Cabby wrote:
What Daff said. WBIII's "tracers" are the most "realistic" of any online sim, and are user configurable as far as size and appearance. "Hit Sprites" the same. I haven't seen WWII type tracers, but I've seen modern .50's fire tracer rounds. It looks way different than the X-WING type stuff in WBIII. Best I've seen in a game is in IL2 with AH a close second - IL-2 109 tracers are unbelievable. WBIII leaves much to be desired - the explosions and damage effects etc look so good that it's almost like watching a guncam film from real life. Extremely well done - so it is unfortunate that my 'suspension of disbelief' is made impossible by the poorly made tracers. They yank me back to 'it's only cartoon planes on a computer screen'
As far as the "mushbirds" deal, this is a matter of stick scalings. I have very quick control response with my scalings, the FM doesn't feel "mushy" at all to me. For example, the WBIII P-38L rolls quite well, but "feels" like a 16,000 lb. twin engine prop fighter. The F4U and 190 series have wicked roll-rates and i dont feel any "mushyness" at all. I played around a lot with stick scaling. Even borrowed settings from a friend. While it alleviated some problems, the *initial* roll rate was still horrible. I gather you're right that you really feel the weight of the planes in WBIII - but the initial roll rate is just off.
WWIIOL, AH, and WBIII'S FM's are all pretty-much the same. All the FM's have "holes", that's the nature of the beast. Little differences here and there but you can cover all three with a small blanket. Which game you choose is a matter of personal preference based on price, graphics, gameplay, system reqs, etc. I'd agree. Unfortunately the lack of initial roll rate is such a huge issue that I won't play it. Initial roll rate is extremely important for setting up a shot. While I believe that AH is a bit lenient on roll rate (almost instantaneously stopping the roll when control input stops), I KNOW that it's wrong in WBIII. A Cessna 172 has got more simple control surfaces than a 190. It isn't optimized for rolling and hard maneuvering. Yet it still has an initial roll rate that's better than the WBIII 190. To make matters worse, it feels a lot crisper when you fly it. It's not just roll rate though - both in AH and WBIII, rudder input is decidedly sluggish and mushy compared to the twin engine Islander I used to go skydiving for. In it, when the pilot used the rudder, it was like an instant SLAM into a new nose position. Might just be good piloting though; the meat bomb driver was known for being able to control that plane and frequently made extremely steep approaches for landing.
I hope they fix it, as alternatives to AH will mean HT and the gang will work weekends to give us more cool stuff in AH
.
On a sidenote, how hard would it be to update AH's graphics? If we assume that we won't mess with the 3d models of planes and just overhaul terrain etc, and add those cool concussion rings to bombs and rockets (AWESOME in WBIII!), it should be doable. I mean, HT has gotten most things he initially wanted up and running now, so a graphics update would be worthwhile.
Although I'd rather have a) bombs for the C202 Folgore and b) a non binary damage model.
