Developer Diary, Part 84 - Discussion

[Brano]

I expect F5 to be popular here.Not only to refresh forum while waiting for updates but also to shout at your wingies "Do what I'm doing"

[Feathered_IV]

Looks good Zak.  Moving the menu to the left side is an excellent suggestion too.

[ram0506]

My thoughts on the command menu (I made the suggestion already in the "suggestions"-part about one year ago):

How about having a kind of HOTAS-command menu? One button to open the menu. Two buttons to scroll through the commands up and down. And then another button (or maybe the first button again) to confirm the selected command line and to execute the command. Could be easily mapped to a four way hat switch on a throttle or stick.

[avlSteve]

Thanks, Zak, but really you guys need to work all weekend.  We need our updates.

 

I kid!  I kid!

 

We'll keep "testing" the current version.  Happy Halloween!

Edited October 31, 2014 by avlSteve

[Lensman]

Greiff, please PM with the nick name change request and I'll take care of it as soon as I have the tool for it. It's just not yet available.

Is that offer available to other people like me who have repeatedly requested it for many weeks and been turned down by the support team?

Does it also imply that there is no intention to deploy a client side change tool in the ui?!

It might seem trivial to some but this one issue is seriously annoying to a lot of customers.

Edited November 1, 2014 by Lensman

[SeriousFox]

Well this is what I really wanted for this game! Thank you very very much!! 

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

Despite what gripes I will still be bringing up in discussion, this is a very good addition and a most positive game design choice. Good work.

[unreasonable]

Good that this is coming, and good that existing hot key solutions will still work - actually I find that the hotkeys make the command system mostly redundant, but good to give people a choice. Also second the move to side and make smaller ideas: maybe a little "-" button in the corner.

 

@Brano: hate to say it old chap but if you want averagely trained pilots to stay in formation you need to be much less violent with your turns and throttle movements than in your video.

 

The stagger rearwards does look overdone but I think it is acceptable for Soviets. I remember reading an account of Soviet formations by a German veteran who said that they did not fly in organized formations but resembled a flock of starlings, all following the leader but in no particular order. He was talking about fighters - Soviet bombers flew in tight formation.

 

I would still like to see the German fighters form up a little further forwards: they are certainly better than they were but just another couple of meters forwards would make seeing them much easier.

 

Tip for formation flying. Make turns in echelon opposite the turn ie right echelon for a left turn. Fly straight, before the next right turn order left echelon. Much easier for the wingmen to follow.

 

One thing missing from the commands list? IL-2 had the ability to give orders either to schwarm, rotte or wingman level. So for instance you could order one pair of your formation to attack enemy air targets and your wing man to cover you. Ideally you would be able to order someone to prioritize enemy fighters or bombars as well.

 

Anyway good to see progress continuing. There is still hope....

[unreasonable]

Just got a ctd, just about when my pilot's parachute is about to open. Also previously noticed ctd while watching an AI pilot bale out, at exactly the same spot where the chute is about to open. Not a coincidence I suspect.

 

Another point on formations: AI bombers on escort missions have extreme difficulty getting into formation. This is because they spawn at mission start too low down and facing in the wrong direction, so the leader starts turns that the others cannot follow. It would be better to start the AI bombers at 2-3,000m facing in the direction of their first waypoint. Fighters can easily catch up.

 

Final thought for this build: please give us a button to reset the campaign xp and all unlocks back to zero, so we can start a new campaign with an unfamiliar plane without having to face hordes of level 10 monsters from the very start. ATM, the SP campaign is basically only playable once.

[Elbows]

One thing I'd like to see is a "on alert" method for use of your gunners.  I noticed most of the time there is a kind of RoF response...gunners get on the guns when a plane is nearby, and then get off the gun the second the plane moves out of his firing arc.  This means there is a dead zone when a fighter zooms into range vs. when the AI gunner begins engaging.  I'd like to have an order available to tell all of my AI gunners to get on their guns and stay that way - even if just for a few minutes while we're flying over the target area.

 

Or, at least have AI gunners remain on guns 30-40 seconds after an AI plane leaves their vision/sight. 

[YoYo]

Our pilot will have a voice?

[IckyATLAS]

I am very happy about this improvement I have asked for a few times.  Many thanks Zak.

 

Commands to wingmen are important. I do not know yet what comes as command but I hope we have also:

 

a) Command is to have a wingmen covering my six or my back.

b) Command to call base for help (base sends new planes or redirects plane for help)

c) Command to call directly other planes I know are in the region for help.

d) Command for the escorting fighter flight if I am in a plane that is escorted by them.

 

 

I confirm also what was said in previous posts by me or others, that formation flying is still not polished enough. Some comments:

 

1) Wingmen sometimes slow down and do not catch up with me even if I slow down so they stay far behind. 

 

2) When we are in a formation flying like left or right edge and that the pattern is okay, they oscillate wildly to keep their position. The pattern is pretty compact so I understand there might be a risk of collision and indeed sometimes they collide between themselves (this also happens in the real world). We could command for a loose formation and so planes would need less corrections or oscillation too to keep their position as there is less risk of collision.

 

3) In column formation sometimes they criss cross each other with large curves and have a lot of problems to stabilize in a column, other times it is all perfect. It all depends on their initial position and speed when the command is given. Or if we change from another formation to column. As the formation is compact the change of the formation pattern creates problems. 

 

4) Finally when I land on an airfield (not specifically the airfield I started from, after all it could be another friendly airfield) either they start flying a pattern forever around it, or they also try to  land but just where they are, this means either crash or belly landing. All these cases have to be polished.

 

5) And nice to have but only if you have spare time :-)  some additional formations like line abreast  or some vertical formations where planes are positioned at various altitudes.

 

 

Excellent work and keep up with the good work, and have a nice and productive week-end.

[Bussard_x]

Looks good. Placing it  at the top left would be best. Any plans to have comms with ground control?

[Brano]

@Brano: hate to say it old chap but if you want averagely trained pilots to stay in formation you need to be much less violent with your turns and throttle movements than in your video.

 

1.Well I have different oppinion.It is clear that AI needs to be more proactive and work better and more aggresivly with their acceleration and general maneuvering.Flying 320km/h is still to fast for them to catch?How fast should I fly?At stall speed?

2.Formation is Ok in terms of ''geometry''.Problem is that when my zveno finally finds their respective places in formation,they are still much behind me.There is little programming needed to push them by 4-5 lenghts of airplane forward and everything will be fine.

 

I have flown over 60 ''campaign'' missions in different circumstances,different planes,different compositions and this is general problem.My wingies have hard time to stay with me in formation.And I do not fly full throttle,I always slow down almost to 50% to give them possibility to rejoin quickly but it is counterproductive.Looks like when I slow down,they also slow down.Their approach speed towards me is like locked in 20-30km/h bubble.

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 I just ignore the AI. LEt them die, faceless entities anyway and offer a good distraction so one can shoot down the other AI planes. Return to base like a boss

[Matt]

I think when flying a fighter, it should straight to the wingmen commands and not show the first menu where you can also choose gunner commands or gestures.

 

Gunner commands make no sense when flying a fighter and gestures are not worth the delay caused by this addional menu choice, because no one is gonna see them anyway.

 

Alternatively, add a different bindings to go straight to wingman commands and gunner commands. Also can we change the bindings? Personally, the number keys would make way more sense than the Function keys.

 

Otherwise nice design.

[39bn_pavig]

Hi Zak and developers. Happy to see a midweek update coming next week. If it suits your schedule I think weekday updates may be better than the traditional Friday update. Friday night through Sunday are the main free time days for many players so updates during the week would probably be less disruptive to the player community and give an opportunity to hotfix any unintentional showstoppers before the weekend. I am sure you have proper statistics on the most popular play times, so I may be wrong, but I got the impression that updates were hitting during peak play periods with the Friday update schedule.

[Bearcat]

Excellent news. I will have to work on a vaC profile so I can speak the commands.

[Zak]

Is that offer available to other people like me who have repeatedly requested it for many weeks and been turned down by the support team?

Yes, it is available. But if support team has your request then there won't be much difference. Although I might finish with renaming a couple of days before they they will. So you should PM me, yes.

Anyway it's not yet available.

[Yazh-29]

Interesting to see people concerns here are size and location, could it be made a window the user could manipulate in terms of screen position and size?

 

 

Great idea !

[senseispcc]

During many missions I landed first with a plane in perfect flying order and I recieved this result:

Could someone explain why?!  

Edited November 1, 2014 by senseispcc

[39bn_pavig]

During many missions I landed first with a plane in perfect flying order and I recieved this result:

Could someone explain why?! :rolleuyes: [/size]

After landing you will be asked to clear the runway, ensure you taxi from the runway to off the runway area.

 

Edit: also ensure you land at your home airfield.

Edited November 1, 2014 by 39bn_pavig

[Livai]

During many missions I landed first with a plane in perfect flying order and I recieved this result:

Could someone explain why?!  [/size]

If you damaged your landing gear and it breaks not now after you landed but is damaged critical you get this result.

[chris455]

Excellent news. I will have to work on a vaC profile so I can speak the commands.

Bear, what software do you use to achieve that?

[Nankeen]

Great news re; the commands

A menu that could be relocated and scrolled would be nice.

[senseispcc]

If you damaged your landing gear and it breaks not now after you landed but is damaged critical you get this result.

My landing gear was not damaged and I was never asked to clear the runway!

[chris455]

VAC

Thank you Sir!

[1./KG4_Blackwolf]

Yes, it is available. But if support team has your request then there won't be much difference. Although I might finish with renaming a couple of days before they they will. So you should PM me, yes.

Anyway it's not yet available.

I was just thinking how many PM's you're going to get! Better increase the size of the inbox!   I know a lot of people put their real name in. One fix would be to reword it so it says "Enter your game nickname here" or something like that.

[sallee]

Oh. And those beautiful words, "AI can't see through clouds". Almost makes the game for those who like SP.

[Blitzen]

Now that I have my MS FFB stick all squared away and not drifting all over the place .I'm delighted to spend more time working through the campaign ( I had a ball with a half hour ground support mission with the 190,a plane which until recently I couldn't fly in one direction without crashing for more than about i minute!)You can imagine how control in Normal settings makes all the difference.

 Having said that i do look forward tocoms that are accessable & make sense!

[Nankeen]

Has anyone tried this for the commands?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/common-speech-recognition-commands#1TC=windows-7

[6S.Insuber]

Has anyone tried this for the commands?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/common-speech-recognition-commands#1TC=windows-7

 

I love this:

 

Notes

• You can also use the ICAO\NATO phonetic alphabet to say the keyboard keys to press. For example, you can say "press alpha" to press "a" or "press bravo" to press "b."

[TG-55Panthercules]

My landing gear was not damaged and I was never asked to clear the runway!

 

I wouldn't worry about it - it's a bugged display of the results (if you really didn't have any damage upon landing), but it didn't affect your EXP totals.  Although it says you had an emergency landing that cost you 50% of your points, it actually gave you 100% of your points anyway, assuming you got the 138 EXP it says you did.

[Bumfluff]

Please, for the love of budda, may the next update be an annoucement to get rid of unlocks.

[Rjel]

Please, for the love of budda, may the next update be an annoucement to get rid of unlocks.

One can dream. Who knows? It might just be what this forum needs to keep from imploding.

[Feathered_IV]

Our pilot will have a voice?

Hope not. Cliffs of Dover tries this and it really misses the mark.

[TG-55Panthercules]

Do our pilots not already have a voice?  While I've been flying some recent test missions trying to figure out what's going on with the Esc key bug, I keep seeing text messages about radio exchanges (particularly with the tower), some of which say they are coming from me, and it seems like I'm hearing both sides of the conversation.  It sounds a little like the voices are in German or maybe Russian (they sound kinda Russian even when I'm flying German planes), and in any event are not clear enough for me to be sure I'm hearing my own side of the conversation, but I'm thinking maybe so.

[senseispcc]

I wouldn't worry about it - it's a bugged display of the results (if you really didn't have any damage upon landing), but it didn't affect your EXP totals.  Although it says you had an emergency landing that cost you 50% of your points, it actually gave you 100% of your points anyway, assuming you got the 138 EXP it says you did.

This is wat I wanted to hear, the campaign results are bugged it is my opinion also.

[senseispcc]

I am here asking for the advice of other but I have the feeling that the planes are a little (really only a little) too fragile?! Most of the time one hit and it is on fire or the engine is broken so it cannot return to its airfield. At landing also I have the felling (it is only a felling) that an aircraft is sturdier and a heavy landing does not always result in a destroyed airplane!  

It is the same forthe rate of plane we human pilots destroy in the game I feel it to easy.  

Edited November 2, 2014 by senseispcc

[senseispcc]

I find this very difficult to read and in this case there is for me no possibility to zoom or anything else like changing the order or the stack?!

Edited November 2, 2014 by senseispcc