First contact with Mig-21bis, Ramp Start Procedure. Bad joke?

Hello!

After reading the manual a little bit, I started the first training mission to get a first feeling of this aircraft. Here is how it went:

- Welcome to the Aircraft Start-Up lesson. Press the Space Bar key to begin. You know where that is, right?

Great intro. But is it really necessary to put it like that? Anyway, moving on

- Follow the white rabbit. (PO-750 START #1 - ON)

[skipping some]

- We have DC Battery Power. Move on, move on, I don't have the whole day.... (DC GENERATOR - ON)

*sighs*

- Turn on the engine fire extinguisher. (FIRE EXT - ON)

- Call the ground crew using the [...] key. Ask for external power. Press it a bit longer, will you? (RADIO PTT - HOLD)

- Great, that's it! You've started up the engine and basic systems, and you are ready to go. For weapons use you'll have to start some additional systems, but we will talk about it once I receive my payment for March last year... Now get lost so that I can continue some important things that I was doing...zzzzz....

And that's it. No, the engine hasn't started, nor have the basic systems. I'm guessing more needs to be done for that.

OK, stop. I'm not sure it's the definitive version, I sure hope not, but either way, is that really the first impression you want to give to this aircraft? Some lousy comments and not even a correct start-up procedure? Is that a bad joke that says "RTFM, I'll not show you how to start the aircraft"? Or am I missing something here?

It's called humour. :)

Just laugh a bit, and try to follow the white rabbit.

You will get it right in the end. :)

I find it strange people make such a big deal out of that still to this day. I kinda like it better than most other module's trainings.

That said, with many updates, it may not be working anymore so I'd agree with mission being disappointing if that's the case.

The point is, it doesn't even teach how to start.

I don't call that humour, I call that disrespect for anyone buying this module. I know it's "early release" - seems to have been for a long time, but if they didn't have the time to write an actual cold&start training lesson, it's best not to put anything instead of a fake one IMHO.

Even if it were just humour, to me the message is this: "we don't really care about our aircraft, no passion there, for us it's just a joke". I like humour, I really do, but this would just be bad taste.

Got to agree, it teaches nothing by just saying flip that switch and that one and that one, I'd like to know what I'm doing and WHY I'm doing it.

xzpndHtdl9A

That said, updates have probably broken the training mission so it doesn't complete properly.

The training mission works just fine for me, and I did find it funny :)

More and better voice acting for DCS would be nice though. Many games got voice acting right in the 90s already so... how hard can it be :):)

The point is, it doesn't even teach how to start.

 

I don't call that humour, I call that disrespect for anyone buying this module. I know it's "early release" - seems to have been for a long time, but if they didn't have the time to write an actual cold&start training lesson, it's best not to put anything instead of a fake one IMHO.

 

 

Even if it were just humour, to me the message is this: "we don't really care about our aircraft, no passion there, for us it's just a joke". I like humour, I really do, but this would just be bad taste.

You seem triggered, funny.

@ Redglyph - Humour perception is a very subjective thing, the MiG missions were mostly acclaimed after release for that light-hearted approach, but oh well... some guys might not like it. The remaining tutorial missions are more serious, however.

That being said, there's a whole bunch of commands missing in the script presented by You above, so if that's how the first mission works on Your PC, there's something very wrong with it and that should be reported / investigated. Will test on my install and see how it goes.

@ Cap'n kamikaze - I hear You, but seriously, show me one DCS module, which doesn't have tutorial based only on simple "click this, click that ect." scenario (OK, I've heard A-10C's is supposedly a bit more thorough, but that's an exception rather than the rule).

Edit: MiG startup tutorial works OK here in the latest 1.5.4 stable release, though some mouse clicks are not detected immediately and one has to keep the button pressed longer or retry a few times for the desired effect. That's the same issue some missions for other modules suffer from as well, though.

Have you tried doing a startup manually following a YouTube video?

It did work for me, however it's some time ago I tried it.

I found it funny that they tried to give the impression of an overtired Eastern European instructor, that didn't want to do this again and just wanted to go home. :)

Sort of set you in the right mood. :)

But I understand, if you have a bad day, or expect something else, it can of course be annoying.

Just try to look at it with a light heart, and if it is too annoying, try to find one of the instructional YouTube guides out there.

She's not so bad to start up, once you get the hang of it.

Maybe it's geared to a younger audience.

Red...you could do a video for us and show how it should be done without the humor.

Check out chuck's guide. He makes guides for every aircraft. A "light" manual:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-uSpZROuEd3d0NuYzJfbWFnblU/view

The point is, it doesn't even teach how to start.

Since a humor-module for users is not included in the Mig21, I would suggest you try a Chuck's guide.

You can find the startup on page 34

*edit*

Whilst typing this friendly advice, I was sniped by Fixen with the same response :D

@ Redglyph - Humour perception is a very subjective thing, the MiG missions were mostly acclaimed after release for that light-hearted approach, but oh well... some guys might not like it. The remaining tutorial missions are more serious, however.

 

That being said, there's a whole bunch of commands missing in the script presented by You above, so if that's how the first mission works on Your PC, there's something very wrong with it and that should be reported / investigated. Will test on my install and see how it goes.

 

Edit: MiG startup tutorial works OK here in the latest 1.5.4 stable release, though some mouse clicks are not detected immediately and one has to keep the button pressed longer or retry a few times for the desired effect. That's the same issue some missions for other modules suffer from as well, though.

I won't comment further on humour ;) It is very subjective, as you said. I just find it an anticlimax, by default of better expressing it (see, I lied, I did comment again).

I may have forgotten the penultimate step when writing the steps down (could it be about the sealing the cockpit?) but that's about it. I did follow the instructions, taking the time to understand what I was doing, there were only a few steps then it genuinely stopped short of starting the engine, and presented me with this last farce of a comment.

Now I can see in the mission files that there's more to it, I just didn't get them. First I really thought this was another display of this humour.

I did the exercice myself from the manual of course, and it seems to be fine, I could take off and so on. I'm pretty sure my installation is fine, I forgot to mention the version of DCS, which I usually do, it's the latest beta (1.5.4.57288.170).

Trying some other missions, I noticed I couldn't contact the ATC. The frequencies in the cockpit are apparently wrong, but not in the mission itself (from the ME and the airfield frequencies). I finally saw that launching the mission from the mission editor solves that radio issue. I'll try with this training mission to see if that's the same when I get the chance.

I suppose it's best to wait for an update before trying the more serious stuff, like the campaign? :)

Maybe it's geared to a younger audience.

 

Red...you could do a video for us and show how it should be done without the humor.

Well, you should have seen me messing with the gear trying to bring it up, then crashing, that was fun ;)

Check out chuck's guide. He makes guides for every aircraft. A "light" manual:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-uSpZROuEd3d0NuYzJfbWFnblU/view

Since a humor-module for users is not included in the Mig21, I would suggest you try a Chuck's guide.

 

You can find the startup on page 34

 

*edit*

Whilst typing this friendly advice, I was sniped by Fixen with the same response :D

Thanks for the tip! I'm not afraid to read the manual, but I'll have a look :)

While we're at it, the radio glitch (and mission editor tricks required to make the radio work) will be there in some single and instant missions as well. You may also notice some glitched bort numbers appearing on the fuselage here and there. Not a showstopper, but I wish LN would update these old missions to make sure everything works OK in "current" versions of the game.

Haven't flown the campaign, but I recall people reporting similar issues appearing in it as well (apart from questionable difficulty level of some missions). I'm sure, however, there was an unofficially "updated/fixed" edition of this campaign, posted by someone here on the forum a few months ago. I remember downloading it, but not trying it in the end :D.

It's called humour. :)

 

Just laugh a bit, and try to follow the white rabbit.

You will get it right in the end. :)

Russian humour at that lol

I tried the mission again, with current version, just to be sure it works, and it works 100%.

Maybe the engine wouldn't start because the throttle was in wrong position or because you didn't press the start button long enough? When throttle is in free-moving (not locked) position and idle the engine should start no problem... you should hear it spooling very well.

For me it worked to starting up the engine, really. But due to the humour part some details are rather easy to miss, I guess.

I like how this one is a little different and funny, but it's definitely annoying how that means that some things just don't get explained correctly. There is a part in which it just says 'Guess which switch that was!' Funny as it may be, with the Russian-language tooltips that is a bit nasty.

I tried the mission again, with current version, just to be sure it works, and it works 100%.

 

Maybe the engine wouldn't start because the throttle was in wrong position or because you didn't press the start button long enough? When throttle is in free-moving (not locked) position and idle the engine should start no problem... you should hear it spooling very well.

It must be something like that, I noticed I had to click on buttons (with mouse, HOTAS, ...) long enough for some events to be registered by the mission triggers - the old DCS problem, even to close the canopy and so on.

It remains that the logic is quite flawed if in such case it skips intermediate steps.

Thanks all for your patience, I was pretty much pissed off as you can tell, I think it's the accumulation of quite a few things that were not working when starting this bird, which gave a really bad impression on the overall package.

The Mig-21bis itself seems pretty good, the only problem I have is that all the switches have inverted mouse-click logic apparently, I wish those developers stick to the convention set by DCS - even if themselves sometimes fail to follow their own rules (the A-10C is such a mess). It's a very typical 60-/70's messy kind of aircraft with different features poured in but a little incoherently, which makes it quite challenging and fun to learn :)

The manual is very well done, things like including the cause of failures for most instruments or the navigation tutorial for example, are nice to have. I hope they'll add some information on the global hydraulic, electrical, fuel, .. systems, since for now it's more a collection of information on individual items, and this kind of documentation is harder to find for people who don't talk Russian.

So in conclusion, yeah, I hope they'll update the missions because they don't do it any justice, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who could get this bad impression from starting like that.

well my training missions don't even have voice overs

Yeah I remember the cold start mission being pretty bad.

Just get Chucks Guide and use that. Its eventually what I did.

Yeah I remember the cold start mission being pretty bad.

 

Just get Chucks Guide and use that. Its eventually what I did.

I made a cold start mission on NTTR that follows the real procedure, perhaps I should put that somewhere (I think I did, actually). No voice, though.