I realize that the P-51 CoG was moved but,

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

Old story, those with better PC's, bigger monitors or better controls also have an advantage.

My point is not advantage/disadvantage in the sense of competitiveness. I rarely fly online, and I don't complain about others having what I don't have (but could have if I wished to convert our flat to a hanger). My point is more theoretical. What we call 'full realism' (e.g. in Il2 settings) is basically the faithful representation of one fraction of the sensual input a RL pilot has. It's faithful, but I wouldn't call it 'realistic', for it very much limited in its scope. This is the truth, but not the full truth, so to say. Wonder Woman View, on the other hand, represents a different approach as it transforms the widest range of RL sensual inputs into one single artificial image which is unrealistic as to details, but more faithful to the 'big picture' (a sort of substitute for the inner ear, peripheral vision, etc). Between these two extremes there are very few possibilities ingame, speedbar on/off, but what else? When horseback requires the ball to be less 'realistic' and more accurate, or the actual trim setting be displayed somehow, then it's a legitimate wish IMHO.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by horseback

CDR David McCampbell reported that during his epic 9 kill sortie over Leyte Gulf, he took "a few" cigarette breaks while waiting for an enemy aircraft to make a break from their defensive circle. Since he was the Commander of the ESSEX Air Group, I would guess that at least his personal Hellcat had an ashtray installed. I doubt that he was the only one.

Greg Boyington tells a story in his memoirs about how he rigged up a sort of jury-rigged autopilot in his Corsair which allowed the plane to fly straight and level while he dozed and took smoke breaks. He relied on sharper-eyed members of his squadron to call out bogies, and his squad mates always knew that action was imminent when he cracked back the canopy to toss his butt out the window.

It might be a tall tale, but I can believe the cigarette smoking part. Anyhow, it can't be that hard to rig up an improvised ash tray using a beer can and some duct tape. Or, just knock the ash on the floor.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Greg Boyington tells a story in his memoirs about how he rigged up a sort of jury-rigged autopilot in his Corsair which allowed the plane to fly straight and level while he dozed and took smoke breaks. He relied on sharper-eyed members of his squadron to call out bogies, and his squad mates always knew that action was imminent when he cracked back the canopy to toss his butt out the window.

It might be a tall tale, but I can believe the cigarette smoking part. Anyhow, it can't be that hard to rig up an improvised ash tray using a beer can and some duct tape. Or, just knock the ash on the floor.

And then one negative G manuvre and all that ash and cigar(ette) rests become airborne and float around in your pit - only to dirty up on your nice tidy uniform or worse.
But for smoking breaks, sounds credible, and ashes out of the "window", why not. Maybe the real reason why the P-39 had wind-down windows...

[horseback]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

Devicelink was set up to allow people to make and use their own instrument panels. It should reflect what you see in cockpit.

Do you have any difficulty making charges against Maddox Games and DT for not checking when you don't check what they have done? Just wondering.

My understanding was that in order to use Devicelink, one needed a second computer, like an old laptop to process the data and provide the second display area. Since I couldn’t use my company-supplied laptop for this purpose, I pretty much put it out of my mind as an option for myself, but occasionally looked at what other people were saying about it out of curiosity. The old Ubi forum had a long running thread dedicated to it, and occasionally Devicelink devotees would start new threads showing and sometimes offering use of their custom-built instrument displays. Most of these displays were fairly complete, and I figured that they would be used to display the same ‘accurate’ data shown in the Wonder Woman view, only in more convenient and legible format(s). In addition, during some of the trim debates on these boards, some people cited the outputs of Devicelink about tracking trim inputs, which would indicate to me that all of the game’s data about the Player’s aircraft would be available (in some form) via Devicelink.

Since the various Devicelink posts that I have read never specifically addressed the issue of delays or accuracy and since the ‘correct’ information is clearly also generated (and scrupulously tracked by the game), it made sense—and continues to make sense—to me that the Devicelink data would be the full accurate Magilla, including stuff like a climb and dive indicator, a turn and bank display, an altimeter, critical engine instruments and fuel states—even for aircraft whose cockpit displays don’t include these things or in the case of fuel tanks, don’t work in the cockpit display.

I am surprised and disappointed to hear that it might not, but since you clearly didn’t check your own assumptions and claims about the Mustang video I linked, you might want to back off on the righteous indignation. You say that Devicelink “should reflect what you see in the cockpit”; have you checked to confirm that this claim is correct or are you playing the “I (assume I) know and you don’t” card—again?

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

And then one negative G manuvre and all that ash and cigar(ette) rests become airborne and float around in your pit - only to dirty up on your nice tidy uniform or worse.
But for smoking breaks, sounds credible, and ashes out of the "window", why not. Maybe the real reason why the P-39 had wind-down windows...

Now we know the real reason pilots wore those goggles, and why ashtrays would probably be designed to have some sort of cover. "Tidy uniforms" could not be a high priority in aircraft equipped with relief tubes, much less anywhere in the South Pacific or CBI theaters.

About making an ashtray out of an old beer can, let's remember that beer cans in the 1940s were not made of thin aluminum; that started in the late 1970s as I recall, and up until that point crushing an empty beer or soda can with one hand (or against your own forehead) would have been a clear display of physical strength (or high pain threshold)...

You would have needed some specialized metalworking tools easily obtainable at most airfields and some idea of what you were doing.

cheers

horseback

[MaxGunz]

You ask about things I was sure of and could provide links to before 2007. I have seen no major changes since then.

IIRC there were online cheats where data from players planes were being read at the host server and used but that may have been speculation including the part where one team got caught.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=29404

Don't output "true" values, only instrument readouts. This makes sure that DeviceLink instruments can't move faster than those displayed in the sim. Currently the variometer(and other gauges) output changes in value faster than the virtual gauge.
Another benefit of this is authentic needle movement for anything using Devicelink.

There is no devicelink TAS or position outputs. They were asked for and turned down. What the above refers to is on-screen instrument updates which I can't say how often the game updates the gauges but if devicelink is getting queried 1000+ times a second then check FPS to see about the load that action puts on the game!

Get yourself a copy of UDPSpeed or UDPGraph and see what you get. I was only able to get instrument readings. Perhaps Pfeil knows something extra or just how often IL2 updates gauges or didn't take into account the load he placed on the game.

Note all the gauges and actions he says are not supported.

You also have a file named devicelink.txt in your game folder. It names all the commands.

This is something that perhaps DT has an expert on. Otherwise you're welcome to read many pages of threads trying to separate signal from noise and hope you interpret loose words to hard reality. You'd do better running UDPSpeed gauges and looking for real differences while remembering that yes you can affect the game through overload. One gauge, 10x a second should be enough to see if the on-screen gauge is only updated at more than 1 second intervals. You can't see 100th of a second so don't bother 1000x per.

[J9Masano]

of course if nobody agrees or comments on changes then there should be no reason for DT to make any such change.

[MaxGunz]

We got past that when the change was found to have already been done.
Haven't you been keeping up?

[pandacat]

Am I reading that some of the cockpit instruments are inaccurate? Meaning even if you see your turn and bank ball centered, your plane is actually skidding?

[horseback]

Originally Posted by pandacat

Am I reading that some of the cockpit instruments are inaccurate? Meaning even if you see your turn and bank ball centered, your plane is actually skidding?

Exactly, and in some selected cases, much more so than others. Give yourself permission to switch from 'Cockpit Only' to the various flavors of Wonder Woman view, and compare where the in-cockpit 'ball' is to where the vector ball in Wonder Woman is located (the vector ball is supposed to be the correct data). In several aircraft, the in cockpit ball needs to be slightly offset to actually be 'right', in others, the in-cockpit ball (or needle, in the case of the RAF birds) is a bit slow to respond or tends to over-react to minor stick or rudder inputs and takes a while to settle down...

There are other aircraft where these and other instruments, notably the climb and dive indicators, are right on the money without obvious delays (examples: Zero, Ki-43, Ki-61), and others where there is a clear delay or consistent error (example: any USN fighter), even compared to the in cockpit altitude display. There is often some offset, obscuring or ambiguity in the dial or indicator lines. The original stated intent was to depict the 'historical' behaviors and errors in the aircrafts' cockpit instruments, but it is very much a matter of interpretation and frankly, prejudice.

When all the player has to 'fly' with is the output of his cockpit instruments and a few audio and a maximum 105 degree wide field of view, it doesn't seem right to me that the instruments' outputs should be subject to a third party's 'interpretation'...

There is also the matter of some cockpit displays being made unnecessarily difficult to read in Wide or (in some cases) Normal views, even using an HD quality widescreen over 24" diagonally. There are some cockpits where the instruments are out of focus or hard to read at all but the Gunsight View setting.

Part of this is probably due to the fact that when the game was originally designed, the vast majority of us were playing with CRT monitors of 17" or less, so sharper detail would have been wasted, but it's getting a little harder to take every year, and we obviously have the means to fix it, at least in part. Several cockpits have been the subject of repaints recently, and I don't see any reason to continue tailoring instrument outputs to be more or less imprecise according to someone else's opinion (all aircraft instruments are equal, but some are more equal than others, apparently), when the true data is tracked relentlessly by the game--the instruments should be made to be accurate and depict your true state of trim, turn, climb, altitude and horizon, at least until we can get the seat of the pants and inner ear data input into our brainstem plugs (preferably via USB adapters).

cheers

horseback