Your DCS WW2 multiplayer tips

Hello everyone! Today is the day we finally had an epic showdown on the Dogs of War server. For a couple of hours, we had more than 20 people duking it out in multiplayer and by God... it was beautiful. I decided to create a topic for those who want to share their tips for either the P-51 or the FW190. You know? The little things... :pilotfly:

Most of the stuff I found was by trial and error, so I might not be 100 % right on some points.

Tip 1: Using your flaps

I've noticed that when fighting online, I could never quite turn as tightly as I wanted too. It didn't seem that big of a deal when fighting against AI, but multiplayer made me learn the hard way that people will simply outfly you no matter what you do if you do not use all the tools at your disposal. There's always "this guy" you can never quite catch no matter what you do. The experience is frustrating, irritating and incredibly demoralizing. But do not despair!

One issue many people (including me) have is that we've flown mostly WW2 aircraft that were from games with "simplified" flight models (Il-2 1946, CloD, BoS, War Thunder, etc.). We're just not used to have planes that have such a large turn radius, and such a slow roll rate. For example, when I come back to CloD, I always have this impression that some aircraft can turn on a dime (like the Spit), which makes the transition extremely difficult as you've developped bad habits. With CloD, for instance, I evade pursuing 109s by doing a Split S or a quick roll followed by a violent yank on the stick. If I do that in the P-51 or the Dora, I get schwacked most of the time. But why?

The answer is simple: turn radius. Use your flaps. Don't deploy them completely, but a notch or 2. Make sure that you deploy your flaps BEFORE you begin your turn as they do not deploy instantaneously. I usually give it a good 2-3 seconds before I start rolling. With the Dora, I sometimes wait a bit longer as they take longer to deploy. Your flaps will make you bleed some speed, but for a turning/high AoA manoeuver it will prevent you from entering that nasty spin. I know some of us have been told that "speed is life", and that you shouldn't sacrifice speed needlessly: and that's true. Flaps will sacrifice some of your speed, but it is important to realize that if used moderately and strategically, flaps can actually help you maintain speed and altitude while trying to get on someone's six. During a dogfight, I retract my flaps as soon as I'm not rolling and when I want to gain back some speed by extending.

Tip 2: Setting your gun reticle size (range) and wingspan

I never really bothered to set my reticle size and wingspan properly. I mean... it's just a cross in a circle, right? Well... that's true and that's not true. Good marksmanship needs practice, but you also need to be able to judge 3d trajectories by their depth (range). And sometimes, it's quite hard to do on a 2D screen. Using guns in flight sims is fairly easy in an A-10, where you have many useful computerized assists. But World War 2 was old school. Aiming was hard and most pilots were terrible shots. One way to help your gunnery skills is to find a way to judge the depth of a target. How far is it from me? Where should I aim? When should I fire? All these questions can be partly answered by knowing how to "read" this information from your gunsight. Make sure you read the aircraft manual to know how to set your gunsight range and the wingspan of the aircraft you will be hunting for. This way, you can judge accurately when you're within firing range. Give it a try, you might be surprised to notice the difference in your performance during the next flights.

Tip 3: Going vertical: Think in 3D!

Lots of people like me tend to favour turn and burn over boom and zoom. Of course, each aircraft has its strengths and weaknesses and is more prone to a certain fighting style than another... but it didn't always work that way in real life. I know that I had this issue a while ago (thankfully a kind soul on ATAG taught me how and why not to do that) with constantly trying to outturn an opponent in the horizontal plane. Most of my manoeuvers were done pretty much at the same altitude, and I could never quite catch my opponent. Sometimes, when stuck in a turn fight, people tend to forget that you can also turn vertically! Immelman, Split S, you name it... the sky's the limit. Gravity is the best way to accelerate when you need speed NOW. And what better way to accelerate than using your aircraft's weight as an advantage? However, this also brings another issue. Vertical manoeuvers are great no matter which plane you're flying. But thinking in 3D is a skill that you need to develop if you are to outmanoeuver someone. The best pilots will never simply make a big loop in order to evade someone. A loop makes you extremely vulnerable because it is predictable and easy to follow. Try to use your ailerons as well so you use every different plane to disorient your opponent and allow you to regain the initiative.

Tip 4: Climbing with the Dora

One of the Dora's strengths lies in its powerful engine and great climb rate. If you need to escape from an angry Mustang that is still a bit far behind and co-altitude, a good tactic is to out-climb him. If the Mustang pursues you without any speed advantage, he's very likely to stall before you and you just need to deploy flaps, make a quick hammerhead, dive on his sorry butt and fill him full of holes. However, don't get the idea that climbing will save you every time. Climbing makes you slow and vulnerable to other fighters that might be higher or might have a major speed advantage over you. Keep an eye open.

Tip 5: Diving with the Mustang

If the Dora can escape by climbing, the Mustang, on the other hand, can escape by diving. Once again, take this advice with a grain of salt. Diving will not save you if your opponent has a speed or altitude advantage over you.

Tip 6: Extending is not cowardly

I remember having a discussion with someone that thought that "extending was simply like running away". I see it more like a water break during a boxing match. I will usually extend in order to gain back all the speed I lost doing silly mistakes in order to come back on more "even" terms. I used to shy away from extending because it broke the rythm of the fight, but I slowly realized that sometimes you need to extend if you're to survive the second round. More often than not, I would simply wiggle around like a dancing spaghetti monster to get visual on my opponent, but he was already gone, extending. While he was "running away", he was in fact getting back altitude and speed while I was still in "batshit-insane-berserk-dogfight-mode" trying to find him. Needless to say, when my opponent came back for me full steam ahead, I was already low and slow and he just licked me. So... the lesson of this is: if you have the chance to break contact and come back with an advantage that can help you win the fight, do it. It's not cowardly. It's smart.

If you have any tips of your own, feel free to share!

Good post.

A notch of flaps is definitely a necessity in the P-51 to get the most out of its turn rate and radius. I'm not sure how well the split flaps in the 190 work for the purposes of maneuvering, but time will tell.

+1

was in the DOW server for a little while, was great to see so many pilots in there, lets hope it keeps up... and I learn to shoot straight :)

I've heard that some people also use their trim wheels when turning to get an even smaller turning radius. Is that true?

Well, in the FW190 it's not possible because the flaps has fixed positions.

up,take-off,landing and nothing in between.

Well, in the FW190 it's not possible because the flaps has fixed positions.

up,take-off,landing and nothing in between.

Well... using landing flaps still counts as using flaps, right? :smartass: FW190 flaps take quite a while to fully deploy, so you can still retract them when they're deployed half-way.

Like I said; you don't keep your flaps on all the time. Just use them during short periods of time (when initiating a tight bank, for instance).

I've heard that some people also use their trim wheels when turning to get an even smaller turning radius. Is that true?

Mostly no. Trim is like a little helping hand which adds a force of desired direction to control surface. It can help you pull/push more once your hand strength (virtual one) becomes a limiting factor and nothing more. This translate to smaller turn mainly in cases when aircraft controls become very heavy at high speeds, then nose up trim allows to pull a bit more Gs.

No point to use that with P51/FW as they have light controls: you can't even fully pull the stick in turn without stalling them. Adding nose up trim would only make it stall with less deflected stick, and turn radius would still be the same.

I've heard that some people also use their trim wheels when turning to get an even smaller turning radius. Is that true?

That's not true. Trimming is about having the most neutral behaviour. This will not change the end point of any surface control.

Not since Il-2 Sturmovik: FB did I hear this... With one of the early versions of that flight model you could get more elevator authority with trim - i.e. if your normal elevator travel was say 25 degrees, and trim was +-5 you could get it to 30. Which was wrong in almost all cases, trim usually lets you set up your elevator (or other control surface) within the normal range of that control surface movement.

However, if your plane had adjustable stabilizer (such as the one on Bf-109 - and I'd say Dora has it too) it would really work that way... approximately. You would get some amount of control input from adjustable stab, then your elevator input would be in addition to that. With the caveat that adjustable stab is driven by an electrical motor, hence slow in response.

And of course, with Mustang and Dora flight model it will not help you, because in most regimes max elevator input will get you into a stall.

And also in Dora that adjustable stab is very limited in movement. So much so that it complicates landing (in my experience) - with Mustang you pretty much trim the airplane on final and it stays trimmed, with Dora you have to keep pulling the elevator, adjustable stab just kind of helps, but not much...

nice post Chuck!

and yes it was a blast...for a short time i counted 32people on the server....for the very first time the server was completely full!:thumbup:

DCS Israel also had around 30 players yesterday, the new version seems quite stable as far as many players per server goes.

About the tips, here are 2 more which can't be passed on as they do all the difference -

1. Coordinated turns - use your rudder to stick that ball in the middle, if you do that, I guarantee you'll be able to turn better and keep more energy.

2. RPM - at certain points you would feel more like you are losing the plane (wing stall), at those points it could help to reduce the RPM, the torque effect would be lower and would help to keep tight turns and a stable plane.

It would be interesting to see sales figures on the P-51.... I bet there is a surge now that it actually has an opponent in the sky. I feel that each module release will "bump" sales in all the other modules.