I see players complain about CloD's GUI but....

[Mysticpuma]

.... I rarely see anyone give an example of how they wish it looked. 

So what flight sim/game/layout would players prefer? 

I'll say for me that IL2 1946 never caused me any problems and is a great layout template, but I also don't have issues with CloD. 

 

So what's the main issue for others that if TFS had time to fix, would be great to see implemented? 

[BOO]

The biggest gripe I have are the sheer number of types - Early/late/trop. Its a lot of set up if you use custom loadouts for essentially the same aircraft.  I like to see that cut down to a type with options set out like GB.

 

Too many skins, many of which (axis mainly)  look hoplessly old. A cull of these would be welcomed. 

 

Next are the loadouts -There is no consistency - some are out at 338 Metre, some at 228 (or something like). Sometimes with no indication. Be nice if that was tidied up.

 

Speaking of which, no being able to set this stuff up n SP isnt great.

 

Controls I dont have too much of an issue with but some descriptions could be better. 

 

 

 

[Gunfreak]

46 minutes ago, BOO said:

The biggest gripe I have are the sheer number of types - Early/late/trop. Its a lot of set up if you use custom loadouts for essentially the same aircraft.  I like to see that cut down to a type with options set out like GB.

 

Too many skins, many of which (axis mainly)  look hoplessly old. A cull of these would be welcomed. 

 

Next are the loadouts -There is no consistency - some are out at 338 Metre, some at 228 (or something like). Sometimes with no indication. Be nice if that was tidied up.

 

Speaking of which, no being able to set this stuff up n SP isnt great.

 

Controls I dont have too much of an issue with but some descriptions could be better. 

 

 

 

In the beta you can now spend hours upon hours setting up loadouts for singleplayer.

[BladeMeister]

17 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

In the beta you can now spend hours upon hours setting up loadouts for singleplayer.

Yeah!!! That was one of my only complaints. The sensitivity sliders on the axis setup page need better explanation than what is currently in the game when you hover the mouse pointer over each one. I understand them, through some trial and error, but I think any newb would be confused and likely set it up wrong and then have a terrible flight control experience in sim. Maybe a flashcard explaining some of the control setup nuisances would be good for newbs.

Other than that I have never had a complaint about the GUI. People saying it looks outdated doesn't weigh in with me as functionality is the main importance of the GUI, and I see the CLOD GUI as being very functional, it just needs some tweaking. No need to waste precisious TF time here IMHO.

 

S!Blade<><

[56RAF_Stickz]

40 minutes ago, BOO said:

The biggest gripe I have are the sheer number of types - Early/late/trop. Its a lot of set up if you use custom loadouts for essentially the same aircraft.  I like to see that cut down to a type with options set out like GB.

whilst I generally agree with you for this, I wonder how GB would look if you could enable a custom belting, plus individual convergences. Even our bomb fusing apears more complex (I wish these had some in game explanations). A hurriII with 12 or 8mg and one with 4x20mm cannon are going to have sustantially differing setups whilt being the same aircraft.  We (hopefully) going to have tiffie iib with the same issues at some point. Add in that this loadout coulld also be use in some hurrri Is or early spits to muddy it. A loadout utility similar to that floating around years back for setting these up would be nice to have in game but I guess it is not going to happen. Certainly being limited to having to set it whilst online is a real pain. Especially as it not immediately obvious (nor is the solution of MP server). Then remembering which you have done.

I dont remember loadouts (I assume you mean convergences) being different, getting too old and senile but the brits found the captured german planes used different convergences on the same aircraft so maybe iit was meant to show this.

My biggest issue is the graphics cards settings, I have absolutely no idea what those numbers mean. I set it to one when this option appeared and hope its good. Recently updated graphics card but have no idea if there is a setting that would be "better".

Setting controls, like you (and mystic) never had a problem, perhaps they could split them up a bit more and more logically arrange some. At least it has large text I can read as opposed to GB where I need to get a magnifying glass(and dont even think of dcs). Did not really seem a great deal different to il2 46. Bit I never really understood was some of the hotas axis settings those green bars. But again it did what I wanted so never needed to play much there.

Missio and Missions - could have been labelled better still do not really know what was meant to be the difference bar some being preset (never remember which due to the naming).

So for me -

a) a loadout tool to simplify setting convergences and belting, ie hurri i and ii (with 8 303s,) mki and ii spits with same armament all selectable and able to do as a "onerr"

b) explanation for those graphics numbers

c) better splitting of missions and mission

d) possibly splitting thhe pages of aircraft settings a bit, but I never had issue with it as is, maybe because I understood what most meant same as I do GB

e) explanations of the differing bomb fuses

[Calos_01]

2 hours ago, 56RAF_Stickz said:

e) explanations of the differing bomb fuses

This, now it´s just a guessing for me. And the ability to set convergence (loadout etc) AFTER I choose a mission would be more logical (for me).

[Bussard_x]

If you choose the custom load-out in mission set up you can not see what this load-out in fact is. To see this you have to go menu Aircraft.
In the mission aircraft menu it might happen that you have to scroll up/down and left/right for the aircraft.

In the mission aircraft menu you can not see which variant it is, you have to move mouse over it to see this.

If you click on aircraft to choose another aircraft you get menu with only 3 aircraft visible horizontally.

Edited October 1, 2023 by Bussard2

[Buzzsaw]

8 hours ago, BOO said:

The biggest gripe I have are the sheer number of types - Early/late/trop. Its a lot of set up if you use custom loadouts for essentially the same aircraft.  I like to see that cut down to a type with options set out like GB.

 

Too many skins, many of which (axis mainly)  look hoplessly old. A cull of these would be welcomed. 

 

Next are the loadouts -There is no consistency - some are out at 338 Metre, some at 228 (or something like). Sometimes with no indication. Be nice if that was tidied up.

 

Speaking of which, no being able to set this stuff up n SP isnt great.

 

Controls I dont have too much of an issue with but some descriptions could be better. 

 

 

 

We hope to change the plane selection screen for TF 6.0, (and retroactively for the earlier modules) to simplify the process and make it less confusing.

 

So it will be a series of screens... similar to the following:

 

- Side  (Red or Blue)

 

- Country of origin

 

- Type  (Fighter, Twin Engine Fighter, Bomber, etc.)

 

-  Individual types.  (Spitfire, Bf-109, etc.)

 

Will also be providing a description of each aircraft variant type with the differences in performance and equipment so players understand what they are selecting.

 

 

 

[BOO]

1 hour ago, Buzzsaw said:

We hope to change the plane selection screen for TF 6.0, (and retroactively for the earlier modules) to simplify the process and make it less confusing.

 

So it will be a series of screens... similar to the following:

 

- Side  (Red or Blue)

 

- Country of origin

 

- Type  (Fighter, Twin Engine Fighter, Bomber, etc.)

 

-  Individual types.  (Spitfire, Bf-109, etc.)

 

Will also be providing a description of each aircraft variant type with the differences in performance and equipment so players understand what they are selecting.

 

 

 

 

That still leaves the problem of sorting convergencies and loadouts for many versions.  I hope some work is put into properly sorting that aspect out especially as the games moves in the 1941 period. One of the issues i found was some later additions had no indication of what their default converfence was so even if you stuck with it you would have no clue to the optimum range to fire or work out the over/undershoot. 

[Buzzsaw]

3 hours ago, BOO said:

 

That still leaves the problem of sorting convergencies and loadouts for many versions.  I hope some work is put into properly sorting that aspect out especially as the games moves in the 1941 period. One of the issues i found was some later additions had no indication of what their default converfence was so even if you stuck with it you would have no clue to the optimum range to fire or work out the over/undershoot. 

We just recently created a change which now allows players to set their default convergence in Single Player instead of having to go online.

 

Can't remember if that is in the current release version or just the VR Beta, but in any case it will be added.

[BOO]

7 hours ago, Buzzsaw said:

We just recently created a change which now allows players to set their default convergence in Single Player instead of having to go online.

 

Can't remember if that is in the current release version or just the VR Beta, but in any case it will be added.

 

Thats a good step. One I know a lot of SP will welcome,

 

The issue Im talking about however is the default loadout and convergence. I feel it would be more helpful to those who dont want to set their own convergences and loadouts to have clear historically accurate options. In the case of the RAF for instance you have the early,longer 400yd and the later 250yds. Two default options named "400 Early War" and "250 July 1940" for example provies a quick switch and an indication as to what to set the sight to even if the convergence data is missing in the box. I dont have the game installed at present thanks to MSFS eating my drives but when i looked last year it was somewhat hit and miss in terms of convergences noted and convergences sumply saying "default". 

 

I know that once someone is familar with the game they will usually go ape with persoalising loadouts but for new players and those wanting to keep to historical limitations, it would be more accessable. Id image that might help mission makers to in setting their AI up properly. 

 

 

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

The GUI in itself is not that bad people tend to complain. Key mapping could use a cleaning up of commands that are not used and propably never will. Also the GUI is very unresponsive if you run the Launcher64.exe in pure Windows 11 mode. If using Windows 7 compatability all is a lot smoother, even joining multiplayer games etc. Weapon setup could be a bit clearer, but still it is manageable. But for a new player can be a bit confusing.

[Dagwoodyt]

Would be great if aircraft type, loadout, converge and skill levels could be viewed and modified via this screen for player and AI.

Training module should either be updated or removed.

The basic problem that I see is that there doesn't seem to be a way forward for incremental UI updates between TF modules. If UI revisions are on hold until TF 6.0 there really is no way to know how many years passage that might entail. Getting each next module out the door will likely take priority over UI updates in any case.

[5th_Barone]

For me a good point to start would be making the all menu more read friendly.

Larry screens are nice but sometime it's hard to read the text due to the wallpaper colours. That's just an example.

Another would be re-thinking the spawn plane selection menu, the loadout menu, the key binding menu etc

 

There are lots of field where to improve, just take a look in the steam reviews where new players had the biggest problems, that's a good way to start.

Edited October 4, 2023 by 5th_Barone

[FTC_Konaber]

I really like the style of the optional Key-Binding Tool. It explains a lot of stuff visually, which I think for new players is important.

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

This in part of the UI, specially for VR. Made a post on ATAG. 

 

Concerns map icons and markers. 

 

https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37505&p=392330&viewfull=1#post392330

 

Regarding the UI as a whole, there are a few things that come to mind. 

Take a look at games like Hell let Loose and even BoS. 

 

Multi-player spawn (mentioned above):

Make it so that the process is guided. Select side, look at the map and briefing, decide what's going on and what to do, select airfield, select aircraft, spawn. 

 

Right now there are the flags. Make it a pop up in the middle of the screen. 

 

There are still the old AI wingmen and flight spawn options. Get rid of those. 

 

Plane selection is ok. Rename "Create" to "Fly!" or something obvious. 

 

The first time I tried playing online it took me a few seconds ti realize how to select everything and spawn. It wasn't straightforward or obvious. 

 

—

 

Plane selection has also been mentioned and commented on by Buzzsaw. Plane description is a god addition. Necessary even. 

Make it a smaller list with smaller icons. Too many to go through. 

Mouse over brings up main points on the type. Clicking gives you detailed options. 

Confirming "Select" chooses the aircraft. 

 

—

Placeholder texts (like the dithering and AA options mentioned above) need to be changed. 

No functioning options need to go (like the colors, nose art etc. Options in loadout). 

 

—

Loadouts could be streamlined.

One general option for each gun type. When you go to configure say your 109F it tells you the guns and you can select one and create a belting. Then save different belting options that are used by default by similar gunsif no other is defined. Ability to create different belting and assign them to guns IF one wants to. Otherwise, the general option applies, which has one of the belting you created or the default ones shoppes with the game. 

Same for convergence. General congig applies unless otherwise specified. 

 

Same for bombs and fuel tanks. 

 

Make it VISUAL. Aircraft layout and their guns. Like in Jane's Fighters Anthology or whatever. 

 

—

 

Controls, same thing. Columns like in DCS. 

Make the visual part a thing.. Integrate what has been done with the Wizard in the game. 

 

—

 

Menus I think are OK except for plane selection. Make SP plane selection like above (MP). 

Menus just look old. 

—

Concentrate options that relate to the same thing in one place. And only once. No different configs under different menus. Main example is the different looking loadout screens right now. 

—

While flying, the map needs to be changed as described in the post linked. 

The info windows need to "go". Leave them for the advanced users but create a "basic default hid" for players. That shows when they first install the game and never change, for example. All the info needed already there. 

Chat, multi-player score and player info, mission info, commands (what is happening), throttle positions, rads etc. Plus speedbar.

Make it customizable and in different "realism" levels. But make default ones. No fiddling with info windows.

 

 

 

 

 

[theOden]

1 hour ago, 9./JG52_J-HAT said:

Plane selection is ok. Rename "Create" to "Fly!" or something obvious.

 

.. and while at it please change this single select menu "fly" button to "load"

 

 

[vipe155]

On 10/3/2023 at 7:52 AM, 5th_Barone said:

 

Larry screens are nice but sometime it's hard to read the text due to the wallpaper colours.

This didn't used to be a problem.  With the new screenshot backgrounds the frames and text boxes need some level of opacity to make the text readable.

 

The amazing thing about the horrible interface this game has is how incredibly simplistic and basic it really is.  Like default font, basic text boxes, frames, etc.  The original Il-2 was all function over form as well, but this interface looks like a placeholder that ended up shipping. 

 

In something like Unreal Engine you could throw together a similar interface in a manner of minutes.

[5th_Barone]

46 minutes ago, vipe155 said:

This didn't used to be a problem. 

Yes because until 4.5 the original game backgrounds were used (and they were made so the image didn't interfere with the text).

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

On 10/4/2023 at 11:40 PM, vipe155 said:

This didn't used to be a problem.  With the new screenshot backgrounds the frames and text boxes need some level of opacity to make the text readable.

 

The amazing thing about the horrible interface this game has is how incredibly simplistic and basic it really is.  Like default font, basic text boxes, frames, etc.  The original Il-2 was all function over form as well, but this interface looks like a placeholder that ended up shipping. 

 

In something like Unreal Engine you could throw together a similar interface in a manner of minutes.

It literally looks like it was made in MS Paint.

[71st_AH_Rob_XR-R]

All the info windows needed while flying need work. They are customizable now but need to be replaced with something completely different. 

 

New voiceovers might solve the problem.

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

DCS has one of best GUI, been flying it lately quite a bit. Also the comms menu is good, clickable with mouse or use keys. And there is also the ground crew section, easy and fast to change loadout, fuel, paint, ammo belts are ready for different purposes. Convergence setting I have not found, but to my unsderstanding those are preset to historical values. 

 

CloD GUI, if not easily changeable, should be streamlined as much as possible and with visual cues like mentioned above. While not too hard to use now as it is after a bit, a modernisation is in place.

 

 

 

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

18 hours ago, 71st_AH_Rob_XR-R said:

All the info windows needed while flying

 

 

They don't necessarily need to be cosidered as "needed" while flying, I've met players who fly with completely deactivated or uncreated info windows.

 

 

18 hours ago, 71st_AH_Rob_XR-R said:

but need to be replaced [...] New voiceovers might solve the problem.

 

 

Why replaced ? there might be new voice-overs, as you are asking for, while your info windows remain uncreated. No need to replace them, you simply install the game and refuse to create them.

 

 

[Gunfreak]

In VR i fly without any info except the text for the voices as I can't speak garbled German

[Dagwoodyt]

On 10/1/2023 at 5:27 PM, Buzzsaw said:

We just recently created a change which now allows players to set their default convergence in Single Player instead of having to go online.

 

Can't remember if that is in the current release version or just the VR Beta, but in any case it will be added.

Is this option available in the "current release version"?

[Volant_Eagle]

I find the customizability of the text boxes in CloD to be very good. Lots of options and very easy to do. And of course for those who like to fly without text boxes, they can be turned off and for those people it doesn’t matter how good or bad the boxes are. 
 

However, there is one thing I would really like to be able to do with text. That is adjust the text size. I don’t know of any way to do that right now. So I’m left with whatever size it defaults to with a particular PC and resolution settings. Currently on my desktop the text size is pretty close to what I would want. But on my 13” laptop I would often prefer a different size than given.
 

New voice overs would be nice. Not a high priority for me though. Except for adding US voices since we’re getting the B-17 in the next DLC. All radio chatter being British while leading a raid of US B-17’s would be a real immersion killer. Maybe all they’ll do is simply add US voices. But since they’d be working on voices anyway, it would be nice if the other languages received some updates as well.

 

It seems like the voice in a particular language is the same no matter who is talking. It would be really cool if the voice used depended on who it was coming from. That way you could immediately recognize whether a radio call is coming from a controller, a squadron leader, a wingman, or is an intercom from another crew member. Ideally there would be a set of voices for each of those groups that would only be used for that group. I know this would add a significant amount of work, but it would also add a significant amount of depth and realism. Especially for the US, where you could’ve had someone from Jersey, Texas, and the Midwest all on the same frequency.

[Josp]

2 hours ago, Volant_Eagle said:

However, there is one thing I would really like to be able to do with text. That is adjust the text size. I don’t know of any way to do that right now. 

 

Hi Volant_Eagle,

 

it is possible to change the text size in info windows. You can select from several fixed font sizes.

Please see the Getting Started And Troubleshooting Guide. There is a whole section about info windows there. It shows how to change info window properties. There is a screenshot on page 50 showing the Font property.

 

Josef

[Volant_Eagle]

4 hours ago, Josp said:

 

Hi Volant_Eagle,

 

it is possible to change the text size in info windows. You can select from several fixed font sizes.

Please see the Getting Started And Troubleshooting Guide. There is a whole section about info windows there. It shows how to change info window properties. There is a screenshot on page 50 showing the Font property.

 

Josef

Awesome! Thanks!