Realistic Features Poll

[K West]

What?!!!

 You don't like AH just as it is?

 What the hell is wrong with you??

 And who do you think you are suggesting anything??






 
 BTW, the poll would indicate that of the respondants three items stick out like a sore thumb.

* Remove the auto-retracting flaps.

* Change the way the clouds permit you to still see icons thousands of feet away while buried in them.

* Remove "moonlight glare" inside cockpits & add nighlighting

and

* Add a permanent squelch feature.


  Westy

[Am0n]

Originally posted by Toad


Westy, not picking at you but have you ever read any WW2 Fighter Pilot memoirs that described a fight like that?

I've read a bunch, and I've never seen a fight described that was anything like that.

if im not mistaken hes not describing a actual WWII conflict, but a dogfight in AH.

[K West]

Thank you Amon  I was.  But in relation to that I was thinking of one particular WWII dogfight, out of several I remember reading about,  between a P-51 driver against a good 109 flyer. It was a touhg fight and the planes were whipped all over the sky. I cannot find the account and for some reason I keep thinking it was Gentile or Godfrey. But the pilot expressed how exhausted he was emotionally and physically when it was over. And I've seen that several times from acoutns of swirling dogfights in WWII.

Still looking. If only to share the story if nothing else.

Westy

[Don]

Westy:

I only responded to one of the items in your poll; the others I don't see as issues, nor have I experienced any of them.
I admit to a little disappointed in that, the things I think need adjustment, you didn't list. Hehe, but that the way of polls;)
As to pilot fatigue, I think thats a bit over the top; this is really just a game after all. If I'm fatigued I just log off and go to sleep or do something else
I'm more interested in things that will  make the game more comfortable for me such as; improvement of the inflight map so I can read it; make the sector coordinates and field numbers more readable. I have never noticed the issue with the 6 view, nor the clouds allowing one to see through them. I can attest to that because I got bounced a month or two ago by a guy and I didnt see him at all; and I was looking. I complimented him afterward and he said..."thanks, the clouds helped a lot"
One final thought because I read about "realism" so often in here and in another sim I flew once upon a time:
if this (AH) is to be so real, and so many clamor about realism, whats the deal with the giant squid in just about every map in the game? Hmmm?

[AKSWulfe]

Westy, is that the one where the pilot is a back-up escort for a larger formation? If this is the one, it's in the Aces Over Europe manual.
EDIT: and he was sweating profusely because his cockpit radiator was still on as the fight descended.
-SW

[Toad]

Tired, sure. Adrenaline letdown, sure. Sweaty, absolutely.

I personally have just never read any account that featured the continual maneuvering and blackout/grayout/redout g-effects as Westy described them.

As I said, I think AH allows us to do things that either were probably not or could not be done in WW2 fighters.

That's all I'm saying.

[K West]

Strider, I was only able to list 10 items out of the big bunch even I'd come up with.  Items such as GPS maps, 109 slats and a few others I'd not thought of or read about till after but wouldn;t be able to add them either.
  As for changes to the GUI and in game interfaces. Those are not what I would have considered candidates for the category I'd given this poll. But imo they would have definately deserved a poll all of thier own.  FWIW it took a long time to even get ajustable colors for the icons and things. But imo that was a direct result of players constantly asking HiTech for that feature over the past couple of years.  So don't give up on the map issues. BTW, the map on your clipboard is a bmp I beleive and the numbers are just text layed onto it.  There is no grid overlay on top of the arena map so perhaps a different font and color by HTC would help. Maybe not. Beware asking for changes though      (j/k)
 As for the clouds? Maybe it's a graphics bug for only some GFX cards. But I do know that many other people can enter the cloud bank, get an all encompassing gray sky and still see the icons of other planes as plain as day.   This occurs mostly in the overcast cloud formations anbd I beleive I've seen it in the white billowy ones also.  I've just run into the overcast clouds more than the other type over the past few months.  So his comment may have alluded to something else altogether other than what you took it for      But I fail to see how adding metric guages, moon glare, wind, firing buttons, removing auto-flaps, ammo counters etc etc are things that would make AH too painfully realistic.  Pilot fatigue and the 7-to-5-via-6 view thing are two items that could be argued as being so.

 
SW, that wasn't the reference but thanks. I think I have it saved on a CD rom at home. I got a bug up my butt to find it now.


 Toad,  that' partially my whole my point. RL pilots did feel the effects from a bout of rigourous aircombat  and without doing the crazy action I described above. Yet we can endlessly just about with no ill effect what so ever. And I see what I wrote of all the time online. However, for the sake of peace and tranquility I'll strike that item from my poll (well I would if I could so just imagine it's gone)  

 Westy

[Toad]

Yeah, they felt the effects... usually well after the engagement I think. That's the adrenal letdown part.

Rare (if not non-existent) to read an account that says "I was engaged for X minutes and finally reached a point of exhaustion. I could no longer maneuver."

Also rare to read an account where anyone engaged almost continuously for an extended period as we commonly do in the game.

Just another example of why this IS NOT a simulator.

You just can't simulate the actual conditions under which these aircraft were used....there's no actual war going on with missions that must be flown and there's no penalty for or fear of death.

Heck of a great game, though.  

[Zigrat]

they got thanked with the electronic withdrawl every month toad. imo it is more the business' responsibility to thank its customers, not the other way around.


as for complaining, i think its necessary. unless you point out problems, they never get fixed. and htc staff really dont play the game enough anymore to know where the problems lie. hence the need for critisism.

[Toad]

Zig,

I've been called "on the carpet" by lots of folks. Some guys can criticize you in such a way that you leave thanking them for their leadership and guidance. Other guys don't have that technique and you leave wanting to kick their prettythang or wanting to choke the living short out of them.

It's all in the way you do it.

Which kind of guy would you rather be?

I'd rather be the the one that gets thanked.  

I'll close with this observation: Nobody likes getting b*tched at all the time and everyone likes a little recognition of their efforts now and then. This BBS is pretty long on one and short on the other. I'll leave you to figure out which is which. Don't see where including an "attaboy" choice in this poll would have hurt it at all, do you?

YMMV.

[Zigrat]

btw just for kicks i thought i would mention where i lie.

i think htcs view of a simulator is great. i have only relatively minor problems with modeling of aircraft etcera (gvs are a different story)

i think his gameplay vision is lacking. it really is only evolutionary from the revolutionary concept that the creators of air warrior had years ago.

in terms of vision, i really have to admire the guys at cornered rat. their vision was much more grand and they had much loftier ambitions. unfortunately, their ability to execute was lacking.

imo htc really needs a visionary, because while hitech and crew seem to be competant coders and certainly have the ability to execute, they lack a leader with a revolutionary gameplay concept. same old field capture model via parachutes is kiiiiiinda dated.

[AKSWulfe]

Uhm, you know why the CRS model failed?

Because of this "vision"- their "vision" involved doing everything all at once rather than building it up to the point that it was their vision.. only realised.

Their failure was their vision, if they began it like HT, the wouldn't be in the state they are in now.

I notice one thing when I look back at what HTC had, and then I look at what HT&Pyro put into interviews of what they WANT to have.

The only difference seperating CRS and HTC is that HTC has a working product that will be leaps and bounds beyond where CRS will be when their currect product is finally working.

You start small and end with a big bang, don't start big because you just go out with a snap crackle pop.
-SW

[Don]

Hell Westy:
It was a good poll, and generated some informative discussion. I just get a wee bit confused, first; by so many polls, second; by what individuals see as important and unreal; and third; what about that damned Squid!
LOL! The first time I ran into it, I felt sure there was an nme lurking on dar in a particular sector. I wasted a lot of time searching for it, only to find the dang thing in some out of the way pond!
Every time I see it now, I suck my teeth and am tempted to blast it out of the water for fooling me. It is a constant reminder of having gotten fooled by a quirky aspect of the game

[K West]

Well. I have to admit failure for not finding what I thought would be irrefutable anecdotes that aircombat is fatiguing on the spot and not just a physical let down later and after the fact.  In any of the aircombat stories I found online did I see where anyone wrote, or even wanted to admit ( ) that during combat their arms grew weary and the aircombat stress and physical requirements were causing them to slowly lose the ability to fly thier planes as hard as they had in the beginning of a fight.

 So I'll just leave these two reports as a finale' to the topic and poll.

""...Gentile still managed to keep one jump ahead of the German, but his desperation mounted. The Hun was lathered and remorseless, having seen the American clobber the two 190 pilots, his acquaintances and perhaps his friends. He knew by now that the American with the "Donnie Boy" insignia was a superlative pilot; this was a chance to blast an American ace out of the sky without risk. He kept firing, but the American always climbed or banked just inside his line of fire. Gentile felt like giving up; he was going to be shot down anyway; it would be better to get some altitude and bail out. But he had some last words: "Horseback, Horseback! If I don't get back, tell 'em I got two 190s!"
 The two fighters were flat-out on the deck, down by the railroad track, the German on the American's tail firing. The German began to close the gap. Gentile suddenly honked his ship up and stood it on his prop until it quivered and was ready to stall out. For the first time Gentile had gotten above the Hun and could have swooped down on him for a kill had his ammunition not been exhausted. Gentile had preserved himself. He had made the Hun fire all his ammunition without hitting him. The German suddenly peeled off and sulked home, his two FW comrades unavenged.
 Gentile bounced down the runway at Debden. He didn't bother to gun the motor before switching it off.  He was spent and worn, his very fingers heavy with weariness. The intelligence officer jumped on the wing of his plane to interrogate him. Gentile didn't
answer, just sitting in the cockpit rolling his eyes and panting."
http://www.westnet.com/~ssherman/usaaf_gentile.html



"There's one point I really want to stress- "G" forces; they're a unique experience :-)  As I was midway through my third straight "rolling scissors", on the verge of losing my eyesight yet again,and realizing that I'll have to bleed off some airspeed before it will return and I can attempt to resume tracking the other aircraft, that I finally realized -holy s__t - this is _really_ _hard_ _work_! By the time we landed I was exhausted, sore, dehydrated, and my flight suit drenched with sweat. I had sore neck, back and arm muscles for the next two days. Total time aloft? Roughly50 minutes, of which maybe 10 were actually spent dogfighting.
http://www.ccnet.com/~craner/acusa.html

Westy

[Maniac]

Back in WBīs i liked the fact that when you inverted certain ACīs the engine would cut out, (think it was on the early war ACīs).