Limit Pilot Head and Body Movement

[unreasonable]

After flying BoS for a while one thing that is obvious is that the game allows too much pilot head and body movement, given that RL pilots were strapped in,  thus making it far too easy to check six and peer out of the cockpit with the canopy open.

 

So the proposal is that the game should be amended to make the degree of movement correspond to the possibilities in RL.

 

Given that people use different viewing systems I would prefer to leave the technicalities out of it for the moment just to address the main issue.

 

 

[Y-29.Silky]

I don't know, strap yourself in a seatbelt, turn your head back along with your eyes, that's quite the range of view on your 6..

[unreasonable]

If I keep my shoulders just about still, and turn my head as far as it will go (before I start to feel pain!) my nose is pointing at 2 o'clock, looking right. Allowing the left shoulder to come up an inch or so gets it to 3 o'clock. At this position I can get my eyes pointing to about 4.30 o'clock. Anything further behind than this is in peripheral vision, which we as gamers do not have a problem with: if we can see something at all we can look right at it on the screen. Maybe a pilot with loose straps could turn further. I wonder what the RL pilots think?

 

I think another aspect may be that the eye position in BoS is a little too far forwards, so when you do turn right round exorcist style, the angle covered by the headrest is smaller than it should be , improving the view.

[Y-29.Silky]

I'm starting to see what you mean here, but even with peripherals, you can see on your 6 a little. When I was flying, I was never glued to my seat, there's always a room to move, but for an example, people with head tracking can snap their heads to the 6 o'clock in a split second which I think is unrealistic.  I think the FOV when looking on your 6 is way too much, it's pretty much full. But I think it's out of their power because of TrackIR software.

[unreasonable]

TBH I am not sure what impact has TIR has: I use it, could not manage without now, but even in BoS as currently modelled the TIR movement laterally is affected by the game, as you can see from the freedom of motion when you have the canopy open compared to closed. Not sure if the game can directly affect rotation though, which would be the main factor.

 

The other factor must be the canopy type and pilot seating position. A pilot in a fairly high position with a full bubble canopy ought to be have huge benefit compared to the almost reclining pilot in an old style 109 canopy, but in our games it makes little difference except to get rid of the annoying bars.

[HeavyCavalrySgt]

I was just watching a video about the Saints that addresses this issue a bit.  These guys are contortionists, which is a big part of the reason they are hard to beat.

 

Kemo talking with Paco and Grinder at 3:35, Grinder talking at 8:40....  These guys would come back with sweaty hand prints on their canopies, from working the plane hard enough to soak the nomex gloves, and pressing on the canopy to get leverage to watch their sixes under high g-loads.

 

 

Not totally safe for work, or for those sensitive to strong language.

 

Or here, at about 8:50, maneuvering post merge.

 

[unreasonable]

Nice videos: truly the ultimate boys' toys.

[unreasonable]

83 views, let's guess 60-70 unique viewers, 19 votes cast, majority of voters for at least some change, (which I admit I did not expect), but what about the people who view but do not vote? Perhaps they think it is pointless because nothing will change?

 

I wonder if the turnout or votes would be different if the question had been framed as " 1CGS are about to announce a change to the game's pilot head and body position system, which will mean that your pov will be much more severely restricted, what do you think?"

[HeavyCavalrySgt]

83 views, let's guess 60-70 unique viewers, 19 votes cast, majority of voters for at least some change, (which I admit I did not expect), but what about the people who view but do not vote? Perhaps they think it is pointless because nothing will change?

 

I wonder if the turnout or votes would be different if the question had been framed as " 1CGS are about to announce a change to the game's pilot head and body position system, which will mean that your pov will be much more severely restricted, what do you think?"

 

 

Hmmm - what sort of outcome were you expecting?

[unreasonable]

I was expecting more people to vote for no change, based on my belief that a majority of people who read the forums are MP mostly or only, and that they would mostly hate the idea that dogfighting would be made much more difficult.

 

Results so far are not consistent with that, but so far with a small and very non random sample, not conclusive enough to make me completely change my mind, but clearly there are a quite a few people who would appreciate at least some modification.

 

I hope we can get a bigger sample, both to satisfy my own curiosity but more importantly because only a large sample has any hope of being acted on by the team, but with the forum so sleepy...

[HeavyCavalrySgt]

Interesting!  I don't play MP, but I think sticking your head into the slip stream at 350 knots would be unpleasant, and I think that some of the perspectives the player is allowed seem unlikely.

[=LD=Penshoon]

Couldn't the pilot just tighten the belt going over his hips and keep the shoulder harness more loose so he could get some more movement to look to the rear? Was pilots really fixated to their seats during the whole flight?

 

I know some american planes also had a shoulder harness lock so you could pull a lever and get more movement:

@09:55

 

Interesting!  I don't play MP, but I think sticking your head into the slip stream at 350 knots would be unpleasant, and I think that some of the perspectives the player is allowed seem unlikely.

 

[unreasonable]

I expect this is true, but the benefit would very much depend on your canopy design: the older types like 109 and early-mid Spitfires have a very small canopy barely the width of a pilot's shoulders, whereas a late war bubble canopy would give more freedom, more like the flyers in HeavyCavalrySgt's videos.

 

This is modeled to some extent in the game to be fair, but it is interesting that the clear majority of respondents would like to see some change. After the important stuff like ditching unlocks has been done of course....

[AndyHill]

You also have to take into account the fact that in reality we see a lot larger area at any given time, our tracking is more stable, the resolution is lower as is the refresh rate. As such the ability to look backwards effectively in a simulator might be just a good balancing factor that makes the situational awareness in general more realistic.

 

PS. I'm not a very flexible individual and I can get my nose pretty easily to 3-9 line (and it's a relatively big nose to move around), so if your neck is even stiffer I would really recommend some stretching and maybe massage or something. You can get nasty headaches and stuff from stiff neck muscles, sitting in front of a computer screen doesn't do good for the neck and TIR probably doesn't help very much either.

Edited November 10, 2014 by AndyHill

[unreasonable]

Not convinced by this. While I agree that our computer representation of pov has to make trade-offs and is better in some respects compared to RL, and worse in others, the ability to look behind too easily plays a particularly large role in dogfighting, which is what 90% of MP. But I'm still happy to see an opinion.

 

Having just checked the medical literature I find that the "normal" degree of rotational flexibility for the human neck is described as 70%, which is about where I am: my original description of 10-2 o'clock implies 60% obviously. Perfectly normal for a man nearing 60. If you are indeed forcing your nose to 90% you may well be doing permanent damage to your neck, so be careful!

[SharpeXB]

I read that WWI pilots flew unbelted or only losely strapped in so they would have freedom to look around. Gunners were not strapped in at all sometimes.

I am against changing the view system. It would be horribly frustrating.

Edited December 7, 2014 by SharpeXB