Recon/Arty In VR

[=IRFC=Gascan]

I've tried the aerial reconnaissance and the artillery spotting missions in a career with 59 Squadron flying Bristols. As people have already complained about, the AI is dreadful and was no more than a waste of time to fight. I did not have fun fighting the AI that I encountered, easily wiping them from the sky without effort nor was I ever in any danger myself. But that's already been mentioned, and isn't my main concern.

I am already seeing mission builders working on how to incorporate these missions into multiplayer missions, so I wanted to learn how they work before they go live on a server. I had two major complaints, although the overall experience was good and I have high hope for the future. I can see these missions adding plenty of action to MP missions once they get implemented.

In order to bring up the screen to take photos, call artillery, or take notes of objects I've spotted, I need to press the left windows key and number 1. I fly in VR and can not see my keyboard, so this is was difficult and time consuming. At first I had to take the headset completely off while flying so I could find the keys. Eventually I started to figure out where they were and could often do it without taking the headset off. I wanted to reassign this key command to something on my throttle, but couldn't find it in the key assignment menu. The external interaction screen for photos, arty, and recon really needs to be as easy to bring up as the map/objectives screen. I can assign that to a button on my throttle and can easily bring it up and check it during flight without taking off my headset or hunting around on my keyboard. Please make the photo/arty/recon interaction key something that can be reassigned in my control profile.

The second issue I had was that the menu was too small to read when I was able to bring it up. I found that I had to zoom in and then bring up the menu so I could actually read the menu and operate it correctly. I could make out the menu for the aerial recon well enough with only a little zoom, and then was able to mark things without zooming all the time. The arty spotting was atrociously small. It took me quite some time to realize that the grid I was trying to mark coordinates on was upside down compared to the one that was marked on the map, causing me to waste my time trying to figure out why the shots were so far off and my corrections were getting worse. This also is an issue when operating the bomb sight: I can't make out all the details of the dials on the bomb sight, so I usually have to zoom in before activating the bomb sight. This extra bit of zoom helps me get things dialed in correctly. At the very least, the arty menu needs to be bigger and more legible. Preferably, I would like to be able to zoom and unzoom while in the photo/arty/recon and bomb sights, which is currently not allowed. This would allow me to zoom on the menus as needed, rather than prior to opening the menu.

[JG4_Moltke1871]

I have same impressions. Need to set the LeftWin+1 order on a button of my choice, and the recon menu window is too small/ the letters too small.

[=IRFC=Gascan]

Well I found the custom input file, which I was able to modify and change the button used to bring up the menu. That works pretty well now, but I shouldn't have to do that! I should be able to change the key using the in-game key-binding menu!

I also am getting frustrated with the ambient artillery in no-mans-land. This needs to be able to be turned off!

 

So complaints are as follows:

1) LeftWin + 1 to open the External Interaction menu needs to be able to be reassigned using the in-game key-binding menu.

2) The interface in VR is too small to read easily, especially for the artillery spotting, but also for aerial recon and bombing. Please make it easier to read, or at least let me zoom in/out when a menu like the map, bomb sight, or spotting grid is open.

3) Ambient artillery makes it difficult to spot when the artillery mission is in progress. Please make this able to be disabled or adjusted.

4) I noticed that the objective marker for the aerial recon calls for an altitude of 1m above the ground, whereas the waypoints call for 1500m on the way over. This is clearly a simple mistake.

5) I have heard reports that the mission text appears for other players in MP, possibly even players on the other team, but haven't confirmed this yet. This is a clear issue that, if true, would completely ruin the MP experience.

6) AI is worthless, but that's covered in other topics

 

I am having fun and can see how this can really add to the MP experience as well as the SP, but I'd really like to see it tweaked to help fix some of the issues.

I especially like how trucks near the target positions take off as soon as the artillery lands nearby!

[=IRFC=Gascan]

I've gotten a bit more experience with Arty Spotting and Photo Recon in multiplayer. These missions are really fun and add so much to the gameplay, but there are significant problems that severely limit their use.

The biggest thing I have seen since my previous post is that the interface operates for anyone in MP, including players on the other team. This is obviously a problem in multiplayer, since it alerts the other team that a mission is in progress. Worse, if multiple people are attempting different missions, the interfaces interfere with each other. Last night, I was performing an arty spot mission on the Central team, and an Entente player reached the photo recon objective. The button to take a photo covered up part of my map, preventing me from selecting certain grid squares.

I also heard the person taking photos got stuck in the left-win 1 menu and was unable to operate other controls for awhile. It took about 5-10 minutes of trying various things before he got out of it by bringing up the task manager. He was then able to complete the photos correctly. However, getting stuck in a menu is clearly a bug. It also happened to me the first time I tried the Aerial Reconnaissance mission in a career, and I was unable to get out of it. I haven't had any issues since I assigned the key to something other than Left-Win-1. In order to do this, I needed to edit my key assignments using a text editor rather than the in-game key assignment editor. This has fixed the problems I was having with being unable to see the keyboard while in VR, but really should be doable from the in-game menu rather than changing text files.

I still have trouble reading the interface for the extra features like bombing, arty spotting, and aerial recon.

 

updated list of complaints:

1) The External Interaction Menu via LeftWin + 1 must be able to be reassigned using the in-game key assignment menu.

2) The interface needs to be somewhat larger, especially for the aerial recon and arty spotting. Photo recon is OK, since its just a button to press. Ideally, I would like to be able to zoom in and out while in the interaction menu or bombing menu, but making them bigger is a quick and dirty fix.

3) All of the mission text and buttons appear for all sides in MP. This needs to be limited to just the airplane doing the mission to prevent overlapping mission buttons and giving away info to the other team.

4) Ambient artillery in no-mans-land makes spotting artillery difficult and should be able to be adjusted or even turned off.