Vote your choice - Clickable Cockpits or Not

[Qpassa]

I think it is a very good option for all the people who have Track Ir,DCS Black Shark have it and it its awesome(clickable cockpits)

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

Ermmmm No

I use my mouse to look around in combat what the heck am i supposed to click on whilst im flying using the mouse to see, press another button to switch from mouse look view to mouse clickpit it makes no sense. ?????

I've wondered the same thing myself. I have used a Kensington Trackball with my left hand for years for viewing. Almost as good as TrackIR.

Why bother with a voting thread, I just remembered Oleg said there's no clickpits !!

It is amazing to me that anyone would want to have clickable cockpits.

My time with MSFT flight simulator educated me soon enough.

All those + and - beside knobs. Not only clickable, but you had to be on a certain side of a knob to + or - the value. Then of course how many times do you spin past the value you want to set?

I've got a CHProducts fighterstick, a MSFT Reclusa keyboard (10 programmable keys), a CHP pro throttle, and a CHP MFP (50 programmable keys). I can set every possible command I can imagine in IL2 with what I have. THe newer sticks and hotas combos have even more control selections.

It is beyond me why anyone would select a tedious control method such as clickable cockpits.

Yeah, this thread is probably pretty worthless. I was interested to see just how many people want Clickpits. Then of course there is no competent way to know just how serious people that want clickpits are about air combat, how many fly online, how much experience they've had, and what kind of controller devices they own.

I'm just glad Oleg has sense about this.

[airmalik]

Voted no but it seems there are a lot of people who'd like this so hopefully it's possible for 3rd party devs to develop clickable cockpits or maybe it can be added in future releases. I just don't want SoW to be delayed because of this.

I used to think clickable cockpits were a gimmick but this video convinced me:

BlackShark clickable cockpit with a PowerGlove:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLkfx6QxLfg

[Romanator21]

Originally Posted by airmalik

BlackShark clickable cockpit with a PowerGlove:

Exactly

[Pablo]

The clickable cockpit isnt for me. I'd much rather have more realism in the flight dynamics, damage modelling, weapons effects, visuals and sounds. From the Spitfire video that was recently released as far as graphics go, we seem to be there.

Adding a clickable cockpit now would only delay further the release IMHO

[Blackdog_kt]

Guys, you're still missing the point. It's not about clickable cockpits, it's about having the systems modelled in high fidelity and that's not a gimmick, it's realism that will finally take us beyond the easy-mode flying we've been doing all these years.

Yes, easy mode flying and i stand by it.

First of all, WWII cockpits are much simpler than Black Shark's cockpit. Second, startup in most fighters of the time is usually all about flicking 3-10 switches. If you can take the time to study charts and practice energy retention in high altitude fights, you can surely remember the right sequence of flicking a mere 10 switches.
Third, warm-up in normal weather (which is most dogfight servers) takes less than half a minute. All you need is to idle until you get an oil temperature of about 40-50 celsius for most engines (this happens in seconds, even before you've oriented yourself in regards to where the runway is), then you keep your RPM above 1000 to avoid spark-plugs getting fouled, at which point you're already taxiing for takeoff anyway, so the engine will be ready before you'even said "hi" on teamspeak.
Fourth, the run-up procedure is not necessary unless you have random failures modelled and even if it was, all it takes in most of the cases is throttle up to X amount of RPM, cycle the magnetos and watch RPM drop, move the pitch lever to make sure it works and off you go.

Total time from start-up to take-off with realistic systems modelling and a slightly abbreviated version of "by-the-book" procedures? I'd say about the same amount of time it takes you to press "I", taxi to the runway and shove the throttle forward like we do in IL2.
Both are easy and fast, but one is more realistic and immersive.

Originally Posted by KOM.Nausicaa

Voted no. Clickable cockpits belong to a civil flight sim, or a sim that focuses on one plane / helicopter. In my opinion it's making things complicated that should be easy during combat and there are too many different planes and cockpits around.

I can agree with you if you mean that the interfacing should be easy and natural and we should have options to tailor it to our taste. I disagree if by easy you mean "not modelling things that don't directly relate to the shooting part", because in that case we're missing half of what it really was to fly a WWII warbird.

Originally Posted by Romanator21

I voted Yes.

I don't expect Oleg to make a fully clickable cockpit, nor do I want him to spend time and resources doing it at this very moment. However, I think the engine should be constructed in a way to accommodate these options when done by third party developers, or later by Oleg's team.

That said, I probably won't use the fully clickable cockpit except on pre-takeoff or post-flight shutdown or messing with my circuit breakers/electrical switches. Otherwise, I'd like a nice touch-screen monitor That will be a few years at least though.

However, since I can't have a proper fully clickable cockpit, I would like a fully functional cockpit. That means I would like every function to be accessible by keyboard and I would like every instrument to give an accurate and meaningful measurement..

That's my thoughts exactly. Download the Black Shark manual people, i think there's not a single switch or button in there that doesn't correspond to a keyboard or joystick command, or can't be assigned to one. Of course, nobody can remember all those key commands, but the important ones that you need in combat are all mapped to keyboard and stick, the rest are for start-up/shut-down and non-combat stuff things that can easily be done with the mouse, just like Romanator said he would use it. Even more so, the amount of switches on a WWII fighter are probably less than 10% the amount of switches in Black Shark, so anyone with a half-decent HOTAS will not need to use the mouse AT ALL.

The important question is not how the virtual buttons are pressed, but how well the systems of the aircraft are modelled.People who want to press their switches with the mouse can do it with the mouse, people who want to do it with the keyboard or HOTAS can do so as well, what's the problem really?

Well, i think the problem is that some simmers don't want flight sims to become more complex but instead remain more on the game side of things, and focusing on interfacing instead of on the real question is just a smoke-screen to cover this up behind a dislike for a certain user interface. Nothing against them really if that's the way they like it, i just can't see why the rest of us who want something more should be denied it.

It's not like we said "we want this on release", just make the cockpit switches animate correctly and have the correct functions and the community will mod the cockpits to work with whatever interface they want, clickpits or power gloves or HOTAS scripts.

It's not like we said "make this mandatory for everyone" either, it would be one more setting in the difficuly panel that you could turn off if you didn't like or if it wasn't practical for an online scenario.

I just get the feeling that some people are against it, simply because it would mean that they would lose the pride associated with flying "full real" when they turn off the complex systems management options. Well, IL2 full real is not exactly real, just like it's not for any other sim. What matters in any sim is trying to get as close to the real thing as possible for those that want it, while providing enough difficulty options and setttings to turn off certain features for those that don't. The thing is, times have moved on and now there's new products to compare to for the people that want the "complicated, massive, awe-inspiring machinery" experience.

I sincerely feel that if SoW doesn't have adequate modelling of aircraft subsystems, or at least the provision to add it later, it will be just a re-hash of IL2 with prettier graphics and nothing more.

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by airmalik

Voted no but it seems there are a lot of people who'd like this so hopefully it's possible for 3rd party devs to develop clickable cockpits or maybe it can be added in future releases. I just don't want SoW to be delayed because of this.

I used to think clickable cockpits were a gimmick but this video convinced me:

BlackShark clickable cockpit with a PowerGlove:

I get you point, but my gosh... you'll never get to fly that aircraft.

The only sense I can make of it. If it was being used as a simulator for "REAL" pilots. You'd need two power gloves of course. Along with a the virtual systems helmet,etc.

Sorry, I'd rather watch paint dry than flip a hundred buttons and be going nowhere. (sitting in my chair)

[nearmiss]

Blackdog

Do you have any idea how much work it would be to setup ever cockpit for all the aircraft we have in IL2.

Do you have any idea how difficult it would be to move between aircraft as a player. You'd practically have to marry one aircraft and stay with it or relearn all the controls and locations of those controls every time you attempted to fly the aircraft.

The startup sequence would run off users faster than you could give the software away for free.

The level of difficultly would take a air combat sim game that is pretty darn extraordinary for the genre and turn it into almost "full real" flight simulator. That is not what IL2 is about.

Airmailik above has the answer. Go buy the Black Shark and you'll have what you want. Remember how long it takes the devs to produce one aircraft, and think about how long it takes to become familiar enough with each aircraft to fly and fight with it well enough. Then you add on the weapons systems, counter-measures, radars, etc.

Most enthusiats of IL2 enjoy the WW2 genre air combat, because technology wasn't too developed. The aircraft were powerful enough, weapons were powerful enough, navigation wasn't a brain drain, flying and fighting required more skill than techno management.

[Antoninus]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

Why bother with a voting thread, I just remembered Oleg said there's no clickpits !!

That's not quite correct. Olegs latest statement about this issue quoted below says
something different. But I agree since the decision was already made it's pointless
to discuss this any further. Sometime in future the naysayers can convince
themselves that clickable cockpits can be indeed useful in a combat flight sim.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...ml#Post2732404

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

I will tell more precise:

We have in a code all things clickable and movable by a mouse. Howevere we don't
plan to make it in full amount in BoB cockpits.
This is not the main goal. We did it for MSFS fans and mostly for third party.

[thesean]

Hi!

Weird, people seem to be talking like you cant use the keyboard commands and have a clickable pit..

I would love this feature to be implemented, I think all sims should have this option. Black Shark took so long to develop because it is far more complex than a WW2 plane, not because they included a clickable pit..

Black shark was the first sim I played with a clickable pit and its so intuitive. The reason they implemented it in BS is the complexity of the sim, but another aspect of it is the immersion and familiarity you gain. Even if I was to never use the clickable pit in flight with SoW, it would be great to use it when starting up your plane for take off or landing. I would much rather click a switch with my mouse to turn on navlights for example.

With IL2 (and alot of other sims) I never really got to know the planes interiors very well apart from a few dials, but when you have a fully clickable pit you know every inch of the control panel and that feels good. You feel more connected to the sim, which is in essence what all simmers are after is it not?

But, like has been said, Oleg says it is not planned. So I guess it doesn't really matter. I am very surprised at the amount of people against including this excellent feature however.