I first fired it up off line to save myself some embarrassment.
I did one sortie in a Spit, but it took quite awhile to get into the air. After running a couple of marathons, I figured out I was not at any of my countries fields. (no error telling me that I was at wrong field, just another run to the tower when I hit fly). The running was cool at first (old CK/WB warping between fields) but it got old pretty quick. Unless there is some future function for this running around, I'd lose it. The country select map is confusing laying flat as it is, maybe tip it up at a higher angle.
Weapon loadouts and convergence setting was nice, but the fuel loadout was a bit vague. A table showing fuel consumption rates for the select aircraft at various power settings would be the ticket.
Take off was a bit slippery and the nose didn't want to come down very quick. The sense of motion and speed rolling up to rotation was very poor. More than likely this is because the ground textures lack non repeating detail that imparts that feeling of speed and no sound changes with increasing speed.
Next was pulling the gear in. This was an adventure in it's self. Without a gear sound I didn't know if it was moving, and when I noticed the gear lights, I didn't know if red was up or down. Put it in auto trim and started searching for the external view and verified the gear position.
The next thing I noticed was the lack of feedback telling you if you were fast, slow, or accelerating. The engine just drones on at the same pitch. I didn't realize until that moment how much I rely on the sound feedback for pitch and speed changes. (Pappy B. would go to sleep and the sound of pitch changes would wake him up to retrim)
The plane handled very snappy (sigh of relief). The head bobbing around effect with stick changes is disorientating to say the least. It doesn't look like your head is moving, but instead the dash looks like its warping/bending or otherwise entering another dimension. Slight movement of the stick shouldn't do anything. Maybe tone it way down so only very hi-G's causes any movement, or dump it. I wouldn't miss it a bit.
Maneuvering was quite different (P51 online). I don't think I could do a split S in the P51 without blacking out through the whole thing. It became a survival thing not to lawn dart just doing a split S from 12k. Black outs came on very very quick. Granted I was keeping my E high, but it seemed any attempt at a turn caused tunnel vision. It felt more like a rocket than a plane. I was missing that "carving the sky" feel I've come to love. This was my biggest single disappointment. Maybe with sound changes to better gage speed it will feel better, duno... I only flew 2 sorties online, and one off line...
Icons seem a bit large, adjustable font and choices on what gets displayed would be nice.
Visuals are very nice. Some terrain tearing and sky textures mixed in tho. Frame rate is great in 1024 (50's and 60's) (TNT1/PII550). Black squares for distant cons could be improved to scale from a faint single pixel up to the 4 dark pixels to better gage range. I never got a chance to use the zoom, but the cons were quite difficult to see well enough to determine attitude and heading at relatively close ranges. Everything just blended together into dark shapes at 400+ yards. (20" monitor) I guess I would like more contrast between sky/terrain and planes, as making planes bigger is a non-starter.
Gauges were difficult to find the one you were looking for, and once found, a bit hard to read. Some didn't seem to work at all, and none showed a operating range. It'll get there in time.
Gunnery was great with the smoke streaks and all, and it sure doesn't take many hits to deal out serious damage. I ripped a B17 open in a P51 from D5 under my nose. By the time he came over the nose into view, I had knocked a wing off. Took a wing off a P51 at D5 with 2 short bursts. Worr gave me a nice show with tracers flying around my canopy as he removed needed parts from my Pony. (I'm glad a guy from the north country got my first kill.
Gunnery is very easy right now but I'm sure it will change shortly.
Landing without an engine and gear up, cause me to crash (I think, not really sure), but it threw me immediately back on the runway in a new plane (bug?). I had an oil leak but I'll be damned if I could find any clues on my instruments to attest to it. The engine finally just died.
Something else I don't remember from that other nameless sim, if you kick the rudder hard and let it go, the nose will oscillate back n forth a long long time. Correct or not, I noticed it right off.
Connect was great.
Over all, an outstanding initial release.
Congratulations!!!
