Sorry to hear an AH pilot can't read

[SmooMonster]

http://fighterace.vr1.com

If you give it a few days, there *might* be a new beta build available...

[SmooMonster]

Westy mate - look again at those pics and this time forget the camera angle.

Look at where the gun sights are - That is either at or BELOW eye level, depending on design. Now look at your P47 pic again. See how far below eye level the instruments are???

In the 2nd p38 link (1st wouldn't open), look at where the yoke is. Either the pilot had his hands at neck height, or again the instruments were far below eye level.

The P51 is very close to eye level, but IIRC in FA, you can actually see the top layer of instruments (or most of them anyway) in standard cockpit view.

(BTW - you do know you can toggle a glance down at the instruments in FA with one stick button press, doncha?)

[AoA_WindDancer]

Originally posted by Am0n
Ok i got FA3 downloaded last night and checked it out.. I'll have to hold most of my comments since it is obviously still in beta, the sounds and firing sprites are enough to realize that.

But the so called "3d cockpit veiw" is absolutely horrible. It apears that in FA3 that your pilot is sitting with his chin 3 inches from the aim-point. It was enough to detour me from further analizing this. That is one of the huge advantages that AH has over many other so called MMOLFS.

The cock-pit veiw in AH is great, although i do agree that the panel apears to be VERY 2D. But AH's POV is that of a someone driving and not the typical (FA3 for example) "3d shooter" veiw a lot of flight-sims seems seem to fancy.

The terrain currently in FA3 is very nice, i dont think its even questionable.

Graphicly FA3 is superior, mainly the attention to detail such as the shell casing perjecting from the ejection chambers of the fire-arms. I will wait until ive played online to further judge this because i was flying alone high in the sky and getting constant freezing, even @ 20-30 FPS.

I was kind of disturb that if you go off the runway into the "grass" you nearly ALWAYS wreck and/or smack your cowl on the ground. This is very historical in-correct.

As i previously stated i'll hold my other comments on the kiddie FM's and other aspect until i play it out of beta and online (or with full realism). But If the 3d cock-pit veiw stays as it is, i wont even bother to re-evaluate it. If they are eventualy totally adjustable veiws i may consider checking it out.

A couple of comments.  The landing gear collapsing off the runway is by design.  Here is how it works. The runways are concrete and the area around the runway are grass.  There also is an area just outside the area around the runway.  when you are using the F7 or F8 external view you can zoom out with the 4 key and take a look around the runway using the mouse.  You will see an box like shape that enclose the entire airfield. Now if you get outside that box then your landing gear will colapse at a slower speed. Now inside that box the gear will not colapse as easily. In the games difficulty setting there are two areas where you can adjust the taxing speed allowed before the landing gear collapse. Those speeds are adjustable (GLobally for all planes). I hope that helps you understand what goes on in the FA III beta game now. Now someone suggested that certain plane's had stronger landing gear than others and that is a great suggestion that I will try to get the FAIII programer to look into for FaIII too.  I like to come to these forums and learn how other games do things to learn.  The FAIII game also allows for the vertical decent rate to be adjusted (Again Globally) for landing decent rate before the plane crash lands.  There again are two different settings for this in the game.

I would recommand that you wait until the next version comes out before you look at this beta game. There are changes being made to the game everyday as new bugs are found and fixed.  And the 260mb download is steep and that is one reason why they don't release a new version each week to the testers.  Right now we are testing version 58 online but the developers are all ready using version 60 in internal testing.  Version 59 was not making the cut so they moved onto version 60.   If current testing goes well then version 60 or 61 will be release at the end of this week. Jan 24th 2002.  Then it would be a good time to take a look at the changes that have been made.

The 3D cockpit view can be adjusted several ways to make it more pleasant to use.  First the 3 and 4 keys can be used to move the seat forward or backward respectively while in the Ctrl F4 view.  Also the page up and page down keys will move the seat up and down respectively.  The home key will move the seat to the left while the insert key will move the seat to the right.  The end key will look down to see the gauges while the Delete key will bring the seat back to the default seat position. Now you can use the hat views and also use these above keys to see around the canopy supports or the seat.  The mouse can also be used to look around the cockpit just as a real pilot would turn his head to look at different gauges or to look left, right, back right, back left or up or any other direction. Linda Blair moves are going to be restricted if they are not already now.

As for the Flight model. yes the arcarde flight model is just that. But FAIII has three different flight models to choose from and each is adjustable towards the others. So the vairations are almost endless.  AOA and Fuselage and tail lateral stabilty are adjustable in the Intermediate Flight model setting.  So is the Amount of induced drag.  The Advanced or Realistic flight model is what you guys would need to use to more closely compare the FAIII flight model that you would like to that of AH. Of course the flight models will differ but not by too much IMHO.  Guess it's hard to quantify or qualify the difference for me anyway.  VR1's main flight model programmer is a member of the Russian Aerobatic flying team or was at one time and still flies aerobatic planes. He is an aeronautical engineer and a programmer also. There are a few other FA III testers who are also Aeronautical Engineers and who are experienced in flight dynamics in Real Life that also enjoy the realistic flight modeling now and it's not finished yet.  They have yet to really get started in tweaking the Full Realistic flight modeling. In the past they had to tweak the FA 2 flight model down to please the arcade crowd due to the way the game was programmed. But now they have an entirely new game engine that allows each flight model to be adjusted seperately without it effecting the other two flight models so I look forward to more tweaking in the realistic flight modeling  Right now the main programmer from Russia  VR1_Aerobatic and his American counterpart are having a fluid dynamics discussion on how the flaps should effect the flight model when they are deployed. That stuff is something my cousin would understand as he is a Naval Commander working on Submarines who has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and who has studied fluid dynamics and other engineering principals.  LOL.

But there is a lot of math that went into the FA 2 flight modeling and FAIII is even more complex and better IMHO.  I have played and had fun in FA all versions, War Birds, Aces High and in many boxed games where I set the realism to full real.  

Basically we tend to like what we get used to and think that is the best and it's hard to get anyone to change.  That is just our human nature.

[K West]

"That is either at or BELOW eye level, depending on design. "

 No they're not. Good cod.  They're right AT eye level and the guages just below them close enough to be called the same. What are you six foot six and seeing things from your perspective? Try it from a 5'4-8" man sitting in the pilots seat.

 We're so far on different poles on this issue that there is no way we'll see eye to eye. I spent time to gather what I call irefutable evidence and you've done nothing to convince me otherwise that FA3  is right.  

 As for using using a button to change views? That's not a "glance." By changing your view that much you've introduced head movement.  My eyes can glance well enough on thier own without any need for an artificial and badly unrealistic immitation to do what I would in real life be able to view easy enough.


  Westy

[SmooMonster]

Okay, this isn't easy to do - I'm no 3D modeller, so I don't even begin to claim this is entirely accurate.

But this give an *idea* of the amount of deflection required to read those instruments if you're sitting with the gunsight at eye level.

As you can see, it is quite a bit of distance required for the eye to travel...and far, far more than anything like which is modelled in AH.

IRL, you have to take your eyes OFF the action in front of you to see what's on your instruments - what's happening beyond your cockpit doesn't even register on your peripheral vision...as modelled in FA.

[K West]

 That's a good aproximation. Your gunsight line of view angles up fart too much. IT should actually angle down towards the nose more as aircraft do not fly completely level in flight. That line makes the lower angles look to be much more dramatic than they would be. But even then it's still close enough for the disucssion. But when flying in combat the pilot only has to look at the pertinant dials in the top row - if any at all. But he would not have to move his head to do so should he need to.
  To look at the switches at the very bottom? Yes. But the top row would only require a glance.  And there is a reason those switches are at the bottom and not at the top.  That is they are not as important for the pilot as what was placed up close to his forward pov.    

 And the diufference between that picture and what one sees in the 3D cockpit of AH is not "quite a distance" by any stretch of the imagination.  If I was sitting in that seat (as I have in a P-47 and an F4U)  I trust it would look very much like what I see in the AH. Just as the  P47 or F4U do.  

  Westy

[Zippatuh]

Add all the “realism” you want.  It’s an arcade game and always will be.

BTW, I’ve been checking your advanced arena every so often.  Looks like the average is, ummm, let me see. ZERO.  I’m sure the 5 regulars that used to be in it are still frequenting it.

There is nothing wrong with FA other than it appeals to a different kind of SIM player. Code to the advanced side and I’ll still bet good money those arenas will almost always be empty.

Pimp FA all you want the fact remains; it’s still an arcade game.  Oh and also, did you all not learn anything from WWIIOL?  Maybe you should wait for its release before making comparisons.  Yes some AH and FA players have made comments about an unfinished product.  Who care’s?  This mine is bigger than yours is crap is boring.

If I forgot to mention it, when it is finished, it will sill be an arcade game.  Did I say that before?  Hmm, seems like it needs repeating.

Keep it to your own news groups and forums.  When you feel the need to come to AH and post something about FA how about this:

FYI - FA3 has been released to the public.  Come check it out.

Zippatuh  <---Former FA2.5 flyer and no, I doubt that I will be returning.  Although I will check it out when it's done.

[SmooMonster]

The plane is parked and is a tail dragger, so the line of sight appears to be angled up under those circumstances. I took the parallax cues from the edge of the cockpit, bottom left hand corner.

BTW, the top two (and largest) are the compass and false horizon, which - given your statement that they were then the most important - does reinforce my claim that the instruments were chiefly of use during cruise and climb. Neither of those would be used in combat.

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by SmooMonster
Therefore the angle of deflection required by my eyes to move from straight ahead to dash was considerably greater and I was required to refocus - and adjust to the change in brightness - to look at instruments...

LOL!  Of course you had to refocus!  You weren't looking at a 2D monitor.  In AH you don't have to refocus because the eyes are ready focused.  The 3d in a sim is an illusion, not real.

Oh yeah, and how did you come up with the convergence point for the vectors in your picture.

[SmooMonster]

Taking the stick as sitting between the bloke's legs, you work out roughly where his head/eyes would be. You can then take a parallel from the side of the cockpit to work out the angle through the gunsight.

I had to play around with the perspective distortion feature in photoshop until it seemed about right in regard to the 3d positioning in space infront fo the sight - hence the reason some of the lines down don't stop dead on some of the instruments - but the angles still seem about correct.

I think you made my point for me re AH cockpits, Thrawn...thanks.

[Raubvogel]

That point is probably a bit too far forward in the cockpit. Army helos aren't WW2 fighters, but I can tell you that I never had any problems with glancing at gauges and still keeping an eye outside. It certainly didn't require any effort that would totally cut off my forward view. And you could get a good impression of where the readings just through your peripheral vision. All the gauges were canted so that if the readings were normal all the needles pointed in basically the same direction. You didn't really look at the specific readings, you just looked for the one that didn't look like the others. Only took a glance to do that.

[Thrawn]

Taking the stick as sitting between the bloke's legs, you work out roughly where his head/eyes would be. You can then take a parallel from the side of the cockpit to work out the angle through the gunsight.

I had to play around with the perspective distortion feature in photoshop until it seemed about right in regard to the 3d positioning in space infront fo the sight - hence the reason some of the lines down don't stop dead on some of the instruments - but the angles still seem about correct.

Roughly??  Seemed??  Ah, so you guessed...you made it up.  In desperation to defend your point perhaps?

I think you made my point for me re AH cockpits, Thrawn...thanks.

You think wrong, I did not...and neither have you.

[SmooMonster]

Originally posted by SmooMonster
Okay, this isn't easy to do - I'm no 3D modeller, so I don't even begin to claim this is entirely accurate.

But this give an *idea* of the amount of deflection required to read those instruments if you're sitting with the gunsight at eye level.

This was the qualification I made at the top of that picture post. I never claimed it was anything other than an educated guess.

But, please....do your own version and show me how far off the mark I am.

It possibly is a little far forward, but it did prove exceedingly difficult to try to define a position in space in this way, much harder than I thought it would be, to be honest. I don't think it is far off though - maybe 6 inches or so at most.

Cockpit design became an issue during WWII in the sense of ergonomics. This was not something that had ever been considered much before.

I recently read one WWII pilot mentioning how some planes had very good cockpit layouts which allowed you to read the important stuff at a glance, while others were appalling.

The layout, good or bad, was usually more by chance than anything else, but the pilots' feedback began to make itself known to designers post-war. As a result, most 50s+ aircraft have far better cockpit ergonomics that just keep getting better and better.

Hence, I would suggest, your positive experience in helos, Raub. You have WWII pilots to thank for it - those who were able to identify good cockpit layouts and those who had to live with poor ones.

And of course it led eventually to the creation of Head Up Display...makes you kinda wonder why they bothered when it was apparently so easy to see the instruments normally, eh?

[Thrawn]

But, please....do your own version and show me how far off the mark I am.

Okay Smoo, let me get this straight.  You want me to disprove evidence that you have already admitted is completely manufactured.  Evidence that has no place in reality, but is a figment of your imagination.  Ya know, I don't any need to disprove it for some reason.

It possibly is a little far forward, but it did prove exceedingly difficult to try to define a position in space in this way, much harder than I thought it would be, to be honest. I don't think it is far off though - maybe 6 inches or so at most.

Where did you get the number 6 inches?  Oh let me guess...you made it up.  Educated guess?  Do you have an engineering degree?  Any sort airframe tech diploma?  If you do then accept my apologies.

And thank you for showing us the lengths you will go to to "prove" FA is more realistic than AH.

[SmooMonster]

I'm not asking you to disprove anything. You seem to know better, so I would like to see your version of where the lines of vision would meet.

You don't need an aerodynamics degree to visualise in 3d. If you did, there would be a whole lot less sportsmen in the world who could work out how to catch a ball thrown through the air.

Anyway, here's an easier pic for you to understand which shows pretty much identical angles of deflection, except this time in a 109.