Need some help.
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Ok. After watching a supposed quick and dirty video of how to fire a basic medium range missile from some cat who thinks he is the real Chuck Yeager on youtube…. Has left me frustrated. I have not altered anything in key bindings and instead kept it all stock until I learn more. I have a flight stick and only the throttle, rudder and ailerons are being controlled by it. I have tried the inhouse tutorial the BMS has built in and it is broken at best. Only usable if you want to learn to start a plane or perhaps land…
I setup up default scenario in the options menu. the Amraam120 training mission to be exact.
Game starts, im straight and level… enemy is directly ahead of me.
I see the planes on my radar, but i am unable to soft lock, let alone hard lock squat. According to chuck Yeaher, control+ALT+UP AKA TMSUP is what is supposed to do this. There is supposed to be a courser on my radar screen according to him and there is not. My mouse does nothing when I hover it over the enemy I would like to lock onto.
I pressed the AA button on my center console and make sure proper missiles were selected. My master arm switch is on the ON position…
Could someone just give me a quick’n dirty step by step with buttons needed to accomplish a simple lock, hard lock and missile firing? From the scenario, I have 30 seconds or so to accomplish a lock and firing, so I know there isnt much here accomplish this task.
Thanks in advance for any help.
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find radar slew (radar up/down/left/right) and TMS UP key bindings. remember them.
verify that your radar is in CRM/RWS mode (top of the radar screen from the left) use your radar up/down/left/right keys to slew cursor over target, hit TMS UP. verify good shot using indexer, hold pickle 1s. watch missile fly off rail.
good luck.
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… And if you are using a joystick, ensure that your pickle button support the “hold” function.
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Here is a piece of advice thumper. Even if you are frustrated one good way of NOT getting help is to ask for help by immediately denigrating the person who spend their time trying to help others.
As for your problem it is your not having set up the sim properly with your HOTAS that has caused this problem. Not “Chuck Yeager” of you tube.
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Here is a piece of advice thumper. Even if you are frustrated one good way of NOT getting help is to ask for help by immediately denigrating the person who spend their time trying to help others.
As for your problem it is your not having set up the sim properly with your HOTAS that has caused this problem. Not “Chuck Yeager” of you tube.
Sometimes its best to STFU, go to bed and sleep on something. Lastnight, I apparently did not take my own advice. Guilty as charged. Actually, I felt kinda bad about it today while at work. It was a jerk thing to do. But I had spent a couple hours trying. I printed up a keybindings sheet for the default keyboard and could get nowhere.
To address the other posting, I will take what you said and see where it leads me. I know I can do this, it just… A whole new learning experience and a tough one at that. Im sure once I learn it everything will be like “Why was this so hard?”…
Thanks for the help. -
it’s no problem hombre. you’ll get there eventually. in particular, mavericks gave me a heap of trouble, but you keep at it for a while and you get there. learning falcon 4 is a series of frustrations and EUREKA! moments. after a while you’ll figure out why the hell it’s broken. don’t know about anyone else, but i found it fun as hell to learn (and to keep learning)
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If you’re saying that most of your commands are via keyboard, in my opinion, the file ‘keystrokes.key’ is the better keyfile to use. If nothing else, it retains a bit more of the original Falcon4 keyboard layout.
If you want to load it, run BMS and go to SETUP–> CONTROLLERS. See what file you have now where it says “Current Keyfile”. If it says, “BMS”, choose LOAD and select “keystrokes”.
The map for this keyfile (which I think you’ve already found) is at: C:\Falcon BMS 4.32\Docs\Falcon BMS Manuals
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I can’t give you a quick and dirty explanation that is 100% sure to give success. Success of good certainty only comes with knowledge and patience.
Step 1 is functional knowledge of the F-16 controls. You can’t learn to walk if you can’t find your feet. Keyboard, joystick profile, hand crafted wood Cougar it doesn’t matter. You gotta be able to hit that sim callback with confidence.
I agree that the default BMS TE for AIM-120 is not a good learning environment. It’s too harsh and fast paced for an intro to missile mechanization. Dogfight vs Il-28 is more like it.
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i set up a dogfight with a dozen skyhawks, they make good targets for basic missile employment IMO.
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To address the other posting, I will take what you said and see where it leads me. I know I can do this, it just… A whole new learning experience and a tough one at that. Im sure once I learn it everything will be like “Why was this so hard?”…
Thanks for the help.I understand the frustration when things don’t work out right. The old adage of “don’t shoot the messenger” is as true here as any time.
As far as your problem you need to see what is assigned as your TMS up key as that is what tells the FCR to attempt a track or lock on the target under your captain’s bars.
From the main screen go into setup then click on the controller tab. At the right you should see the key file that is loaded and what commands are assigned to what. Look for HOTAS - TMS UP and see what it is assigned to. That is the button or the keyboard command that your key file is telling BMS needs to be pressed (in this case for the FCR) to track or hard lock a target. The video on you tube isn’t necessarily right as there are multitudes of key files out there that you might be using.
While you are in there you probably also want to verify your weapons release button (heck you probably want to set up your entire HOTAS correctly before flying again. If TMS UP is not working who knows what else is not assigned).
For firing an AMRAAM you don’t NEED an FCR lock of any kind in the first place. It is just better when you do as you will get DLZ data and the enemy target gets less of a warning than if you launch one without a FCR lock. Don’t forget that even when properly configured when launching AMRAAMs you must push and hold your weapons release button for several seconds to get the missile to come off the rail.
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Luckily, I bought a proper HOTAS before I got into BMS. also struggled like you so what I did was downloaded a joystick configuration from here, and printed off the button mappings. While in flight, I would pause, alt n tab out, check out you tube vid, go back into game, check joystick config print out. few weeks of this and I was able to just figure out the rest for myself.
I’d always recommend Krause video’s for learning how to fly / shoot, but, you really need your joystick mapped properly first and know what each button does
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A minor tip when struggling with this type of problem; freeze the sim when the bandit is in a position he is supposed to show up on your radar. Freeze works different from pause as you can keep operating aircraft controls. That gives you unlimited time to sort things out - including alt+tab to search on forums or study documentation. I think it’s shift+p to freeze. Also be aware there are two different keyfiles circulating, “BMS” and “keystrokes”, and if key combinations don’t match up, it may be because it refers to “the other one”. Which one you use is configured in settings. There are nice graphical keyboard layouts for each one you can find somewhere on the net (I forget where).
Things to study include how the radar works - how it scans a certain volume ahead of your aircraft, up to 120 degrees depending on radar mode, and you can tilt the direction of the cone up/down. You need to ensure that whatever you are looking for is within that cone. Plus you must adjust the range that is displayed on the monitor (e.g. if you are set up for 10 nm range, you will not see a contact which is 15 nm off) - a typical “default” is 80 nm when flying around, and then adjust as the situation requires. Stuff may get lost from radar depending on range and direction of your relative velocity to aircraft (when “beaming”). You lock things up with TMS up (once to soft-lock which means you need to keep managing radar cone, or twice to hard-lock which means you still need to keep target within gimbals), but lock may be lost - for e.g. same reasons as previous. Then … you need to understand launch symbology for radar missiles, e.g. you can be too far away or too close. Then you also need to be aware of how to keep guiding the missile until it goes pitbull (i.e. self-guided). And of course, all of this amounts for nothing unless you remembered to put master arm on
I know getting the hang of this can feel like a big PITA, but it makes it all the more interesting once you start to master it.
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Can we make a distinction here? A HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) will have a multitude of buttons AND hat switches, whereas a Joystick will just have a bunch of buttons. Both can have a throttle wheel or slider … lets not use that as a qualifier. So the real question to thumper235 is which kind of stick do you have? A hotas type or a joystick? If you answer the latter then you’ll find yourself spending more time getting the keystrokes memorized before you really get your shooting eye. You can fly with a joystick just fine. You can even fly with the keyboard only - but you loose more of the Simulation Immersion that BMS is striving for. Before you go and buy an uber expensive stick you should understand that BMS has a steep learning curve, it’s not just point and shoot. If you really want to get good at it you will be spending TIME learning avionics, weapons, procedures, energy management, threat reactions, and more all ontop of basic flight. It’s time consuming to get there, but you will have fun. If you’re not a fan of learning, though, you may not enjoy the journey there. I’ve only been using BMS for about a year now - off and on - and I’m still trying to learn what’s going on half the time. Read what you can find, interpret it, and ask questions when you need to. You’re library already has some information in it that you don’t need to access from online - when you try to launch BMS click the Documentation and Manuals button rather than Launch, and read those through. I started with the original brick some years ago when Falcon 4.0 was kicking me back to my desktop while in flight, whether a simple dogfight or complex campaign mission, and this was before someone made the patches to 4.0.8. The remaining manuals you can read like a change log, that is if you’re just starting out in Falcon. There are many changes that have gone on, and the BMS manual is ultimately correct, but you may want to refer to the older manuals to understand what is going on in some cases.
!Viva el halcon!
-Babite -
@ Thumper,
Setting up your HOTAS is crucial! I would recommend not even flying until you map out your HOTAS with the key bindings. That way, you will know where every assigned function on your HOTAS is. You need to start there sir. I don’t know about everyone else, but I use the “keystrokes” keyboard file, as the “bms” keyboard file has lot’s of issues with my HOTAS for some reason. Hope this helps.
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guys, he already said he doesn’t have a HOTAS.
I recommend modifying the ‘keystrokes’ and/or ‘BMS’ key files to better suit your flightstick/keyboard combo (ie. hitting ‘Ctrl-Alt-Arrow Up’ all at once just to lock or bug a target is a bit of a handful).
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guys, he already said he doesn’t have a HOTAS.
I recommend modifying the ‘keystrokes’ and/or ‘BMS’ key files to better suit your flightstick/keyboard combo (ie. hitting ‘Ctrl-Alt-Arrow Up’ all at once just to lock or bug a target is a bit of a handful).
Sorry for not seeing that. It is still much harder to fly bms without a HOTAS. You can trick your single stick to do a lot of very basic functions, but you do truly need a HOTAS. I can see this being very confusing for a lot of people just starting out flying bms without a HOTAS.
@ Thumper,
Do not have your single stick set up for throttle and rudder. Use the keyboard strokes for that. That would make things very difficult to fly at best.
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you don’t need a HOTAS to play falcon. you might be better off but a keyboard and stick works perfectly fine. never once have i come across something i cannot do with it.
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HOTAS is like the TrackIR … it should almost be considered as a minimum spec. Rudder is optional.
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Agree with above. A non-HOTAS style joystick is bread and water for BMS. It’s technically good enough to live but no fun.
On a different issue, I can’t imaging going through your BMS experience without being comfortable with the .key file. Life would be hard if I couldn’t freely open Frederf.key in Notepad and make simple changes or at least know what a callback is. I don’t need this callback? Delete the line. I don’t the text label? Change it. I want to remove a keyboard bind? Change the key code to 0XFFFFFFFF. I want to do pinky+256 shifting? Copy-paste the unshifted bind, change callback & DX ID.
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I’ve been running Falcon since SP4 and i’ve never had a HOTAS (i can’t because i dont have an actual computer desk, just a chair in front of my 40 inch HD TV…i’ve got a small apartment). Just a decent flight stick will do the trick (but TrackIR is a must, as far as i’m concerned), and a decent gaming mouse helps too.
