Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: GADGET on January 23, 2001, 09:42:00 AM
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We all really loved the way HTC cared about little details when AH first came out. Those of you, like me, interested in technicalities of the airplanes we fly, were anxious to get any valid performance charts in those old times of WB. At that time we accepted charts from any source, and we even admited as true some data of doubtful accuracy.
We all had to wait until those very same guys of WB gave us a whole new simulation, but this time with the tools of the trade to get the best ride of our mounts.
Real life pilots spend lots of their precious time studyng those performance charts, not only for their own planes but also for those of their enemies, as charts are the very heart of tactics.
In the name of fairgame, we all accepted some delays in the publications of those charts when AH first came out, and decided to keep playing quietly. We all know that even nowadays some of the original fighters lack their corresponding charts. Some of those fighters are as important as the Spitfire Mk.IX, only flown by about 30% of pilots in AH. We also accepted those charts only for the fighters, excluding bombers, transports, vehicles and vessels.
Ver 1.06 is almost here, and with it a bunch of new planes. Does this mean that designers will have to stay up late to keep current with the corresponding charts for all those new aircraft? Or does it mean that we can forget about charts forever?.
Apparently, as a regular income is keeping HTC employees happy, and there is no more need to establish themselves in a fierce market, we all will have to learn to live without permonmance charts once more.
Please HTC work on those charts and keep yourselves on the right track to satisfy your customers.
Those of you that want HTC to keep publishing charts, please say so to PYRO and/or HITECH when found online.
GADGET
(http://www.geocities.com/ala-10/_private/FIRMA.gif)
101 Escuadrón de Combate Virtual (http://www.geocities.com/ala-10/)
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Gadget, I basically agree with you, but I understand that flight models change along the time and we are not going to have any definitive chart valid for future patches.
Anyway, I have an idea to solve that problem:
Just two commands available only for offline:
.stats on <segs>
.stats off
Once you issue ".stats on" commmand followed by a number of seconds, the system displays the following info (just like the FPS, free video mem, etc):
Current speed
Current altitude
Current rate of climb/dive
Current turn rate (degrees per sec)
Current g load
Current fuel
Current MAN and rpm
Current vertical angle
Current flaps and gear state
This info is displayed on screen, but also saved into disk.
The file name could be the name of the aircraft followed by .sta being this an ascii plain file.
The first line consists on the name of the aircraft and its ordenance.
Then, every choosen interval (<seconds> ), all the info displayed on screen is saved into a new line single on the file. This line starts with an offset of seconds since stats was turned on.
For performance purpose, the file may be filled into memory and dumped to disk once ".stats off" is issued.
This way, any player will be able to construct any desired chart with no deviations from any current patch, and, IMO, implementing this should be very easy.
[This message has been edited by MANDOBLE (edited 01-23-2001).]
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(reply to Man, not Gadget)
'scuse my ignorance, boss, but uh...
What the hell good is that gonna do? Most of the guys here don't know the difference between CV and carrier. With stick scaling and variable stick ranges thrown in you'll never get the same performance out of two systems. Or, am I reading too much into what you are asking for? Seems to me this kind of thing will only cause more whining.
Voss 13th T.A.S.
[This message has been edited by Voss (edited 01-23-2001).]
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Originally posted by Voss:
(reply to Man, not Gadget)
'scuse my ignorance, boss, but uh...
Ignorance scused mate.
IMO, for same parameters, recorded performance should not differ very much from one machine to other. But, obviously, this system offers you an almost unlimited set of parameters to start with. IMO, this is an advantage, not a drawback.
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I agree with that, but I think the phrase "Your mileage may vary" is very appropriate, too!
Voss 13th T.A.S.
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One thing tho....
RL pilots use these charts to determine the strengths and weaknesses of every plane. This is important because they will have little RL flight time against each of these planes. We however, have learned quite a bit about the strengths and weaknesses of each plane through trial and error. After each death, we can climb back into our plane with a whole new life and new knowledge.
RL pilots when they make the same mistake, typically dont climb right back into their plane (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
In short, we learn the planes flight envelopes through trial and error...RL pilots can't afford this and must learn these same envelopes through existing flight data.
-Ding
[This message has been edited by Dingy (edited 01-23-2001).]
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Wow.. Thnx Mandible.
Does the ".stats on" command automatically create a *.sta file? If so, what folder is it placed in?
Boy can you tell that this game was designed by a programmer or what? Awesome functionality... but only 1 person knows how to use it. (Job security I guess) (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
The FE and UI needs a major reworking imo. Instead of new planes/features, I would like to see a more intuitive interface with full documentation! This includes the Web Site FE. If there is anything AH players have in common, it would be scratching their head at some point trying to figure out what this or that screen does.
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Virage,
I believe Mandoble was PROPOSING a set of two commands to list this info not documenting the existance of these commands (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
-Ding
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Originally posted by Dingy:
Virage,
I believe Mandoble was PROPOSING a set of two commands to list this info not documenting the existance of these commands (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
-Ding
Right Dingy, it is only a proposal.
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D'oh! (slaps forehead)