Realism/Simulation Elements in SOW-BOB

[KG26_Alpha]

Hmm

its a niche enough market already

clicking it down further to how many pilots ??

not many and not enough to warrant the time.

There will be im sure the development line as was with IL2 series over the last 9-10 years to eventually apease the clickers and twiddlers.

[Blackdog_kt]

It's drifting to the click-pit debate already, jesus.

Why isn't anybody bothered by Black Shark's clickpit? I'm sure it's a combat sim and not a civilian FSX clone, so why do 99.9% of the people who tried Black Shark love it still?

There's a very simple answer to that it's got all the functions of the original and you can manipulate them whichever way you want. That's what we should aim for in BoB as well.

Can you remember that ctrl+alt+shift+m switches between your magneto settings? Good for you, then do it this way.
You can't remember? No worries, reassign the keys for that or just click the damn knob.
You don't want to manually start up the engine? No worries either, press ctrl+e or something to that effect and watch the AI do it for you, just like it's done in FSX and Black Shark. You just have to wait until the AI pushes the buttons themselves, no instant engine on/off switch anymore, one more thing to think about when taking off with enemies nearby. A spitfire Mk.IX sequence barely took me 60 seconds maximum in a certain FSX addon when i first did it and that was because i didn't know where the buttons were, it takes half a minute to get it running normally and the automatic start follows the same procedure but is a bit faster as well.

So, what we should have is a sim that models as much of the airframe as possible, not just DM, turn rate/radius and engine HP. How the players interacts with these systems should be up to them, either via remapping keys or having a TrackIR set and clicking switches with the mouse, just give us both options and we can choose.

Did you know that maximum sustained boost in a late war Spit was a mere 7lbs and anything above that induced overheat and engine failure eventually? Or that a P47 had a very demanding engine management due to the existence of a turbo-supercharger (danger of over-revving)? A lot of the flying we do in IL2 is unrealistic and a lot of the match-ups and relative strengths and weaknesses between certain types of aircraft are wrong because of that one simple thing...we only model FM, DM and armament. We don't model the actual workload behind making these things work and that's what we should aim for.

Suddenly, aircraft that were inferior in performance in IL2 might become favorites because they are easier to manage. Planes like the Spit IX , the 109 or the 190 which had automated engine controls might suddenly become much more appealing than the P51 and P47 hotrods with their need for extra attention to the engine controls.

What's more, if the game engine can provide us a solid basis for modelling A/C subsystems, we might see a lot more interesting stuff in the future like radio navigation aids, blind bombing, airborne radar and so on. It would be a shame to miss out on so many things during the lifespan of the new series because our keyboards don't have enough keys to map functions to...i say copy everything from the real birds into the sim and simply let the users decide if and how they want to use it.

[robtek]

@Blackdog_kt

couldn´t have said it better!!!

In the end it will be the server settings that decide who has to use what and when.
So every single user can choose the server which offers his level of realism. Unpopulated servers change or quit, don´t they.

[csThor]

Apples and Oranges, Blackdog. In BS you had one (= 1) type of helicopter modeled and as it looks each following release will include just one more type. SoW on the other hand will have to incorporate more flyable objects right from the start and with each theater there will be more "must have"s on the list. It's simply a pointless discussion because you can't compare the two venues because of their drastically different focus.

[KG26_Alpha]

Originally Posted by csThor

Apples and Oranges, Blackdog. In BS you had one (= 1) type of helicopter modeled and as it looks each following release will include just one more type. SoW on the other hand will have to incorporate more flyable objects right from the start and with each theater there will be more "must have"s on the list. It's simply a pointless discussion because you can't compare the two venues because of their drastically different focus.

+1

[TUSA/TX-Gunslinger]

Somewhere between the extremes of this debate, is the truth.

I love clickables - I have Black Shark, and it's convinced me of the utility and immersion of clickable cockpits. So much more efficient. Imagine simply "touching" the control on a gyro gunsight to increase/decrease the wingspan.

On the other hand, I can clearly see the level of complexity, in adding 10, 20 or 30 more variables to each cockpit.

Some folks seem to always want to drive discussion to extremes. It's obvious to the most casual observer that the objectives of Black Shark and Il2/SOW are very different.

With that said, clickables have been around for a long enough period that they would seem to be a "standard" feature.

Question is, did Oleg include clickables or not? If not, so be it, I'll live and fly SOW. If so, then he's figured out how to increase detail and features, while not compromising production too much. Great for him.

We in Il2, have been flying the same software package for about 8 years. We tend to be a bit more conservative about developments. At least, that's how I am.

Take LOMAC for instance - same developer, no clickables. If you've tried LOMAC after coming from Il2 - the first brick-wall you may have hit was the dramatic increase in assignable commands. No HOTAS has enough buttons to cover everything (no matter how many layers you assign), so you end up with more controllers or revert to a hoard of keyboard commands. That's really immersive, huh?

When I first setup BS before I became used to clickables, I actually mapped the Master Arm (switch is right in front of your face in the cockpit) to my Cougar. On my first flight, I noticed how dense I'd been and removed all of the commands from my Cougar from switches that were immediately within my normal cockpit view.

Cougar is much simpler now.

S~

Gunny

[jasonbirder]

Clickety...click...
Some people like clickpits...some don't; either way its just one method of interacting with your controls and if you don't like it they can be mapped to the keyboard or assigned to your HOTAS as you see fit...
But I started this thread specifically because I wanted to move away from the discussion of the interface...and talk about a desire to see SOW-BOB as a Combat Flight Simulator rather than a combat game with a flight element...
Mention Clickpits and you give every L33T arcade hyperlobby dogfighter ace an easy route to dismiss the discussion with the figleaf..."I don't like using a mouse to interact with the controls"
There is another thread to discuss clickpits
What I wanted to discuss was whether people felt that additions like realistic ground handling...realistic levels of torque...a high workload cockpit environment...realistic landing parameters...proper non-generic complex engine management...fuel management...radios...navigation...gun jams...engine failures etc etc...are things they would like to see in BOB-SOW or whether the preference was more of the same...a "lite" survey sim with lots of flyables and the emphasis firmly on the "fun" side...

[tagTaken2]

Originally Posted by TUSA/TX-Gunslinger

I love clickables -

S~

Gunny

Who cares?

What's with all the clicky spamming by TX- 'blank' crowd?

Is this something that mods should be stamping on?

[SlipBall]

Waiting for SOW for sure, but after reading this review of Black Shark,
I just gotta get it this weekend. Check this out

http://www.simhq.com/_air12/air_390a.html

http://pc.ign.com/articles/945/945520p1.html


I can have some complexity and challenge while waiting...would perfer a high hp ww2 prop aircraft though


edit:
No hard copy = no buy from me!!!!!!!!

[Blackdog_kt]

Black Shark will be released in a boxed set too sometime during spring. However, i think that it's still going to have a similar activation scheme.

I think that the boxed set is giving you more activation/deactivation attempts than the downloaded one though.