Funny fact: Am I the only one who starts all missions from cold start?

Not always. When I test my missions I do hot starts, but when I just want to "play", then I'm all for cold starts. It's part of DCS' charm. After spending 5 minutes going through checklists, your virtual life gets more valuable than when you jump in hot or in the air. It's a study level sim, why not make the most of it? There are other alternatives for those who prefer to go a different way.

Yeah, what do those filthy casuals even think what DCS is about? It's called Digital Cold Start for a reason...

lol :thumbup:

Air & hots starts have their place too

Not always. When I test my missions I do hot starts, but when I just want to "play", then I'm all for cold starts. It's part of DCS' charm. After spending 5 minutes going through checklists, your virtual life gets more valuable than when you jump in hot or in the air. It's a study level sim, why not make the most of it? There are other alternatives for those who prefer to go a different way.

I agree with you man, there's a place and time for them. Like if I'm practicing my AAR then I'll plonk myself a few miles mid air right behind my Tanker, I figure I just want to get into it. Overall though I do prefer Cold starts, adds to whole immersion thing and kinda feels good knowing what your doing and getting it right. And sorry off topic but hey Reflected your Location.. haha I was at Ulus back in 81 when there was just one little old lady in a Hut up on the hill selling jaffels heh.. never been back since :)

Always cold start and always land.

If you're flying with other friendlies about, you can jump into other aircraft like your wingmen. I think it's R Alt + J while looking at a plane in F2. You can do this after being shot down too if you don't want to restart a mission.

I’ve done that before. Couldn’t believe how messed up the aircraft was! Middle of a fight, Master arm off, AA not selected, bombs not armed, etc. I’m not sure if they can fly and fight like three because AI planes aren’t required to go through steps. But man, took me 1:30 just to get the aircraft into fighting mode

Question for people that always land: do you practice arrivals and departures to an airfield according to its information in the kneeboard?

I never have but decided I would make the effort with the F18

If I’m not flying a mission that’s gotmedoing something else as a starting condition. Ie a training mission that is focus on landing why waste the time to take off and play the pattern when you working on the landing same with the aar training mission. Now if I’m designing a mission it will be cold and dark for a tactical mission training may be different.

Cold start all the way. More immersion.

Cold start all the way. More immersion.

:thumbup:

It depends on what I'm trying to accomplish. Once I'm somewhat comfortable with a new jet and its flight/performance characteristics, then I start learning to do cold starts and get deeper with learning its systems. Why bother to spend time learning all of that stuff only to find out you hate flying the plane for one reason or another?

I also use quick starts for testing settings, as well as seeing if I can duplicate problems other people are seeing, and trying to find the exact conditions that cause those problems.

That being said, when I like what I'm flying and feel semi-competent at flying it, I always do cold starts.:D

Time is a premium for me nowadays. Gone are the days when I would just do cold starts.

I agree with you man, there's a place and time for them. Like if I'm practicing my AAR then I'll plonk myself a few miles mid air right behind my Tanker, I figure I just want to get into it. Overall though I do prefer Cold starts, adds to whole immersion thing and kinda feels good knowing what your doing and getting it right. And sorry off topic but hey Reflected your Location.. haha I was at Ulus back in 81 when there was just one little old lady in a Hut up on the hill selling jaffels heh.. never been back since :)

No way man! That must have been awesome surfing here while it was so untouched. Nowadays I barely surf Ulu's because there's at least 70 people in the water at all times, full of kooks and snakes :doh: :D I have my own secret spots ;)

I totally prefer cold starts... and even worse, I'm one of those guys who placed nearly empty planes in his missions (well, was 10% a long time, went up to 20% though because some certain planes guzzle those 10% while aligning the INS or taxiing to the rwy alone if you don't just take the nearest spot on any rwy to take off), so I always have to fuel up and rearm (gives me the choice) and as you might know, some planes like the Viper don't even like being refueled and INS alignment at the same time, so I usually take off somewhere like 30 minutes into the mission. And because of that, if time gets rare, I sometimes use a hot plane, but still on the ramp. Did that when I placed my Tomcat on a carrier for example and wanted to operate from an airbase closer to the training area instead. Did the flight to there, did my thing and edited the hot plane in afterwards to save me the hop to that base everytime, kinda like a savegame. Or simply, when things are bugged. There's literally no module that doesn't have serious issues with cold starts when it's just being released. Even every single ED module had issues with loading up armament on a cold-started plane. But as soon as those issues get fixed, I'll dump the hot plane from my map. Last example was the Jiffypop, and I actually flew it so rarely yet that I'll have to relearn the starup process completely. Did that in the early days until I noticed lots of things wouldn't work unless you'd have a hot plane right away. So I put a hot one in my miz and now still have to learn the basics...

If I start on the ground it’s always a cold start. If I’m just trying to practice something I’ll throw a quick scenario together in the editor but I love cold starting the jet and bringing all of the systems to life.

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Cold starts are a PITA.

Jets are like women, I don't wanna be in one that isn't hot and ready to go for a ride.

Funny fact: In multiplayer you mostly find cold starts, despite the larger group of time-bound players who want a quick game perhaps wishing it weren't so.

Whether one considers it a waste of time to start an aircraft yourself is entirely subjective, you either want to or you don't, it's your time after all. But there are a few reasons for knowing how to, even if you choose not to. From an immersion point of view, it's quite odd that we might consider cold and dark to be required, since in many countries and types the aircraft is started for you, at least my tech friend started Jags for his pilots, I suppose it varies.

Sometimes you need a cold start to quickly configure a jet for somethng specific. Case in point are scrambles. You configure it to be all on ground power and aligned and configured with engines off, which is the most likely configuration for a pilot in the services as far as I know.

Other reasons revolve around doing the configuration yourself so that you are sure the plane is setup the way you meant it to be.

Finally you might not be given a choice not to, depending on the mission configuration. Knowing the aircraft to start it seems like a pretty normal thing for a study sim, but for those that like driving like they stole it (but someone else started if for them) then, it would be a shame to rule out cold start servers, which are the majority that I have seen. I got the feeling the OP was an offline player since you can't always choose your startup type online, it is up to someone else.

There is a place for everything in a sim, choosing is its strength. Air starts and hot starts allow you to practice a set piece, or combat, or a specific weapon or whatever and I'm grateful for that ability, and do use it. However, something set's me uneasy with starting the sim for an immersive mission from hot, even if it might be closer to a realistic receipt of a plane than cold and dark. I find that i am unable to explain that very well. We surely cannot get another startup config, like "engines off", so cold, for me at least, is the closest.

I don’t spend all that time reading NATOPS manuals and guides just to start in mid-air, or anywhere else with the engine already running. Cold starts have a charm all their own. But thankfully the option is there. Choice is always welcome.