I like chihirobelmo’s idea. Another solution I’ve seen in other sim games (in particular the Silent Hunter series) is that the time acceleration number will turn yellow/red once you get past what the sim is able to handle without issues. It might not be an explicit “warning: weird things will happen”, but it at least strongly suggests something negative is happening. With that said, I’ll keep myself to X4 now that I know it’ll cause issues with anything above that.
Latest posts made by Ranma13
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RE: Some random questions about BMS
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RE: Some random questions about BMS
Oh wow, thanks! I didn’t even realize that there’s a challenge rating and that it can be changed:
I thought that the AI difficulty was determined by the difficulty level on the upper right instead. Thanks for pointing that out!
And I agree, I can’t find anything that mentions the sim gets unstable after x4 time acceleration. The manual says not to go past x16 time acceleration on the campaign screen, but the only line that talks about in-cockpit acceleration is this one:
If you are on a particularly long and boring mission (what I call the “long drive to work”) consider using x2 or x4 time compression.
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RE: Some random questions about BMS
So 4x is the limit then? I’m guessing this means in the cockpit as well? Sometimes I’ll speed it up to 8x or 16x when I’m at the hold point and it’s 5 minutes out before the entire package joins up and I’m just doing circles.
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RE: Some random questions about BMS
Thanks for the responses, everyone. To clarify, I’m running 4.34U2 and I’ve been playing BMS off and on for about a year now. A large number of my questions are regarding external views and AI because lately I’ve been interested in writing some comparison articles with other sims, and I’m trying to get a better grasp of how BMS handles things from a God’s eye point of view, rather than just what you can see from the cockpit.
I figured out the F4Wx issue. I wasn’t clicking “SAVE WTH” because I recall seeing in the BMS docs that you didn’t need to do it because it will auto-save when you click on a weather map file, and as long as it says “MAP LOADED:” with your map name, it was good. Turns out this isn’t the case. When I clicked “SAVE WTH”, I got the “SAVE TE FIRST” error, which I fixed by saving the campaign first before saving the weather, then it was fine after that.
I think Dee-Jay is right, BMS wasn’t really designed for external view. I’m using 64x time compression while sitting on the ramp and observing other aircraft, but very quickly things start to act up. Aircraft get stuck on each other:
will run off the runway and start taxiing around in the grass:
and will randomly crash into the ground (debriefing shows 2 KIA, which I personally saw crash into the airbase):
and Tacview will also start to look really funky where it spawns multiple copies of the same aircraft:
There also appears to be a general issue with Tacview where units will despawn even though they still exist in BMS. This causes munitions to look like they’re spawning out of nowhere in mid-air when those despawned units fire them:
The easiest way to reproduce this is to turn on invulnerability for yourself, select dogfight from the main menu and set up a team furball where the AI will fight against other AI aircraft, then use the external view to watch other aircraft.
What’s interesting is that viewing the acmi file within the game, some things match up with what I see in the external view (like the aircraft running off the runway), but some things don’t happen (like the stuck aircraft and aircraft disappearing in Tacview).
In short, prolonged use of external views should probably be avoided, and Tacview shouldn’t be treated as if it’s 100% correct.
@Red:
13. DTC data are spread between mission ini and pilotname ini depending if you do TE or Campaign. So the answer depends on what you fly. Did you try the button LOAD DTC in WDP?
I figured this one out. After I save the DTC in BMS, in WDP I have to select the Briefing/DataCard/Coordination Card tab (they all have the same left-hand-menu), then click the “Get DTC File” button on the left-hand side. It will open up a file select dialog, but since I loaded the campaign file, it will use the same file by default and I just have to click Open to get the updated DTC info.
7. Just so we are on the same page, you will benefit quite a bit from setting both pilot and air defense skills at Ace level
I’ve set the skill level to Ace:
Is there a separate setting somewhere for the AI/air defense skill level?
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Some random questions about BMS
Hey everyone, I asked this over at Reddit, but didn’t get much of a response, so I figured I’d ask again here to see if anyone can help answer them:
- Why do AI aircraft release a single flare at seemingly random times? Sometimes it’s right after take-off, sometimes it’s in level flight at 20,000 feet.
- Chihirobelmo made a great post about why missiles in DCS need to be fixed and I’d like to learn more about the tactics he talked about. I found the P-825 All Weather Intercept and have been going through it, and although it has some really great info, it also reads like a college textbook. Are there any other resources available that present the info in a more down-to-Earth manner?
- One thing I like to do in DCS is spectate people and see how they fly. I’d like to do the same in the BMS campaign without having to jump into an empty aircraft and sit at the ramp. Is there something similar in BMS, like a spectator view where I can observe the campaign playing out in the 3D view?
- While observing AI aircraft and ground units, I’ve been seeing some funky behavior, like aircraft crashing into the ground randomly, enemy units flying around with no weapons (like this J-11 with only ECM pods), aircraft getting confused on the taxiway and causing traffic jams, and aircraft taking off from the grass when there’s a runway right next to them. I suspect it’s because they’re flying out of the “render bubble” around my own aircraft and the game doesn’t know what to do with them anymore, but I wanted to check to see if that’s really the case.
- Is there any way to slow down the orbit camera? I’m using my mouse to control it and it’s really sensitive.
- Is there any way to offset the orbit camera so that the aircraft is not at the center of the screen? For example, if I wanted to move the camera underneath the wing to record a cinematic shot of a missile launch, is there a way to do that?
- I read somewhere that the SAM AI in BMS can see aircraft flying towards them that suddenly turn around, and can infer that this means HARMs were launched at them and will turn off their radar. Is this true and the AI really will do this?
- Sometimes when I’m going up against enemy units that don’t have A-A capabilities (like a Tu-16), they will completely ignore me until I actually hit one of them. I can be flying in front of them, doing loops, and shooting at them with my gun, but until one of them actually gets hit, they will continue flying straight forward. Is this a bug or an AI limitation?
- How good is the AI in general? Will it use tactics against you, attack and defend correctly, prosecute their mission targets properly, etc? What are its limitations?
- I’ve never seen ground troops engage each other in the 3D view, and I’ve seen them driving in a straight line through everything, including water and buildings. Is this something not well-supported in the 3D view and battles will only happen in the briefing room, or will they actually engage each other in the 3D view?
- On the Balkans map, the number of units shown in Tacview seems significantly lower than on the Korea map. Is this supposed to be the case? Whereas Korea is filled with SAM sites and aircraft flying around, on the Balkans map there’s almost nothing, just a few scattered units here and there.
- Is there any way to tell if my fmaps from F4Wx are getting loaded properly? I’ve dropped them into C:\Falcon BMS 4.34\Data\Campaign\WeatherMapsUpdates with the correct file names for the day, hour, and time, and in Weather Control I changed it to Map Model and checked “Maps Auto Update”, but I can’t tell if it’s working or not. I’m expecting that the winds will kick up to 50-70 knots once I get above 20,000 feet as it shows on F4Wx, but so far in-game it hasn’t exceeded 24 knots.
- Using the Weapon Delivery Planner, is there a way to reload the data cartridge after I open the mission? For example, if I open the mission and select my flight in WDP, but then I go back to BMS and add a few target steerpoints and re-save the data cart, is there a way to load the new data in WDP? Whenever I try to re-open my callsign.ini file, it clears out all my steerpoints, so I’ve been resorting to reloading the entire mission in WDP, re-selecting my flight, etc. just to refresh the data.
- If I’m firing a stand-off weapon, can I turn around and fly away from the target, or do I have to stay within the render bubble for it to hit? In other words, if I fly too far away from a target, does it despawn and my munition will miss?
- Sometimes in Tacview, units will randomly disappear:
[https://i.imgur.com/tr6EOIg.gifv](https://i.imgur.com/tr6EOIg.gifv) Does anyone know why this happens?
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RE: Falcon BMS Alternative Launcher (Easy Setup, Keep Joystick Assignments)
I’ve submitted a fix for the crash:
https://github.com/chihirobelmo/FalconBMS-Alternative-Launcher/pull/7
by disabling the category selector when a filter is active. The category selector shouldn’t be enabled when a filter is active because it will try to jump to a category that no longer exists in the list once it’s being filtered (hence why it was crashing), and the list is reduced to less than a page once you type 3 characters or more anyway, making the category selector redundant.
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RE: Falcon BMS Alternative Launcher (Easy Setup, Keep Joystick Assignments)
That’s clever, I had forgotten that VoiceAttack can do that :). For those that don’t know, VoiceAttack has a really powerful configuration tool that not only allows you to bind voice commands, but also lets you bind joystick buttons to keyboard presses. It’s like JoyToKey, but built into VoiceAttack itself.
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RE: Falcon BMS Alternative Launcher (Easy Setup, Keep Joystick Assignments)
POV hats will only work if they’re on the same device that you use for the primary X and Y axes (the joystick).
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RE: Falcon BMS Alternative Launcher (Easy Setup, Keep Joystick Assignments)
I’ve submitted 2 fixes for the Alternative Launcher. The first fixes the search box, and the second fixes an issue with running it on a G-Sync monitor with G-Sync enabled for windowed mode:
https://github.com/chihirobelmo/FalconBMS-Alternative-Launcher/pulls
This doesn’t do anything for 4.34 support, but hopefully chihirobelmo can include them into the next release.
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RE: So this is where all the used cougars are…
Yes I have, but that’s the older gameport version and needs an adapter to work over USB. The joystick and throttle shouldn’t cost more than $70-100. The pedals are rarer, but they’re not worth an extra $200.