HiTech I think AH is missing something in terms of "realism"

[thebest1]

Ammo ticker thingy.  I  dont think the planes ad that in WW2

[SFCHONDO]

But us dweebs here need it

[DoKGonZo]

I'm pretty sure some of the LW planes had 'em. But digital read-out is more info than they woulda had. Switching the current read-out to a little bar-graph for mg/cannon would have the desired effect.

[JB73]

yes some planes had actual ammo counters, others did not.

if HT were to Coad them accurate you think anyone would fly the disadvantaged plane (other than a sortie or 2 for a "challange)?

any plane without an ammo counter would be like the hurri 1 or the 202, almost never used.

[Furious]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
...Switching the current read-out to a little bar-graph for mg/cannon would have the desired effect.

...and what effect would that be?   To have more folks afraid to engage because they might be low on/out of ammo?

TOD, prolly behind ya 100%, but for the MA, not so much.

[DoKGonZo]

Originally posted by Furious
...and what effect would that be?   To have more folks afraid to engage because they might be low on/out of ammo?

TOD, prolly behind ya 100%, but for the MA, not so much.

I'd like to have the ability to switch such functionality on for ToD, SEA, CT, and so on.

And what's wrong with not engaging if you think you're low on ammo? That seems kind of logical. And for a lot of planes, the sign to stop shooting and start running is pretty clear ... either cannons or a bank of MG's will stop firing.

Frankly, for 75% of the pile-its I see in the MA, running out of ammo is the least of their worries.

All I'm proposing is replace that digital read-out with a nice analog bar graph. Something with some fuzz on it.

[Kweassa]

The number of people engaging doesn't change at all. The number of lame-prettythang 400yd+ spraying, however, is significantly reduced. At least, that's what the IL2/FB experience tells us.

 Sometimes I find it really strange to see so many people thinking of the average MA folk as some retarded or brain-dead person. Increase in number of switches or procedures, or taking off a few features do not make them dumbfounded or something, you know.

[DoKGonZo]

Actually ... I thought of another cool thing that could be done. Show the digial read-outs only when your gear is in contact and the engine is off. So when you land and shut down the engine, you can see just how many rounds you had left when you decided it was time to get outa Dodge. When the engine's on and gear isn't touching ground, you get the bar graphs.

That way players can get a good feel for where on that bar graph their last 40 rounds of cannon really are.

[Midnight]

We don't need digital counts of exact number of rounds remaining. AW had a gauge 0-100%. What's wrong with that for AH?

OTOH, a gauge is a gauge, exact count or not, so why bother to change it?

For me, no big deal, I fly the same plane all the time and know how many rounds is 100%, 50%, 25%, etc. But those that fly different planes all the time would have to be more farmiliar with how many rounds those percentages represent.

[Sikboy]

Originally posted by JB73

any plane without an ammo counter would be like the hurri 1 or the 202, almost never used.

Meh, I'd still fly the Yak.

I wouldn't mind seeing the Ammo counters go away, or become arena-setting-dependant.

-Sik

[MOSQ]

In Air Warrior we had a little gauge. Note the ammo counter in the upper right. It reads in percentage of ammo left. You had to know at what percentage your cannon rounds ran out and all you had left was machine gun rounds.

I still like the AW gauge package.

[Karnak]

I would very much prefer to have no counter at all and just the analog device on the German fighters that had them.

I really see no advantage to having the ammo counters.  It is one design decision in AH (and WB) that I never understood.  There are others I disagree with, but I at least understand the reason for them.

In sims I've played that lacked the ammo counters it was never a problem to become familiar with my prefered kite's firing duration.  It is simply another, easy, skill.

[eilif]

ma needs to satisfy many skill levels, including the new comers, so i doubt that the counter would go away, but as dok said in ct sea ectra, that would be a cool place to see some realism. Im all for the usual game hud thats in il2, why butcher the guages? would like to be able to toggle them off. Or at least have the option to turn off the amo counter in h2h.

[Kweassa]

Doesn't make sense.

 Newbies or people with different skill levels are all the same in IL2/FB. Heck, considering the MMOG aspect of AH, the average pilots of AH are much more skilled than the average pilots of IL2/FB.

 And yet, not a single one of them complain about having no ammo counters. They simply learn, and adapt to it as a part of the game, and come to accept the difference in features between planes. Just like some planes can use combat flaps or others have gyro sights, some planes have ammo indicator bars. That's all there is to it.

 The only people who actually complain about ammo counters are people who are already used to them - like for instance, an AH gamer who recently started playing IL2 series, or etc etc.

[DoKGonZo]

If an analog ammo meter was good enough for dumb ole AW players 15 years ago, certainly it's not too "difficult" for AH players today.

And ... on a semi-related matter ... anyone know just how fine-grained the fire control on external ord was on WW2 fighters? Right now we're firing rockets as singles and dropping 1000 pounders from one wing while leaving one hanging on the other. Somehow that don't feel right ... but I don't have data on hand about it. (Yeah ... I know just how popular changing the external ord controls to "all at once" mode would be ... hehe.)