SOW: your thoughts on clickable cockpits and realistic start-up

[Chivas]

At the moment in IL-2 there is no drama hitting engine start...you know it will start. In BOB WOV I have the magnetos, fuel cocks, fuel primer, and start key mapped to my hotas. It only takes a second to flip both magnetos, fuel cocks on and varify visually as I'm hitting the keys that the switches are thrown to the proper positions. The only tricky part is having the patience to prime the engine enough times to allow for a successfull engine start. This is not a problem on normal flights, BUT when your in a hurry as in your field is under immenent attack things become dicy. In my panic I seldom seem to prime the engine enough to start the first time. Its usally a series of primes, start, cough, cough, sputter, die, prime, prime, prime, prime, start cough, cough, sputter, sputter, catch, roar. And off with a little sorrowly needed drama thats adds immensly to the immersion factor.

On some missions having run out of ammo attacking bombers I'll land at the nearest base and taxi to the hangers, turn off my magnetos and fuelcocks, to hear the engine sputter and die. Wait a minute or two {take whatever time you like} and hit the rearm key, turn on Magnetos, fuel cocks, prime and start, taxi to the runway and off to attack the same bomber stream coming back from the target. Great fun and something we will have in SOW maybe even with animated ground crew and option to set the turn around time that suits your personal game play, or the servers game play.

[un_loon]

There's no doubt at all I would enjoy the extra addon of clickpit. It would be nice for starting the engine once in a while. I would be discouraged by a release date delayed only for click pits ... most of the time in combat I would be wondering how much of an additional PERFORMANCE HIT clickpits would cause (MSFS/CFS clickpits seemed to slow things down). So without a question of doubt or any quibble at all, I say, If I have to reach out and touch something other than what can be programmed into my control inputs during simulated combat, I'd rather touch a key than a mouse. Clickpits won't help how I throw the wrong switch because I'm too busy tracking a bogie to look at what key I'm hitting.

I agree that clickpits are ergonomically unrealistic if you are trying to create a simulation rather than a teaching aid. It doesn't sound like you need clickpits to make further improvements to the engine start-up sequence, engine damage models, and perhaps things like fuel load balancing or whatever else is in store.

What would really impress me is if Oleg asked this question a few months AFTER releasing BOB:SOW.

[SlipBall]

Well since 1C has not the time or desire to give this to us. Maybe if they could take but one aircraft and make it "by the book". I think that their market would reach out to many of those that were into MS. The logical aircraft to choose would be the SU-26.
I think that Oleg should make the SU-26 full real as possible, by the owners manual use of. He may be surprised at the level of interest, if he was to do so.

[airmalik]

I'm all for (optional) added complexity to engine procedures but haven't played a sim with clickable cockpits so I'm not sure how realistic/viable that is. Based on my experience with IL2 though, I propose another option to those wanting more realism without Oleg having to build VCs for all planes.

I haven't played IL2 for a few years now but when I did, I spent days getting the keys on the Saitek joystick, throttle and the keyboard just right. But even with all that effort I found that I could only remember the most often used commands. Around then, I discovered a program which allowed me to use voice commands for various functions.

What a huge difference that made. I didn't have to memorise which keys did what and could focus on flying instead. I still got shot down just as frequently but at least now I could hold down a trigger on the Saitek and say things like "gear down" and "flaps up" without having to remember what I mapped those to. Especially gratifying was watching wingmen react to my spoken commands and having vectors to home base transmitted over the radio in response to my question "where's home?" in Lomac. By the time I finished configuring all the voice commands, the only things left on the stick were the fire buttons and not much else.

When I'm flying in real life, I follow checklists for different stages of flight and pre/post flight and I speak aloud each item as I perform it. Voice activated commands in IL2 would be very realistic in this sense even without actually performing the action. An avatar responding to spoken commands would probably be as close as possible to real life without building a simpit.

[Antoninus]

Just to show what depth and immersion is possible today in a modern simulator with clickable cockpits. Imagine flying such a plane in a combat environment.


http://www.a2asimulations.com//wings...27s_Manual.pdf

http://www.a2asimulations.com//wings...sim_Manual.pdf

Part 1. Cockpit Familiarization

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7cTL6YhEyg

Part 2. Takeoff and Landing Demonstration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-E50TqJfGk

Part 3. High Speed Flaps Failure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTY11zy5-m8

Part 4. Emergency Landing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rag1q9OGCPA

[Codex]

WOW...And that is how sim should be. I knew they were making a Wings Of Power 3 series, but I had no idea it would be so detailed in its flight and damage modelling.

[Chiz]

Thanks for the links Antonius....wow, just....wow. What a fantastic level of detail. This is what I'd love to see in Storm of War. I realise it's a lot of work and from what Oleg has hinted isn't the direction SoW is going, but a man can dream

[KG26_Alpha]

Hmm that flight model looks basic...........

No rudder input on take off for one and it looks like it floats along !!!!!