Guages are all English, WHY?

[Badboy]

 

Originally posted by funked:
The only dislike I have of US units is that there is no distinction between the units of weight and mass.  Pounds are used for both, while SI has Grams and Newtons.

Doesn't the US system use slugs for mass?

Badboy

[hitech]

Stiglr those statements assume nothing of the sort, confusion and harder are not terms that say people can't do somthing.
Mearly adding another step at anything does make it harder.

Not being able to say im at 18k with out adding a unit Or haveing to ask the other person what system hes talking about does make it more confusing.

Just because people can make the conversion dosn't meen that they should have to.

These items fall under the area of what we are trying to create. A Air Combat simulator that uses WWII aircraft.
We are not trying to simulate all the systems in a WWII plane like a eng start check list ectera. Gauges fall into the same grey area.

What it comes down to as I see your post is that you belive the imersion factor out ways the having to convert and confusion factors.

I belive the flip side of that statment.

P.S.
In the future please try to keep your decussion to issues and not instantly start off with guessing a persons motives and starting off by way of a flame.

HiTech

[Stiglr]

"Merely adding another step makes it harder??"

For a sim that's supposed to mirror reality, I can't buy that one *for this argument*. It's already harder to fly an AH plane than say, a Fighter Ace plane because AH is a high-fidelity sim, where realism and accuracy are held in high regard. As I said, I'd agree with you if we were debating adding metric guages to planes that didn't have them, just to say you did. That would be stupid. Having metric guages (or even a choice of having them) in the planes that *did* have them seems to me, is just "getting it right". Whether you have, say, the option of having metric guages while flying a P-51D, well, that falls more to the gray area you speak of. And I fully agree that you have to stop somewhere between abstracting things for play and getting things correct. However, when it comes to the dials and guages that are critical to the understanding the status of your plane, I don't think it's too much to ask to have metric gauges. I'll leave it at that.

I don't want you to take this debate as a personal attack. Sorry if you did, mea culpa.

[flakbait]

Ever consider using upgrade packs as alternate downloads? If I wanted to use German cockpits I could just download a 5 meg file with real-live historical cockpits in metric. Same goes for Russian, Japanese, British, or Italian aircraft. Some would love it, others wouldn't touch it.

The catch: is it worth your time, and effort, to pull off such a thing when only 30% or so would use them?


Flakbait
Delta 6's Flight School

[StSanta]

Stiglr, beign European and having some American friends, you won't believe how often I get the question "well, hoiw much is 180cm in feet?" and similar questions.

When I am in Aces High, I'm there for the fun, not to respond to "how high is the enemy again, in feet please?"

I think many others feel the same way.

Historical guages would be nice, but really doesn't affect the fidelity of the flight model or anything else. More of a cosmetic thing.

That being said, I'd like to see 'um. Thos who cannot convert themselves would just not get an answer from me.

HT, what about historical ammo counters? Just gimme an aye or nay, and I shall go away without prostesting too much  



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StSanta
JG54 "Grünherz"
"If you died a stones throw from your wingie; you did no wrong". - Hangtime

[-lynx-]

Agree with StSanta on ammo counters the rest is bull - it all revolves around the system people are comfortable with or, rather, most people...

If you fly in RL - you may have an issue if for some obscure reason your country is using metrics when the rest of the world is counting feet .

If you don't - who cares which units you're using? 30K is "way too high for a normal person to climb up to", landing speed should be about 120 etc - you learn these things within a week. BTW, when WB went "realistic" gauges I personally found it very disorienting. Just think about it - the people who flew those planes in RL never had to hop from one into another and rake their brains for conversion tables.

Plus, in RL it's the sound of the wind, pressure from your seat to your bum etc to help you to judge, say, the approach speed, there's no real need to watch the gauges - all this is missing in a sim and working out conversions for speed/alt is IMHO totally unnecessary and boring .

I have friends who still meticulously convert miles into kms - I quit doing this ages ago when I realised that it still takes under an hour to get to, say, London whether I use 55 miles or 88km to count the distance. Metrification is a con anyway .

(p.s. I can add up - a degree in Physical Chemistry, and lived for 27 years in Russia - metrics all over the place )

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lynx
13 Sqn RAF

[miko2d]

 Metric system is my natural one. Nevertheless, I do not have problems with a system used in US (I do not think it is purely Imperial).

 In WB it was very difficult to switch between the planes with different systems. My squadron 416RCAF flew mostly Spits, but when in scenarios we switched to LW as a favor to CM, I was at a huge disadvantage because of the metric system, despite it being my native one. Different scale threw me off. Of course people who flew only one type of plane had advantage here.
 Many would not switch sides for balancing for exactly that reason.

 There is a huge inherent unrealism in this sim - people flying different models of aircrafts in the same month or even hour, flying the airctaft of the different countries. Flying together and having to communicate with pilots flying aircraft of different countries.
 So you can never simulate reality in this sim, but you can simulate a pilot's experience very close.
 None of the real pilots had to do unit conversions in their heads. That was not a part of their experience.

 If HTC spent time making multiple systems like WB, most americans would be pissed off.
 If HTC spent more time making it configurable, most americans would just ignore the metric system.
 And americans are the primary market for this game.
 I am sure HTC would come up with a better solution or promised one for the future if it were awailable.

 And stop whining about american influence and arrogance, for haven's sake. I am a european and it sickens me!
 Nobody forces europeans to buy american products and services.

 miko

[This message has been edited by miko2d (edited 09-14-2000).]

[jedi]

Hmmm.  Presumably the game engine "looks" somewhere to find the textures for the guages and whatnot.  Presumably the textures themselves are imbedded somewhere.

Look at MS FS and CFS.  You can find (and alter) most of the cockpit art.  Why not just "extract" the guage files from the aircraft models, and let the PLAYERS create new ones?  Sorry, but I've been playing SDOE too long I guess, and I KNOW that the community has artists every bit as talented as the "pros."  You could have realistic guages for every plane in the sim by next week IF the files were accessible.

I'll go even farther and say that the aircraft paint scheme files should be user-modifiable too.

There are several areas, IMO, where the community COULD have access to the code safely, and this is just one.  HTC could retain as much "control" over the process as they wished by "sanctioning" artwork, or creating a small "users development group" that is permitted to work with the tools.  Thus freeing up the real programmers to make new plane models, new maps, etc.

--jedi

[Ripsnort]

With all due respect, Jedi and Stigler, but you two were part of the 'very negative toward AH' crowd just months ago, why should you care?  Thought WB's was your knack?

BTW, out of curiosity, were  either of you two in the 'first year' of WB's? (CK)(I'm guessing "no" because most that fly AH understand that this product will only get better, as  WB's did, and most of us flying are of the 'Optimistic' mentality)

When we came from AW to CK (WB's), CK  was FAR from perfect, but alot of us saw an opportunity to 'add' our opinion to how the flight sim could be developed, Killer, HT, Pyro, Cali, and more "listened" and developed the fine product you have today called Warbirds.  Now, we have  the same opportunity to do that today with AH, so saying "Until this or that is fixed, I won't take this sim seriously" is very tasteless, after all, if you're going to help them develope the game, you have  to substantiate your claims by flying the sim on a regular basis rather than trying it for a day or two...then waiting for another update..get what I mean?  The Warbirds  you have today is due to 'user-feedback' in a positive manner.
(Rip gets off of  soapbox)

In regards to the thread, it would be nice to have an option patch to convert the A/C into metric for our Euro-counterparts, but I personally think HTC's money is better spent adding new A/C and feature today, and focus on smaller issues as this later on.

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Ripsnort(-rip1-)
=CO= VMF-323 ~Death Rattlers~
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[This message has been edited by Ripsnort (edited 09-14-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Ripsnort (edited 09-14-2000).]

[Stiglr]

All I have to say about all this is, it's real easy to say "Oh, just go with what MOST people use" when you're in that camp yourself. I spend almost 100% of my flying time in German iron and am now more used to metric than Imperial (at least for flying). And, I always stand by "...because that's how it WAS" as an irrefutable defense. It's not like I'm asking for an aide or a feature that wasn't there in the first place. But, as kids are wont to say these days, whatever.

And Rip, no matter how vocal or pro-WB I am, I'm still a paying AH customer (at least, for now). So, like it or not, I have and will voice my opinion. Don't be so thin-skinned and parochial: you will notice in your forays to AGW that I'm just as critical about WB issues as AH ones. And the day I feel AH is the better sim for me, I'll move in a second. I'm not a "blind" WB fan. I call 'em as I see 'em, no matter which sim I'm talking about.

[-lynx-]

Jedi - just think about it: 6 people (six!!!) knocked out a product that is miles ahead of things like MS CFS.

Customer-designed cockpits/skins is a workable idea, same as customised sounds/gunsights... But I guess that this would require a major re-design of the graphics engine to allow for a customised cockpit (say) to be incorporated into AH (preventing at the same time obvious thing like making it transparent etc ).

It's a question of available resources I think...

It would be really great though - HTC could then concentrate on core issues like actual FM, gunnery etc and plane "skins" can be created for a scenario or smth... Hmmm... I like it

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lynx
13 Sqn RAF

[Ripsnort]

Stig, thought (by the sarcastic tone of previous posts  both AGW  and AH) that  you were not a paying member.  Apologies for 'assuming' that.

Anyway, my point is this: HTC has a way to go in AH, and by giving them positive feedback (and not rediculing<SP> ) in these forums will only enhance the product, as it did in CK(WB's).

[Stiglr]

Ripsnort, asking for metric gauges for aircraft that really had them, as an enhancement, IS positive feedback, n'est pas?

As for the pros and cons of "ridicule", sometimes it's the only way to get a point thru certain thick heads. Just a few days ago, after bitter and acrimonious debates, some of us "negative people" FINALLY got Warbirds to look into their totally inconsistent 30mm. They checked, they hemmed, they hawed, they read research from the horse's mouth....they finally had to agree that it was porked. And God love 'em they *fixed* it (at least I think they did, have to wait until the Late War rolls back around to see for myself; but early testing by those who give a hoot says it's been fixed). We've been griping steadily about the 30mm for almost a full year now. If we'd been gentlemen the whole time, we would have been simply ignored; in fact, we *were* ignored most of the time when we complained vigorously, or just raised a point. Squeaky wheel gets the grease sometime.

Lynx, per your MSCFS comment, I have to say their cockpit art is the best I've seen *ever* in any sim. It looks like old, beatup military equipment with none of that glossy, fake Pixar look or any of the cartoonish look. It looks like the *real* cockpits I've had the pleasure to sit in. I wish more sims took their tack. Alas, that's about the only thing about that game that draws my attention.



[This message has been edited by Stiglr (edited 09-15-2000).]

[Ripsnort]

 

Stigler:"hitech, some of your reasons are pretty arrogant. Some of the same kind of reasoning that makes us Americans such villains in other parts of the world."

Then I suggest if you think your posts are  positive feedback, you need to re-think your logic on how you portray them, after  all, if you stick to facts, rather than opinions and self-motivation, you may get results faster and more efficient.

[Stiglr]

self-motivation??? Pot calling the kettle black, rip, judging from your posts at AGW, mmmmm?

Look, you don't like my writing style. Fine. I don't like your hypocrisy. Fine. At least I'm consistent in both places. I praise what I like, I pan what I don't, and I don't mince words.