Greetings and salute, HTC development team.
I am writing this letter to make you see my points of view about the new Combat Trim feature incoming in V1.04. It is a feature that worries me a lot, in the sense that it will be a true easy mode (EZmode) for the pilots that use it.
I have stated a lot of times in your webpage's BBS how much do I dislike this feature. I have stated, too,that if any means of EZmode are included in the main arena, mixing that way EZmode with REalistic one, I will leave Aces High.
I am not the only one who thinks that EZmode it is bad for AH. Read the BBS of your page and you will realize that there is a lot of momentum against this feature, and very few true support for it. Some people say that they will hold their opinion until they test it, that means, in truth, that they dislike the feature but trusts you in the way of implementing it.
I'm not the one who doesnt trust you and your work. I love Aces High, a sim that only can be the product of a love project, and I know that only VERY capable people can make AH possible. Still I dont see how a feature that keeps your plane trimmed in all the flight envelope can be implemented in something near "realistic" ways. I will stay to test 1.04. But I'm scared, I think that it will be what I fear, a true EZmode.
Please ,you see that the customer base doesnt like the idea. Aces High was programmed as a hardcome simulator, one that features the most realistic FMs in the market. Please PLEASE stay in that way. Some concessions have to be made for playability, I agree, but that concessions can be more or less "acceptable" (autotrims in angle, speed and level, Autotakeoff, Better buff guns, padlock, etc). There are other concessions that change the basis of this simulator, EZtrim is just that. A Me109G10 MUST be a unstable plane, a very unstable one. To give a pilot the chance to engage a trim mode that keeps the 109 stable during all its envelope, sorry, but it is unnaceptable for me.
Planes in WWII were different between them. But the differences between them weren't only in performance, and/or maneouverability. Some planes were more stable than others, and that is a BASSIC PART of the simulation. If you bring EZtrim here that part of the simulation (a BIG part of it) will be erased from one day to another.
Please take this letter as a support one, not a critic one. I wish stronger than anyone that Aces High goes ahead as good as always, I LOVE this simulator. I beg you that you left trims as they are, no EZmode. There is a wonderful training corps in Aces High, and I am raising a squad that will help and train newbies in Main Arena. The community always is willing to help new people ,there is no need to implement a feature that will piss off half the community.
If you still do it, means that, or you really think it is neccesary for Aces High, or that the decision isn't in your hands (private money went into AH not so long ago, I know it). In the first case I can tell you that I feel the measure is a wrong one. If it is the second, I remember Pyro stating that to be part of a successful simulator in an unssucessfull company sux. State your own decisions, not the other's. This simulator is yours, and you only know to make it work.
Said that, the only thing I can say is that I thank you for all and every minute of joy that AH has given me. It has been my best time in front of a computer of my life, and ,as someone stated in the BBS, nobody can steal that from me.
Salute HTC.! And good luck in the future, whatever your decision is.
Regards:
Javier "RAM" Bringas
Bilbao, Spain.
C.O. Erg/Jg-26
Aces High
