Got to spend quite a bit of the weekend flying DCS

[+streakeagle 871]

I got plenty of rest, didn't leave the house too much, and my son mostly left me alone. So, I spent most of Saturday and quite a bit of Sunday flying DCS.

For now, our big 7-year-old 46" Mitsubishi 1080p LCD TV has become my monitor, which really makes me feel like I am in the cockpit when the zoom is set just right.

 

I mainly flew the DCS P-51D on Saturday. I focused on flying P-51Dx4 vs. Fw190D9x4. I got familiar with how the AI handles multi-bogey engagements and tried to get my gunnery skills up to the laser-death-ray skills of the AI.

If my wingmen respond well, it is a race to see if I can get any kills. They stole some kills from me quite often. My best mission, I killed two Fw190D9s with really fast focused bursts, during which time the AI easily splashed the other two.

On a typical bad mission, I would try to clear an Fw190 off my wing's tail, but the Fw190 would nail him fast, in the mean time another Fw190 would be lining up on me while I chased the first one.

The tail warning radar can be very useful if it isn't being tripped by the ground or wingmen. If you hear that bell ringing, you know you need to do something about it.

I also use the rear view mirrors extensively. They let me track a bandit that passes head on and I almost always see a little speck diving on me.

With TrackIR, I can get disoriented while maneuvering violently and sometimes I can't find the bandit even when I know he is on top of me and about to shoot. But most of the time, I can keep track of my target and maybe even keep up to date on where the other planes are. I think it would be much better with a 360 degree dome or maybe an occulus rift head mounted display.

 

I spent some time practicing startup/taxiing/takeoff with the P-51D. The startup is much simpler than the A-10C or even the UH-1H, but I can still have some trouble with getting it primed right and turning over. Taxiing in a tail dragger is a trip. I only ground-looped once, totally destroying the plane trying to turn too fast with too much speed. Generally, I have no problems though since it behaves a lot like the P-51D from Aces High, complete with the locking tail wheel. Simply flying this beast is a pleasure, getting to fight in it is an added bonus. The flying aspect could be exponentially more fun if I could fly anywhere in the world per MS FSX and have high-def mods for my favorite locations.

 

I also enjoy the 6DOF cockpit in the F-15C. It looks great on my LCD TV. Guns only combat is a little too easy, but fun nonetheless after getting spanked so many times in the P-51D. I don't believe the F-15C should easily beat Su-27Sx2 in close-in gun combat. If the AI flew those aircraft as well or better than me, I should never really win since one should always get me if I try to get behind the other one. Despite the AI limitations, sliding in with the gunsight tracking correctly is just as fun as using the K14 on the Mustang. The dispersion seems to be too much for the 20mm M61. Also, the damage effect of the 20mm seems too little. Even taking the dispersion into account, I can see how many hits I am getting. In reality, one or two hits could be fatal and five or six almost always are against fighter sized targets. In DCS, 20mm seems to have the effectiveness of 0.50 cal and 0.50 cal seems to be about the effectiveness of 0.30 cal. Of course, I have gotten used to SF2's highly lethal damage modeling. But, I would argue that in the case of MiG-21s, it seems to match reality.

 

I don't know what's realistic or not when it comes to helos, but I love flying the UH-1H. I have the Mi-8 and like it, too. But the UH-1H is right up there with the F-4 as my all-time favorite aircraft. To have it modeled to this level of detail/realism is simply amazing. I have gotten pretty good at flying it and transitioning to a hover, etc. I am not so hot at engaging well defended targets. But I am having so much fun just taking off/flying/landing that I am not too worried about my combat skills. I need to do the missions. The only one I tried was picking up people from the tall mountian peak... but I can't seem to land without crashing. So, my flying skills aren't quite all they could be either ;)

 

Realistic or not, I still find DCS to be challenging, fun, and rewarding. While I still fly SF2 for the plane set and maps, I am pretty close to flying DCS exclusively.

Edited November 18, 2013 by streakeagle

[JediMaster 451]

The problem is I think damage modeling is more art than science. For every war anecdote of the 2 hits taking down a bomber you have one of the tiny fighter with 1000 holes making it back to base.

I don't think even modern PCs have the speed needed to break down modeling to the point where hitboxes can be inches in size.

 

As a result, we get homogenized damage modeling which means in order for the players not to be knocked out of the sky with a single bullet every time they're fired on, the enemy has to be equally resilient. It's imperfect, certainly, but as long as missions are balanced properly (no "you and wingman taking on an entire squadron, and you MUST knock them all down in 10 mins or LOSE!") it makes missions both more survivable and more interesting to fight.

 

If every mission was either insta-death for you or your targets, it would lose its power after a short time. I often get irritated at how easily I get shot down in SF2 ("he barely hit me!!"), and DCS errs the other way.

[MigBuster 2,884]

The 4 v 4 above sounds like the 4 v 4 F-100D v MiG-17F experience I often have in SF2

 

The first time I shot the the FW-190 down in a 1 v 1 the dogfight lasted 35 sodding minutes - not for the faint hearted.

 

The P-51 doesn't take much 23mm damage I have experienced - a single thump is usually enough for a wing to fly off.

 

In SF2 the damage seems spot on to me - and with 37mm shells coming from the MiG-17 you have to expect bad damage.

 

- and yes starting up the P-51 is so easy there's nothing to it - taking off and landing are the hard bits!

[+streakeagle 871]

But I think SF2 isn't that far from accurate on jet vs jet 20mm/23mm/30mm cannon combat.

MiG designers figured they could get kills with just 3 round fired down range with the latest 30mm laser ranged cannons.

F-4s and F-105s were embarrassingly vulnerable to minor hits from flak shrapnel and small arms, much less direct hits from cannon rounds.

Some of those aircraft made it back despite severe damage, but unlike B-17s, this was the exception rather than the rule.

There are not many photos of heavily damaged survivors when it comes to Mach 2 jets.

The F-4 received field mods that helped with some of the worst problems, such as retrofitting self-sealing tanks and armoring some key areas.

Who buys a combat aircraft of any kind without self-sealing tanks (the lack of a guns wasn't nearly as critical as the other design issues with the F-4)?

But the F-4 and MiG-21 were virtually tanks compared to the MiG-21s, which not only burned like Japanese Zeros when hit center of mass by even 1 or 2 rounds, but usually exploded violently.

When you pack a plane that tight (i.e. all engine, fuel, and just enough room for the pilot and a small radar), there is no armor and a vital spot just behind the pilot that explodes almost every time one is hit.

The loss rates for jets in Vietnam after being hit by air-to-air cannon fire leads me to believe SF2 is not that far off from reality.

 

WW2 is a different story when you look at .50 cal, .30 cal, 13mm, etc. Plenty of cases where the airframes absorbed lots of hits, even on aircraft made of wood and fabric.

But again, 20mm was devastating to fighters. In SF2, 0.50 cal fire seem way too lethal, lending credence to the idea that the whole system is a little bit heavy on the damage despite my opinion that jet-vs-jet might be close to dead-on.

 

But DCS is just ridiculous. Have you seen what a single 20mm hit does even to just a non-critical wing or fuselage location? I can see my hits on the MiGs and Sus. Yet, I have to aim very carefully to cause fatal damage and to my recollection, always see a pilot bailing out. When the angles permit, I always pull lead and track back through the canopy... it is an instant kill in just about any other sim to hit canopy glass with a cannon. Yet that rarely if ever seems to happen in DCS.

 

I enjoy flying DCS, but if the goal is high fidelity modeling, the damage modeling has a long way to go compared to engine and flight models.

Edited November 19, 2013 by streakeagle

[MigBuster 2,884]

 

WW2 is a different story when you look at .50 cal, .30 cal, 13mm, etc. Plenty of cases where the airframes absorbed lots of hits, even on aircraft made of wood and fabric.

But again, 20mm was devastating to fighters. In SF2, 0.50 cal fire seem way too lethal, lending credence to the idea that the whole system is a little bit heavy on the damage despite my opinion that jet-vs-jet might be close to dead-on.

 

But DCS is just ridiculous. Have you seen what a single 20mm hit does even to just a non-critical wing or fuselage location? I can see my hits on the MiGs and Sus. Yet, I have to aim very carefully to cause fatal damage and to my recollection, always see a pilot bailing out. When the angles permit, I always pull lead and track back through the canopy... it is an instant kill in just about any other sim to hit canopy glass with a cannon. Yet that rarely if ever seems to happen in DCS.

 

I enjoy flying DCS, but if the goal is high fidelity modeling, the damage modeling has a long way to go compared to engine and flight models.

 

Yes I would agree - you could guess SF2 was optimised from the start for 60s Jet cannon combat and was never really tweaked when 50 cal P-51s appeared in it later.

 

Have not fired much 20mm in DCS - have flown the A-10A/C and P-51D mainly so far - but yeah it needs a lot of work - like every other sim 

[+streakeagle 871]

And there is the end result: None of the combat flight sims ever released have been perfect or ever will be.

Just a matter of finding the one that suits your needs best.

The problem for me is that each one has key flaws that can't or won't be fixed.

But I expected SF2 to keep improving and moving toward my ideal, instead it actually started moving backwards and at the moment is completely frozen "as is".

DCS on the other hand, has improved quite a bit, especially in comparison to LOMAC/FC, and promises to continue making dramatic improvements for at least a few more years if ED doesn't go bust.

For the moment, SF2 remains the superior sim for dogfighting.

But as much as I love dogfighting, I want a whole lot more than SF2 currently provides.

 

For me, DCS only has a few significant limitations compared to my ideal:

1. One small, flat map instead of modelling the globe (SF2 is equally guilty here). All flat maps are significantly inaccurate and if they cover a large enough area, become grossly inaccurate. To be fair, it has been stated that Edge can support a global model, but can DCS: World support it? Kind of ironic that the "world" is so small and limited when "World" is in your product name. I only know of two more maps on the near horizon: DCS:1944 and DCS: Nevada.

2. Planeset. I am not a huge fan of 1990s and later air combat. I don't want combat to be a pushbutton missile fest. I prefer combat in the 1960s with the diversity of aircraft and weapons ranging from small gunfighters to heavy weight gunless missile interceptors. It will be a very long time before DCS can compete in this category if it even lasts long enough to try.

3. AI. SF2 isn't exactly the gold standard for AI behavior, but in many ways exceeds what DCS is using. For my purposes, dogfighting in Battle of Britain 2 Wings of Victory is the Cadillac of air-to-air AI, at least for close-in guns.

 

But DCS has done so many other things so well, that it is painful for me to go back and fly SF2 after flying the A-10C, UH-1H, and P-51D in DCS.

Despite flying it for years, I can still have fun flying SF2, but I have even more fun flying DCS:World.

The unmatched detail and accuracy of the UH-1H is enough to hold my attention for quite some time.

If, I didn't have any other DCS aircraft, I could easily devote all of my time to mastering the UH-1H.

But the P-51D is every bit as much fun to fly... especially in a dogfight.

Both of those aircraft will take a back seat once I have the MiG-21bis. 

The F-15C AFM about to be released might get me to spend a lot more time in the F-15C.

 

All I can do right now is sit back and wait to see what actually gets released and when I can get a hold of it.