contrails would be a nice add.

[hazmatt]

Not sure how hard it would be to coad but contrails would be a nice add to AH3 if it wasn't too much work.


Had my first experience with contrails today. I thought I'd share.

When I took off today the ground was covered in snow. As I climbed heading toward the front lines I circled to scan the sky and noticed something was steaming from my plane. I quickly checked all my gauges and everything looked fine. Suddenly it dawned on me that it was a contrail. I looked above me and saw multiple contrails being drawn above me. Suddenly one of those contrails appeared to be heading directly toward my hurri2. It sure looked like a it might be a 190. I pulled the rpm to min and pointed my nose at the ground intent on getting rid of this beacon I was trailing behind me. As contrail got closer I was able to make out the distinctive shape of a 190. I started working on my angles to get a shot on the bandit when suddenly another plane appeared out of nowhere. It was a yak that appeared that appeared to be intent on "clearing" the 190 that was about to be on my 12. He started shooting and I saw the 190 take hits and catch fire. A second 190 appeared out of nowhere and glued itself to the yaks tail. I pulled lead  on the 190 that  had just appeared and was about to pull the trigger but a thought crossed my mind. That yak just cleared my 12... Suddenly the Yak started taking hits. It looked like he was done. By this time I was pretty close to the 190 that had just shot down the yak, so I let him have it at close range with 2 mg/cannons that were installed in my hurri2 wishing I had some hispanos. He went in into a spin and looked like he was a going into the ground. I watched to make sure. After he hit the ground in a big fireball I scanned the sky frantically looking for any more enemy. Three planes had just gone down in the space of about 5 seconds. I didn't want to be the next one. Seeing nothing I went max rpm, full throttle and hit the boost as  I pointed my nose east because even though I wasn't sure exactly where I was, I knew that I didn't want to be going any further west after what had just happened.

[Oldman731]

That was a nice write-up!

- oldman

[hazmatt]

Thanks!

It's a whole different world there with no radar, no icons and constant radio transmissions of reports of enemy in such and such sector, so and so is under attack, pilots getting bounced and calling it out. Trying to navigate by looking through the clouds and rain at the towns from the air and comparing them to the map and looking for the lakes and rivers looking for something that matches to your location while watching the oil temp, water temp prop rpm while trying not to get bounced. I can understand how pilots got lost and landed in the wrong place now. Sometimes when I get lost I fly as far as I can in the direction of friendly airspace and find a nice field to land in to avoid being captured lol.

[nopoop]

One thing that I think would take little coding would be to remove all seeing radar but retain the dar bar.

Including the small maps would increase the pucker factor.

Contrails would be great but the coding wouldnt happen

[hazmatt]

Doesn't seem like it would be too hard to coad. It seems to me you could use the function that is used to generate smoke or fuel leak and modify it to come on at higher alt and to stream longer behind the plane. I don't think you would have to coad it from scratch.

[The Fugitive]

Doesn't seem like it would be too hard to coad. It seems to me you could use the function that is used to generate smoke or fuel leak and modify it to come on at higher alt and to stream longer behind the plane. I don't think you would have to coad it from scratch.

The graphics are easy, like you said modify the smoke or leaks. The issue would be adding the atmospheric conditions to the maps so that the contrails would be generated under the right conditions. Our "air" doesnt have a moisture content, that would need to be added. Then there are the pressures and temperatures that would need to be added varying due to alts, sea levels and so on.

Not really worth the trouble, Id rather see a Beaufighter or other new plane.

[hazmatt]

You're such a purest. It's true that some other sims have that stuff as I've noticed that the contrails also take into account the outside temp.

I would coad it to just turn on over some preset alt like 15 or 20k and call it good.

[CptTrips]

You're such a purest. It's true that some other sims have that stuff as I've noticed that the contrails also take into account the outside temp.

I would coad it to just turn on over some preset alt like 15 or 20k and call it good.

Agreed.

You could make it a map-maker option and they can select it if they know their chosen weather settings would be consistent with the effect, so no fancy meteorological voodoo is need.  Or make it a numerical alt field.  0 ft and it turns it off, or alt # if they want it on and they can choose the alt threshold. 

[The Fugitive]

You're such a purest. It's true that some other sims have that stuff as I've noticed that the contrails also take into account the outside temp.

I would coad it to just turn on over some preset alt like 15 or 20k and call it good.

Thats the trouble with just having some arbitrary number in alt, or location. Once the players learn of the particulars they would avoid those areas/alts while in enemy territory. And a random activation would bring out the conspiracy theorist. So doing the extra work to do it right would be the only right way to bring it in.

To me it sounds like you just want the "eyecandy". Another option would be to use the smoke, remove the colors, and make it so only YOU can see YOUR contrails and no body elses. Make it an optional "toy" or effect. But again. If coading was to be done I'd rather see other things worked on.

[CptTrips]

Someone might, of course, use the weak argument that people would learn at what alt contrails started and exploit that knowledge.

So what?  I'm sure pilots received weather briefings including the predicted altitude of contrail formation.  They would pretty much know that, and can always just look behind them to verify.  It's not like they are never going to look behind them, right?  It's not like we are talking the secrets of the Enigma Machine.

Besides, if bombers have to fly above that alt, and escorts have to fly up there to escort them, the knowledge is irrelevant.  It is what it is.

Of course, the knee jerk reaction is that it could never be implemented and it will never work, or we thought about that back when Bill Clinton was president and decided then no, and can never re-evaluate. 

So no, I don't think you will ever get it, but that is different from it being a bad idea.  And yes, eye-candy does matter to the market.  It has significant weight in the potential customer's evaluation.

[hitech]

The issue codeing is trying to keep them persistent when you moved between fields. Smoke trails are only visible and generated if you are in view of the plane during generation.

[hazmatt]

That makes sense. Guess it wouldn't be as easy as I thought.