Server Set Heads Up Display

[JG52Krupi]

Now I'm all for a customisable HUD but I hope that this can also be server set....

Why you ask!!??... Well a few reasons, the main one of these is that I get the impression ppl have closed down all the boxes, specifically the chat window and now only a handful of ppl can hear me whine about the unbalanced teams... (20 blue v 4 red come on guys WTH) etc. If the chat box is server set then at least everyone knows that the teams need balancing and can't feign ignorance. ;)

Other data such as the engine window should be server set, I currently have mine on but get the impression that I am one of the few. :(

The same goes for the damage info, this gives me instant data that I would otherwise have to figure out for myself. It is an unfair advantage IMHO if im fighting a guy that has the window off and is unaware that one of his systems has being shot to hell and I know already what's wrong with my aircraft then I have the upper hand.

Like I said I am all for customisation but sometimes a bit of standardisation would be good.

Anyway what's your opinion on this vote and let's discuss :)

[Madfish]

Everything but the chat would be a disadvantage for the pilot so why enforce an advantage on him? Some people prefer the realism or imersion over the kill score. Why not enable autoaim because some people aim like aces? Everyone plays differently and for different reasons. Leave the choice to them - no one disables these things on accident.

As for your balance problem and the chat. An enforced chat window will not solve this issue at all.
If anything then the servers need an autobalance feature but if people overlook the imbalance they will also overlook your chat messages.
Also, even if the numbers are even it doesn't mean it's balanced. As mentioned above player skill might still be very different. Either because some prefer immersion over killscore or just because they don't have head tracking, crazy rigs, hall sensor sticks or just not the tactical knowledge and experience.

So I voted no. I want to decide. In my opinion it doesn't much sense to me to be honest.

[JG52Krupi]

I agree on the auto balance feature but they can be annoying.

Thats your opinion from personal experience if someone on vent or in chat complains about balance then I normally will land and jump sides. I know I am not the only one who does that so telling ppl normally does work.

Yes the planes and pilots are different but if it's 12 v 12 then it's obviously more balanced then 20 v 4 lol.

If these are server set then it's up to the host on how realistic it is, you pointed out a load of different tools that can give someone an advantage why cater for even more means of gaining an advantage.

[ATAG_Dutch]

Tough one, but voted yes.

Principally because of the similarity between this and 'difficulty settings'.

If you're in a 'full real' server, then there's ventrilo/teamspeak for comms (although I'm not keen personally) and the team balance should be managed by the server/admins , by making it impossible to join the numerically advantaged team, although I don't know if this is possible yet. On the other hand, some people fly exclusively red or exclusively blue, so it might get frustrating. Mind you, in full real, shouldn't red be outnumbered? No HUD at all would be my opinion in full real, although I always set up a 'chat in/out and server' box while my engine warms up, hmmmm.....

(BTW, is there a way of checking team balance whilst flying? If so, I haven't found it yet!).

Conversely, in a 'fun for all' style dogfight server, it might be appropriate to have all the info to go with the 'friendly/enemy' indicator arrows, simple engine management and stall free flight model.

So overall, with some confusion, voted yes - ish. :confused:

[ATAG_Doc]

Everyone loves luftwaffles.
http://www.lowbird.com/data/images/2011/09/luftwaffle6tvkl5.gif

[swiss]

If anything then the servers need an autobalance feature but if people overlook the imbalance they will also overlook your chat messages.


OT:

Imbalance is usually caused by:
A: Shitty planeset
B: One more squads that just entered

If you autobalance ppl will just leave, it might be the better option to just change the ps a bit..

[robtek]

Great idea swiss, as we have so many planes to choose from ;D

All settings should be server-sided -> level playfield.

The server should inform about the balance when joining, sensible people will choose the disadvantaged side,

the rest wouldn't change anyway.

[Ze-Jamz]

Voted.

I Dont really care either way tbh

[pupo162]

i think server should be able to enforce some liitations. But players should be able to choose limit themselfs behond that:

in il21946, you could get read of the chat bar.

in il2 1946, even if server allowed sppedbar, you could fly without it.

[ATAG_Doc]

I have just started playing online recently and I will admit it was a thrill. I love the setup where everything is full realism settings. No pointers no map indicators no outside views. You really get into it. I logged onto the server yesterday and as I spawned someone fired up there 109 and just left me there. Bummer because I wanted to fly with them. For some reason when I spawn the 109 prop pitch is advancing up and I have to wait for it to unwind before I can take off. Whoever that was just hauled ass and left me while I was in preflight. Thanks! :)

[JG52Krupi]

Well so far most ppl would want some form of server setting :D

[jimbop]

Voted no but only because I get used to the way my windows are set up and would find it annoying for them to change all the time. I don't really care how others have their windows configured even if they do have a marginal advantage - my choice after all.

[Madfish]

Regarding the balance guys.

I don't want to say autobalance is the way to go. Keep in mind though that:

- Not everyone flies multiplayer to fight! Thus even if there's 20 on blue it doesn't mean you're at a disadvantage during a fight
- Full realism servers need "numerical" (as in pilots) imbalance eventually
- Even with balanced teams it's not guaranteed that fights are balanced
- People will often not care what anyone says on the chat

There are many other reasons but I'd simply say that balance is NOT an issue. Server admins etc need to take care of that and let's not forget that eventually it'd be possible to add scripts that grant the side with the disadvantage nice bonuses or additional AI planes etc.


I want to keep control over the windows and I'm glad it's possibel to get rid of them. Although I'd think it'd be nice to have a button to trigger this.

[ATAG_Doc]

What do you bet Hugh Dowding called Hermann Goering to see if there was balance in his mission for the day. :)

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

In this respect the old IL2 provided the numbers of spawned planes per airfield. Was not so bad if one was sensible to the balance issue. However forcing ppl to balance is not such a good idea as there are ppl that just fly one side or want to fly a specific aircraft.

Autobalance is no problem when on each side there are the same planes ... but who would want that?

EDIT: On the server-set windows I voted that some should be server-set. With that I mean that some windows that may be considered by the server providers as unrealistic or providing some with advantages may be forced off and others on. When exiting the server the player's preset window configuration should be restored for offline or for other servers that don't turn off these windows. Positions as configurated by the player should be maintained. I think this is not so difficult to implement.

[bw_wolverine]

I voted to let me decide my own windows, but I do feel that the damage indicator is a bit too much info for a full real server.

Example:

I was flying in a high g manoeuvre against a 109 in my Spit Ia and lost controls for a second. At first I thought it was just speed compression or what have you, but then I started to think maybe those bullets severed something. With a 109 still in the area, I had to make a decision quickly about whether or not I could continue the fight or try to break off and flee.

Damage window would have instantly told me the answer the moment it happened (if damage was the issue) and I wouldn't have had that interesting decision to make. (I held on and made the right decision, controls were okay).

Forget the fact that having the damage indicator on is a little bit of a cheat (not calling people who use it cheaters, cheat it probably the wrong word but I can't think of the right one), having it on really robs you off a lot of the amazing fun of a quality damage model. Just KNOWING that one of a great many things COULD be broken gets your heart racing and your pilot skills humming. You very quickly learn how to properly check your instruments for good running numbers.

I could give other examples. Landing gear is a great one. Without the damage indicator, you really have to be aware of your gear when you come in for a landing rather than just remembering you saw a damage notice that the gear was damaged. I always check the gear indicator (even on flights I haven't been shot at) because it's very easy to attempt to land after you feel enough time has gone by that your gear is down and then suddenly realize that it's not fully extended on one side or there other. I have had to make 2 landings using the compressed air emergency gear release, and one landing with gear up after I couldn't get it down.

So while I'd never tell anyone what they should or shouldn't have on their own screen if it's an option, I will say that playing without the damage indications is a lot of fun in itself and recommend it. You're missing out on a big part of the sim with it on I think.

[robtek]

I really dont know what some people here are thinking a server-side setting can do.

Afaik the server can only decide what is allowed, each and everyone can turn off the allowed things if he/she pleases so.

[JG52Krupi]

I can understand why you would wish for the chat window to be set by you but I at the very minimum would want the damage window to become server set.

[SNAFU]

I voted for the option of server side enforced settings. But I don´t really mind.

Finally it is up to the player himself, what he wants. If you want realism and immersion, you can switch this all off and fly on a server with similar minded folks on. If you find yourself in the situation in which you start worrying what is balance and what is fair competition, you are likely not looking for realism and immersion, but rather for the sportative aspects of the player vs player contest. For a player vs player conest, may it be 3 or 5 vs 1 or 2 vs 1, where it is about competing skills, it would probably be the best to give the option to set it on the server side. But then you would also need icons to identify friend and foe, because all players should be using the same plane and fly on the same altitude, like in the good old league map.

I personally flew IL2 1946 for the last 3 years with deactivated Hud-Log. Knowing of the disadvantage I have from the player vs player point of view I had more fun this way. But the disadvantage in competition was more obvious in 1940, especially with the inaccurate (if working at all) temperature gauges. In my squad formation I always had problems keeping the form, because I always wanted to keep my engine temperatures in the gauge range (no overheating warning, a problem especially in the 190, where the gauge limits are off), while all others constantly flew with X% power settings, I just had to figure what that means in ata and rpm. Now in Cod, the first thing I switched off were all the hudlogs and little throttles and so on. But I still have not figured out how to switch of the top left hud-log for the messages: Gear up, gear neutral, Gear down etc. Has anyone figured out how to get rid of that?

[JG52Krupi]

Can't you hold alt right click and close it?!!!?

[SNAFU]

No, I only can deactivate the Radar info screen there.

[Madfish]

But that is exactly the point. Those of us who want control over the windows obviously interpret that the OP want's the game to completely override the window settings and in fact he specifically mentioned that in his first post. That means that we would not be able to hide the windows anymore. Sadly he only talks about showing windows in his example but hiding them would be the only important feature I believe.

As for the damage window for example Krupi, on page 2 Wolverine gave a great example why you DON'T want a damage window. It's completely unrealistic so why would anyone want that?

I guess it's okay to have the ability, as a server, to enforce certain windows - on the condition of being able to have 3 options. Allow, disallow and user controlled.
This means you could force damage window off, make chat optional and arcade/newbie servers could enforce everything to make sure people could help each other or see their planes status with ease.

[JG52Krupi]

Let me break it down for you a bit more Madfish perhaps my first ost wasn't clear enough.

Firstly I voted for some windows server set not all.

The best way around this problem would be for the server to be able to disable/hide them rather than force them on.

I.e. A person joins with all windows open but the server controls the damage window and stops it appearing. Meanwhile another person can connect that has no windows and nothing changes for him.

So really rather than have a server force them on it will just stop them appearing allowing you to customise them still.

[Blackdog_kt]

That's the way i understood it and the reason i voted for a server setting: the server doesn't force anything on (player can still manually disable it), it only forces something off.

Ideally, it even won't mess up your carefully configured interface (ie, logging off from the server will have you looking at your personal interface with no need to set it up again from scratch).

I bet it wouldn't be that hard to do either, because the information presented on those windows is separated into individual data streams.

The server doesn't need to know anything about how your windows are configured if it can simply over-ride and disable a specific data stream, then it will be disabled for all players regardless of how they set up their on-screen interface.

If for example it is set to over-ride the "secondary controls" (the blue text about flaps/gear/etc) information, then nothing will happen to your windows, they will just be blank because it's sending no data. So, no matter if i have my "secondary controls" information on a window all by its own on the right-hand side of the screen (like the default setting is) or merged into a window with other information, it will make no difference to the server at all. Think of it like "muting" on a radio: your radio is receiving fine at the same time as everyone else's radios of different brands and configurations, it's just not playing anything back.

The difference here is that we can potentially mute specific messages, so that for example if i have a text window for chat-bar, damage reports and server console, the server could mute my damage reports and i still get chat and console messages on my window without changing anything, then when i log off my damage reports are back;)