This the way I see AH:

[DanielMcIntyre]

I know everybody has there own idea of whats fun and whats not etc in AH.  I have tried iconless combat and I found it to be extremely enjoyable but also extremely difficult too after having become used to the range finding systems currently used.

"I id the plane 1 v 1 only, then turn the icons off, merge, no idea on range, con is HO'ing me and me him, no idea on range, completely miss HO opportunity, get some damage because he's using range and can hit me.  ACM etc, very difficult, not sure when to fire, have to get real close b4 I can get hits, get some hits, but not really effective, hes bnz now, gets hits and kills me, deflection shot, I had difficulty with shots on his 6"

Point is that people are used to range icons, would be very easy to remove range finder, but still leave the country icon to prevent probs with killshooter.  The users on AH at the moment, many who were here when AH was just a baby have become accustomed to range icons.  Change frightens people, even changes in silly things like games, they're good at AH n they don't want that to change.

[SKurj]

garrido..

As far as I know Toad is a commercial aviator...


SKurj

[Tac]

"I'm flying in my p47 and turn off all icons that I can see."


You would only be able select icon settings in tower before flight, they cannot be changed while in flight. Like I said, just like Tracers.

"Now, if I were to head towards a furball. I can see their dots quite easily. I select one and go in for the kill, now with me turning off my Icons he cant see me either even with his Icons on full"

Correct. If You have no enemy icons selected (aka, no rangefinder, no ID, no icon at all) and I was your target, and I had full icons selected, I would not see your icon. Now lets say you had 2 wingmen with you (and you were rooks). Wingman #1 selected enemy icons On and nothing else, wingman #2 has selected full icons.

So when I look behind me i'd see:

You:I would not see your icon at all.

Wingman#1:I would only see an icon with a ROOK symbol on top of his plane. No plane ID, no rangefinder.

Wingman #2: I would see his full icon, showing range, ID and country.  

What you guys would see when they dive on me:

You: I would show no icon.
Wingman#1: He will see my country ID icon, no more.
Wingman#2:He will see my full icon showing range, ID and country.

Think of it in this way: What ever setting YOU choose is how the enemy will see YOU and how you will see THEM.

That makes things fair, since both you and your target (me) would have the same exact problems engaging each other.

[ispar]

Ok... I'm here mainly to comment on CT.
When I first came to AH, the presence of trim as a primary flight control pissed me off more than anything else. It seriously impaired my control of the aircraft, and because of the way I fly, I could not monkey with trim while fighting. Why? Because when I fly my entire concentration is on fighting and winning. I simply don't have time to fiddle with trim while trying to down an enemy con. This doesn't make me a bad pilot - I am not the best, but I am good enough to give most a run for their money - but that I need concentration. Before CT I was forced to level the plane and hit x every so often. Not a good method

I could put two of the trim options on my hat and fly that way, but both because I need to fly with one hand on the stick and one on the keyboard as it is, I would lose a lot of my ability to maintain SA and keep things going smoothly while flying. This is in addition to the above reason.

So, keep CT. It helps folks like me concentrate on the important part - the fight. Look on the bright side. You guys who are actually trimming have an advantage over me, given that CT in many a/c is inaccurate. I would ask that that be fixed. Not to make it perfect, but it IS WAY off in the F6F, for example.

Don't get me wrong - I love historic matchups, realistic e-fighting and accurate flight models. But some things, like making trim a primary control, requiring engine management, and other such sillyness, ruin the fun for me.

[PoGo]

Falling off my chair laughing....   If those are the only complaints AH is almost a perfect game.  You should try wwiionline if you like complaining m8.  I wasted over three months there and the latest patch convinced me to return to what I already knew was a superior game in every way.  Glad to be back.

[PoGo]

Woops forgot specs

P4 2k
1 gig rdram
gf3
etc
uber system needed to get 40fps at best on wwiionline!

[lazs1]

No arena duplicates the boredomn and the disipline of real WWII combat complete with worthless missions... thank gawd!

Trim??  sure, as soon as they have force feedback for trim and trrim wheels that DUPLICATE the feel and ease of real trimming.  Trim is a no brainer in a real plane and a joke  with no feedback like in a sim.

Metric guages... sure, make em an option for all planes.

Ammo counters... Ok, maybe we don't need em but we must have the option of different or tracers only for the last few seconds of ammo load.

icons... as pop says.. we are in 2D, how do we judge engagement speed without em..  we have much worse view than real life we need some sort of crutch.  Any form of no icons will result in killshooter or friendly deaths.   That did happen but was rare because they did not have the crowded airspace that we have with so many loners.

As for being able to sneak up on.... what a joke if it's done in the name of "realism"... someone just wants his style to have an advantage more than it allready does..  The patient cowardly player should have a bigger advantage on the majority of styles?   Hardly.  A lone wolf sneak is less realistic than any other style and should be punished if anything.
lazs

[Tac]

what the heck you talking about lazs? Read again, the only icons that would dissapear would be ENEMY icons. Friendly icons stay due to the fact that the MA has no defined planeset.

"As for being able to sneak up on.... what a joke if it's done in the name of "realism"... someone just wants his style to have an advantage more than it allready does."

really? get a bunch of friends in H2H and play with no enemy icons. You will notice the turn and burn planes will benefit a LOT from it 'cause there's no insta-reacquire visual and the E-fighters will only benefit from being able to bounce those who dont watch their 6 every 10 seconds. Fly enemy iconless for a few days Lazs, film it too. You may appreciate how the game can really be like.

"The patient cowardly player should have a bigger advantage on the majority of styles? Hardly. A lone wolf sneak is less realistic than any other style and should be punished if anything"

Care to explain this? I can make no sense of it.

[lazs1]

tac... friendly only icon would mean that everry other dot would be... an enemey.   Course you would have no way to determine what distance he was even tho in a real plane it would be relatively easy.   I don't wish to make the game more exciting and harder simply for the sake of making it harder when the no enemy icons would be less realistic.

In the ma... we have lone wolves in high alt fox holes.   this is extremely unrealistic.   They are hard to spot on a monitor when you are busy.  In  a real situation it would be at least 4 and maybe twelve planes that you would be looking for.   Pretty easy to see... especially when you have nothing else to do.

I don't believe that most of the lone wolfe alt weinies are worried about the low planes.... they are worried that if they come out of their high alt foxhole to sneak up on someone then someone just as timid will nail them before they can reach the safety of alt again.

What I would like to know is, what would be accomplished by such an icon setting?  In what way would gameplay be enhanced and how would it be more "realistic"?
lazs

[milnko]

Originally posted by lazs1:
... friendly only icon would mean that everry other dot would be... an enemey.

It also means ya don't know the enemy's plane type before engaging.
Tell me ya don't formulate a plan of winning the dogfight based on that information.

 

Originally posted by lazs1:
What I would like to know is, what would be accomplished by such an icon setting?  In what way would gameplay be enhanced and how would it be more "realistic"?
lazs

THE ASSASSINS and FAT DRUNK BASTARDS met in the dueling arena and fought with friendly icons only. It makes one keep his head on a swivel as real pilots were trained to do, it also causes the pilots to slowly scan the skies looking for the enemy, instead of doing fast sweeps looking for red text.

There are many war accounts of losing contact with the enemy as either pilot dove for the deck. Which is impossible to do with a big red neon sign directly over the con.

There are many war accounts of pilots disengaging a furball to return to base with A/C damage. Which is difficult to do with a big red neon sign directly over your plane for everyone to see.

And last but certainly not least is EVERYONE uses the big red neon sign over the bandit to predict gun deflection instead of the actually seeing the enemy's plane, people also use the icon to decide when to open fire instead of waiting for the enemy to fill the gunsight, how realistic is all that?

Getting rid of enemy icons would add uncertainty to every merge, lengthen every dogfight, and increase the need for situational awareness for every sortie.
That is how it would enhance the game.

Although I'm confident HTC will leave the settings as they are regardless of this thread or the many just like it.

[niklas]

- Fatigue of the pilot. Isnt normal to fly in black or redout as much time without having consequences.

This is imo not so important. But i propose to disable flight control in a black out.

Many pilots got used to the following manoevre: 7G turn, pulling back into horizontal flight, wait until black out is over, continue flight.
As a chaser, you have to fly a 4G turn to watch him - this makes the turn way longer. Until you closed up to the enemy who is flying level, he has enough time to recover from the black out. He sees you again coming and the manoevre repeats.
Many pilots have a lot of experience in flying with a black out. They can bring a plane from 90 degree bank back to level flight with a black screen.

I propose: In a "hard" black out, where the recover takes time, donīt allow stick control and especially donīt allow the activation of autotrim. I think some pilots simply pull as hard as possible for a break turn and bring their aircraft simply with autolevel in a controlled flight during the blackout. But a blackout should simulate unconsciousness, right? So donīt allow any stick input or autotrim in a "hard" black out.

niklas

[Zigrat]

dont agree niklas.... unless theres seperate levels, blackout and loss of consciousness.. the 2 are not the same thing, blackout occurs before you actually pass out, you can be fully conscious just blind under g load.

[Tac]

"They are hard to spot on a monitor when you are busy."

busy=dogfighting? Thats the whole point. When people fly all they have to do is do a snap-second view to their 6 or 12 oc to look for red icons. You dont look for a con, you look for the icon!

"I don't believe that most of the lone wolfe alt weinies are worried about the low planes.... they are worried that if they come out of their high alt foxhole to sneak up on someone then someone just as timid will nail them before they can reach the safety of alt again"

You do realize that all planes in AH, once they drop their DT's cant reach the safety alt more than 3 or 4 times? Fly in the CT for a while you will see people disengage and run away just to go to 25k again...and their gas settings allows them to do this 30+ times. In the MA you'd run out of gas by the 4th time or so.

"What I would like to know is, what would be accomplished by such an icon setting? In what way would gameplay be enhanced and how would it be more "realistic" "

With this icon settings, as I said above, those who want icons can have them, they can fight and see those who have similar icon settings as themselves. Those who dont want to have icons, or rangefinders will be able to turn them off AND be sure that when they engage an enemy, they wont find themselves at a huge disadvantage, since both him and his enemies will be on the same standing.

If you think a vet with no enemy icons is gonna be murder vs avg. pilots with full icons, think again. The moment you do a hard turn, for whatever reason (dodging another enemy which has icons and you can see), the vet will have a hard time keeping track of you, and I wont go into when you see notice him and start evasives. Any day you want, find me and we'll duel in the DA or TA without enemy icons, you will see how it really is like.

[lazs1]

milinko... in a real situation you know what "type" of plane you are about to engage because there are only 1 or two possibilities... In the MA there are dozensor more... still, in the MA all you get is spit, 109 or F4u or P51 in a lot of cases and so you don't lnow what model you are facing.

tac... the MA is not the CT...  The CT Icons are fine for a deserted arena or even a squad duel... In either case you only have a few planes to worry about and .... CT and squad duels are really not very popular.   The MA is popular.  can only B and Z four times before you have to run home for fuel?   Poor baby!  Hell, just come down and fite with the rest of us.   I like seeing a high icon.   I like knowing what the CS is flying and that he is an enemy.   In my squad, we say... high 190 or 51 or whatever, "he ain't comin down don't worry about him" or Looks like he's gonna take A shot at you watch him".   "Yeah np, I see him".    

Now to me.... I prefer anyone who won't engage to be "No Problem"..  That is good gameplay in my world.   For them to win by sneaking up and then running is not..You want a lone B and z runner to be a problem..   You want him to be cowardly and invisable.. Very bad gameplay IMO.  If he wants to be a problem, let him fite like the rest of us.
lazs

[niklas]

Originally posted by Zigrat:
dont agree niklas.... unless theres seperate levels, blackout and loss of consciousness.. the 2 are not the same thing, blackout occurs before you actually pass out, you can be fully conscious just blind under g load.

Thatīs why i wrote "hard" blackout. There exist two kinds of blackouts so far. The "soft" one (5-6G) where you can recover immediatly, and the hard one where it takes ~3 seconds to recover when you release your stick. I only want no stick control in the "hard" one, and a longer time to recover

niklas