Vote your choice - Clickable Cockpits or Not

[nearmiss]

Oleg might have given some serious thoughts to possibly making a flight simulator, WW2 genre. He has all the makings, especially with the coming weather on the fly, navigation and clickable cockpits.

Afterall, MSFT is out of the picture and the old WW2 warbirds have always been a popular addition to MSFT FS. Afterall, you can't really have a flight simulator without clickable cockpits.

The A2A simulations is still creating warbirds for the MSFT FSX. So, yeah, this might bring in a whole new crowd from the MSFT FS community. I think it could probably be a windfall, if Oleg plays his cards right.

He could introduce some warbirds that have civilian roots and work his way into the "purist" Flight Simulator world

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by robtek

Some people are hopeless!
There is NOT only black and white!!!
NOBODY is forced to use the mouse for flaps, power, firing the guns, prop-pitch etc...
Those controls will still be on the hotas!!! except if one is a hidden masochist and likes to loose all fights
SoW:BoB will have so many additional switches and levers that have to be used in "full real" settings that most hotas systems wont have enough buttons!
It is easier to remember a position in a cockpit and use the mouse than to remember ,say 30, new, obscure key combinations.

I would say it in a more polite way, but basically i agree. It has nothing to do with the fact that a pilot has or doesn't have to look down into the cockpit before flicking a switch. It's all about having the option to model an aircraft and its operation in high fidelity and detail, while at the same time not having to map and remember 200 different keybindings and HOTAS controls.

Like i said before, important stuff stays on keyboard and stick, not-so-important or things that i don't want to accidentally toggle stay on the mouse.

Now, as for the necessity of TrackIR in this, if the inteface is "smart" you won't need to buy one. Take RoF for example, a title that i'm not really a fan of for many reasons, but still has some nice features. One such feature is the custom snap-views. Move your camera to see what you want to see, hold down one of the keypad keys, press F10 and it's memorized. The interesting part in this is that when you are holding down the key to activate the snap-view, any kind of panning via mouse or TrackIR is disabled, which gives you a steady picture. Also, each plane has it's own set of different custom views, they are saved as entries in a text file because they are simply a set of coordinates.

Now, add to this the ability to toggle the "hand" cursor on/off to toggle between mouse for panning the camera and mouse for clicking stuff and you're set, maybe by pressing the middle mouse button or any other key you want to map to it.

For example, let's say i map the left cockpit console to keypad 4. I'm flying a FW190 and because i don't consider the "initialize kommandogerat" lever a critical control i haven't mapped it to my stick or keyboard. All that lever does is set mixture to rich and "calibrate" the automatic kommandogerat system for engine start, ergo i have to use ONCE per flight. So, i'm going to click it because i don't want to map and memorize a keyboard shortcut that is only relevant to ONE instance per mission in ONE airframe. Let's say i also don't have a TrackIR. There are two ways to do this:

1) Pan with the mouse to the left, press middle mouse to toggle the "virtual hand", click on lever, press middle mouse again to resume panning or even faster...
2) Press middle mouse button to toggle the "virtual hand", hold down keypad 4 (the shortcut we had defined earlier as the left console snap-view), click lever, press middle mouse again, release keypad 4 and the view snaps back to where it was.

Sorry to have to spell this out in such detail, but i'm getting the idea that a lot of people have the wrong idea that they'll have to click stuff all the time. Maybe it's lack of imagination or they simply haven't tried anything apart from IL2 the last 10 years but trust me, it's way easier than most people think and definitely easier to remember than a full out "all things on HOTAS and keyboard" approach. I mean Jesus, i'm not going to look down so that i can click the gun triggers on the stick in a dogfight, but i sure as heck like to have the option of not having to remember 200 different key combinations either. Neither interface on its own is superior, but when going for high fidelity modelling and including things like carb heaters, fuel pumps and the like, a mix of the two works really well.

[nearmiss]

Blackdog

Most of us realize you can have clickable cockpits and key commands that are parallel controls.

The mouse is currently slaved or tied to viewing. Maybe, it can be done differently. It's not in my experience.

The way I interpreted what was said in the interview... the ability to do the click thing or the key command thing will be switchable.

Maybe Oleg can provide us a better explanation in the near future as to how clickable and key commands will work with viewing ability, since the viewing even with trackIR is currently tied to mouse movement.

[P-38L]

Face it this way:

We have been using IL-2 Sturmovik for a long time, it is the perfect flight simulator.

Have we ever need the mouse to click something from the cockpit? the answer is NO!

Do we need the mouse to control the airplane? the answer again is NO!

Do you (people) want to ruin the most beautiful of the cockpits, using a mouse? again the answer is NO! (Just watch the video from the spitfire's cockpit)

Program your JoyStick or create a console to represent the switches and controls.

Be creative!

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by P-38L

Face it this way:

We have been using IL-2 Sturmovik for a long time, it is the perfect flight simulator.

Have we ever need the mouse to click something from the cockpit? the answer is NO!

Do we need the mouse to control the airplane? the answer again is NO!

Do you (people) want to ruin the most beautiful of the cockpits, using a mouse? again the answer is NO! (Just watch the video from the spitfire's cockpit)

Program your JoyStick or create a console to represent the switches and controls.

Be creative!

What does having a clickable cockpit ruin exactly?

[AndyJWest]

I think at this point, the most sensible thing to do is to wait until we see how the 'clickpit' is implemented, and then argue further. It is a done thing. It will happen. You won't need to use it, but it will be there if you want it. Try it, if you like it, use it. If you don't, don't. Personally I'm not entirely convinced that it will be necessary, but I'm in no real position to make a definitive judgement, so I'll wait untill I've got something concrete to comment on...

[julian265]

Thumbs up to Oleg for the clickable cockpit!

It's a great option for people who want it, and can be ignored by people who don't. I'll probably use it offline only, however I'll use it a lot when I do.

[CZS_Ondras]

Originally Posted by P-38L

Face it this way:

We have been using IL-2 Sturmovik for a long time, it is the perfect flight simulator.

Have we ever need the mouse to click something from the cockpit? the answer is NO!

Do we need the mouse to control the airplane? the answer again is NO!

Do you (people) want to ruin the most beautiful of the cockpits, using a mouse? again the answer is NO! (Just watch the video from the spitfire's cockpit)

Program your JoyStick or create a console to represent the switches and controls.

Be creative!

Have we or you ever needed the mouse click in the cockpit? Between We and You, there is a big difference!!

To those who still do not get it - if you do not like it, you are not obliged to use it.
That is the way the "clickable" feature in flight simulators worked since DID's EF2000 from 1993 (by the way DID are the real fathers of modern PC flight sim industry ).

O.

[Antoninus]

EF-2000 was fantastic, the game that got me into flightsiming. It had everything you could desire: virtual cockpit, dynamic campaign, great scenery etc. I hope somebody will make a remake oneday.







More screenshots:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/ef2000/screenshots

[SlipBall]

There was a very nice manual as well...good stuff!