Padlock

[tomldr]

Having spent a some hours now with Aces High, I would like to heartily suggest that a padlock feature be added to the program.  While the current view system is playable, the overall game experience is diminished when a person has to try to manipulate the view system to be able to keep track of a bogey.

Please consider that a pilot is able to padlock with his MK 1 Eyeball and track his target quite easily.  The only time he is challenged is at the merge or when he has blown a turn and the bogey gains position.  Besides that point, there is no real problem with keeping his eye focused on the target.  

This is not so with Aces High.  Simple maneuvers can often allow the player to lose the target because of view manipulation problems.  It doesn't have to be this hard, and most every sim I have on my HD (probably all) have a padlock feature.  I don't get why this essential feature is being left out?

Now, someone said to me during flight today that this is a "SIM" and that's why there is no padlock???  That absolutely does not follow.  If it's a sim, then it should SIM the pilot's ability to maintain lock on his target.  We do this naturally and swivel our heads to keep lock on a target.  This current set up is UN-natural and thus does not simulate a feature we all take for granted.

I am NOT proposing we have padlock be a magic button that always maintains lock even when the bogey is dead six.  There are limits to the padlock and I agree to that.  Please reconsider this feature.  

Sincerely,

Tom

[Jekyll]

I can see your point, but IMHO in a multiplayer sim like AH a padlock view is just gonna get you killed twice as quick!

If I'm in a dogfight, the absolute LAST thing I want to do is get fixated on the guy in front of me.. and a padlock view is, by definition, target fixation.

In the short term, a padlock view might help new guys maintain sight of an opponent, but in the long term it's going to give them really bad SA habits.

And remember, in RL combat you would not just stare at one aircraft continually... you'd be scanning the skies around you, even while in a fight.

Or at least, that's what the surviving pilots did  

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C.O. Phoenix Squadron
www.users.bigpond.com/afinlayson/index.htm
'feel the heat .......'

[Aussie]

I agree with jeykll. Using the number keys or your hat switch is something that takes a bit of practice, but its very effective once you get used to it. And as Jeykll says, the padlock function will have you looking out the front of the cockpit as you follow the bogie, instead of all around you where you should be looking. As you're watching where the bogie is with your padlock view, someone else is sneaking up on your 6. If you use your view switches, you'll know just where everyone is at all times.

The padlock might work fine in an offline sim, but Id hate to get distracted by it on-line with human pilots trying to kill me.


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aussie
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Any ship can be a minesweeper... once.

[miko2d]

 tomldr, in the years of playung WB, nobody complained about missing padlock after he/she played a few weeks.
 I realize that you are missing it if you got used to it in off-line sims. Give it some time. I am sure that you will not care about it after a while, especially if you have a decent joystic setup (preferably with an 8-way hat).

Good luck.
miko--
 

[Westy]

 I'm ALL for a padlock view!
 Just don't take away the fantastic one we have already.

 ---HeWhoWillGladlyKillaBogyWhoIsTargetFixatedDueToPadlockUseAnyDay

[tomldr]

Thank you gentlemen for your input.  I would like to add something to this discussion.  I think that the best of both worlds then is to have a padlock that will let you use the hat to scan the sky and then snap back to padlocked target.  

As to scanning the sky while dogfighting, I have to say that I can't see how you are going to line up on a bogey and get the shot while panning left and right to see if someone is on your tail.  I believe that is what wingmen are for...  I would love to see a good padlock feature, but it appears I'm in the minority.

Thanks again for your input.

Tom

[Westy]

"As to scanning the sky while dogfighting, I have to say that I can't see how you are going to line up on a bogey and get the shot while panning left and right to see if someone is on your tail. I believe that is that wingmen are for..."

 Checking your six and other quadrants constantly is called "SA" or situational awareness. If you know where the enemy is around you (all of them) then you're able to prosecute an attack better while keeping your defenses up.
 Quite honestly having thier heads constantly swiveling & checking the sky around themselves is exactly what almost ALL fighter pilots did as they went in on a target. And they didn't stop as they attacked either. Those who did quite often found themselves the victim to a 2nd or 3rd enemy pilot they failed to see closing in on *them*. That's why I said 'almost ALL' fighter pilots above. Not checking around as you line up? Well, that's how you get nailed by *his* wingman. You're wingman helps clear your six (vice-versa) but what happens when it is you two versus three or more enemy bogies?
 I'm not against a padlock view. It's a bit like flying with one hand tied behind your back but if folks like doing that then I'ld never stand in their way.  
 
 --Westy

[This message has been edited by Westy (edited 10-14-1999).]

[Firefox]

IMHO,  Padlock takes away the advantage of a good pilot.  The pilot behind padlocks you and no matter what you do he can follow where you are, Whether under the airplane (or low 6) or behind a ridge. I the canyons quite a few times I have led someone around a ridge only to pop up and over and come back down on his six as he flew around the ridge looking for me (there are 2 or 3 good spots for this). If he had padlock he would know immediatly what we were up to.


Leave it out please.



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Rick "Firefox" Scott
VMF-214 / MAG 11
WB ID: firefx
AH ID: FirefxAT
Have Gun Will Travel

[Swoosh]

Seems to me that padlock is necessary in modern sims, but in WWII sims, it actually is a hindrance.  I remember Flanker had the best padlock system I'd seen.  It would keep your view locked onto a bogey but you could disengage it at anytime to look around, and relock said bogey if you wanted.  Plus, it wasn't an "automagic" padlock--if the bogey dropped out of sight, you lost padlock.  

In Flanker, padlock mattered.  You needed it to be able to fire your Short Range Missles--I forget what they were called, but they would swivel on your wing depending on where your head was facing, provided you had a bogey locked on.  Modern pilots have monocles embedded in thier helmets with a little mini-hud on them.  Without this monocle, you couldn't fire your SRMs off boresight.  Flankers padlock closely approximated the real life systems necessary for a full afterburner, modern military fighter jock to operate the weapons platform.

All in all it was a good and necessary  system, but it wouldn't work right in a WWII sim.  WWII pilots only had their eyes to depend on... there was no radar, no computer aided monocle sight, no A2A missles.  If a WWII fighter pilot knew a bogey was on his left, he looked left and found it.  If said  bogey then flew under his plane from the left, the pilot could reasonably assume that it would shortly appear on the right side of his plane and look there.  See, the view system in Aces High and War Birds and other prop sims perfectly approximates this view system.  You want to look up, you press the "UP" button and look up, simple as that.  There is no reason to use padlock.  All a pilot needs is good SA and some common sense.  

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Swoosh of the Skeleton Crew

[This message has been edited by Swoosh (edited 10-16-1999).]

[tomldr]

As I understand padlock, it is not an invention for the modern sim pilot, even EAW has a padlock..  The padlock simulates the pilot's ability to track a target and for a flight-sim, this leaves the pilot free from having to play with the views as well as having to dogfight his opponent.  I want to be able to padlock my target (within human limits) and then stop playing with my hat.  Yes, I think there should be the ability to use the hat to break padlock and quick scan the sky, but once my finger is off the hat, the padlock should bounce back to the bogey.

Again, I say that padlock simulates what the human player can do with little effort.  Tracking a bogey is not something particular to modern jets.

Thanks for the input on this.  I figure it's a losing battle, but I'll keep trying to win converts..

[Falcon]

Tom,

Padlock is a converstal option in most hardcore simulations unfortunely. To me if it done right, like a visable range and no Laura Blair type head turning and have the regular snap views work along the padlock view like in MSCFS, EAW and WW2 Fighters, it might be accepted by hardcore players.

I am a hardcore player myself..but, I'm different than the other players. I got Cerebral Palsy and have limited usage in my right arm and hand, including limited reach range in my right thumb. I got no left arm usage at all, it just hangs out  . Why am I telling you and others this? I can't use the regular snap views in a furball. So, I need some form of a SA tool to help me. Yes I'll be fixated but, I'll be flying with my squadmates, I know they will keep a eye on my six (hehe sounds kinda kinky doesn't it?)

Padlock might be dweeby and unrealistic to others but its a helpful tool for a simmer like myself.

Falcon

[Minotaur]

Padlock is IMO only useful during the engagement phase.

Little use in the DF, unless it is a cheat padlock, that autolocates bog.

Mino

[SixGun]

For me padlocks disorientate me and wreck my immersion. With the exception of pilots with physical challenges surely the best “simulation” is to get very familiar with your controls and your mount and the likely behavior of the enemies mount….
Lock and padlock are very poor simulations of SA(IMHO), because they tell you where too look.  That’s like a HUD. It is much preferable to me to make it easy to look where you want. AH does that.
If you want to train for the view system in AH, down load War Birds and use the off-line dog fight. The off-line in AH doesn’t seem to have any enemies in it.

[aircat]

 I would say yes to this under tight situations.... it would have to break tracking as soon the 'head' in the cock pit would loose sight... so if he goes under you you dont track... or around a canyon turn... at this point you are technicaly blind to the bogies situation E state and angle of attack.

[Westy]

"Again, I say that padlock simulates what the
human player can do with little effort.
Tracking a bogey is not something particular
to modern jets."

 Padlock view, that is controlled by your computer, in no way mimicks what ANY human does.
 WWII or an F22. It just doesn't happen.
 It mimicks nothing natural and is the most
artificial crutch to ever be bestowed upon computer flight sim folks.

 --Westy