrees of second rotational moments in that direction so I'm just going to switch off now" and I suddenly lose the SAS/AFCS assistance of that 5 deg/sec damper, so I have to really stomp on the pedal hard. It happens so fast that often the helo just whips around and jerks, like something has just turned off, reset, or a glitch in the yaw modeling has occurred. Usually I'll check the channel lights to the right and the yaw is still on, though. Maybe the yaw channel was actually briefly flashing and then came back on? If we could have some lights at the top of the no-cockpit HUD view for the channels and FD mode, that would be sweet and useful. If this were X-Plane, I'd just turn the channel off to get more authority and just do the yaw completely manually, but there's not a whole lot of benefit to that in this canned representation here. Maybe I should just do that from now on and see if it at least becomes more predictable, if perhaps the yaw channel is temporarily going offline and flashing briefly when exceeding some goofy mystery threshold limit? Again, that strange thing where it sometimes wants to yank around is in addition to the lack of added amplitude authority to the yaw when you turn the yaw SAS/AFCS channel off and is also separate from the FD-mode yaw damper being just generally weak. So I have three complaints about the DCS BS yaw.

But I assume that's just for the targeting reticle purpose, not for any auto tilting the hardpoints are doing, right?

So the rocket shrapnel or at least the nuanced effects from it in DCS might not be quite up to snuff. Does the ka-50 use the EO and laser system in any way when you're aiming the rockets if you're laser designating?

I've had BS from the beginning, I just sometimes use auto turn to target when in non-FD mode to make up for the lack of a proper-authority yaw damper and the fact you have to keep hitting the stupid trimmer if you do want such a yaw damper in non-FD mode with auto turn off. ED's addition of the yaw trimmer is actually a late one to DCS BS, and IMO it's kinda a lame mitigation for their damper issues. I don't understand why the auto turn to target authority is properly-high, the nav AP mode yaw authorities are properly-high, the newly-added non-FD mode yaw trimmer authority is properly-high, but they insist that the FD mode yaw damper counter-action be so darn weak. And again, that's not getting into the fundamental fact that if you turn any yaw damper SAS/AFCS channel off, you should get more raw yaw pedal authority due to bypassing the limiting, which we're not.

The three of you appear to be using the aircraft trimmer in non-FD mode to do yaw trimming, right? I'm not bothering with that. Tappity tappity every time I yaw to another heading. I already stated the yaw trimmer has a reasonable amount of counter-action damping authority just as the auto turn mode exhibits, though that obviously doesn't address the fact that turning the yaw SAS/AFCS channel off isn't gaining additional raw pedal authority amplitude, which it ought to... but I digress. If I'm not in FD mode, then auto turn is on or I have the yaw channel off. I used to be mostly just in squirrely 'wannabe attitude hold' FD mode with its barely yaw damper, but the new auto trimmer option that appears to be buried somewhere is doing some interesting things, so I've been just combining that with the non-FD mode. Maybe I should just get used to tappity tappity every time I change headings a little. I prefer more organic controls, though, rather than so deliberate.

Rockets Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah I don't really know where even to begin with rockets in DCS BS2. A rocket will work a couple dozen feet from targets at least, practically point blank in aircraft terms. They are mildly effective against light targets if I turn on infinite weapons and lay down a massive blanket of them. Horrendously difficult to target. Practically nonexistent shrapnel effects. Just wow. Between the squirly-acting poorly-named FD mode, appalling shkval, the yaw, and now the rockets, sometimes I wonder if ED is intentionally trying to hamstring the shark in DCS. No idea why, because if you're looking at balance in multiplayer, it's basically got zero chance against the other vehicles right now as it is.

no mods

Lctrl + F1 ED please test on your end. Thanks. P.S. a flight path marker look mode would be cool, though

Of course. Seems to make no difference. You usually just hit some other cockpit view and get out of it. That doesn't work. Hitting it again doesn't work, either. Only thing I can do is just try not to accidentally hit that combo during a session, and if I do, I have to exit the sim. I want to say that in BS1 at one time this natural cockpit mode was like on by default and you'd have to hit that combo to actually toggle it off first at the start of a session. Now it's off by default, but if you turn it on, you can't seem to turn it off. Sometimes I can eject and simply get another aircraft and I'm back with it off, but other times, like if it's on and in HUD-only mode with this natural g force view thing I have to exit first. This appears to be a bug. I've found that if I hold 0 on the numpad and one of the other numbers to look briefly at a side console enough times and then hit 5 all by itself repeatedly that eventually it will switch out of this mode. Funny thing is that unless you're using the numpad it won't go to any other cockpit view even temporarily while this natural thing is on right now. The numpad thing, though, is a temporary view and seems to bypass the glitch. So definitely some kind of bug.

The whole point of damping is to hold attitudes and reduce rotation rates. That's what it is by definition. If you have all the SAS/AFCS channels off and you've induced a rotational moment, there's nothing preventing that rotation from stopping except the air (eventually) or you putting in a counter input. It should feel raw, very challenging, and currently is in DCS BS2, except for the yaw which still feels oddly both over-damped in available amplitude with the yaw channel off and also with insufficient counter-action with yaw channel on in FD mode. Yaw dampers, in particular, reduce the maximum channel amplitude through limiting. So if you turn a yaw damper off, you should have full yaw authority at your command, which might do bad things, but you can use it if you want. That's how the shark does those crazy spins at speed in airshows. You can do those safely if you do them in the right direction and are careful. Granted, you're not going to do those at 150 knots, but right now even at slow speed, turning can be like trying to maneuver a winnebago sometimes. In FD mode, the yaw channel isn't really doing much right now, and that's in addition to there seeming to be muted available yaw authority to begin with even with the channel off. Again, in FD mode, with the yaw channel on, the damping is barely doing any counter-actions to slow yaw rates when my foot is off the pedal, and when I turn the channel off if FD mode is on or off I see no noticeable increase in yaw authority available at all that I can tell. I always use the controls indicator thing.

Speaking of bugs and 20% authority, I think there actually is one somewhere, because sometimes it's as if you've reached a kind of a threshold after which it completely releases all damping authority and gives up fighting against a yaw moment, swinging around wildly. It's as if the damping is now not factored in any longer at all, which is just plain wrong even if what it's fighting against is too big. I don't see any increase in available yaw amplitude authority with the yaw channel off at all. Zilch. Hitting the pedal with it off doesn't make yaw faster. Not like a yaw damper. Obviously with it the yaw channel off it indeed should not be stopping as quickly, which DCS is already exhibiting. So with no yaw channel activated, you get no advantage of additional authority like you should (that's bad) but it is slightly more predictable I find (that's good) if you don't mind the additional workload. The yaw damper ability to slow a turn rate when you release the pedal is pretty pathetic in this weirdly-named FD mode. It's basically useless, though it does do slightly something compared to if it's off I think. A yaw damper ought to work more closely to what the turn towards target mode does when you've got FD off. For that matter, if you can just have the auto turn to target off and either hit the trimmer button to set a new heading or toggle the yaw channel, and you'll see the proper yaw damper authority that the FD mode authority would need to be useful, which it isn't right now. If you have those AFCS/SAS channel switches on the right centered, you can see the little yaw diamond on your HUD show you the caret info on heading damping setting for non-FD mode. No reason FD mode can't work like this without needing some manual setting of a heading. I presume 'flight director' is a mistranslation from the original Russian, anyway. "FD does dampen your movements, but it won't return you to that yaw" I don't know what you mean by "that yaw". I'm talking about holding an attitude and damping your current heading rate with a reasonable amount of damping authority, which the non-FD modes already exhibit with their odd manual settings requirements and the squirly FD mode clearly does not currently allow. Edit: I think I know what you mean by "that yaw" now. As in the specific target point on auto turn to target? I meant using the auto turn as a kind of cheated yaw damping, not that I want the FD mode yaw damper to ever have a specific point it keeps returning to. Then I sometimes just turn using my little ministick that is slewing the shkval I think the whole specific point that it keeps returning to thing should be strictly for the autopilot navigation modes (what is usually called Flight Director in aviation circles) and auto turn to target mode, and not actually even be necessary for either the FD or non-FD modes with or without those carets.

So as far as I can tell, it's either broken and not correctly toggling off or I'm doing something wrong. I'm also curious as to what it's supposed to be looking at. Is it looking in the direction of the imaginary flight path marker? Because that would be useful, but it seems to be some goofy g force related thing. I've always liked the idea of looking in the direction of a flight path marker, keeping that centered all the time. That might be a useful feature, but these g force views, especially the strong ones like this one, I always found to be counterintuitive.

It's not any of it. There's a function called Natural Cockpit View (Lctrl + F1). If you hit the key combo for it a second time, it doesn't disable like a toggle. And hitting any other cockpit view doesn't go to these other views instead. You can go to external views, but if you go back to cockpit view, you're now stuck with this natural g-moving thing until you like get out of the sim and back. BS1 didn't have this issue. The natural view key press was a toggle. Hit it a second time and it'd disable and go back to normal.