OT- Pacific Fighters

[Nikademus]

I read some comments from RAM talking about cockpit details and views but i've read some Simm articles that advise players to fly with their cockpit views turned off to improve overall visibility. The justification is that in real life, you could move your body around to improve your view over the nose etc etc but in a flight simm your contrained to a somewhat static view on a flat screen monitor which is not as realistic.

However having no cockpit view could also be concieved as being unrealistic for having such an unobstructed view as well. So i'm just curious as to how other simm'ers fly their birds.

[Ron Saueracker]

Cockpit in battle, outside view otherwise so I can admire all the pwetty pwanes.[:)]

[Jon_Hal]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

I read some comments from RAM talking about cockpit details and views but i've read some Simm articles that advise players to fly with their cockpit views turned off to improve overall visibility. The justification is that in real life, you could move your body around to improve your view over the nose etc etc but in a flight simm your contrained to a somewhat static view on a flat screen monitor which is not as realistic.

However having no cockpit view could also be concieved as being unrealistic for having such an unobstructed view as well. So i'm just curious as to how other simm'ers fly their birds.

I usually fly with the cockpit off . I like the wide open view of the game world. It's like flying a fish bowl. I need all the help I can get

[UncleBuck]

I fly with full cockpit only. At least online. Off line if I am making pics or movies I will do outside views on so I can get more dramatic shots. Open Cockpit is cheating simple. You will be able to get shots off that no real pilot in a real plane woudl ever be able to take. If you have no nose to look over, there is no dificulty in defelction shooting. You can attack form any angle. I have been round and round with this in my 7 years over at Fighter Ace. I finally left after they kept nutering the Advanced(realistic) flight model.

UB

[RAM]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

I read some comments from RAM talking about cockpit details and views but i've read some Simm articles that advise players to fly with their cockpit views turned off to improve overall visibility. The justification is that in real life, you could move your body around to improve your view over the nose etc etc but in a flight simm your contrained to a somewhat static view on a flat screen monitor which is not as realistic.

However having no cockpit view could also be concieved as being unrealistic for having such an unobstructed view as well. So i'm just curious as to how other simm'ers fly their birds.

Hardcore realism lover here, Nik. To achieve higher realism you want to fly with cockpit on. Is true that in hinders your view too much and that in a real plane you could move your head from side to side and a bit up&down. However ,its much more unrealistic to fly with a completely unrestricted field of vision.


The problem I noted about the cockpits in Il-2 (and FB) dramatically affect the Fw190. Start the game and get in one for a second. Ok, you see that bar which is in the lower part of your bulletproof windscreen?. That one covers up to almost the center of the gunsite?. That's the lower metal frame for the buletproof glass. However the glass was very oblicly mounted, and that, with the thickness of the glass itself, made a neat refraction effect that almost "erased" that nasty bar from the pilot's frontal view.

Try doing a diving attack with that thing on the screen. You can't see anything lower than the center of your gunsite, so in dive attacks where you're going from the back of the enemy, YOU CANT SEE HIM until it's the moment to fire... unless,of course you do a "tracking" dive, keeping the enemy plane on the center of your site as you dive...which is terribly E-consuming and much less efficient. In snapshots where the enemy is coming upwards from your point of view, is the same story. You only see the enemy when you can't already hit it because of deflection. In a plane which lives from the snapshot to be successfull, this bar means difference between kill or being killed. And in the latest patch of FB, as far as I know, it's still there.


Other cockpits have certain issues (Bf109 certainly have some) but none as important as this one, and certainly they aren't important enough to deminish your fun while flying them. But the 190 frame is a b*tch that DOES steal the fun from flying the poor crate.


Oleg has repeatedly said "no" to erasing at least a part of that god-damned bar even while this has been reported quite some times. He has also said "no" to elevate the PoV of the pilot (the pilot in the Il-2 and FB's 190 sits a 1-2 inches lower than whan it was in real life). Downwards view on the Fw190 is unexistant, when in real life it was excellent...except on the ground.

So nice from him, who (as many people here seem to think) "is so community-friendly" who "so fast fixes problems" reported by the community. I have a couple of friends (one a quite CLOSE friend) who are betatesters and have told me about the in-between patches versions of FB for betatesters, and how does Oleg "fix" the FMs. Either my friends
are a couple of liers (something I don't thikn they are) or Oleg simply wants to improve gameplay at the cost of realism to put more $$ in his wallet. Which is fine, BTW, but I'd like him not reassuring the community that his product is the "non-plus-ultra" of realism, when in his own backyard is doing all the opposite.

As I say I don't feed liers with my money. The product is great as it is immersion-wise, such exceptional graphics, so many fliable planes, so detailed damage models, etc. But between highly questionable performances and FMs and Oleg's attitude, I will simply not buy Forgotten Battles unless Oleg lives up to his word and really makes the moves needed to make FB a realistic WW2 simulation.

And about PF, the same . In the meantime I have Aces High. As Brady says, it has some issues too, but the planes' performances are more or less spot-on what I know up to this date...and HitechCreations never marketed his product as "the most realistic simulation possible"...they did it just as a "WW2 air massive-online game with realistic WW2 air combat". Which it is, seen the gameplay concessions made on the damage and gunnery models (is much easier to hit and kill an enemy than IRL).

But at the very worst they don't lie. And anyway AH is realistic enough in plane performances and FMs to fullfit my demands...even while the damage and gunnery models should be changed to more realistic values.

I know mine is a very extreme attitude and point of view , but I like honesty as much as I like realism in wargames and simulations. I'm glad a lot of ppl loves Il-2, FB, and PF. The more the better...if the flying simulation software is rentable, more and more companies will try to make them. Hopefully one of those companies makes a game I really like. I respect anyone who likes Maddox games productions...after all they're extremely high-quality PC software so is easy to like them.

But for me, for what I've seen in Il-2 and a bit of FB, and what I've been told about some betatesters, Oleg is not honest in how he markets his products. Enough not to give him my $$s.

'nuff said.



[edit] almost forgot. I don't know how PF is, but i'm sure is 1000000 thousand times better than any CFS crap from Micro$oft [;)][:D]

[Tankerace]

Does anybody know when the release date is? According to Ubi, its "sometime in november", whereas according to ebgames it is today (although it still says "pre-order".

[Tankerace]

[edit] almost forgot. I don't know how PF is, but i'm sure is 1000000 thousand times better than any CFS crap from Micro$oft

CFS 2 was ok, not great, not bad. CFS 3 Was pretty good. The original CFS was a piece of crap. Jane's WW2 Fighters was awsome.

[Nikademus]

i swear most of the planes in CFS2 felt the same in flight. Remember practicing takeoffs in an A6M2 and an F4F-4 and i swear the F4F felt as feather light as the Zero. Then there's the almost complete inability to stall yourself into a dangerous situation. with EAW i could sneeze at the wrong time and put my Bf-109 into a fatal spin.

Course my worst complaints were the AEIGIS trail gunners aboard the G4M's and the linear damage model that seems to think that every hit will somehow impair preformance in ever increasing exponential-ness

As such FB-Pacific Fighters has aroused much interest for me.

[Tankerace]

I liked CFS2, but I agree. EAW was the king. Though it was realistic, I hated the P-51B. Do a turn a little to tight and the guns would jam.

Holy crap, I forgot about the tail gunners on the Bettys. Hit me everytime. F4F wasn't as tough as I expected it to be.

[testarossa]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

I love my force feedback. Admittedly, force feedback does throw your aim out, but then so would firing a gun in a real point. And the whole point of a sim is to simulate the experience of flying.

The problem is that game already simulates recoil pretty well and it throws off the aim (30 mm cannon especially), and than you get force feedback making it even worse. And on line it pretty bad cause it's difficult to get into the firing position and you have only 1-2 seconds to pull the trigger and than your opponent does the barrel and you have to dive or zoom up to get out from his gunsight (of course i'm using boom & zoom cause it's almoust impossible to get deflection shot wiht cocpit on).

And IMHO CH combatstick with trottle is the best but costs about 200 USD, and X45 costs only $90, so we poor Canadians choose X45.

Release date for PF: EB Games Nov 11th, UBI ships it already, Amazon has it on backorder for 1-2 weeks. But I'll wait for something Gold FB+AEP+FP, for around $60.[8D]

[Tankerace]

I love my Stuka with 37 mm cannons. BOOM and the plane does a half loop [:D]

[testarossa]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

I love my Stuka with 37 mm cannons. BOOM and the plane does a half loop [:D]

Getting in dogfight in Ju-87/g2 is crazy, man. Yeah, Oklahoma is truly a country of wild potatoes. [:D]

[Tankerace]

Just because we are willing to try anything once doesn't mean anything. [:D]

FYI, the He-111 doesn't make a good divebomber..... one Hell of a Kamikaze though.[;)]

[BarkhornXX]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Does anybody know when the release date is? According to Ubi, its "sometime in november", whereas according to ebgames it is today (although it still says "pre-order".

PF is out in Europe and hits most US game stores tomorrow.

Barkhorn.

[Tankerace]

Sweet!

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Does anybody know when the release date is? According to Ubi, its "sometime in november", whereas according to ebgames it is today (although it still says "pre-order".

it has been out since last Friday, at least for ordering online from Ubisoft, I got mine sent to me Monday

think it got some nice improvement over FB, but got some errors and issues to get fixed, hope the patch is close

HARD_Sarge

to play online, I would still stick with Fighter Ace, over FB/PF, I do like the game offline, but not enough to fly it online

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

I read some comments from RAM talking about cockpit details and views but i've read some Simm articles that advise players to fly with their cockpit views turned off to improve overall visibility. The justification is that in real life, you could move your body around to improve your view over the nose etc etc but in a flight simm your contrained to a somewhat static view on a flat screen monitor which is not as realistic.

However having no cockpit view could also be concieved as being unrealistic for having such an unobstructed view as well. So i'm just curious as to how other simm'ers fly their birds.

I see... thus full front view or cockpit view...

In all sims I ever had that had such option I always (and only) used cockpit view.

BTW, TrackIR gives great freedom of looking around even in cockpit view (thinking hard of getting it)!


Leo "Apollo11"

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

I got "Pacific Fighters" on Firday!

Past few days I spend watching track replay and AI doing its stuff (me using autopilot and watching AI fighting AI)...

The "Pearl Harbor" mission is interesting and beautiful one though much less aircraft were used than historically (I presume this was because mission designer had to create mission that would be able to play on every PC and thus lesser number of aircraft involved):

4x 4 Zero (16 aircraft)
4x 4 Val (16 aircraft)
4x 4 Kate (16 aircraft)

for grand total of 48 IJN aircraft for 1st Pearl Harbor strike in "Pacific Fighters".


Leo "Apollo11"

[Speedysteve]

Well I have just received my force feedback joystick - Saitek Cyborg Force Feedback. I will test it later tonight. All being well no more crashing [;)]