Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Shift on December 11, 2002, 12:48:31 PM
-
Do we need to know what plane type we are fighting?
I would much prefer for the plane i am fighting to remain a secret until i got into visual range.
We gain an advantage from knowing what plane we are about to fight by choosing which way to fight them or indeed wether to fight them at all.
I am sure a lot more fights between 2 pilots would be encouraged if it were the case of no plane type icons. Not knowing what your about to fight would bring much more excitement to it, and suddenly the easy kill planes have a lot more freedom to roam in and out of fights in the MA.
Perk planes will also to be able to play a much larger role. you won't have 20 people in a long line behind you shooting at 2.0K, perk planes would be safe to get alot more stuck in and involved in the MA game play.
I would like to know how important plane type icons are to you?
P.S sorry if this has been brought up recently.
-
Seconded.
-
Alt-I or Control-I..I forget.
Shut off your icons and your all set.
Me....I'll be leaving mine on. I need all the help I can get.
-
I'd like to try it for awhile, just to see how different it would be.
The "Just hit Alt-I" solution isn't a solution. He's refering to it being an arena setting that effects everybody.
-
Originally posted by Shift
I would much prefer for the plane i am fighting to remain a secret until i got into visual range.
What do you mean by "visual range"? A dot is in visual range.
Do you mean icon settings similar to those in the CT?
Here's the thing. Its a smallish monitor we look at. On my 19" the cockpit is 1/2 scale if that. Now the if the the AH world is in scale with that cockpit, it is at most 50% normal size. How far out should one reasonably be able to identify a 2-d half scale object?
My bet would be that it would be a lot closer in than could done in the real world.
If you want to be surprised use ALT-I or try out the CT.
F.
-
I don't advocate removing icons, nor fiddling with range values (that's one of the CT's major turnoffs); but removing the plane type.
It's redundant untill about 1K what type of plane it is; it's either gaining or losing on you. That's all that counts.
-
What do you mean by "visual range"? A dot is in visual range
Visual range meaning, range at which the plane can be identified and you know what it is or "could be".
I didn't put it clear enough.
It's not the Alt-I thing i'm on about...........that won't change the gameplay in the MA.
no plane icon will bring more freedom to the MA making people fly a wider range of planes and so on. you won't be getting ganged becasue of what plane you are flying(they won't know until the fight is under way)
-
I think this would be a very intersting experiment in the MA. I hope they try it.
-
I think having icons that indicate the country affiliation of the plane out to 6.0k, with plane type designation starting at around 2.5k out would be a nice addition to the game.
You would still have the ability to determine if a con is an enemy within the range limits that we have now, and the shorter identification range might improve gameplay as Shift suggests.
-
I like this idea... kinda.
The lack of icons would completely change the game in the air. If you mean the removal of all of the icon, distance included, you wouldnt see anymore spraying and praying at D1.0 - which would be a good thing, but think of all the whining.
On the other hand, I might like to try the idea of flying without ID icons (for everyone - just shutting them off put you at a disadvantage to everyone else). It would aleviate the perk plane gang bang tag problem and help with the immersion factor a bit.
Im not sure however, if it would make the game more or less fun - maybe we could impliment it for a week or a few days and see what kind of reaction it gets?
-
Remove them. All of them. And to be still able to decide wether it's friend or foe paint wingtips, nose and tail in country colors.
-
this is a great idea... i think all we should see at 3.0 or closer (instead of 6.0) is the alliance of the plane.
-
we have a lot of planes but most of all.... they span a large time frame with huge differences in technolodgy...and any one of em can be with you or against you.. in the war... there were only a few possibilities.
What you are advocating would be a huge advantage if you ly the fastest and or worst turning planes in the game... you don't need to know what you are attacking you attack everything in exactly the same way... for instance... if you fly D9's (or about any LW) or p51's you would be stupid to fly it out of it's rateher narrow envelope in any case. Just one more way to make the arena late war centric in my opinion and as such... a very bad idea.
lazs
-
I am inclined to agree with lazs on this.
-
I have always wanted a Main Arena with only Friendly Icons and no enemy icons at all.
I dont need enemy icons to know who to shoot. Just icons to show the call signs of friendlies.
As far as disadvantage for older plane types compared to new plane types ('44, '45)... I disagree. The aircraft that has height nd suprise has the advantage, regardless of aircraft type. I have a 20-1 kill ratio in a Spit I vs ANY OTHER AIRCRAFT IN THE MA. In fact, I dont think Ive ever been killed when flying purposely in a MkI Spittie. (callsign brendooo btw)
-
I am only saying to take the plan type icon away not the distance.
Good point laz's but what your saying happens in the MA already.
190's and pony's already attack in the same way all the time UNTIL they find a prey that they can kill.........an easy kill......e.g ganged or TBM or sumthin.
Not knowing what plane you are attacking takes away part of the advantage they have in the MA so it actually makes it harder for them so they will be less ruleing without plane type icon modes.
The MA at the moment is controlled by the fastest planes that BnZ and generally keep safe in dogfights. They already have the advantage this evens it a little more and makes dogfighting a lot better for the other planes well.
The easy kills will be generally ruled out for the BnZers.
-
I'm new and don't have the experience with the gameplay mechanics you guys do, but all the same I'd like icons to stay. This is because I'm 22 and live in Queens and have never trained to identify planes 4k out based on a few pixels on a 2d screen, but the WW2 pilot I log into has been trained to ID planes. Hope this makes sense, as I just woke up. :)
-
I would love to see this tried out in the CT for possible use in the Mission Theatre.
-
If you don't like icons turn them off, I can't tell the planes apart from d500 without them.
des
-
just let us make them smaller if desired !
-
I agree with Engine on this one... taking away icons would make it impossible to ID a plane until it was right on top of you. Even at D1000, a plane is still only drawn with 10 or 15 pixels (at 800x600 res). Getting rid of plane types in icons would penalize people with lower-end systems running at low resolutions enormously.
I'm still all for getting rid of the designations in some cases though... IRL you can't tell the difference between an F4U-4 and an F4U-1D until they're right on top of you.
Also, IRL, you'd only be encountering one or two types of planes. In the ETO, if you saw a single-engine fighter, you only had to be able to tell if it was a 190 or a 109. In the MA, we have 30 or 40 fighter types... hardly realistic, so we make the gamey concession of putting icons on.
-
Originally posted by Shift
...190's and pony's already attack in the same way all the time...
...Not knowing what plane you are attacking takes away part of the advantage they have in the MA so it actually makes it harder for them so they will be less ruleing without plane type icon modes...
...The easy kills will be generally ruled out for the BnZers.
You are removing a percieved advantage from one group and giving it fully to another.
Your idea requires the faster less manueverable machines to give up any alt/speed advantage in order to ID their opponent when this ID'ing could be done at much greater distances in RL.
This is another one of those ideas that make the game more difficult just for the sake of making it more difficult. If this is what you desire then petition HT to create an increased difficulty arena.
And if folks are getting "easy" BnZ kills off ya, it's not their fault.
F.
F.
-
I would agree with lazs on this as well, and engine and tarmac make a good point.
I am fairly up on ww2 fighters and identification, but still have difficulty seeing that on a video sreen. And yes I have tried WB 3 with no icons and had no luck unless I am running into him.
Nice idea shift but I will pass.
-
I tryed no-icon ... it was not really immersive
Then I switched off my screen !
and voila ! blind like a newby pilot ! THAT'S IMMERSION !
J/K gents ;)
-
In real life the trained eye can ID/spot/etc. aircraft at much greater ranges than 'no icons' would simulate in AH.
Talk to any military aircrew, experienced pilot, etc. about this.
No icons does not equal more realism in any way whatsoever.
Mike/wulfie
-
WTG Shift, couldn't agree more.
This despite the fact that the icon compensates for differences in real life vision compared to computer vision.
I think an Icon without plane info would make it more interesting.
-
No we need plane info as we are flying in a mixed bag main. This would lead to fast planes and more running and less fighting.
What we dont need is range info. A WWiiol type icon would work.
The icon starts out a faded red for nme green for friendly and the color get darker the closer you get.
But plane type is essential for good fighting. Unless you like an arena of late war bore and ZZZZZZZZ'rs running about afraid of their own shadows.
If not something along these lines leave the icons alone. We arent flying in an axis/allies theater specific main where the number of different plane types are limited and there by easier to id.
A main that revolves around running, hiding and sneak attacks would be boring as hell.
-
When you are a fast reader like me sometime strange things happen :D
What I've read :) :
Originally posted by Apar
WTG Shift, couldn't agree more.
This despite the fact that the icon compensates for differences in real life vision compared to computer vision.
I think a Icon without plane would make it more interesting.
Now compare to what was really writen :D
-
Originally posted by wulfie
In real life the trained eye can ID/spot/etc. aircraft at much greater ranges than 'no icons' would simulate in AH.
Talk to any military aircrew, experienced pilot, etc. about this.
No icons does not equal more realism in any way whatsoever.
Mike/wulfie
Sure, no icon is problem in computer game, though sometimes they are fun. Not a casual fun, so not aplicable for MA.
What I like to see implemented is gradual icons. At 6k it is friendly/enemy icon. At 3k it is type of plane (spit/f4u/109). At 1k range it is plane model (spit XIV/f4uC/109g6). After plane is "identified", icons stays on it till plane out of 6k range again. So if you know it is spit (plane was under <3k >1k), it is stays on plane even if plane >3k <6k then. Same with model.
It will help to solve perk plane issue along with being more realistic. Have you flew perk planes? I get wtg on country channel when I get 4 kills in spit XIV, but do not get wtg when I land 5 kills in la5. Actually, killing anything in target reach inveronment with perk plane is a problem. Flying over my head p51 or 190 will hardly dive on la5 if some friendlies around, but it will 95% do if I am in tempest or spit XIV. They will tend to follow me in hordes for hours also. Makes getting kills in perk planes in some aspects harder, than in no perks. Not good imho, specially for people who spend hard earned perk poing on some plane, they think will give them advantage, to be frustrated shortly by fact that they spent their perks to be kills fast.
-
Originally posted by Fariz
Sure, no icon is problem in computer game, though sometimes they are fun. Not a casual fun, so not aplicable for MA.
What I like to see implemented is gradual icons. At 6k it is friendly/enemy icon. At 3k it is type of plane (spit/f4u/109). At 1k range it is plane model (spit XIV/f4uC/109g6). After plane is "identified", icons stays on it till plane out of 6k range again. So if you know it is spit (plane was under <3k >1k), it is stays on plane even if plane >3k <6k then. Same with model.
I like this a lot :). Especially if we get rid of rangefinder under 1k.
Cheers,
-
Shift
Good idea!
Fariz
Great development
Pepe
Perfect combination of all three
If HTC would kindly give more icon options for h2h HOST, then we could at least test different icon setups by our self without any harm to the MA-fanatic-fans.
-
Good idea shift.
I’d rather see just the country and distance without the ID. Maybe make the ID visible at 1.0 and less.
Actually lets replace the aircraft ID with handle and enable us the function of highlighting an enemy :D.
-
yep... if we had no icons then everyone that had any brains would be flying only the fastest planes.. if you flew early planes you would be doing a lot of fruitless chasing... In this game I can't tell the difference between the various spit or 109 models til i am close enough that they are gonna get shot up or I am committed to a fight with them.
I would like even more ID in the ma... I want each spit and 109 and zeke and 51 and hog and f4f etc. variation to have it's own icon.
Allways cracks me up when I see these late war guys begging for even more advantage... sheesh... not enough for you yet?
lazs
-
Originally posted by Shift
Do we need to know what plane type we are fighting?
I do, at least reasonably so - after merge is a bit late for me.
-
thx guys some great inputs..............I think fariz pretty much wrapped it up.............that idea would be great for the MA.
-
I've always thought it was silly that you could tell the specific plane at 5k. I don't care how good your eyes are, at 5k yards you'd be lucky to tell it was a Spit instead of a 109, or Yak, let alone tell which kind of Spit it is.
Fariz' idea is almost ideal. My only problem with it is could you really tell the difference between a Tempest and a Typh at 3k in RL? How about an La-5 and an La-7? Same goes for the different Zeros. I think that for very similar planes with completely different names like the above, it should do something like show Typhoon at 3k and at 1k either change to Tempest, or stay Typhoon. It should default to the most commonly used of the planes.
The only other thing that might be better would be some kind of code to indicate A/C type at long ranges. Something like F1 or F2 would indicate single-engined fighter and twin-engined fighters respectively. BL, BM, BH could indicate light, medium and heavy bombers respectively (C-47 would be medium). That might just be too complex and not really serve any purpose though. I'm just brainstorming.
I would like the option of turning on A/C type on friendly icons. It's not realistic, but it would save needless radio chatter.
-
Originally posted by Yippee38
....I would like the option of turning on A/C type on friendly icons. It's not realistic, but it would save needless radio chatter.
You have it right now. Just hit ALT-I.
F.
-
I don't want to turn OFF icons. I want to be able to see that that plane in the distance in my ally Furious and he's flying an La-7. Right now all I would know is that it is you, not what kind of plane you are flying.
Am I wrong? I never really messed with ALT-I.
-
Yeah, you should try it. It cycles through 4 modes
1st = friendly plane icons
2nd = friendly icons only
3rd = no icons
4th = back to normal
might be messed up on 2 and 3, but am at work and cannot check.
F.
-
At the very least, it would be nice if once the con disappeared into clouds, the Plane-type Icon would disappear as well.