This is a long but good read from Requiem, from the event
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Hi all, I don't post much as I'm more of a lurker in general, plus there are a couple of threads about the press event so I'll try to avoid repeating what has been said too often when giving my experience of the day. I apologise in advance if this is one of those "too long, didnt read threads" for you, but I enjoyed myself and would be doing a disservice to you if I didn't recount what I remember.
I was lucky enough to be invited by Jason to fly out from Dallas and check out the alpha which I was very excited to do. There were other RoF guys he wanted to bring out who unfortunately were unable to attend, such as Patrick Wilson who made the modded SP Campaign for RoF, but I'm told that like me he lives in Texas so maybe some other time. I did take my camera with me, but I'm not including many photos as it didn't take very good shots in the dimly lit carrier, plus there are plenty of much better shots/video available from Hooves, Einstein, and others which will turn up over the next few days.
I arrived at the Waterfront hotel pretty early, around 9am, and as I got out of the cab Loft walked right past me about to have a smoke so I called out his name and got a surprised look before I introduced myself and we had a quick chat for a few minutes before I checked in. After I checked in I had a long wait ahead of me, so I decided to see Oakland which felt like a good idea at the time when I checked out a map of the area. I planned to get off at the Arts district and make my way back down towards the hotel using the free shuttles that take you around, so I hopped on one at 1st street trying find something to eat for lunch. The idea didn't seem that great after a while since the area looked like it was getting dodgier the longer I was on the bus so I got off at 20th (around the arts district area) and started walking back the way I came. I wouldn't go so far to say I was excessively worried while walking back, but it was definitely eyes forward scanning around with ears listening as I made my way back. I ended up making it back to a nicer area with a few restaurants, had lunch, then walked back to the hotel to chill out for a few hours before the shuttle came and picked me up.
The shuttle was a few minutes late and I was the only one standing around waiting for it, so I was wondering if I completely missed it but it did turn up shortly after, at which point I ended up meeting a few of the guys such as Mastiff, Hooves, and Einstein from SimHQ along with a few other people I think were journalists covering the event. They had a lift arranged with someone else, didn't catch his name, so they hopped off and headed onwards to the event. I believe they got lost on the way as they turned up after I did using the shuttle, a problem which would repeat itself when I rode with them back to the hotel that night  In saying that though, our shuttle driver basically got lost AFTER entering the compound where the USS Hornet was moored because he didn't know which vessel was the aircraft carrier..."umm, possibly the one with the aircraft on top of it?"
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The event itself was great, it had an open bar and nice Cuban food along with the organisers and models getting around in flight suits which was a nice touch. I only had a few drinks over the course of the night as I wanted to retain my memory as much as possible  , so I'll do my best to remember things as I didn't worry about taking notes. Before the event started we were hanging out in a group where Jason introduced himself to all of us. The look on his face was priceless when I introduced myself, he said I looked like nothing what he expected me to, an "older, stately gentlemen" I believe were the terms he used for those expectations I hadn't been on a carrier in years, so I was keen to check out the aircraft in the vicinity before anything else. I started walking around taking some photos and ended up being pulled aside by Loft in a corner near an old school fully encapsulated simulator, so I spoke with him for about 20 mins and I could really tell how excited he was to be making BoS. I don't know much about the Eastern front so he filled me in on what to expect from the alpha, especially when flying the Lagg. Jason then came over and I got to speak with him also about plans for BoS and RoF. I respect that much of what I talked about with Jason and Albert was in confidence, but I want to say that the team had a strict deadline to make a playable build for this event, and talking with them explained that this was the reason for the relative inactivity on the RoF side of things. Also, the team would like any changes we see as a result of development in BoS to be translated as a part of RoF, so I expect we will see the Digital Nature Engine used in BoS become part of RoF, essentially changing the RoF we have now into a RoF 2.0 in the process.
The presentations were quite good and I believe Hooves has some footage of those, but the standout feature for me from the one of the slides was that there would be the possibility of 100+ players in multiplayer. Loft also discussed some of the data they will be using to model the aircraft during his presentation. They have a hold of previously classified Soviet documents that pertain to the testing of the German aircraft after the end of the war, so while he didn't go into a lot of detail about performance figures and what not, it is good to know that they at least have data on aircraft from the same perspective to allow for a more valid comparison between their test results. Later on Loft personally gave a demo of many different features of the alpha which Hooves recorded, so keep an eye out for that as its pretty special, especially the night sequence 
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I know everything in the alpha is a WIP, so take what I report here keeping it in mind. Nothing that I write here is set in stone and I am just reporting on my impressions thus far. With the presentation done it was time to get into the cockpit and finally have a crack at this I sat down and reflexively kicked my feet out looking for rudder pedals, but my feet were met by the PC case. Oops, twisty stick it is then :blink: At the desk there was a Thrustmaster joystick which was of the type that gets pulled apart to separate the throttle and joystick. The interface is the same as RoF, but that will be changing for the release so I'm not worried about that. I had a glance through the controls and responses and felt right at home as I began adding S curves to the rudder and pitch because of Loft's advice earlier about how twitchy the Lagg 3 is. There were controls for mixture, prop pitch, all that good stuff so even though we won't have clickable cockpits everything will still be mapped so we have a decent level of CEM when flying an aircraft. Between the Lagg 3 and the 109 Einstein was taking plenty of photos of these various aspects, so be sure to check out his article on SimHQ for those. There was a few identical scenarios for the 109 and Lagg to choose from for the night, so I started out with my usual free flight routine when flying a new aircraft in a Lagg to get a feel for it before I decided to actually shoot at anything. It began as an airstart and I found the Lagg was pleasant to fly in general and would do what I wanted without much issue, but I quickly found it really doesn't like doing aerobatic maneuvers. It has an underpowered engine for this airframe and bleeds off speed very easily. For example, getting it to loop was a challenge compared to the 109 as I had to have close to 450km/hr to perform a loop effectively without just flopping over at the top. I was glad I applied curves before I started flying because even with the curves enabled it was still touchy. There is a hard compromise to make because of the shorter lengths of our joysticks, so I think using an elevator curve at the least will be necessary to help flying the Lagg effectively. The 109 on the other hand was an absolute joy to fly. It is clearly the superior aircraft against the Lagg and has great control responses. For example, aileron rolls were very snappy and precise compared to the Lagg. Later on I also put time acceleration on after spawning and climbed up for a few mins to get some altitude to put the aircraft through some spins. Again, the 109 came out on top here and was easier to recover than the Lagg. I almost didn't need to attempt a recovery for the 109 in a left hand spin, but the Lagg on the other hand took a bit longer to come out of both spins once it was fully developed. The Lagg requires a very delicate touch with the controls and it doesn't take much deflection to throw you around the sky. If I could equate these aircraft to RoF equivalents, I would call say the relative easiness of the 109 makes it like a SE5, while the Lagg is something like a D.XII which needs you to put the time in to do well in it.
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For miscellaneous stuff:The canopy slide animations are nice and when I pulled back the canopy on the Lagg I didn't note any discernable speed decrease. However, the sound difference between the open and closed cockpits is great. You go from hearing the drone of the engine to hearing loud winds in addition to it. I doubt you will see people flying online with their canopies slid back to hear other aircraft in BoS I didn't bother sliding back the canopy on the 109 in flight for obvious reasons, but I would have liked to have seen if it flew off or something.. . I tried various pilot animations commands from RoF, but these were obviously a WIP as I noticed only a few of them working. I was also able to shoot off flares, so its nice to see they are being retained. The head movements could use a tiny bit more oomph to them, especially laterally when initiating a roll and maintaining maximal roll rate. The positive and negative G influencing head movement up and down is good, but there was little movement from side to side.The flyby camera could use some work to reduce the relative speed between it and the aircraft because the speed at which these BoS aircraft are moving makes short work of the current flyby view we have in RoF. The mods were interesting for the 109, I asked Einstein to take pictures of these, but from memory I remember underslung cannons, 4 bombs, removable headrest, and reinforced windshield glass. Loft told me these mods, and certain skins, will become available to you through the SP campaign as you progress, allowing you to use them in MP. I asked for clarification about certain SP campaign aspects and he said there would be no need to 'succeed' at a mission to progress to the next one. As long as you stay alive to make it back to base you will progress in the campaign. However, if you want more points you should do the missions which require takeoffs and landings, versus the instant action style missions, because Loft wants to reward players who spend the time doing so. I tried the various mods and noticed the reinforced glass seemed to be bugged though as it was broken every time I loaded it, but this reminds me of another point. Cockpit damage. In one of the missions vs the AI, I maneuvered into a position to let the AI shoot at me which it did with no problems. Its rounds wounded me, destroyed several gauges rendering them non-functional and graphically cracked/destroyed, as well as cracking the canopy glass in the process. A great feature for which I am thankful the team has not neglected! :salute:
The big thing I really noticed between flying both of these was the feel of flying. There is quite a sense of inertia to these planes which is unlike what you experience in Rise of Flight. I noticed this particularly when I was testing the ground attack missions. In both the Lagg and 109 I would climb up and begin my attack run at about 30 deg nose down, quickly building up airspeed. I would make my pass, destroy the target, then climb back in a turn looking behind me to observe the damage, and it was the process of my climbs upward which were catching me by surprise. Both the 109 and the Lagg, but particularly the Lagg, would wallow out at the bottom of my dive as I began pulling out of it. Basically, I could have a positive nose attitude and still feel like I was sinking. The only other sim I have had this feeling is when I jump in DCS P-51. I know that is a strong comparison to make, but Loft aims to get a FM that is very close to the quality we expect from the DCS series and judging by how I felt after those ground attack passes I'm inclined to believe he and the team can do that. During the air-air portion of my testing I preferred flying the 109 over the Lagg. The 109 quite simply just does what you want it to do, whereas the Lagg you really need to concentrate and focus on what you are doing or else the twitchiness of the controls will put you at a disadvantage. It was becoming quite evident why it was nicknamed "the flying coffin." When it comes to the online component there is no doubt in my mind people will be gravitating to the 109 in this matchup, with teamwork being the name of the game if the Lagg's want to succeed.
The level of detail and their transitions are great and what I have come to expect from my Rise of Flight experience. No popping in at a certain range, no dots, just smooth transitions which allow you to identify aircraft silhouettes at a reasonable range. Just as it should be. Clouds looked to be about the same as we have in Rise of Flight, but when I flew through them I didn't notice any condensation, so that's probably not enabled yet. There is also a great snow haze effect when flying at a relatively lower altitude as you look into the distance. Between being low with the snow, haze, and clouds, it almost felt as if the horizon was blending in with the ground at times. The ground object capability has also been improved a lot compared to RoF, and while I didn't get to see the 50 v 50 tank battle alluded to elsewhere, the amount of objects/aircraft in these missions exceeded what we can see in RoF. I saw bunches of tanks and other vehicles from both the Soviet and German sides, as well as the aircraft in the air, all doing their own things. The trucks with the rocket launchers on the top were very impressive. They had some great animation as they positioned themselves to fire off salvos, with each individual rocket leaving the launcher until none were left. There was probably about 10 of these in addition to all the other vehicles/aircraft, and when these salvos were being fired at night time it was the only thing responsible for a slight FPS drop during my play, probably due to the ton of lighting/shadow effects required of these rockets at night. Another animation which is awesome was the bailing out of pilots. The canopy flies off and and the pilot falls out the back, with the parachute fluttering out the back in the wind before it catches and opens up. Unfortunately the bailout is not first person like in DCS-P51 (after the cockpit pops off it goes to 3rd person), but Loft mentioned it is one of those things he would like to have in the game down the road. I could however enter first person after I was stable in the parachute and floating down. The parachute and pilot are collidable objects, so don't try and be a smart ass and buzz some guy in his parachute or else you may end up killing yourself as well 
After this amount of time I spent messing about, Einstein and one of the models behind me were talking about something. I think she wanted to have a go, so I got up to let her have the seat and take over. She didn't know how to fly it though, so I was there trying to explain basic maneuvering to her while she was getting shot at. I ended up just holding my hand next to the screen and getting her to replicate my hand angle to fly around, and while she shot at the enemy a lot she didn't really hit, but she did black out a lot after losing control and entering steep dives. I put a finger on the stick every now and again to prevent catastrophe, but she was having fun with it and that's all that matters. As the night was winding down I got a couple of in-pit photos courtesy of Einstein, and right at the end I got a nice photo with Loft and Jason. It was really great to meet both of them, Loft and Jason are both top blokes who want to create a great simming experience for all of us, and that experience won't just end with software like BoS
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After the event was done with a few of us hung around for the final ghost tour of the night. The guides gave us a historical rundown of various areas of the ship, and with the amount of suicides the USS Hornet had seen during its time it's no wonder why it's believed to be the most haunted ship of the US Navy. I took a photo of an area which Hooves has a strange video of which I've posted for comparison here. There is some strange floaty thing towards the top of the photo which he also has in his video as he moves the camera around.
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The next morning a group of us all had breakfast and shot the breeze some more before it was time to go. I hadn't met anyone from the flight sim community before and was very happy and thankful to have had the opportunity to do so, plus I made some new friends there who I plan on doing some online flying with soon. Jason and Loft, it was a pleasure meeting you both and discussing things with you. I can tell you both have a real passion for what you are doing, so just keep your heads down and don't stress out over the forums too much. It will all come good in the end.
Overall, after my experience there and seeing the alpha first hand I will be pre-ordering as soon as funds permit it. If you are holding off on it, feel free to do so, but if the quality of what I saw there continues for the rest of the project then I expect you will be buying it anyway once some real reviews come in All the best guys, sorry again for the long post, but I thought a nice indepth review of my experience was warranted. I don't think I forgot anything, but you never know.
*back into forum lurker mode* :ph34r:
- Requiem
TLDR: Had an awesome time, great quality for an alpha build, recommend pre-order.
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07-27-2013, 10:36 AM
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