Poll: Interactive Cockpits

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by robtek

Agreed,

as an option it would be fine,
BUT all clickable funktions must be mappable to the hotas or keyboard as well,
so you don´t have to use it.

I tend to agree here. Let's think a bit outside a black and white reasoning that says we either have clickable cockpits or we don't.

Assuming the level of complexity arises the way realism dictates (ie, the example about fuel management in a mustang), there's going to be an awful lot of functions to map to a keyboard. Well, guess what, my keyboard command list is already cluttered enough in IL2 as it is and not everyone can afford gaming keyboards or touch screens. I think that closing our eyes to the artificial gap this creates between players has important implications in a competitive online scenario, so much that we should ideally look towards giving the players enough options to remain capable without necessarily having to whip out their credit cards.

For example, i fly IL2 with a very dependable but aging MS sidewinder precision pro and nothing else, which means i have to map mixture and pitch controls to my keyboard because engine management is obviously important enough in combat. However, i also have to map bombsight controls to my keyboard and this is something that clutters up the layout to perform a task that could just as well be done by clickable dials. It's not as if i'm furiously maneuvering with wreckless abandon during a bomb run in a He111, is it?

This is why i would gladly advocate a hybrid system. Make the switches clickable but also make them assignable to the keyboard or stick buttons. What you consider important stuff will go on keyboard and stick so you don't have to look around the pit and click furiously in the midst of combat. The less important stuff that you touch once or twice per flight you will still be able to manipulate but you won't need to assign keys to them, leaving them assignable for more important functions. I seriously doubt that changing fuel tanks and calibrating altimeters is something people do while fighting, they do things like that on the ground before take off or during cruise.

If i don't want to look around for a switch to click then by all means i'll map it to a key combination or buy a separate gaming keypad, but i wouldn't advocate an implementation that limits the options of other players in competing with me, assuming that the new sim will be complex enough to model more procedures. This is however a separate debate. I'm not arguing for or against detailed checklist procedures for things like engine start, what i'm supporting is a suitably customizable control method to suit as much people as possible in case these procedures are eventually modelled.

[crazyivan1970]

Definitely waste of time. Some might enjoy it for a day or two... then never look at it again.

[TX-EcoDragon]

As a long time simmer who's gotten used to clickable cockpits (and a pilot who is as well) I feel that they are critical to an immersive sim. . .particularly as complexity of the aircraft increases. Along with accurate flight physics, this feature is a big factor in what makes or breaks most sims for me. IL-2 was the first and last sim that I continued to play despite very simplified systems management and cockpit interface . . .but at this point I'd expect no less than clickable cockpits in any future titles.

LockOn is the worst example of a useable control interface I've seen, and ten years earlier the Jane's and MSFS sims were doing clickable displays, rotating knobs etc. I would LOVE to have a panel that communicates things to me so that I didn't need a big scrolling text log in the right of the screen, I would love to not need to remember obscure keyboard commands to do things like advance the supercharger stage, set mix/prop/mags etc. I never used LockOn for anything other than formation flying with an aerobatic team, and the lack of clickable cockpits is the main reason why. It’s always seemed a bit odd to be staring at a switch right in front of you that you can’t flip. . .

Some people will not care one way or another about these things, but these people are generally going to be what I'd call gamers first and foremost. Perhaps it is them that a software producer would rather cater to, but there are pilots out there who also enjoy realism and utility, and there are dedicated flight sim pilots who would as well. Those that have never flown with these features might not have much basis for comparison, or perhaps it's really all about the combat game vs the flight simulation.

For people who don't want to use these things (or who fly with cockpit off), they can go on using the keyboard commands, but it's my opinion that no self respecting simulation will ignore these features.

[Former_Older]

...but how can you advocate this old-time clickpit, when better things are available?

http://www.touch-buddy.com/forums/fa...aster-faq.html

Clickpits are not the answer, are they? As a real pilot, you really feel that manipulating and clicking a mouse in a sim is more 'correct' than keystrokes? How? Say I'm looking up in my full virtual cockpit...how can I also click the control to drop my belly tanks or arm my guns? How in the world can I do that? OK, so say it's on my HOTAS. How do I click the radio to chnage channels, with the mouse while I'm looking up? Conversely, I can just reach down and click my touchbuddy screen or keyboard, yes?

[tater]

It all depends on what is being simulated, IMO.

IMO, all that matters is the end result. In that sense, some CEM stuff is required, obviously, but even that can sometimes miss the forest for the trees.

The questions to ask for simulation, IMO, are:

1. Is the system complex enough that realistic variations in pilot skill are taken into account by the CEM system. Ie: someone who pays attention does better (milage, ROC, etc).

2. Does the interface result in actions in the cockpit by the virtual pilot taking the same amount of time/attention as a RL pilot?

#2 is CRITICAL, IMO. IF the click interface takes me 15 seconds to get the plane ready for a dive, and in RL it took 5, it's not simulating anything. If the keyboard shortcut or HOTAS takes me a fraction of a second to do something that should take several seconds, then THAT is wrong.

That said, since the switches are already animated, why not? Then it seems the player could create a combo of keymaps and clicks.

Take things like charging the guns, arming a bomb, etc. That's great for a interactive cockpit.

tater

[Blackdog_kt]

Exactly correct. The more complex the sim becomes the faster we run out of availble keyboard mappings and like i said before, not everyone can afford to shell out extra money for touch screens or that nice CH pad with customizable key layouts.

All i'm saying is, as long as there is sufficient complexity in the new sim to warrant a list of new controls modelled, then give us an extra option to manipulate said controls without having to buy extra peripherals or remember a dozen more key mappings. In the end, if i need to press ctrl+shift+alt+t+1 to switch to my no.1 fuel tank i feel it's no more unrealistic than having to look down and select it by clicking a switch with the mouse.

[tater]

^^^ Agreed.

I think blanket statements one way or another are probably simplistic.

A bunch of those things, like arming guns, switching fuel tanks, etc, are not done very often, and simply don't warrant a dedicated control, or god forbid multiple sticksets.

That way you can keep all the most used stuff close at hand.

[TX-EcoDragon]

Originally Posted by Former_Older

...but how can you advocate this old-time clickpit, when better things are available?

http://www.touch-buddy.com/forums/fa...aster-faq.html

Clickpits are not the answer, are they? As a real pilot, you really feel that manipulating and clicking a mouse in a sim is more 'correct' than keystrokes? How? Say I'm looking up in my full virtual cockpit...how can I also click the control to drop my belly tanks or arm my guns? How in the world can I do that? OK, so say it's on my HOTAS. How do I click the radio to chnage channels, with the mouse while I'm looking up? Conversely, I can just reach down and click my touchbuddy screen or keyboard, yes?

That's a pretty cool bit of software, and perhaps that's a potential solution for some of us (if I had a second monitor and/or touchscreen). As far as your other comments, there is no doubt that some of these things are things that in the real aircraft a pilot could do without looking (though in many circumstances that's considered bad practice), and I'm not attempting to imply that clcikable cockpits is a better solution for that sort of thing. I don't really see it being all that related to that issue to be honest. For a real tactile experience of being in a cockpit we need a cockpit mockup! I still need to take my eyes off the monitor to look for my keyboard, and find the key combo I'm after. For many things I'm fine with that. Even in most clickable cockpit sims I still use the "g" key to lower my gear. If I had a cockpit mockup with a gear lever I'd certainly rather use that. . .but I don't have that sorta setup.
Flying with clickable cockpits simply feels the most realistic in my experience-I'm not saying it's perfect, but many of us chose to make do with a hotas and single monitor and we might not have a full tilt-sim-pit.

I guess I just have a hard time understanding what is so difficult about incorporating clickable cockpits, and no I don't think anyone really is talking about doing this at the expense of keyboard or joystick mappings. . .so those of you that don't want to be able to grab the mags with your mouse, can reach for you keyboard if you want.


I've built plenty of cockpits within MSFS and X-plane and I just assign a function to a particular clickspot on the panel. . .for all subsequent panels it takes a few minutes to do. If they are already planning on animating toggles and levers in cockpit, that seems like the bulk of the challenge is already going to be done.

While I don't expect all gamers to enjoy a realistic start procedure, I think that's what realism settings are for, and if planning a new flight sim, it would be foolish to be so limited from the outset, that those who are capable and interested in procedural sims will have to look elsewhere when this sim has so many other things to offer. I guess I wouldn't care if I didn't love this series so much. . .but to the bulk of pilots I introduce it to, the inability to interact witht the cockpit, and the simplified systems management and procedures always generates a few chuckles. . .I often realize how much I overlook in order to enjoy this game. Why not be better than that. . .at least as an option? I've been an advocate of this sim to many different niches within the gaming world as well as the pilot community, and I'd like to see this sim grow to offer more for the various groups, as I feel that is in the best interest of the sim community here, as well as the sim developers. The Su-26 is one great step in that direction, but it too is met with much resistance by those who just want to press I and blow stuff up.

[Blackdog_kt]

I don't know if this is the case and i'm certainly nor accusing anyone of anything in particular, but bear with me while i try to make a guess about the whole "procedural simulation" debate.

It could be that some people don't want BoB to go that way because they don't want to be labeled as the player group of "less than full switch".

For example, i remember reading suggestions about a toggle to switch between complex and automatic CEM on the fly, just like we switch between speedbar settings. To that, i replied that in an online scenario it will drive down the collective realism level to something that the game host didn't intend to do. If i have to manage 3 systems and the other guy simply moves one slider, then i'm already at a disadvantage and will probably toggle easy CEM on myself. The problem here being that i initially joined said server to fly complex CEM. It's like flying in a server with half the pilots in locked cockpit and the other half using wonder woman view, ie it doesn't make sense.

The solution is pretty simple, it's the set of difficulty options in the realism panel which are and should be enforced by the host.

Just the same, it would be a shame to limit the new sim from the get go because some things would be boring to a part of the players. If it is indeed boring to so many people, i guess the majority of servers will run lower realism settings and the problem is solved. I don't see why we should lobby to limit the fun of those who want something a bit more complicated. To this end and because of the difficulty of mapping everything to keyboard and HOTAS, it seems like a very good idea to me to have the option of clickable cockpits. Almost all the important bits in every plane are already animated in IL2, so i doubt it would be so much work to do for BoB.

And just like EcoDragon said, those of us who don't like this method can still use the keyboard. However, having a broader scope of options, both in control methods and realism is not only a good thing for the player, but it will also help with the sim's sales to the hardcore part of the crowd who like to fly 747s on cargo trips half way around the globe. Which in turn means more revenue to support the game we like so much. I can't see why this should be argued against just because someone might tell me i'm flying on easy settings. I fly the settings i enjoy, whether online or offline. But i wouldn't like to make my preferred settings the highest available just so i can claim that i fly full real and ruin someone else's fun in the process.

[SlipBall]

There is no doubt that sale's of SOW would increase greatly, I've always wondered why Oleg can't see that. Many of the MS crowd would be drawn in just for the fun of flight, many of whom will choose to enjoy without the on-line combat aspect of the sim