Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: BnZs on November 09, 2008, 05:48:47 PM
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...Or at the very least the best one I've tried thus to far.
Reason #1. THE VIEWING SYSTEM! :aok :rock :aok :rock
I can't stress this enough. Every time I try to play another combat sim besides AHII, I find myself missing the viewing system. This is the only sim I've ever tried that allows you to use buttons on your stick to track the bandit with anything resembling the ease of simply moving your head to track moving objects in the real world. While simultaneosly being able to maintain situational awareness in a multiple-bandit situation, the Achille's heel of all sorts of "padlock" viewing modes.
No matter how good in other respects different flight sims I've tried are, you always find yourself missing the the AHII viewing system and not being able to proceed about the business of maneuvering the airplane nearly as effeciently.
Reason #2. Readable instruments. You should be able to check your instruments with a glance at the forward view of your cockpit. AHII is almost unique amongst combat flight sims in actually being able to do this.
Speaking of instruments, the highly visible G-meter in AHII is a God-send. Even though most WWII airplanes didn't have them, it is entirely appropriate to mount a G indicator in any sim cockpit, to make up for the lack of physical feeling of G forces. Same goes for the audible angle of attack indicator, or stall-horn we have. Without the subtly input of control feel, entirely appropriate to model it into a sim.
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Double post deleted.
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oh I thought it was because of the excellent political debates.
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And AH has actually made it's updated planes look good. I almost cant stand WarBirds planes because of how old they look. I like the AH fact where I can look out at my wing and go, "geeze, that looks good"
Even with the non-updated planes...
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That, and it puts other costly flight sims to shame with its simple online system and helpful community.
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That, and it puts other costly flight sims to shame with its simple online system and helpful community.
A lot of the time, the community isn't anything near helpful. :salute
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One of the best gaming community's and film viewer for me. :aok
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I've never played any other online game or flight sim. What hooked me is the level of competition of players from all over the world. Pitting my skills against an actual person sitting in his home in London, Sidney, or Berlin perhaps. When I was a kid growing up, PONG wasn't even around yet. So this is pretty cool to me. :salute
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Once I found 200 Text., I was hooked. Better than TV....Sometimes I just sit and watch the text trying not to fall out of my chair laughing.
Just my opinion,
Fred
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Once I found 200 Text., I was hooked. Better than TV....Sometimes I just sit and watch the text trying not to fall out of my chair laughing.
Just my opinion,
Fred
Been there done that! :rofl
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A lot of the time, the community isn't anything near helpful. :salute
fine:That, and it puts other costly flight sims to shame with its simple online system and helpful-ish community.
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A lot of the time, the community isn't anything near helpful. :salute
I beg to differ. The community is often very helpful....it simply has a low tolerance for fools. :salute
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AH at the current time is made up mostly of veteran sticks from Air Warrior,War Birds,and some from the beta days of AH.AH has survived,and is now the only decent combat flightsim.The old vets have made this flightsim what it is today.
IronDog
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Aces High is made entirely of awesome and win :salute
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australian time zone weekday evening
Targetware 1 player what the hell fuel tank am I even on
Warbirds 7 players and dropping
Aces High 100+ players
thats good maths in my reading
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(Phatzo, um . . . what is your avatar picture? I was almost afraid to ask.)
I think AH is the best for a variety of reasons, not necessarily in order of importance:
-- It has the largest player base. Can't have an excellent multiplayer flight sim without enough players.
-- It has a lot of great special events and is the main place for scenarios.
-- The community and BB is excellent.
-- The flight modelling and attention to flight-test data is excellent.
-- The view system is the best way to do it. Every other way I've seen of doing it sucks in comparison.
-- It has a good (and over time getting even better) aspect of realism.
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...Or at the very least the best one I've tried thus to far.
Reason #1. THE VIEWING SYSTEM! :aok :rock :aok :rock
I can't stress this enough. Every time I try to play another combat sim besides AHII, I find myself missing the viewing system. This is the only sim I've ever tried that allows you to use buttons on your stick to track the bandit with anything resembling the ease of simply moving your head to track moving objects in the real world. While simultaneosly being able to maintain situational awareness in a multiple-bandit situation, the Achille's heel of all sorts of "padlock" viewing modes.
No matter how good in other respects different flight sims I've tried are, you always find yourself missing the the AHII viewing system and not being able to proceed about the business of maneuvering the airplane nearly as effeciently.
Reason #2. Readable instruments. You should be able to check your instruments with a glance at the forward view of your cockpit. AHII is almost unique amongst combat flight sims in actually being able to do this.
Speaking of instruments, the highly visible G-meter in AHII is a God-send. Even though most WWII airplanes didn't have them, it is entirely appropriate to mount a G indicator in any sim cockpit, to make up for the lack of physical feeling of G forces. Same goes for the audible angle of attack indicator, or stall-horn we have. Without the subtly input of control feel, entirely appropriate to model it into a sim.
was right with you up till the end man, turned the horrible stall buzzer and buffet warning off soon as they were added. I dont have a licence but i have flown some in a few civil and military props and gliding. As far as 'feeling the physics' of our simulated flight goes, the only thing lacking is me actualy rising out of/being sucked into my seat. When i think about it now, relying on the stall horns could limit you by substituting the 'feel' of flight for an audible warning that triggers a corrective reaction in the back of your mind.
I didnt even know we had a G meter! learn somthing new everyday. AH2's FM is unique and whilst nothing virtual can be realistic, the 'feel' is there in every aspect aside from the pressures to the pilot themself. all, of course, imho
S!
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...Or at the very least the best one I've tried thus to far.
Reason #1. THE VIEWING SYSTEM! :aok :rock :aok :rock
I can't stress this enough. Every time I try to play another combat sim besides AHII, I find myself missing the viewing system. This is the only sim I've ever tried that allows you to use buttons on your stick to track the bandit with anything resembling the ease of simply moving your head to track moving objects in the real world. While simultaneosly being able to maintain situational awareness in a multiple-bandit situation, the Achille's heel of all sorts of "padlock" viewing modes.
No matter how good in other respects different flight sims I've tried are, you always find yourself missing the the AHII viewing system and not being able to proceed about the business of maneuvering the airplane nearly as effeciently.
I guess u really have not played many other flight sims lol.... Every flightsim I ever played had the hat switch option... What aces high gives u is an unreal type of a view were ur head presses through the canopy so u can see lol...It will get old and boring to u before 2 long :aok
Reason #2. Readable instruments. You should be able to check your instruments with a glance at the forward view of your cockpit. AHII is almost unique amongst combat flight sims in actually being able to do this.
Speaking of instruments, the highly visible G-meter in AHII is a God-send. Even though most WWII airplanes didn't have them, it is entirely appropriate to mount a G indicator in any sim cockpit, to make up for the lack of physical feeling of G forces. Same goes for the audible angle of attack indicator, or stall-horn we have. Without the subtly input of control feel, entirely appropriate to model it into a sim.
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Even though most WWII airplanes didn't have them, it is entirely appropriate to mount a G indicator in any sim cockpit, to make up for the lack of physical feeling of G forces. Same goes for the audible angle of attack indicator, or stall-horn we have. Without the subtly input of control feel, entirely appropriate to model it into a sim.
Glad you think the stall horn is useful. :)
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Yep, I agree that the stall horn is vital. We can't feel the plane's response, so while WWII fighters didn't tend to have stall horns, for us it is the analog of feeling increasing sluggishness or vibration.
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AH has an outstanding training pipeline. Most of all outstanding trainers that can get a new guy up to speed quickly.
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Pluses I see in AH:
-View system. While a little bit on the permisive side, it's better and more realistic to have this freedom of views than the highly restricted (and completely irrealistic) 2DoF views present in "other games".
-Player base: both quantity and quality, AH's community is by far the best of any flight simulator today. Helpful, informative and large.
-Customer attention: top notch. No other company comes close to the immediate feedback and support you receive each time you have trouble trying to play Aces High.
-MMOL. As much as there are tries to emulate it (and there are), "other games" servers will never equal AH's. 64 people online may seem a lot, but in AH you can get hundreds of virtual pilots flying in the same server, in a given day. Noone can beat that.
-FM/aircraft performance. Open channels of communication with a very good development team, and (more or less) known sources for the planes FM in the game mean that you might be in disagreement with some plane's performance numbers in the game, but still those numbers are backed up by a good deal of well known information. You might think the developers have chosen a more or less representative data for a given airplane, but at least you know that data exists, is true, based on real WWII sources and not from hot air.
"other games" use sources unknown by anyone out of the development team (and my bet is that they are also unknown by them, lol) and the performance numbers/FMs of their planes is highly questionable to say the least.
Of course I also think there are certain areas AH could improve in...
1-Gunnery/damage model:
Certainly damage model in a MMOL is limited by the same nature of the game itself, you can't detail it too much or you would use too much bandwith. One can live with it, but if it could be improved it won't hurt ;).
However Gunnery...I don't know wether it's for lack of a detailed model, or for gun dispersion being too small within the game, but a WW2 air simulator that allows for relatively easy hits at distances of 1000 yards (and with certain guns, catastrophic damage caused by said hits) is a simulator which should improve that department. In WW2 hitting fighter-sized planes at distances over 300m was extremely rare, most kills being achieved at almost knife distance.
2-Icons
I'm all for icons. Once upon a time I thought we should get rid of them, but after experiencing what an icon-less air simulator is, I have to say they are needed. Compensates for the lack of lateral vision and the lack of steoroscopic vision a player has in front of his screen. In real life it's much easier to spot and judge closure rates of another plane than what it is in an icon-less game.
However, in my opinion, icons should be rethought. An icon shouldn't really be a neon billboard you can instantly see as soon as you are into 6.0k distance from a plane ,and that almost kills the chance of surprise attacks unless you're attacking an AFK plane or someone without the slightest degree of SA.
Icons could be more subtle and do their job while still giving the chance of a good surprise attack: Make it so Icons don't pop out instantly as soon as you enter 6.0 range, make them so you get max brightness of the icon at close ranges (D0.6 and less) and slowly fade away until they are at 6.0k and dissapear completely.
Right now a simple scan of the sky around you will put you in alert if an enemy plane is 5k away. With the system proposed you might not see the very faint icon if you don't do a thorough search, and the next time you scan that part of the sky, he might very well be already attacking you...
just as in real life ;)
3-Graphics
Lets admit it, there are games with better eye-candy around. But who the hell cares...I don't :)
s!
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"Gunnery/damage model:
Certainly damage model in a MMOL is limited by the same nature of the game itself, you can't detail it too much or you would use too much bandwith. One can live with it, but if it could be improved it won't hurt"
well gunnery/damage is better done in ww2online imo.
Icons should not include range, -only a + or - sign in so we know if enermy is closing or going away from you.
best icons are currently represented in ww2online imo.
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"Gunnery/damage model:
Certainly damage model in a MMOL is limited by the same nature of the game itself, you can't detail it too much or you would use too much bandwith. One can live with it, but if it could be improved it won't hurt"
well gunnery/damage is better done in ww2online imo.
Icons should not include range, -only a + or - sign in so we know if enermy is closing or going away from you.
best icons are currently represented in ww2online imo.
Have to agree with this. Take away the actual range. Plane type and enemy color should be readily observable though. WW20l's icons rely on the fact that you know the silouhetts of enemy a/c (i.e. a 110 and a stuka are different then a Hawk75 and a DB-7)- which doesn't apply at all in AH since everybody flies the same "stable".
In the AvA or during FSO or some other scenario, though, that's different.
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All the things others have already mentioned plus it's, by far, the best bang for my buck as far as entertainment to cost. $15.00 per month, as much as you want... very affordable fun!
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australian time zone weekday evening
Targetware 1 player what the hell fuel tank am I even on
Warbirds 7 players and dropping
Aces High 100+ players
thats good maths in my reading
TWAS about 650 in TT last night :aok
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TWAS about 650 in TT last night :aok
I saw 700 on the server when I first flew last night in TT.
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-FM/aircraft performance. Open channels of communication with a very good development team, and (more or less) known sources for the planes FM in the game mean that you might be in disagreement with some plane's performance numbers in the game, but still those numbers are backed up by a good deal of well known information. You might think the developers have chosen a more or less representative data for a given airplane, but at least you know that data exists, is true, based on real WWII sources and not from hot air.
"other games" use sources unknown by anyone out of the development team (and my bet is that they are also unknown by them, lol) and the performance numbers/FMs of their planes is highly questionable to say the least.
"Other games" confused FM/aircraft performance with "patriotism" old style. Fortunately in AH P-47 D11 can't outclimb 109s or Spits @SL.
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I hate the icon system in WWIIOL (or at least as of my last playing of it a while back). Coupled with their crappy viewing system, it made it almost impossible to keep an enemy in sight, even at ranges where you should be able to without trouble.
Here are some of the problems with the WWIIOL icon/view system, in my opinion.
The icon doesn't appear instantly -- you have to keep the enemy in the view you are looking for a bit before it appears. This seems cool until you realize that, as you maneuver, you switch views (forward/left to left to rear/left, for example). Every time you change the view keys you are pressing, the icon goes away, the lag time to get it back resets, and it takes a bit to appear again. Thus, even if you are expertly and smoothly tracking your enemy, the icon can become useless.
I had a very, very hard time keeping planes in sight in WWIIOL, even in fights where I am dogfighting the enemy -- i.e., we are mixing it up. And that difficulty was not because I didn't have SA or know the view keys -- I know all of that very, very well. The issue was the icon system, in my opinion, totally sucked.
There are some things I like in WWIIOL, and there are many things I hate about it. Their icon system is one of the things I hate.
Now, it could be tweaked to be useful. Increasing the distance at which you get the icon would be good, and getting rid of the poorly thought-out "lag until it appears" feature would be good.
The reason we have icons is that your human eye has a lot more resolution looking at an enemy plane in the distance in real life than you get in pixels on your screen. The trick is balancing it (using this different modality) so that when people in real life can notice and recognize aircraft, similar distances apply in the game. This is just a tweaking of when icons appear and how noticeable they are.
Also, you shouldn't take how all this works in the MA and conclude that everything is off because in real life people didn't see their attackers. In real life people didn't see their attackers not because the attackers were unseeable but because they weren't looking around in every portion of the sky all the time like you do in the MA (because you know you are always quite close to enemy aircraft, or because sector counters or radar show you that enemies are near).
A better idea of how the icon system works compared to real life is how it goes in scenarios. There, you don't often know if enemies are close or not; your mission time can be 2 hours; you have other things you have to do (like stay in position relative to bombers or coordinate with other fighters on the radio or manage your RPM and throttle so that you don't run out of fuel, etc.).
There are many, many times in scenarios where you don't see the enemy. There are clouds, icon range is set to 3k instead of 6k, etc. That's an environment that is more realistic, and that's what folks should be using to judge if the icon system give realistic results, I think, not the MA, where you are prepped to know that there are enemies nearby, where you are just up to get into a fight asap, where the skies are almost always (even with a few clouds here and there) clear, etc.
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I've never played any other online game or flight sim. What hooked me is the level of competition of players from all over the world. Pitting my skills against an actual person sitting in his home in London, Sidney, or Berlin perhaps. When I was a kid growing up, PONG wasn't even around yet. So this is pretty cool to me. :salute
Yeah Sidney Ohio is nothing to shout about. Sydney Australia is another matter. :D
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However Gunnery...I don't know wether it's for lack of a detailed model, or for gun dispersion being too small within the game, but a WW2 air simulator that allows for relatively easy hits at distances of 1000 yards (and with certain guns, catastrophic damage caused by said hits) is a simulator which should improve that department. In WW2 hitting fighter-sized planes at distances over 300m was extremely rare, most kills being achieved at almost knife distance.
i think the game would be far worse off if it denied the possibility for long range hits. Sure, it was unlikely in real life to hit beyond 300, but I have read reports of kills being made up to and beyond 600 yrds. Six months of flying here gives us more experience than a whole war of flying back then, so it stands to reason that folks with a good eye start hitting long shots more often. I suggest to you that if AH2 made it impossible to hit beyond a certain realistic (even if unlikely) range then it would be less of a simulator than it is now. 1k hits were possible with 50cals, they should be in the game too. Military lore regarding .50 cal ammo is 'If you can see it with the naked eye, you can land rounds on it'. If 1k shots were impossible in AH it would be to please the gamers, not fit realism.
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Also, 1k (and even 800 or 700 yard) shots are not all that likely if your target is aware of you and maneuvers. If he is flying straight and level, then you might be able to get a sprinkling of hits at 1k if you are quite good at correcting for convergence (or maybe some more if you have nose-mounted guns) -- but that is probably how it would be in real life.
I suspect that AH's gunnery model is fairly realistic.
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in Ah2 and most other sims we dont have vibrations and weather effects to take care of.
Shooting at a fighter size targets at range was just wasting ammo, only late p51s gyroscopic sights made long range shooting possible against level flying targets.
Germans attacked 4 engine bombers at max 600 yards and got like 2% hit rates. Imagine shooting at a fighter size target- what would the % be ?
osing sight in ww2 combat when planes where flying @ 300mph was very common.
Most fighters shot down was by an enemy they did not see.
Many of the US "kills" @ range 1000 yards or so was against german 20 hour pilots that saw the tracers and just bailed to save their lives knowing they would not stand a chance against properly trained pilots.
Off angle gunnery is also too easy in most sims.
Ww2online has its flaws - as someone in this thread pointed out, but you are harder to spot and you have to work a plane over to gain a kill.
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Speaking of instruments, the highly visible G-meter in AHII is a God-send. Even though most WWII airplanes didn't have them, it is entirely appropriate to mount a G indicator in any sim cockpit, to make up for the lack of physical feeling of G forces. Same goes for the audible angle of attack indicator, or stall-horn we have. Without the subtly input of control feel, entirely appropriate to model it into a sim.
:confused: how do you use it in the middle of a fight?
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What he said ^ and where is it? I still havnt found it in my mossie. I did find that pulling my head back i have things which tell me how fast im going and how long before im a sitting duck, but i didnt like them so i put my face back up to the gunsite. :confused:
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Uh, with a quick glance, just like the ASI?
Though at this point, if I want to unload to 0G, or pull up at ~3gs instead of ~5gs, I can more or less "feel it". But without the G meter, there wouldn't be any reference to get your feelings calibrated to in the first place.
Sims like CFS, Il2, they don't give you any indicator except black-out and red-out.
:confused: how do you use it in the middle of a fight?