Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: VFJACKAL on November 08, 2002, 06:30:57 PM
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Im just wondering why the planes that had them in WW2 don't Have them in this sim. NASCAR 2K2 has them (and they work). Just wondering if it was a hard ting to do. Thanks:)
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Because they're largely useless.
Look in your auttomobile's right-hand mirror sometimes at an object that's about 500 yards away (1500 feet or about 1/4 mile)....so small you can hardly see it, just a speck.
THIS is what you'd usually see in an AH rearview mirror:
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IF the plane was a little closer, you might see a:
_
But that's about it. Mirrors work for driving games because the distances involved are very short. So yes AH could do it (and probably will sooner or later) but there'd be little practical benefit.
J_A_B
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Didn't the hog in AW have a rear view mirror? Can't remember... seems to me something did
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Thanks Fellas.....all I needed to know...appreciate it.:)
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Originally posted by Steve
Didn't the hog in AW have a rear view mirror? Can't remember... seems to me something did
a non functional one. the spit had one where your six view was the "mirror."
i think.... hehe been so long since i flew an aw spit.
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the spit had one where your six view was the "mirror."
As did the F6F.:)
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Mirror eats your FR very much.
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When I had Lunch with "Dutch" Miller, he was commenting on the lack of Mirrors.
He said also commented on the frame work of the P-38 being much more obstructive seeming that in Real lift.
But He really thought the Lack of Mirrors was downer. He felt it was a huge oversight to not have them there.
For those that dont know Dutch, He flew P39s, P38s, P47s, P51s, AD-1s and a few more that I dont know about. His carrer started at the begining of WW2 and lasted thru Vietnam.
A fine Gentlemen, Old AW Pilot and Sometimes AH Pilot.
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The Spits did have a Rear View mirror over the cockpit, but pilots said it vibrated so much you couldn't see anything in it anyway.
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I asked a Spit ace (Jerry Collinsworth) about the mirror once and he told me that the mirror was useful on the ground and for formation flying, but not useful for spotting the enemy.
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Originally posted by Mitsu
Mirror eats your FR very much.
:eek: YIKES!!! My FR's are bad enough, if they put mirrors in before I get a new system, my FR's will be like ummm, 2 if I am lucky.......
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"The Dweeb in the Mirror is closer than it Appears"
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according to spit pilots, using the rear view mirror was a good way to get killed quickly.
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according to B17 pilots, using the rear view mirror was a good way to get killed quickly.
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TK's latest flight sim (the developer of EAW, by the way) is a 1960s era jet sim. Flyable are the F-4, Phantom F-104 Starfighter and others. The reason I bring it up is that it has mirrors on the cockpits, and they work really well.
A mirror WILL NOT save you from a bogey on your six that you didn't know about, because by the time you see it you're toast.
It does add a lot to immersion, and a sense of 3d space, however, since you see ground objects, or the horizon, or clouds and other things reflected in it. Especially in AH, when there are often periods where all you see from the forward view or 45 degree up view is blue sky, also seeing the location of the horizon in a reflection, or how quickly the landscape is scrolling past, would be helpful. In TK's Strike Fighters: Project 1, there are a lot of vapour trails so it's helpful for spotting those, too.
While there is a hit to framerates, it's not the old days where Voodoo1s were struggling to show the forward view with full details in GPL, and then enabling the mirrors made it a slide show. Video cards have buckets of processing power and texture memory compared to back then, and it could be implemented easily. Of course, they could be a user option.
FWIW, I liked the direct 6 view as looking up in the mirror in Spits in AW. While I didn't play AW much at all, that was one aspect that I really found kind of neat. They got around the frame rate hit by not rendering two different scenes on the same display (i.e. one couldn't see around the mirror, it only showed the reflection). It was a clever, low-tech application, that dealt with the "Linda Blair" dead-six view that many don't like.
Cheers,
phaetn
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Why did the USAF pilots go out of their way to add Spt mirrors to Ponys and Jugs then...
I think Grimm was saying that the real pilot found the canopy frame work in AH more restrictive then in the real planes. I think he must be right. It probably was more realistic befor they started swiching icons off behind the frame work.
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pilots I talked to said that mirrors were very useful. The Corsair had 3 of em. Most U.S. planes had em.
lazs
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Comments and images hijacked from my post in this thread (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=650838#post650838).
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HOLY CRAP!
Looking at Pyro's post (that I had responded to) I had assumed that this was a relatively new thread.
Looking at the date, though, he posted that in Nov. 2000. TWO YEARS ago. Yikes!!!! Vid cards and CPUs have advanced a lot even since that post. The "good while" he was talking about could well have easily passed by now, no?
DamnedCM, what the hell were you doing digging this up from the bowels of the earth? ;) Seriously, its contents are no longer relevant in the current context of AH.
Creamo, it needn't be a hat switch/unrealism feature. It would be integrated into current views. That way you see both what's ahead (not blocked by the mirror) and what's reflected. I'm not suggesting the AW implementation at all, but a much more realistic one now that we have the horsepower to do it. Icons need not be enabled in the mirror view.
Take a spin in TK's SF:P1 (published by Strategy First) and you'll see just how compelling mirrors can be.
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Actually, let me stick in a couple of screenies for your edification:
(http://members.rogers.com/phaetn/images/sf1_thumb.jpg) (http://members.rogers.com/phaetn/images/sf1.jpg) (http://members.rogers.com/phaetn/images/sf2_thumb.jpg) (http://members.rogers.com/phaetn/images/sf2.jpg)
Click on images to expand.
You'll note in the first, just the "cool effect" of mirrors. This is in widely expanded field of view, zoomed back to max in an F-4 cockpit. The default FOV is much further forward, and cuts into the two side mirrors, though the top one is still fully visible.
In the second image (an F-104 Starfighter at default FOV), you'll note that it's impossible to see one's orientation in the forward view because of inclement weather (picture AH blue sky that is also mostly featureless). A quick glance at the mirrors, which are quite close at hand, immediately shows your position relative to the ground because you can see the runway, as well as your changing aspect and can serve as a rough gauge of speed -- all the while you haven't had to glance down into the cockpit to look at a horizon ball, VSI, or airspeed indicator. This works equally well if you're at a higher altitude and see terrain or the horizon reflected, not just a ground object.
While a mirror won't stop you getting bounced, if there was a bogey there there that was in slight lag pursuit, it can help to monitor his orientation during ACM while you can still keep an eye on your forward view. According to how he's moving in the mirror, you can see if you're gaining angles or if he's going to slip into lead pursuit, or if he's turned away, etc. etc. My preference would be that icons are not shown in the mirror.
It's not a substitute for turning your head to look for a bogey, but it does impart more info about your aircraft's state, and we desperately need that in a game where we don't have any seat of the pants feedback. If you can't see the landscape or clouds, you have little idea as to what's going on without looking at the instruments or switching view to look at a fixed object, except for your own anticpation of the manouver you're performing. That's highly unrealistic, but a limit we have to accept.
I'd like to hear other comments from people who have actually experience both methods, to hear their reaction.
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Streakeagle, you make an excellent point, if mirrors weren't useful, pilots wouldn't still be using them. That's not to say they spend all their time looking at them, but it's a lot easier to move your eyes a bit then it is to turn your whole head around. Even in AH, it would be less disruptive and disorienting than switching your view.
Cheers,
phaetn
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Creamo, it needn't be a hat switch/unrealism feature. It would be integrated into current views. That way you see both what's ahead (not blocked by the mirror) and what's reflected. I'm not suggesting the AW implementation at all, but a much more realistic one now that we have the horsepower to do it. Icons need not be enabled in the mirror view.
Of course. The AH 6 view is a rear view cheat of sorts, or a 'Mirror' view if they would just code it. Will they mod all planes and add it via mirrors to the actual historic varients? No.
Horsepower? Don't get me started on this trailerpark $.25 cents being the diffrence between easymo's HTH squad mates and opinions to actual MA paying players.
Icons of course would be in the mirror. There are some lmits to a computer monitor.
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so, the mirrors where useless in the air for fighting and if you use it, you'll get killed/ but why did the planes had them?????:confused:
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Yes, and they ran P47 engines for 3 days without effect.
See, features are mute. Just ask.
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Creamo penned:
Horsepower? Don't get me started on this trailerpark $.25 cents being the diffrence between easymo's HTH squad mates and opinions to actual MA paying players.
Sorry? I don't understand what you're getting at there. I just mean we have a lot more computing power than even two years ago. Very low end systems now are what used to be the high end systems that couldn't handle mirrors and would drive FPS to the basement just a few scant years ago.
I'm not really sure if your remark is meant to be hostile, or if you're making reference to something of which I'm unaware. My "horsepower" remark was only that we have much more computing power now than we did at the time of Pyro's post (Nov. 2000).
And added:
Icons of course would be in the mirror. There are some lmits to a computer monitor.
Yup, I'm well aware of the limits of a computer monitor and the need for icons. Personally I wouldn't want it in the mirror view, but that's just my opinion. Icons are really useful to make up for what the eye can actually interpret in RealLife™ and can't be displayed effectively at the same range on on a 15 - 21 inch 2d monitor (plane type, range, closing speed, etc.) but that's not the sort of thing that I would ever rely on a mirror for.
Instead, I'd just want it to be able to see the manouevering of a bandit in your six (at a close enough range that icon's don't serve any purpose), but, more importantly, it would reflect terrain and give you yet another cue as to your plane's attitude and energy state.
Cheers,
phaetn
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hey..how did you do those little pictures that are links..that is cool