Engine Management

[Bugjam]

Oh well... I fly 190 most of time. Didn't it have some sort of "brain box" and the only lever you needed to use was throttle  

[Sascha JG 77]

Yeah bugjam..I heared that too. It was called "Kommandogerät" I think, and from what I hear it was pretty much ahead of its time.
Some versions of the 190 had an option to override the Kommandogerät though to produce more power for a short period of time.

Again...this ain t gospel..I just read it in several books/publications..can t remember which ones though  

Sascha

[Brazos]

Check out Tomb's post " Engine management,A Simple Solution"

He has come up with a outstanding way for us to have our cake and eat it too. Newbies never have to struggle, and good sticks get to fuel use and engine temps. It's a nmo brainer! And would give AH a realism edge over every other megaplayer sim.

[Kats]

B17 II went into alpha yesterday.

"We have modelled every switch, knob and control in the B17 in 3D and you can click/move every one. The engine start sequence is straight from the original flight instruction manual. Every switch does the right thing. The engines are modelled down to the level of turbo and supercharger performance, inlet/exhaust manifold pressures etc.

This, my friends, is the future of flight simms. Anything less will be dead in a year, or really really cheap.  

                                       
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[This message has been edited by Kats (edited 08-05-1999).]

[popeye]

"We have modelled every switch, knob and control in the B17 in 3D and you can click/move every one."

This is why I think bombers should be the first (only?) to get engine management.  It would give the bomber pilots something to do during climbout, and we all know they are more <cough> detail oriented than the fighter guys.  

popeye

[Mark Luper]

It has been stated that the keyboard interface would be clunky... well maybe but if all you added was prop pitch, and mixture you only need 5 keys. Use the four arrow keys, for example, up arrow coarsens the pitch, down arrow makes the pitch finer, ad the shift, control, or alt key to any one of the above and you get full fine or coarse pitch. Use the left and right arrow keys for mixture and  with either the shift, alt, or control make it go max one way or the other. Control-wise, it seems awfully simple to me and if you want... do what poppeye said, just put it on bombers :-).

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Mark (-mark-) Luper
Fighting Chaplain
500th Bomb Squadron, 345th Bomb Group
Rough Raiders

[Windle]

Hell, why not have mouse clickable controls? Have the switch on the screen and click on it to switch it just like choosing a base to fly from of which plane your going to fly. Isn't that why the 'mouse' was invented decades ago? Why isn't this considered a viable option? I can think of many different controls to use with a mouse click - switching tanks, gun box & gunsight options, etc.

Beyond that, there are MANY keyboard options still available. I don't mind hitting 'Alt- or Cntl-whatever' to make things happen. I had pretty much every key function in WB down within a couple of weeks of my first sortie.

Aside from the fear that newbies might be put off by the complexity of a few more control options, I don't see too many concrete reasons why AH should dawdle around creating likenesses of yesterday's mindstate when immersion is in the forefront of 'simming's future (remember Space Invaders ). There are ways to introduce new functions without it being a hindrance to the newbie. If you create the functions so that advancing players can benefit while the reluctant players can still maintain a fair to average performance level, that would be smart design IMO.
If you could find data on the drag caused by open cowl flaps, the power increase offered by each stage of blower, the COG offset caused by empty vs. full fuel cells, the efficiency ratios of variable speed props, then by all means add the stuff. If it's too complicated then make these functions 'auto functions' until the pilot alters their settings. Later he can type '.auto prop' to revert back to dumbed down pitch control, etc.

I want more options in a dogfight and the ability for HTC to do it is there. I mused over the factors of in depth engine control, gun box, gun charging, and sight options, multi-blower settings, and more long before I ever played WarBirds. Even now in this age of 'the best' fighter sims I've yet to find the ability to fight the way I'd like to fight - with the same faculties available to WWII pilots.

Lets see some options!

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Windle
*Future Aces High VF-17 'Jolly Rogers' squadron 8X