Well, back on topic somewhat...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldschool61
Do you sit on your instruments??Last I checked most guages are in front of the pilot not under the seat. Next time your driving look down and see if your seat is empty, I'll bet you see something besides your empty seat.
And looking down in the pit and NOT seeing a torso and legs on rudder pedals does detract from immersion a bit. How is that going to prevent you from reading gauges? Most of the stuff you need to see is high enough above the flight stick that its not an issue. If this sim is going to be realistic in first person mode you need to see your body in pit. Anything less is unrealistic. Hell most first person shooters do this.
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Well, in many planes cockpits are cramped and in others some instruments are tucked away in some funny places, for example fuel gauges in P-51s. While i agree that seeing our own virtual body would add to immersion somewhat, there are practical problems as well. I also agree that having a pilot body that is totally still is worse than having none at all.
For example, bear in mind that due to the increased amount of realism there needs to be an increased amount of controls as well. Since most people have a HOTAS and keyboard at best and not custom-made simpits, the decision was made to allow the use of clickable cockpit switches in order to cut down on the amount of keyboard/button controls needed to operate the aircraft. A virtual pilot body in the cockpit would seriously hinder the use of that, forcing you to bind, memorize and use large numbers of keyboard shortcuts for things that are probably only used sparingly throughout the mission (so they don't have to be bound directly to keyboard/HOTAS), but still need to be operated.
Case in point, things like bomb selection/release panels and side consoles/electric controls panels. For example, in a P47 half of the electric controls switches would be obscured by the pilot's left leg if he was modelled in the cockpit. You need those switches to actually start the plane up but won't need them again until you land and shut everything down, so the obvious solution would be to not bind them to keyboard or stick buttons but operate them with the mouse once at the start and once before the end of the mission. If there was a pilot modelled in the cockpit, the view would be blocked and you'd have to bind them to keys/buttons.
I wouldn't mind seeing a pilot, but if he was interfering with controls there should be an on/off toggle switch or transparency option when hovering the cursor over him.