Quote:
Originally Posted by pandacat
Am I reading that some of the cockpit instruments are inaccurate? Meaning even if you see your turn and bank ball centered, your plane is actually skidding?
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Exactly, and in some selected cases, much more so than others. Give yourself permission to switch from 'Cockpit Only' to the various flavors of Wonder Woman view, and compare where the in-cockpit 'ball' is to where the vector ball in Wonder Woman is located (the vector ball is supposed to be the correct data). In several aircraft, the in cockpit ball needs to be slightly offset to actually be 'right', in others, the in-cockpit ball (or needle, in the case of the RAF birds) is a bit slow to respond or tends to over-react to minor stick or rudder inputs and takes a while to settle down...
There are other aircraft where these and other instruments, notably the climb and dive indicators, are right on the money without obvious delays (examples: Zero, Ki-43, Ki-61), and others where there is a clear delay or consistent error (example: any USN fighter), even compared to the in cockpit altitude display. There is often some offset, obscuring or ambiguity in the dial or indicator lines. The original stated intent was to depict the 'historical' behaviors and errors in the aircrafts' cockpit instruments, but it is very much a matter of
interpretation and frankly, prejudice.
When all the player has to 'fly' with is the output of his cockpit instruments and a few audio and a maximum 105 degree wide field of view, it doesn't seem right to me that the instruments' outputs should be subject to a third party's 'interpretation'...
There is also the matter of some cockpit displays being made unnecessarily difficult to read in Wide or (in some cases) Normal views, even using an HD quality widescreen over 24" diagonally. There are some cockpits where the instruments are out of focus or hard to read at all but the Gunsight View setting.
Part of this is probably due to the fact that when the game was originally designed, the vast majority of us were playing with CRT monitors of 17" or less, so sharper detail would have been wasted, but it's getting a little harder to take every year, and we obviously have the means to fix it, at least in part. Several cockpits have been the subject of repaints recently, and I don't see any reason to continue tailoring instrument outputs to be more or less imprecise according to someone else's opinion (all aircraft instruments are equal, but some are more equal than others, apparently), when the true data is tracked relentlessly by the game--the instruments should be made to be accurate and depict your true state of trim, turn, climb, altitude and horizon, at least until we can get the seat of the pants and inner ear data input into our brainstem plugs (preferably via USB adapters).
cheers
horseback
10-05-2013, 02:29 AM
Hybrid Mode
