I have a few observations and a few of suggestions to the creators of AH.
The following is obvious to the people familiar with the basics of geometry, with respect to the simulations that claim to accurately reproduce the scale of the objects on the screen:
The size of the object we see on the screen relative to what we would see in real life depends on the following three values:
a) the field of view currently selected - same as zoom level
b) the size of the monitor
c) the distance from the user's eyes to the monitor.
The relative size of an object on the screen relative to the size of the real object equals the ratio of the field of view occupied by the monitor to the field of view displayed.
Example:
The eye is 22 inch far from the monitor (that is what I find comfortably).
A) The monitor is 20 in. viewable diagonal which makes it about 16 in. wide.
The monitor occupies 40 degrees of your horisontal field of view. So in WB you would see everything 44% size of what you would see in real life.
B) The monitor is 16 in. viewable diagonal which makes it about 13 in. wide.
The monitor occupies 33 degrees of your horisontal field of view. So in WB you would see everything 37% size of what you would see in real life.
Here is a little table of the scale you would see if the sim is set to the various zooms (FOV 90, 60 and 45 degrees) at a different distances drom the screen:
For a screen 16 inches wide:
DIST FOV90 FOV60 FOW45
22in 44% 67% 45%
19in 51% 76% -101%-
14in 66% -99%- 132%
8in -100%- 150% 200%
I would have to sit 8 inches from the screen to see everyting in real-life scale with 90 degrees FOV, 14 inches with 60 degrees FOV and 19 inches with 45 degrees FOV.
Variable zoom in MS FS allows to experiment with that and achieve a realistic scale easily. Exept that your field of view is so narrow, that you feel like flying a plane looking through a window 16 inches wide. You can fly Cessna like that, or even a bomber, but not a fighter plane - no Situational Awareness whatsoever.
Even a 21.6 inch wide screen (27 inch diagonal), achieved with fresnel lense gives me:
DIST FOV90 FOV60 FOW45
22in 58% 87% 116%
19in 59% -99%- 132%
11in -100%- 148% 198%
Of course with the focusing properties of a fresnel lence it is much easier to sit close from the screen - you eye focuses on the infinity, so there is no strain. But in order to get such magnification the lence itself should stand at least 6 inches from the screen (the further, the greater magnification). So it limits how close I can sit.
The tradeoff is obvious - increased FOV/SA versus better level of detail. You can easily see cons in half of the sky, but cannot tell which way he is pointed at 200 yards. Or you can see his ailerons move at 200 yards, but if you loose him from view, you need few minutes to scan the sky to find him again.
The opinions are not reconsilable - what is too much for one is too little for another. Without decent SA the sim is in no way realistic and will scare of new players. It takes weeks of determined practice to get used to narrow FOV. At the same time we need the detail - we need to estimate bogey's attitude and energy level for realistic ACM.
It was not crusial before because physics models were crappy and graphics cards/processors could not give us the desired level of detail, especially on 14 inch monitors. Not anymore.
The way to go is flexibility and different tricks.
1) With variable zoom everybody will be able to set the most suitable FOV. It looks like AH will have that. I suggest that they allow FOV from 30 to 100 degrees. More than that would be cheating.
Also please make a zoom setting that would give me 20 times magnification to simulate binoculars, so that I could admire the terrain features from 30K. Of course their use should involve some switching delay, require plane set to autopilot and not allow to aim weapons.
Then we could use terrain features to orient ourself, scout enemy ground forces and bomber formations from high altitude and fly BDA missions.
2) FOV Toggle. I would prefer 45% zoom for the front view when I am aiming and 90 or 60 degree zoom for looking around.
Obviously the maximum zoom should not be less then about 30 degrees FOV, otherwise people will use it for cheating in aiming. It would not be practical in a dogfight, but parking 1500 yards from a bomber's tail and shooting it with x15 magnification should mot be allowed.
Of course some planes had magnifying gunsights, so for them it would be OK.
3) Visual cues to compensate for the monitor limitations. In real life our usable FOV is not even 90 degrees, closer to 50, but we can move our eyes easily and register lots of things in peripheral vision. Some sims (like Flying Corps) have that. Let any plane within, say 110 degrees but outside selected FOV show up as a dot on the edge of the screen in that direction. May be even different size depending on the relative size of the plane. That would drastically cut down on the thumb work.
We would be able to follow bogey through ACM maneuvers without loosing him in an unrealistic manner.
4) Could you please allow incremental sticky views in addition to the snap views, so that we could switch them in 45 or 90 degree increments with left-righ up-down stick hat signals. Preferably with smooth movement between positions. It works fine in Flying Corps and in F4. And of course some indication of the head position, like in F4 (I mean small arrows, not reflections - those are cool but still the eye candy).
Three left presses on the hat would cause me to look 135 degrees to the left and see everything in between in the process.
And a snap return to the forward view, again preferably smooth and not too fast, depending on Gs.
Sticky views and snap views modes should be toggled or programmable to different sets of keys/hats.
5) How about setting two speeds of head rotation - fast and slow, switchable by a button press. Fast will be used for combat (still affected by G's).
Slow would be used for scanning the sky in peacefull flying. It would add a lot to the feeling of immersion. People without much practice get disoriented by sudden view switches, even with wide FOV. That is another reason that scares newbies from flight sims.
6) Multple monitor support would be nice - the more of them, the better, but that is for the future.
Regards, miko--
