DCS Beginners Guide - GETTING STARTED

DCS free month is here! This is a great time to try out the amazing graphics and simulation of DCS World! (If you are from the future, this guide still works for you!) Getting started can be quite complicated as this is a quite a complex simulator, this beginners guide has been created as to point you in the right direction! Show you how to succeed in DCS! You will still have to work your way to the top. Go from zero to hero! This is will not be easy. But it will be extremely rewarding! Hope you enjoy this how to DCS, and hope this tutorial for the basics helps.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
I. WHAT IS DCS 00:00
II. DCS FREE MONTH 01:01
III. DCS REQUIREMENTS 02:29
IV. HOTAS 04:01
V. HEAD TRACKING 05:33
A. INFRARED 06:36
B. VIRTUAL REALITY 08:45
C. VR MOTION SICKNESS 12:19
VI. CHOOSING A AIRCRAFT 14:20
A. 1ST SCHOOL OF THOUGHT 15:20
B. 2ND SCHOOL OF THOUGHT 16:11
C. 3RD SCHOOL OF THOUGHT 18:01
D. 1ST AIRCRAFT RECOMMENDATION: F-16C Viper 18:34
E. 2ND AIRCRAFT RECOMMENDATION: F/A-18C Hornet 19:46
F. 3RD AIRCRAFT RECOMMENDATION: JF-17 Jeff 20:55
G. AIRCRAFT RECOMMENDATION SUMMARY 24:47
VII. LEARNING THE AIRCRAFT 25:39
A. CONTROL SET-UP 25:55
B. LEARNING METHODS 28:26
VIII. READY FOR COMBAT 30:10
A. SINGLE PLAYER 30:21
B. MULTIPLAYER 31:07
IX. EXTRA NOTES 32:41

WARNING! STEAM CAN MIGRATE TO STANDALONE, BUT NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

Current Specs:
R9 3900X
32GB RAM
GTX 1080
3 Monitor set-up @1440p
Track-IR 5 + PRO Clip
Oculus Rift S
T16000M Hotas + Rudders

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I love you all! Thank you for the continuous support!

[burnerjack]

"DCS is free for a month".
Like when I was a kid and they warned me about free drugs...

[Void]

Anyone wanting to get into DCS for the first time needs to think about the game's unavoidable hurdles in the form of personal cost. Not simply the monetary cost of a computer that meets the recommended requirements AND the accessories to go with it (also expensive), but also the time and perseverance you'll need to commit to attain proficiency in whatever module you want to buy.



Make no mistake, Digital Combat Simulator is very rewarding once you get to a place where you can see yourself making progress, but it takes a good deal of time to get there. It's not referred to as a "study sim" for nothing. This isn't Ace Combat. Your XBox won't run it, and you won't have the feel of it mastered in a week.

[VuLamDang]

Basicly VR motion sickness = G tolerance for sim pilot

[PaulsGarage]

This free month claimed all my spare harddrive space, and when it's over it will claim all the money left in my wallet.

[Aoi]

I began in the F-5 (my favorite at the time), which is really great for teaching fundamentals, bought most the modules, but put in the huge bulk of my hours in the F/A-18C. I think if you're gonna begin in the hornet, you gotta be really committed. The Jeff though, omfg, I totally agree! When I casually fly, it's usually in the Jeff or Mirage. It's cozy, very easy to do anything, has color displays to sit and tinker with, very easy to fly and land, and the weapons are all fun. I will point out, it's best all around, not the best at anything. There are better fighters, better bombers. It also has a Chinese waifu voice, which is soothing when I'm about to die.

[rubiconnn]

Honestly I would recommend the F5 Tiger as a beginner aircraft. It's fully modeled and complete and isn't buggy. It's a bit harder to fly as it doesn't have fly by wire, but it's systems are really simple so you don't have to learn the massively complex maze of MFD menus. It's essentially a WW2 fighter but with radar, countermeasures, and jet engines.

[tomkirkman]

Now OF COURSE I find this video, the day after it ends. That's my luck.

[rboettger]

VR tip: always hydrated and not on empty stomach also put a little desk fan on the table. Air will help.

[AdRenteria]

This was a great guide. Thank you. My first simulator was "F119 Stealth Fighter" back in 1991 and I was hooked. I progressed on to Falcon 3.0, Hornet, 4.0 and don't understand the patience my wife had to stay married to me those first few years. I'm 50 yrs. old now, got a little bit of more money and time, I want to take the dive into DCS. Your guide provided me with a direction. Reading the comments I might take the F-5 out for a spin. I do love carrier landings though. Muchos saludos de El Paso, Tx. hermano.

[UnknownUser-omzo]

Hey X-CHECK, great video, I just wanted to add a few things on top of what you said for beginners since it's 2021 now


Module Choice

In terms of the Hornet, it's much, much closer to completion. ED did a lot for it in 2020 and supposedly it will be out of early access this year. Here are some reasons why you might want to get the Hornet or Jeff.

Reasons to get the Hornet:

-It has a lot more single player content that the Jeff. This is probably because most DCS players are from the west and have more interest in the Hornet than the Jeff. The Hornet has also been around for longer.
-It can carry more. I don't remember who said this, but "the Jeff is multi-role, but not multi-mission" meaning it can do air to ground OR air to air, but it can't do both very well. The Hornet has more hardpoints and a higher take off weight.
-It can land on a carrier. This is an easy to learn, hard to master thing, and very very fun in my opinion.
-The gun isn't weird. If you like doing guns only kinds of fights with your friends, definitely do not get the Jeff. The gun is aimed down for air to ground purposes, which it's good at, but you'll need to pull more lead to get your gun on the enemy. It also doesn't help that the bullet velocity in the Jeff is quite slow.
-Weapon choices. You can carry the majority of weapons in the US arsenal, from a long range JSOW to an anti-radiation AGM-88, this thing can carry them all. They're not necessarily better than the Jeff, you just get more options.
-Overrated plane. This can be a good thing because there's no shortage of people that can answer questions about the plane, no shortage of YouTube videos about it, no shortage of missions you can simulate, etc.
-It has a helmet mounted display. HMD + AIM-9X is the ultimate combination for within visual range missile fights. Just aim your head at the target and shoot, it's that easy. The helmet mounted display helps a lot with other stuff too

Reasons to get the Jeff:

-Massive screens. Great because you can see everything you want on three large iPad-like displays. I don't use VR but I'm told that it's very nice for VR because there's no need to squint anymore
-Cool effects. Deka Ironworks did really really well on this. When you break the sound barrier there's a shock cone. If you go to an overly hot place and don't cool yourself properly you'll get a heat stroke. Your canopy will fog up so you need to use the defog thing, etc
-Other nice gimmicks. There's a built-in music player, some tv focusing effects, etc.
-It's not just another one of those overrated US jets. It's a very unique plane, which, as X-CHECK said, has some very interesting history. It's a budget aircraft built by China and Pakistan to complement Pakistan's F-16's.
-Easier to use. A lot of people I know say it was much easier for them to learn.
-Cool and really useful weapons like laser-guided rockets. You can do more with less in the Jeff.
-If you like anti-ship stuff, the Jeff is a great choice.
-Data cartridge system. Saves tons of time and
very easy to use. The Hornet will have it after early access but it will probably be a very long time.
-It's still more complete than the Hornet. I don't think this should be that big of a deal anymore though.

Notes on the Viper:

-Still incomplete. Probably a while until it's done
-Air to air is pretty good already though, it's generally considered to be one of if not THE best dogfighter in DCS. High thrust to weight ratio, helmet mounted display, good datalink, etc.


Falcon BMS

If you love the F-16 and want a complete version of it, give Falcon BMS a try. It's an absolutely massive mod to a game from 1998, so the graphics aren't great, but the latest update has DirectX 11 now so the developers are definitely laying the groundwork for better graphics. There's also no VR, but again, thanks to DirectX 11 we can expect it to come soon.

So why BMS over DCS? Well, first of all the F-16 is more complete than the DCS one will ever be. It has a ton of weapons I've never even heard of such as the Israeli Python missile. It also has many different versions of the F-16 from different points in time. Although, this means that other aircraft are just F-16's pretending to be other aircraft.

More importantly, BMS has an incredible dynamic campaign. So incredible that its development practically brought the company to bankruptcy. It simulates a full on war where you play a role as part of a larger battle. If you destroy a tank, it's gone. The enemy will have to make a new one fresh from the factory. If you shoot down a plane, it's gone. The enemy squadron will have one less plane to fly in the next encounter.

Last reason is that its cheap. All you need to do is buy a license for the 1998 game from somewhere like Steam or GOG. The game itself can be downloaded from the benchmarksims website.


Head tracking solutions

I thought that I might also add some of the free or cheaper alternatives to TrackIR.

Free(ish):


Smoothtrack is an app I've heard good things about. I think it costs a few bucks though. It also connects to opentrack, just like AITrack. There may be some noticeable latency depending on the refresh rate of your phone and the quality of the connection between your computer & phone. You can find it in your phone's app store

Aruco tracks a QR code strapped to your head which makes you look ridiculous, but it sorta works. I'd only use this as a last resort because it's not great. Aruco works directly with opentrack.

Paid:

Grassmonkey and Delanclip are both good choices offering pretty much the same product. Both are cheaper than TrackIR but work in essentially the same way, by tracking three points on your headset with a camera.



HOTAS

Not gonna add to much detail here, you should probably do some more research elsewhere because different HOTASes are good for different people. I'm just going to list a few other options to look into:
Logitech Extreme 3D Pro (stick only, pretty standard beginner stick)
VKB Gladiator NXT (stick only, relatively cheap but very, very good stick)
Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog (full A-10 replica HOTAS, expensive but good)
WinWing F-18 set (full F-18 replica HOTAS, very expensive but very good)
Virpil's stuff (stick and/or throttle, very expensive but very good)

Beware of unfair HOTAS prices!!! Covid, Star Wars Squadrons, and MSFS have created a perfect storm where HOTASes are going out of stock and you might not be able to get one for a proper price price, just make sure to be careful. Ebay prices are insane as well.

Other info


Regarding the first school of thought, I'd still go for it depending on *why* you love a certain plane so much. I bought the Flaming Cliffs 3 pack (flaming cliffs 3 aircraft = simple model aircraft, you can get them all in a cheap pack), simply to fly many planes in there. The Su-27 is just so sexy and you pull a cobras on the American scum trying to hunt you down. On the flip side, the F-15 is also really fun because of its massive engines. It's probably one of the fastest planes in DCS (the F-14 might be faster, I'm not sure), and because of that and its strong radar it's a beast in beyond visual range.If you like an aircraft because of its weapons and systems, don't get a Flaming Cliffs plane. If you want to learn more about a certain aircraft, don't get Flaming Cliffs.

Sorry for the wall of text but I hope at least one person finds this useful, good luck with DCS!

Edit: by the way regarding the garbage performance of DCS, it'll get better soon with Vulkan and multithreading. Until then, unfortunately you'll have to suck it up :(

Also yeah X-CHECK is absolutely right about the Grim Reapers. Don't watch their videos because a lot of things they teach are just downright wrong.

[man_vs_life]

This is an *_amazing_* intro to DCS. Great job - I was totally not expecting to watch it all. Oh, just a tiny grammar note: "an" aircraft. :-)

[patrickg]

FYI there are people you will offer you FREE lessons unlike Grim Reapers who charge money for pretty incomplete lessons.

[michaelw]

lol, I love the explanation for how to tell the difference between full fidelity versus simple model. Perfect.

[fredh]

I have owned a DelanClip (alternative to track IR) for the past 2 years, and can extremely recommend it. (cost: £20 ~ £40. (£40 will get you from owning nothing to track IR level (many even better) head tracking in DCS and plenty of other games/sims) I have also found the delanclip to be much much stronger (the delanclip is made of metal and have had friends waiting for track IR replacement after braking them.) the software provided free with delanclip also allows for much more control over the tracking camera than track IR does.

[finger]

Sim gamers really don't know the meaning of 'budget'.

[crackinjahcs]

Don't forget the different eras of aircraft. WW2, Korea, modern, and helicopters. in the free initial download you get a P51 trainer along with (simple) jets.

[sam]

This video has crushed all my hopes and dreams

I'll just stick to getting a pc then arma then sulk over not getting DCS as it costs as much as a small naval fleet

[lucahofman]

I have DCS on my computer but because i don't have money (mostly because of my age) I now play on a decent pc with a ps4 controller. I hope that I can someday upgrade my pc a little with the work I do and that I can get a decent set up to play real missions (now I am just flying around with the training P 51) thanks for all the tips and i love your videos. Keep up the great work!

[jimsimpson]

Great video. I’m a noob - I found this video while waiting for DCS to download. It is just what I was looking for: a high level overview of the game and how to begin the process of learning to use it. Thanks!

[chandler]

Easiest plane to enjoy and have fun/learn quickly either the f15c or the mig 25 from the flaming cliffs modules.

I’d say it’ll take you (from day 1 and about 2hrs minimum to play) it’ll take about 2-3 weeks to become proficient enough to take it through some campaign missions and about a month - month and a half to be successful in online games

They aren’t high fidelity but it’s as close to a “casual” experience as you’ll get outta the game.

And if you prefer more CAS roles either just Learn the free su-25 or get the warthog from modules FC3 and go to town.

Warthog is better but su-25 is still good and you’ll have fun learning it no doubt