Future enhancements?

Q

quoth

Guest
Hi All

Being at home due to snow
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and having played P3 for quite a few hours now, I've been thinking about a couple of things I'd like to see in the future.
The major one is aircraft visibility. The number of times I've cautiously tried to approach a speck of dust on the screen!
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I believe that in WW1 the average pilot could spot an aircraft at approx 2.5 miles and could then discern the nationality by which colour archie was being fired at it. Haven't noticed distant archie in OFF only around my flight. Secondly an aircraft could give away it's presence by banking and having the sunlight reflect off the planes, again making it easier to spot. Is that possible to implement?

Second point is in campaign. Would it be possible to remove lone wolf missions from the mission generator and instead make them user selectable? My thinking behind this is that, especially early in the war, pilots would fly their offensive patrols or escort or whatever, then between these official missions would sometimes go off on their own on lone wolf flights. This would also allow players to fly where they wanted and familiarise themselves with landmarks etc.

Finally, a very very minor point but would it be possible to have streamers on the flight leaders aircraft?

I have to say that OFF has been superb as it is but I'd be interested in others views on the above

Cheers

Q
 
Which is the Very reason to put your TAC screen on your Joystick for momentary checks. The instant you see that dot, you switch 'on' the TAC

Far off - White Blips
As they close on your position - they become Red or Blue

Sooo now you know if you can expect guests for dinner

TAC off, Labels ON - also on joystick - Positive I.D. - PARTY TIME

Personally I think: Streamers is a bit much, I'd much prefer a High Wing Monoplane :ernae:

PS . . in Phase 2, I never followed waypoints on a lone wolfer, I'd fly 10 minutes into enemy territory, shoot a tree, go home and land.
Always got my stick time :kilroy:
 
gimpyguy said:
PS . . in Phase 2, I never followed waypoints on a lone wolfer, I'd fly 10 minutes into enemy territory, shoot a tree, go home and land.
Always got my stick time :kilroy:
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They'll shoot you for that if they catch you.
 
I'm with GG here. When I take off, I set up my TAC to 2 miles (Ctrl+Shift+T), and just Aircraft (T), then turn it off. If I think I see something, I turn it on and take a look. The glint of reflected sunlight would be cool, but I get the feeling that's there already and I just haven't seen it yet.

As for the streamers, I'd prefer a playing card in the spokes, but on my plane. :Banane25:
 
GG and Zommozx have good advice but the 'radar' is certainly an immersion killer. GG's advice to not use it until you see the speck is probably the most realistic approach right now ( since it requires him to notice the enemy before he uses the radar so it leaves him open to ambush, which is how a lot of pilots bought it in WW1). However, as a distant future upgrade it would be great to be able to rely solely on visual recognition and have cues like the glinting wing- nice suggestion if it can be implemented.
For those who always use the radar, it's eye opening to try to fly a mission without it (I spend most of my time in total paranoia, to the point where I may have to add a silk scarf to my TrackIr! It's surprisingly easy to get ambushed. My advice is to try it on a scramble mission so you know there will be friends & enemies around. It's a bit of a challenge not shooting your squad mates and trying to find the enemy without knowing roughly where they are is really hard.
In my experience, this is just like real life- many times I have approached an airport and be warned by the radar controller about nearby traffic and yet I have failed to find the traffic even when the controller said it was within 1 mile and the vector and the altitude! The problem is that even a mile away, an airplane is small, you have to search a three dimensional space and it is very hard to find if its background is ground clutter. In fact, most modern light planes are painted white to enhance their visibility so you can tell how long I would have lasted in the Great War...
 
I agree that GG's method is probably the most realistic at the moment, but the radar is a total immersion killer. I'm not suggesting it's done away with as I realise people like to use it but the goal of the OFF devs is realism and the hardest and most important art of WW1 flying was spotting an enemy before he saw you and anything that can be done to enhance that should be considered.
Wasn't it MvR who said if you get into a dogfight you've failed?

Anyway, healthy discussion
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Q
 
Unfortunately we have 1920x1200 pixels or less to render a real world in. I don't think we want to go down the adding artificial glints off objects or whatever. There are many options for people to set it how they like, and it has to cope with TIR users, padlock users etc.

The radar and labels are aids if you find it difficult. You can even turn radar on for 1 moment, t for aircraft, now hide. Now from time to time try tab to target craft and padlock.. or try higer res, or labels. You can also zoom in a notch or two [ ] keys and scan areas closely - this for me is the most realistic as your eyes focus on a very tiny area of your vision in real life (like 1 inch hole at arms length), and can intently scan distances.
 
I look forward to future downloads and maybe some of our ides will come to pass. Well, unless you have TIR you have so many blind spots you would be dead meat time and again. I don't have TIR just yet so I am with the Gimpster on this. And may operate that way when I have TIR. This is an excellent sim and to ever 100% replicate real life is a lot to ask, especially everyone's personal idea of real life, eh? Have fun dudes! BTW I went for a nice little turn on my bicycle. Visited a farm, went into town and had a look at some of our tanks. I watched my squad mates have at it with the hun while I had a bit of a lark. How real is that, I loved it.
 
Siggi said:
They'll shoot you for that if they catch you.
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Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, you get credit for the stick time you actually put in. Problem was; if you followed all the waypoints and flew 2 hours totally uneventfully, sometimes you were never given the 2 hours.

Where as if you flew 10 mnutes out, then fired your gun, Letting the manager know you're there, and then headed home, you were sure to get your 20 minutes

That's the reason, you must DO the MISSION, otherwise everybody could fly 5 miles, land. Put your aircraft in the barn, drink wine, and eat cheese all day. Who's to Know :kilroy:
 
You Guys . .are only looking at ONE facet of the TAC, that of a Radar Screen. It best use is that of a Navagational Aid

Anybody who doesn't understand of what I speak: Needs to read the STICKY OFF Tips & Cheats on the original OFF Forum

While it was written prior to the release of BHAH, much of it still applys :kilroy:
 
Streamers.. currently the player flight has the same model. So if leader has streamers so do you. We did have some Ace craft with them in P1 but they are not your leader.
 
Quoth started this discussion and it was about "aircraft visibility" (his words). We were on topic.
 
Just idly wondering during a snow day Pol
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streamers would be cool though or perhaps I've just read too much Biggles
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and as I'm no programmer have no idea whether it's even possible!

On a related theme does archie fire only appear around the player's flight or does it also shoot at other flights?

Q
 
When the patch comes out and we can reliably fly as wing men, I'd like to see some kind of identifier for your flight leader. As it is now even if you turn on labels the only one that's different is the ace leading the other flight, you have no idea which of the other eight aircraft on the field is your flights leader.

Scott
 
We already just added changes to flight labels in V1.2. We are working on other possibilities, but at least in 1.2 you will be able to identify your flight (and the guy at the front is the leader).
 
How 'bout flyable Nieuport 28, DH-5 and Zeppelins? Any way to 'cure' inability to see 'up- around as opposed to just 'fwd- up' and just 'around'?
 
Boxkite said:
How 'bout flyable Nieuport 28, DH-5 and Zeppelins? Any way to 'cure' inability to see 'up- around as opposed to just 'fwd- up' and just 'around'?
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Yes buy Trackir!! Then you just look and see everything.

WM
 
gimpyguy said:
The Trackir is $142 Delivered, without the bells and whistles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AO0F5sLdVM

The rest . . .How good are you at waiting ?
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I can wait, how long has this been going so far?

It's fun seeing things develop and to be honest OFF has developed really nicely, but a bet there isn't a sim out there where people haven't said "I wish they'd done x,y or z"
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It would be nice if the devs could give us a clue as to what ideas they have for the future (usual caveat IF there is a P4 :kilroy:)

Anyway P3 is more than enough to be going on with :ernae:

Q
 
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