Questions for someone with a lot of DLC

[EagleLeader]

So I have the base game + F/A-18C + Nevada DLCs & the game is already @ 113GB HDD space. Steam shows every new jet DLC at coincidentally 60GB each. I'd expect DLC location maps to need more space but a new jet needing that much space is strange. I know it's high fidelity but that much each! Any way here's a list of questions please:-

1. Is it really going to need that much more space or is Steam just copy pasting system requirements per jet? Looking at the F-15C DLC. I guess I could use Steam management to uninstall DLCs specifically to make more room but that would be a hassle.

2. Is it really only 1 shoot button, if not where do I find the control spot to bind separately? I'm coming from an arcade flight shooter background & find it strange that a serious sim like this forces 1 button for both guns & missiles when even Ace Combat did 2. Even real fighter pilots ridicule movies / games for using the same or wrong buttons on the stick for guns & missiles.

3. Currently have my F18 controls mapped, is there an easier way to just transfer the same mapping to another jet on the same PC?

Thanks :)

[spike2071]

It's not that much for the planes. If I recall, it's only several GB per module, with the exception being maps (as you already mentioned).

Depends on the plane. Some planes have separate buttons, but I think most have the same button for Air to Air missiles and guns. They usually have different buttons between Air to Air ordinance and Air to Ground ordinance (but not always...the Mirage uses the same button for everything). I'd think that with the care put into the full fidelity modules, however it is in this game is how it is in real life for each plane. Not a pilot, and I could be wrong, but they have Subject Matter Experts (real pilots and people who worked on the planes) that would have pointed out something that obvious.

I don't think you can copy mappings over to a different jet, but I've never tried. The problem is that every jet is vastly different. In the options page where you bind the controls, there is the ability to save/load profiles. You could try it, but I'd guess it would fail, or wouldn't work as intended. For example, the Harrier has no radar, so all the Hornet radar binds would fail, which would (I think) cause the whole import to fail. Weapon selection between the Harrier and the A-10C are completely different, too (as another example).

[startrekmike]

引用自 Eagleleader：

So I have the base game + F/A-18C + Nevada DLCs & the game is already @ 113GB HDD space. Steam shows every new jet DLC at coincidentally 60GB each. I'd expect DLC location maps to need more space but a new jet needing that much space is strange. I know it's high fidelity but that much each! Any way here's a list of questions please:-

1. Is it really going to need that much more space or is Steam just copy pasting system requirements per jet? Looking at the F-15C DLC. I guess I could use Steam management to uninstall DLCs specifically to make more room but that would be a hassle.

2. Is it really only 1 shoot button, if not where do I find the control spot to bind separately? I'm coming from an arcade flight shooter background & find it strange that a serious sim like this forces 1 button for both guns & missiles when even Ace Combat did 2. Even real fighter pilots ridicule movies / games for using the same or wrong buttons on the stick for guns & missiles.

3. Currently have my F18 controls mapped, is there an easier way to just transfer the same mapping to another jet on the same PC?

Thanks :)

The individual aircraft don't take a ton of space but maps and DCS itself are quite large.

As far as the weapon release buttons. It is always going to be based on how the actual aircraft is laid out. Some have one button for missiles/bombs and one dedicated for the gun but some don't. It depends on how the aircraft is in real life.

Regarding copying controls from one jet to a different one, that is simply not possible because every jet has different controls and systems. They really do need their own individually set up controls for a reason.

[EagleLeader]

引用自 spike2071：

It's not that much for the planes. If I recall, it's only several GB per module, with the exception being maps (as you already mentioned).

Depends on the plane. Some planes have separate buttons, but I think most have the same button for Air to Air missiles and guns. They usually have different buttons between Air to Air ordinance and Air to Ground ordinance (but not always...the Mirage uses the same button for everything). I'd think that with the care put into the full fidelity modules, however it is in this game is how it is in real life for each plane. Not a pilot, and I could be wrong, but they have Subject Matter Experts (real pilots and people who worked on the planes) that would have pointed out something that obvious.

I don't think you can copy mappings over to a different jet, but I've never tried. The problem is that every jet is vastly different. In the options page where you bind the controls, there is the ability to save/load profiles. You could try it, but I'd guess it would fail, or wouldn't work as intended. For example, the Harrier has no radar, so all the Hornet radar binds would fail, which would (I think) cause the whole import to fail. Weapon selection between the Harrier and the A-10C are completely different, too (as another example).

Okay thanks for the quick response!

[EagleLeader]

引用自 startrekmike：

引用自 Eagleleader：

So I have the base game + F/A-18C + Nevada DLCs & the game is already @ 113GB HDD space. Steam shows every new jet DLC at coincidentally 60GB each. I'd expect DLC location maps to need more space but a new jet needing that much space is strange. I know it's high fidelity but that much each! Any way here's a list of questions please:-

1. Is it really going to need that much more space or is Steam just copy pasting system requirements per jet? Looking at the F-15C DLC. I guess I could use Steam management to uninstall DLCs specifically to make more room but that would be a hassle.

2. Is it really only 1 shoot button, if not where do I find the control spot to bind separately? I'm coming from an arcade flight shooter background & find it strange that a serious sim like this forces 1 button for both guns & missiles when even Ace Combat did 2. Even real fighter pilots ridicule movies / games for using the same or wrong buttons on the stick for guns & missiles.

3. Currently have my F18 controls mapped, is there an easier way to just transfer the same mapping to another jet on the same PC?

Thanks :)

The individual aircraft don't take a ton of space but maps and DCS itself are quite large.

As far as the weapon release buttons. It is always going to be based on how the actual aircraft is laid out. Some have one button for missiles/bombs and one dedicated for the gun but some don't. It depends on how the aircraft is in real life.

Regarding copying controls from one jet to a different one, that is simply not possible because every jet has different controls and systems. They really do need their own individually set up controls for a reason.

Thanks as well!

[Vanhala]

As the other subjects are fairly well covered (as well as this one) I'm (despite that) going to chat a little about the philosophy why the buttons required for firing weapons and the sequence you'll have to push them can vary greatly.

Let's start with easy one, the M2K; It indeed has only one button for firing the cannon and for releasing ordnance etc. That is IMO the easiest to operate system, since you do the weapon selection with separate switches and you have the ACM weapons (cannon, Magic) quickly available.

Two stage trigger is basically the same, but with the idea that you can pre-activate the gun for shooting so you eliminate the spool-up time. Also, in some aircraft it has other functions like laser firing or whatnot.

One trigger, with flipping safety; This one is in Viggen and works as well as only one trigger. Basically you control everything similarly to the one-trigger-system, but you activate certain parts of the weapon system only by operating the safety, thus eliminating the possibility to fire accidentally. Also helps with weapons of limited on-rail time (Rb05 for example).

Separate buttons for cannon and missiles / stores; found at least in MiG-21 (F-5 if I remember correctly). This allows one to always use cannon.

Separate buttons but missiles and guns are in one, stores in another; F-14 for example. Usually it's all about the idea of separating the A2A and A2G weapon systems for redundancy etc. That's especially the case in F-14. Also makes it possible to use gun easily in A/G mastermode (F/A-18).

Also there are mixes of some of these aforementioned philosophies; usually to achieve most of the plus-sides.

[van Leeuwenhoek's mustache]

In order to free up space, I recommend that you run the DCS folder through a filesize analyzer, you'll notice that aircraft liveries are one of the biggest culprits.

F-14 liveries = 4.87GB
MiG-21 liveries = 2.41GB
Christen Eagle liveries = 1.98GB
Harrier, A-10, C-101, MiG-19, F-5, FW-190A8 liveries = >1.4GB each
etc...

These can be found in "Gamedir\CoreMods\aircraft" and "Gamedir\Bazar\Liveries"

Just delete all those liveries you'll never use, that alone should free up 10+GB.

Most individual aircraft modules aren't that heavy, just a few GB at most.


Btw, I wouldn't buy any more FC3 aircraft separately if I were you, since they cost twice as much.
FC3 includes F-15C, MiG-29A/G/S, Su-27, Su-33, J-11A, A-10A, Su-25A + campaigns and missions, at half the price per aircraft.

Even if you aren't interested in all the included aircraft right now, chances are you'll want to try them out in the future.
Also, it's a fair "transition module" for people like you, who are used to arcade.


As for sharing control mappings between aircraft, I'm afraid you'll have to map each aircraft individually, since controls vary considerably from one aircraft to another (except for the Fulcrum and Flanker families, which have almost identical controls).

However, you can set your own "standard" bindings for some basic things, which you can use for all planes (easy to remember, easy to bind in a hurry).

For instance, these are some of my "standard" bindings, which I use for hornet, viper, warthog, FC3, tomcat and JF-17:

- Landing gear up/down = G
- Open/Close canopy = LCtrl + C (some aircraft require holding it down)
- Eject = LCtrl + E (3 times)
- Flaps down = F (FC3 aircraft use this bind for both deployment and retraction)
- Flaps up = LAlt + F
- Speed brake deploy = B (FC3 aircraft use this bind for both deployment and retraction)
- Speed brake retract = LAlt + B
- Nosewheel steering (either enable or high gain) = S
- Electrical power on/off (FC3 only) = LShift + E
- Left engine start/idle = LShift + M
- Left engine shutdown = LCtrl + M
- Right engine (or single engine) start/idle = RShift + M
- Right engine shutdown = RCtrl + M
- Shutdown all engines = RAlt + M
- Jettison fuel tanks (FC3) / Panic button (hornet, viper) = J
- Navigation mode / previous mode = Joystick POV hat up
- Weapon selection = Joystick button 3 (viper requires holding it down, tomcat needs modifier)
- Weapon release 1 = Joystick trigger (guns and/or missiles, depending on module)
- Weapon release 2 = Joystick button 2 (missiles and/or A/G ordinance, depending on module)
etc...

You'll have to come up with your own "standard" bindings, there's no way around it.
But once you've memorized them, it'll be much faster/easier to map new modules.

Also, many high fidelity modules rely heavily on HOTAS controls, so you'll need to come up with "standard" HOTAS bindings as well (DMS, TMS, etc.)... problem is that several of these HOTAS controls vary between aircraft, so trying to standardize them can be tricky.


Your personal binds are stored in "C:\Users\UserName\Saved Games\DCS (or DCS.openbeta)\Config\Input".
Don't forget to make backup copies of this folder, otherwise you'll have to spend hours to rebind everything every time you reinstall DCS.

[EagleLeader]

引用自 Vanhala：

As the other subjects are fairly well covered (as well as this one) I'm (despite that) going to chat a little about the philosophy why the buttons required for firing weapons and the sequence you'll have to push them can vary greatly.

Let's start with easy one, the M2K; It indeed has only one button for firing the cannon and for releasing ordnance etc. That is IMO the easiest to operate system, since you do the weapon selection with separate switches and you have the ACM weapons (cannon, Magic) quickly available.

Two stage trigger is basically the same, but with the idea that you can pre-activate the gun for shooting so you eliminate the spool-up time. Also, in some aircraft it has other functions like laser firing or whatnot.

One trigger, with flipping safety; This one is in Viggen and works as well as only one trigger. Basically you control everything similarly to the one-trigger-system, but you activate certain parts of the weapon system only by operating the safety, thus eliminating the possibility to fire accidentally. Also helps with weapons of limited on-rail time (Rb05 for example).

Separate buttons for cannon and missiles / stores; found at least in MiG-21 (F-5 if I remember correctly). This allows one to always use cannon.

Separate buttons but missiles and guns are in one, stores in another; F-14 for example. Usually it's all about the idea of separating the A2A and A2G weapon systems for redundancy etc. That's especially the case in F-14. Also makes it possible to use gun easily in A/G mastermode (F/A-18).

Also there are mixes of some of these aforementioned philosophies; usually to achieve most of the plus-sides.

Thanks for the great explanation, I always thought there was just a standard 2 button for all jets after watching 1 pilot on YouTube make fun of movies & games that use 1 button. But I think he only flew 1 type of jet.

[EagleLeader]

引用自 Soup Chewer：

In order to free up space, I recommend that you run the DCS folder through a filesize analyzer, you'll notice that aircraft liveries are one of the biggest culprits.

F-14 liveries = 4.87GB
MiG-21 liveries = 2.41GB
Christen Eagle liveries = 1.98GB
Harrier, A-10, C-101, MiG-19, F-5, FW-190A8 liveries = >1.4GB each
etc...

These can be found in "Gamedir\CoreMods\aircraft" and "Gamedir\Bazar\Liveries"

Just delete all those liveries you'll never use, that alone should free up 10+GB.

Most individual aircraft modules aren't that heavy, just a few GB at most.


Btw, I wouldn't buy any more FC3 aircraft separately if I were you, since they cost twice as much.
FC3 includes F-15C, MiG-29A/G/S, Su-27, Su-33, J-11A, A-10A, Su-25A + campaigns and missions, at half the price per aircraft.

Even if you aren't interested in all the included aircraft right now, chances are you'll want to try them out in the future.
Also, it's a fair "transition module" for people like you, who are used to arcade.


As for sharing control mappings between aircraft, I'm afraid you'll have to map each aircraft individually, since controls vary considerably from one aircraft to another (except for the Fulcrum and Flanker families, which have almost identical controls).

However, you can set your own "standard" bindings for some basic things, which you can use for all planes (easy to remember, easy to bind in a hurry).

For instance, these are some of my "standard" bindings, which I use for hornet, viper, warthog, FC3, tomcat and JF-17:

- Landing gear up/down = G
- Open/Close canopy = LCtrl + C (some aircraft require holding it down)
- Eject = LCtrl + E (3 times)
- Flaps down = F (FC3 aircraft use this bind for both deployment and retraction)
- Flaps up = LAlt + F
- Speed brake deploy = B (FC3 aircraft use this bind for both deployment and retraction)
- Speed brake retract = LAlt + B
- Nosewheel steering (either enable or high gain) = S
- Electrical power on/off (FC3 only) = LShift + E
- Left engine start/idle = LShift + M
- Left engine shutdown = LCtrl + M
- Right engine (or single engine) start/idle = RShift + M
- Right engine shutdown = RCtrl + M
- Shutdown all engines = RAlt + M
- Jettison fuel tanks (FC3) / Panic button (hornet, viper) = J
- Navigation mode / previous mode = Joystick POV hat up
- Weapon selection = Joystick button 3 (viper requires holding it down, tomcat needs modifier)
- Weapon release 1 = Joystick trigger (guns and/or missiles, depending on module)
- Weapon release 2 = Joystick button 2 (missiles and/or A/G ordinance, depending on module)
etc...

You'll have to come up with your own "standard" bindings, there's no way around it.
But once you've memorized them, it'll be much faster/easier to map new modules.

Also, many high fidelity modules rely heavily on HOTAS controls, so you'll need to come up with "standard" HOTAS bindings as well (DMS, TMS, etc.)... problem is that several of these HOTAS controls vary between aircraft, so trying to standardize them can be tricky.


Your personal binds are stored in "C:\Users\UserName\Saved Games\DCS (or DCS.openbeta)\Config\Input".
Don't forget to make backup copies of this folder, otherwise you'll have to spend hours to rebind everything every time you reinstall DCS.

Thanks again, Soup Chewer, it amazes me how responsive & detailed this DCS community has been. I am definitely going to copy paste & store these deets you took time to post here. Sincerely appreciated :)

[Ramsay]

引用自 Soup Chewer：

In order to free up space, I recommend that you run the DCS folder through a filesize analyzer, you'll notice that aircraft liveries are one of the biggest culprits.

F-14 liveries = 4.87GB
MiG-21 liveries = 2.41GB
Christen Eagle liveries = 1.98GB
Harrier, A-10, C-101, MiG-19, F-5, FW-190A8 liveries = >1.4GB each
etc...

These can be found in "Gamedir\CoreMods\aircraft" and "Gamedir\Bazar\Liveries"

Just delete all those liveries you'll never use, that alone should free up 10+GB.

I don't believe deleting DCS's default liveries is a wise thing.

The liveries are part of the base game and used for the AI in SP and other players in MP i.e. you have Hornet and are vs a MiG-21.

All that will happen if you delete them is that they'll be re-download the next time Steam verifies or updates DCS.

Disabling a particular DLC/map in Steam is a different matter, as Steam "knows" not to download/install that module e.g. if you rarely use the Normandy map, etc.

[EagleLeader]

Hmm if deleting liveries will just cause them to be re-downloaded does anyone have a ballpark idea of what amount of disk space is needed for the average jet?

[Ramsay]

When a "new" flyable aircraft is added to DCS it's liveries, AI and weapons become part of the base install, that's why if you buy it later the additional space required is less than you might expect i.e. buying adds the advanced player flight model, cockpit textures/logic, missions, etc.

The space required to add a flyable aircraft is relatively small, 300 MB - 4 GB and mostly depends on it's complexity i.e. newer, more complex modules take up the most.

206 MB ... F-86F
276 MB ... FW-190D9
599 MB ... UH-1H
613 MB ... Su-25T (part of the base game, mostly due to training mission audio files)
795 MB ... F/A-18C (many systems have been used to add to/or upgrade the base game)
982 MB ... Ka-50
1.00 GB ... F-16C
1.32 GB ... Flaming Cliffs (all 6 aircraft together)
1.82 GB ... C-101 EB and CC versions
1.84 GB ... AV-8B
3.34 GB ... F-14 A and B versions

There might be another ~1 GB added elsewhere in DCS's file structure but it's quite hard to keep track of and the space is (almost) "nothing" when compared to the additional space required for a new map.

15.4 GB ... Normandy
16.1 GB ... Caucasus (part of the base game)
32.9 GB ... Persian Gulf
33.9 GB ... Nevada
47.1 GB ... Syria

[EagleLeader]

引用自 Ramsay：

When a "new" flyable aircraft is added to DCS it's liveries become part of the base install, that's why if you buy it later the additional space required is less than you might expect i.e. buying adds the advanced player flight model, cockpit textures/logic, missions, etc.

The space required to add a flyable aircraft is relatively small, 300 MB - 4 GB and mostly depends on it's complexity i.e. newer, more complex modules take up the most.

206 MB ... F-86F
276 MB ... FW-190D9
599 MB ... UH-1H
613 MB ... Su-25T (part of the base game, mostly due to training mission audio files)
795 MB ... F/A-18C (many systems have been used to add to/or upgrade the base game)
982 MB ... Ka-50
1.00 GB ... F-16C
1.32 GB ... Flaming Cliffs (all 6 aircraft together)
1.82 GB ... C-101 EB and CC versions
1.84 GB ... AV-8B
3.34 GB ... F-14 A and B versions

There might be another ~1 GB added elsewhere in DCS's file structure but it's quite hard to keep track of and the space is (almost) "nothing" when compared to the additional space required for a new map.

15.4 GB ... Normandy
16.1 GB ... Caucasus (part of the base game)
32.9 GB ... Persian Gulf
33.9 GB ... Nevada
47.1 GB ... Syria

Wow that's more precise than I was expecting. Thanks, what a relief on my HDD.