Definition of Flight Simming

[RASTER]

Heard some chat on the radio about adding more ground operations and so forth. The WW2online experience although wonderful in many ways lacks fidelity. Certainly there are other flight sims with good flight physics but I fly AH mostly because of the Film Viewer which is the most marvelous achievement imaginable. This allows me to improve my pilotage. It allows me to check what the other did and what I did and why it was workable or otherwise.
If AH is considering changes, these should be aircraft related. There is simply too much game in the way online planes are piloted. Most gamers are not interested in learning about aircraft unless they have a special interest and honestly, flight simming is getting to the point where keyboards and limited knowledge make the simulation unplayable. So it is with this in mind, are we at the time, the point in the turn, the sign at the cross roads where the decision has to be made, is flight simming to be a hobby (sport) or a game. I would suggest that AH work towards making the aircraft more for the dedicated hobbist than for the gamers world.
I am not suggesting no ground operations or that they should be sparse or less intense but yes they could be much more intense but mostly AI controled.

[Lusche]

I would suggest that AH work towards making the aircraft more for the dedicated hobbist than for the gamers world.

And how will HTC deal with the loss of the majority of it's customers? 

[RASTER]

Without a doubt. A good example would be the air simulation tragedy of Targetware. Claims of high quality and high fidelity with poor game play based on hardcore historical scenarios. Nobody turned out even though the simulaton was free.

Looking to the future, what do you project we will have for hardware in the next decade. Some of this future hardware may be well suited to divide us between childrens games and adult pursuits which require a steep learning curve and patience. I am still interested in learning to pilot each fighter according to its real counterpart, in effect being a qualified pilot simply from simulation. Will that day come...who knows, but I would prefer seeing work done in that direction and not towards half way configured ground vehicles.

The reason I am here and not at WW2online is as I have said, to improve my flight. Add to that I started piloting online well over a decade ago and I am still learning technique so the point may reasonably be made that it takes a long time to learn and there always seems to be room to improve. Some folk see golf that way. Perhaps some day I will entertain a few of my business contemporaries while on a bombing mission or some such in preference to a golf game.

There are a lot of ways AH could improve without going going into the ground war.

  

[gyrene81]

I need more coffee...too early in the morning.

You're in the wrong place Raster. You want to be here --> http://www.x-plane.com/...that is a "flight simulator". Aces High is a "massive multiplayer online combat simulator game" with a WWII theme...and I bring up the same arguements as you when people wish for towed artillery, better infantry, submarines and such. What sets it apart from WWII online is the focus of aerial combat simulation where WWII online is focused on ground combat simulation...and the difference can be seen in the detail of the aircraft and flight models between the two games. Even though the physics of the aircraft is very close to realistic, it's still a game, and since no one is risking their lives for real, there will always be people of all ages "gaming the game"...can't stop them. Adding the element of "objectives" to the main arenas is one big thing that keeps people coming back...without the various objectives and added useable ground elements, all you would have is one big furball...and if that is what you want, there is the dueling arena...or IL2.

Just to satisfy you're desire for more realistic flight maybe you could wish for HTC to eliminate auto take off, auto pilot, auto climb, auto speed...then introduce random electrical/mechanical failures, weapons jams, advanced engine management, etc, etc, etc...but then HTC won't do that any more than they would eliminate the ground equipment.

[RASTER]

I have to agree auto takeoff is a bit of a duck and grin. Who me? Hope nobody noticed. I started off using the fuel selector and trimming my own but soon got so lazy that I never do now. I have tended to look down on other pilots who when entering other sims have no idea whats happening with cooling flaps and prop adjustments. Some of these folk are aces where they were spawned in sims such as 'Fighter Ace' and so on but they really don't have it when faced with realistic aircraft controls. I think aircraft sounds could be improved and all the textures could be much better with very little losses and a lot of extra time. What I don't really want is another WW2online, that is unless its a WW1 online but once again thats not simulated air combat thats a war simulation. Both good I suppose but this is a wish list isnt it.

[jdbecks]

complex engine management is not fun, in Rise of flight and IL2 I turned most of the so called complex engine management off, adjusting prop pitch..and fuel mixture with engine over heats was nothing more than annoying for me.

I prefer more basic management controls but a realistic physics/FM, having to press J to unjam my guns make the game realistic? nope not in the slightest, does it make you more knowledgeable or a better pilot...not always, its what you find fun that counts.

[guncrasher]

we understand that the game should be realistic up to a point.  we should not have to get a pilots license to play (j/K).  most of us joined ah because it  gave us the ability to simulate air combat, not simulate flying a real airplane in combat.  there's gotta be a good balance between complexity and easiness of playing (please forgive me If i misspelt or misused any word ).  It took me about 30 days to actually get a "real" kill, before that I would fly the 109's only because they could survive a ram against most planes  .  I dont worry about which tank needs to have the least amount of gas, if you do that's cool too.  all I worry is how much fuel to load and try not to get more than 49% of kills in a ho or vulching.  If the game gets into trying to figure out the proper fuel/oxygen mixture, or manually fine tuning the radio so I can get rid of static to hear vox, then it will stop being fun to play for me.  and lots of new players would get so frustrated that they would just quit after a few weeks.  less new players not good for our furball  .

semp

[RASTER]

Don't misunderstand me, what is being said has been proven in the most part to be completely correct. However, I am a bit red faced when I must admit at one time when AH was new, it had to compete with Warbirds "easymode" pilots and for the most part many of them would not leave "easymode" and I was one of them. Even Warbirds had to maintain an "easymode" area for the folks who would not accept stalls and trim. Again, my face is red as I liked "easymode" but I discovered that all things are equal...in that no pilot was excused from the same group of problems.

There are a lot of pilots who simply want to get into the air and get a kill. The concept is good and you can build skills but eventually it gets repetitive. I have seen great sim pilots simply stop simming for this reason. Good example would be "Crutch" who was the author of a book on flight simming and simply hung up his stick a year or two ago without giving much of a reason. And what happened to Chuck Yeager...he used to come around here often?

No...most of you are right. There has to be a line drawn on how realistic you want it but for myself, I still look at pictures of aircraft and wonder what that thing does and what that switch is for and wonder if I could handle it. But its true...very true, the high levels of detail are only for a very small portion of the paying public. But this is a wish list ain't it.

[Ghosth]

To me this is partly why FSO has been so popular.

It encourages, nay at times demands fuel management.
Also forces you to at times throttle down to max cruise mode in order to be able to reach the target, and get home.

It is in many respects the best of both worlds. Offering much more challenge in some area's yet still using AH best features.

However, would it be as popular if it was setup as a 24/7 anything goes arena?
Competing head to Head with the LWO/LWB setup?

I suspect the answer is no, although it might be popular with some people. I suspect most of them would come from the AvA/Midwar player group, not the Late war Mains. But until it is setup and run for a couple of months it can't be proven.

The majority like being able to jump in a plane, not have to think to much, go find a fight. And put there focus on the fight. Not running a checklist just to get off the ground.  And another to get your plane ready for combat.

There is a very fine line there, trying to move it very far in either direction would cost HTC dearly.

[BnZs]

Since the "gold standard" for complex engine management is Il2, I will tell you something: It adds almost nothing to the experience. Only thing it really does is make going from plane to plane slightly more complex, having to learn the "sweet spot" settings for each. And it can be "gamed". If AHII added more complex EM, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest but it wouldn't add anything for me either.

OTOH, on some of the other things people call HTC out for being "unrealistic" on, they are entirely right.

WEP Automatic shutoff-Seems unrealistic though? But if you look at other sims, their solution for WEP limitation is automatic failure, which is even MORE unrealistic. Why? Because quite simply, there would be almost 0 chance of say a P-51D's engine failing if the pilot accidentally pulled 70'' for 6 minutes instead of 5. These engines could be and were abused *far* beyond book limitations without failure. "Realistic engine modeling" if such a thing were ever carried out, would effectively give every plane near unlimited WEP!!! HTC's choice to auto-limit power settings to book WEP limitations if anything actually forces AHII pilots to be somewhat *more* conservative of their power settings in actual combat than many pilots were, not less.

Cockpits-On the scale of an average sized monitor, an entirely realistic cockpit simply cannot do what it needs to do-let you read your instruments at a glance. Making the instruments larger and easier to read is 100% the right move to make. In AHII, we also have one instrument they typically did *not* have-the G-meter. This is a 110% brilliant and correct choice to make, because you don't have any *other* indication of G forces being pulled, sitting in your chair at home. It is ridiculous that *ALL* sims don't include G meters.

Trim-This is a biggie. HTC has on many occasions explained why CT exists-because trim is much more of a problem flying a simulator with small desk-top joysticks than flying an actual airplane! On top of that, you *can* use manual trim in AHII and it even has advantages in certain situations. Overall, while making you use manual trim (or not having trim in the roll and yaw axis available at all for airplanes that didn't have it in R/L, like in Il2) might on the surface *seem* technically realistic, in truth for flying on the com-pu-ter it would increase the difficulty of having a trimmed stable airplane far above and beyond what it is when actually flying.

[Saurdaukar]

All I really want is a returned focus on the "High" part of "Aces High."

IMO; we've gotten stuck in the mire of non-flight related material... when someone posts a thread in here asking to update troops, to add field artillery or requesting a submachinegun for their bailed out pile-it; we're off target.

[BnZs]

The day may come when the only way left for AHII to expand is to become the All-Encompassing-WWII-Sim-To-Rule-Them-All.

That day is a long way off IMHO though.

All I really want is a returned focus on the "High" part of "Aces High."

IMO; we've gotten stuck in the mire of non-flight related material... when someone posts a thread in here asking to update troops, to add field artillery or requesting a submachinegun for their bailed out pile-it; we're off target.

[gyrene81]

All I really want is a returned focus on the "High" part of "Aces High."

IMO; we've gotten stuck in the mire of non-flight related material... when someone posts a thread in here asking to update troops, to add field artillery or requesting a submachinegun for their bailed out pile-it; we're off target.

  +1

WEP Automatic shutoff-Seems unrealistic though? But if you look at other sims, their solution for WEP limitation is automatic failure, which is even MORE unrealistic. Why? Because quite simply, there would be almost 0 chance of say a P-51D's engine failing if the pilot accidentally pulled 70'' for 6 minutes instead of 5. These engines could be and were abused *far* beyond book limitations without failure. "Realistic engine modeling" if such a thing were ever carried out, would effectively give every plane near unlimited WEP!!! HTC's choice to auto-limit power settings to book WEP limitations if anything actually forces AHII pilots to be somewhat *more* conservative of their power settings in actual combat than many pilots were, not less.

I think your just a little bit off on your assumption BnZs...the WEP was akin to modern nitrous injection, limited supply and hard on the power plant. Those warnings in the manuals were there for a reason...there were enough WEP related engine failures to cause concern. Remember, when a combat plane hit the paddock, a ground crew starting working on it...if the pilot firewalled the throttle, the ground crew pulled the engine and checked everything that could be damaged by the heat and stress...when a pilot engaged WEP the results weren't anymore predictable than the engine in a top fuel dragster...it depended on how well the ground crew maintained his plane.
What HTC has in place is a "simulation of fail safe"...(personally I'd prefer random engine failure).

[RASTER]

It has been put forward that realistic cockpits where the instruments and controls are accurately representitive of the real counterparts, that this type of cockpit would not fit on a average monitor sufficient to allow reasonable use. I suggest it can and have seen it in use on Targetware aircraft of many varieties which each support historically accurate cockpits and each with their own uinque instrumentation. However, that being said, it is also true that on some monitors the dials will be difficult to read accurately and occasionally some important instruments below the front view but in most cases it is entirely workable. I suggest, before making a counter claim that a person should examine the TW cockpits and make the decission from their own tests not from assumptions.

The use of Wep is a bit childish in AH form and there were more things to do that press a button. Most of all, as I said before, these WW2 engines can be made to produce 4000hp but they fall apart fast. It really depends if your fighting from your own field or from a field 1000miles away how you tune an engine and this should be represented in some way...by arbitrary engine failure if need be.

The ground war adds another dimension to flight simming but the problem here is the total loss of fidelity. With so much smoothing code, nothing is where it appears.

[gyrene81]

The use of Wep is a bit childish in AH form and there were more things to do that press a button. Most of all, as I said before, these WW2 engines can be made to produce 4000hp but they fall apart fast. It really depends if your fighting from your own field or from a field 1000miles away how you tune an engine and this should be represented in some way...by arbitrary engine failure if need be.

Raster, no offense man...but where the hell do you come up with this stuff? WEP was a throttle setting...in U.S. fighters it was a matter of pushing the throttle past the safety wire as far forward as it would go...the pilot did not have to perform other functions to enable it. And it wasn't massive amounts of power gain...depending on the method and the plane, 10 to 35(?) percent increase in horsepower...you could not get a 1500 hp engine to suddenly turn 4000 hp.


Your assertion on the instrumentation detail in Targetware is b.s. too...it's decent, as far as the cyber world view goes...if you ever get a chance to see the inside of a WWII fighter cockpit you will know.