My Pacific Fighters screens - 56k

[Kratz]

IJN arriving at Oahu, early morning, Dec. 7, 1941:


IJN over 'Battleship Row', Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941 after scoring hit:


SBD-5 Dauntless and pretty water:


More 'oooo':


Overflying ship I just sank with a 1600lb bomb. I dropped too low and wounded my gunner and damaged my plane in the blast:

[Kratz]

And all that water is constantly moving, and waves are breaking on the shores... it's incredible looking... and I'm running the lowest 'perfect' water settings - if you have the hardware, you can have rippling reflections of ships and smoke, and shadows on the water from passing clouds... but my machine can't hack that.

[Orpheo]

Oh, sure, yeah Kratz, that's REAL pretty water. Go on and show us your pictures. Jeez. Asshole.

[Falcon554]

Great pics, and a great game.

[knob]

I love the water. And second what Orpheo said, "Asshole."



I've always sucked at IL2 (And flight sims in general), but I think I'm going to be requried to pick up the Aces expansion and Pacific Fighters. I've owned IL2 and FB and I haven't regretted it.

It's just one of those games that I'm happy to support.

[Kratz]

You know Pacific Fighters is a complete stand alone, right?

You actually *can* install it into Forgotten Battles if you have the Ace Expansion and create some sort of freaky supergame, but it can also be installed as its own entity. I've actually been kind of let down with the AE... didn't really seem to add to much.

[geezer]

Is anyone up for a little FB/AEP/PF dogfighting sometime later this week or weekend?

[Smoove_B]

FWIW, I don't think everyone will get those quality screens. The kicker is that you have to have at GeForce card that supports Pixel Shader 3.

So basically, if you have an ATI card (SEE: Smoove_B) ...you'r fuxx0rd.

Here's more screens to make you ill:

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s ... 7221032432

[jpinard]

Wow awesome shots!! How's the campaign?

[Kratz]

FWIW, I don't think everyone will get those quality screens. The kicker is that you have to have at GeForce card that supports Pixel Shader 3.

So basically, if you have an ATI card (SEE: Smoove_B) ...you'r fuxx0rd.

Here's more screens to make you ill:

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s ... 7221032432

Um, actually, no - these shots were all taken by me on my Athlon XP 2000+ with my Radeon 9700.

As I mentioned above, I'm running the lowest 'perfect' water settings, as well as some low settings on other things (low landscape lighting, medium clouds, medium object lighting, normal detail). This just uses pixel shader 2.0. There IS an uber-water setting that uses 3.0 pixel shaders that is only for the next generation hardware, but there are TWO more water settings in between what I'm running and that.

So there is 'normal' water, which looks like the water did in Il2 and FB, and then there are four 'perfect' water settings:

water=0 (what I'm running) - looks like what you see.
water=1 what I'm running, but with reflections (so the sun has a nice localized, bright reflection on the water, and all ships, land and smoke, etc. are reflected in the water), and clouds cast shadows on the water (looks cool!)
water=2 Like water=1, but adds reflections that ripple with the waves (kind of stunning... but almost looks fake), and weather dependent wave types
water=3 This one is the one that only works with pixel shader 3.0

You can also force the game to use pixel shader 1.0 if your video card can't hack 2.0 (it says this setting is for GeForce FX 5200, 5600 and 5700), but I haven't done that, so I don't know exactly what that looks like.

So you can get it looking a lot better than what I've got with just marginally better hardware than I have (I can run water=1, and even water=2, but can't hack the performance cut), but the game is extraordinarily scaleable (once I figured some stuff out - like turning off both the game's anisotropic filtering and my ATI AF doubled my performance).

Anyhoo...

Wow awesome shots!! How's the campaign?

Campaign is the same sort as in Forgotten Battles... so kind of faked dynamic. I guess they are working on a dynamic campaign mod/add-on sort of thing, but I haven't tried that yet.

You can fly a TON of different campaigns though, and it generates the missions for each on the fly, so it's not just the same ones in a row each time. For instance, for the USN, you can choose to start a campaign in any year of the war (and pretty much at any major battle of the war), and pick an aircraft that would be available for that campaign (so in the beginning, you might just get to pick an F4F as your fighter, but later in the war you might have your pick of an F6F-3, an F6F-5, or an F4U-1A/C/D). It's the same story for the other forces - IJN, IJA, USAAF, USMC, USN, RAAF, RN... lots of stuff to fly, and lots of places to fly it. I'm lovin' it.

[geezer]

FWIW, I don't think everyone will get those quality screens. The kicker is that you have to have at GeForce card that supports Pixel Shader 3.

So basically, if you have an ATI card (SEE: Smoove_B) ...you'r fuxx0rd.

Here's more screens to make you ill:

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s ... 7221032432

Um, actually, no - these shots were all taken by me on my Athlon XP 2000+ with my Radeon 9700.

As I mentioned above, I'm running the lowest 'perfect' water settings, as well as some low settings on other things (low landscape lighting, medium clouds, medium object lighting, normal detail). This just uses pixel shader 2.0. There IS an uber-water setting that uses 3.0 pixel shaders that is only for the next generation hardware, but there are TWO more water settings in between what I'm running and that.

So there is 'normal' water, which looks like the water did in Il2 and FB, and then there are four 'perfect' water settings:

water=0 (what I'm running) - looks like what you see.
water=1 what I'm running, but with reflections (so the sun has a nice localized, bright reflection on the water, and all ships, land and smoke, etc. are reflected in the water), and clouds cast shadows on the water (looks cool!)
water=2 Like water=1, but adds reflections that ripple with the waves (kind of stunning... but almost looks fake), and weather dependent wave types
water=3 This one is the one that only works with pixel shader 3.0

You can also force the game to use pixel shader 1.0 if your video card can't hack 2.0 (it says this setting is for GeForce FX 5200, 5600 and 5700), but I haven't done that, so I don't know exactly what that looks like.

So you can get it looking a lot better than what I've got with just marginally better hardware than I have (I can run water=1, and even water=2, but can't hack the performance cut), but the game is extraordinarily scaleable (once I figured some stuff out - like turning off both the game's anisotropic filtering and my ATI AF doubled my performance).

I'll put some water=2 or 3 shots a little later today if y'all are curious. Hell, *I'm* curious (havent tried those settings yet) and I'll give "effects=2" a shot as well (apparently this is an unsupported feature that Oleg has been discussing on the ubi boards.)

[Napoleon]

Man, these shots look so cool I keep wanting to try this game, but then I realize that I also wanted to do that with IL2, and that I basically played 1 mission on it.

I want a game like Red Baron that's insanely easy to control, but still looks cool like this

[geezer]

As I mentioned above, I'm running the lowest 'perfect' water settings, as well as some low settings on other things (low landscape lighting, medium clouds, medium object lighting, normal detail). This just uses pixel shader 2.0. There IS an uber-water setting that uses 3.0 pixel shaders that is only for the next generation hardware, but there are TWO more water settings in between what I'm running and that.

So there is 'normal' water, which looks like the water did in Il2 and FB, and then there are four 'perfect' water settings:

water=0 (what I'm running) - looks like what you see.
water=1 what I'm running, but with reflections (so the sun has a nice localized, bright reflection on the water, and all ships, land and smoke, etc. are reflected in the water), and clouds cast shadows on the water (looks cool!)
water=2 Like water=1, but adds reflections that ripple with the waves (kind of stunning... but almost looks fake), and weather dependent wave types
water=3 This one is the one that only works with pixel shader 3.0

Here are some shots with water=3 at 1024x768 with 4xAA Don't know what the Ansio is set at...

System is an AMD Fx-53 with OC'd GeForce 6800 GT and one gig RAM.

Enjoy -- As Kratz said, check out the reflections and the "movement" in the water (I know it's static in the shots but imagine the waves moving up and down)

Pearl Harbor from the water:



Wildcat low over water



P-40 along the coastline

[Smoove_B]

Um, actually, no - these shots were all taken by me on my Athlon XP 2000+ with my Radeon 9700.

Hmmm...I've got a Radeon 9700 Pro with an AMD 2600+ and my screenies don't look ANYTHING like that. I messed around in the config.ini file....but maybe I missed something.

I'll need to print out your post and mess around.

Thanks for giving me hope!

[Blackhawk]

So, what is the consensus on the manual and the in-game tutorials for this one?

[Kratz]

Smoove - One VERY important detail: You have to be running OpenGL, and have the landscape detail in 'Video Options' from within the game set to 'Perfect'. I suspect that you are in Direct3d, and 'Perfect' is greyed out.

'Excellent' in Direct3d is the highest you can go, and it doesn't do much for the water - it just makes it like really nice Forgotten Battles terrain.

Blackhawk - Um... what kinds of things are you looking for manual wise? There *are* some things that will get you into the action if you aren't a hardcore simmer that I was looking at today after people were asking about accessibility - like the 'no cockpit' view which has a LCOS sort of sight that I guess you can use as a reference point for carrier landings in that view, a virtual 3d aircraft, and big, easy guages. I know there is also an 'arcade' setting in the config file that I believe effects the flight model and perhaps the enemy AI levels, but I haven't really messed with that. There is also an autopilot that will do things like take off the airplane if you don't have a rudder, which might be a concern for some people.

Anyway, I'll give you a quick rundown on the manual and then go duck into the game and check on the tutorials for you.

Manual:
A bunch of installation stuff and descriptions of things to modify in the conf.ini file to fine tune the performance.

A section titled 'Air Combat Tactics' - 6 pages of tips - this looks like an expansion of the same section in the Forgotten Battles manual. It has some general tactical information, then some tips on some good ways to set up practice scenarios just to practice gunnery, what to do when you take damage

There is a small section on controlling multi-engine aircraft and advanced engine controls, manning multi-crew aircraft, and using bombsights.

There are sections that describe each menu in the game, etc. This stuff all looks fairly detailed and useful from a 'using the game' standpoint - has stuff like how to customize your aircraft in campaign missions, how to give commands to your AI buddies, what all of the realism settings do, how to use the quick mission builder, multiplayer.

There is a section on the full mission builder.

The readme file has some additional information.

I'll go look through the tutorial list.

[Kratz]

Okay - the training in PF consists of 'watch it' tutorials on carrier take offs and landings.

There are single missions for all of the forces that let you practice both takeoffs and landings.

Those are the important bits... can't really have a tutorial on how to shoot someone down or beat them in a dogfight... that just takes experience and practice.

[Giles Habibula]

DAMN you all! DAMN you!
I was just now messing around with 18 Wheels of Steel, perfectly content in knowing CFS 3 was waiting for me afterward. Then I wandered out into the livingroom where I clicked on this thread.

WHOA!
Doubtless I will need a new PC to run this mother, but now I gotta run out and buy the game so I have it ready when my PC is built. Awesome shots.

And here I was so proud I was actually staying under budget this last weekend, only spending the $20 on 18 WoS.

Kratz, you are one mean #$^&%$

[geezer]

Okay - the training in PF consists of 'watch it' tutorials on carrier take offs and landings.

There are single missions for all of the forces that let you practice both takeoffs and landings.

Those are the important bits... can't really have a tutorial on how to shoot someone down or beat them in a dogfight... that just takes experience and practice.

The manual suggests that you start with practicing gunnery agianst friendly bombers, then friendly fighters, then enemy bombers then enemy fighters to "work your way up." This is a decent way to do it, but when you are practicing against friendly bombers, for example, the fidelity of the damage model means that if you just crank lots of bullets into the body of the plane, not much will happen. Bombers are good for practicing location shooting -- engines, wing roots, pilots etc.

If you want to see stuff blow up qucik, start with friendly fighters much less wasted area to hit.

[Blackhawk]

That answers my questions, more or less.

I'd have loved to have seen some specific takeoff/landing checklists in the manual, as well as descriptions of advanced controls.

The tutorials sound about like IL2's or LOMAC's - more or less a waste of time. I would love to see a combat simulator come out with detailed, interactive tutorials - something like FS2004's - that teach a novice pilot all of the basics, but all of the flight simulators I have seen in the past few years are designed for those who already know how to play - they fill the niche, but make no effort to bring others in.

[geezer]

That answers my questions, more or less.

I'd have loved to have seen some specific takeoff/landing checklists in the manual, as well as descriptions of advanced controls.

The tutorials sound about like IL2's or LOMAC's - more or less a waste of time. I would love to see a combat simulator come out with detailed, interactive tutorials - something like FS2004's - that teach a novice pilot all of the basics, but all of the flight simulators I have seen in the past few years are designed for those who already know how to play - they fill the niche, but make no effort to bring others in.

That's accurate.. BUT.. If you are looking for things like that, the IL-2 community is such that you can find tutorials/checklists/playing tips online that are probably far superior to any included manual would be.

But you say, "I shouldn't have to go searching the web to find stuff that should be included in the first place,and newbies won't have a clue about that anyway."

I agree 100% - this is a serious problem in the flightsim genre, but it's kind of a catch-22 in that as technology enables more and more aspects of what is really a VERY complex action (flying and engaging in combat) the ease with which someone can be brought in via an included printed manual is vastly reduced.

In short -- I understand where you are coming from, but if you really want to get involved with IL2, pick it up and I'm sure Kratz, me and some others can point you to some superior reference materials that will help you ease in.

[Smoove_B]

BH - and if someone has knowledge to the contrary, please feel free to correct me, I *think* that Pacific Fighters now has an autopilot option which can help you with taking off and landing - probably the two hardest things to get used to in this game.

But I agree with what everyone else has said - the game has enough options that you can tweak down the realism so that it's more friendly to your learning curve. For me, I keep unlimited ammo on but I try to shoot like I am limited.

Also, if you're used to flight sims with jets, this game does take some getting used to - especially when the planes cut engine power when you tip the nose because ( I guess) the fuel pump is wonky.

The game lends itself to time invested. Spend time playing an you will get better. I learn the most online in MP, fighting co-op with someone. They die and watch me play. Either chatting or typing instructions to me as they follow the action. It's a great help and you'll find all different levels of players online.

[Blackhawk]

Actually, I would say "If you need the tutorials badly enough to go looking for them, you don't know enough to seperate the wheat from the internet chaff." I did go looking for IL-2 tutorials. I ended up printing out about 500 pages worth of stuff that is unfinished, missing important sections, is badly written, or just seems inaccurate. Many have things that are completely contradictory. I've read about how perform 'maneuver X' a dozen times, and tried it over and over in-game. None of that would quite compare to having a virtual pilot walk me through it once or twice.

I just get the feeling that this particular niche market prefers to stay niche.

I am against solving problems by cranking down realism, by the way. I think that just builds bad habits, especially when you join an online game and try to figure out why you keep going into a flat spin with your favorite SP maneuver.

[Kratz]

That answers my questions, more or less.

I'd have loved to have seen some specific takeoff/landing checklists in the manual, as well as descriptions of advanced controls.

Well... the tutorials on carrier take offs and landings do exactly what you are saying - it says 'do this, then do this, then do this'.

The nice part about flying the best of 1940s technology is that there really aren't advanced controls or procedures that you really need to learn - all of the planes (single engine fighters, anyway) have the same controls and follow the same concepts - the only procedures are really for take-offs and landings, and they do cover that (there is a more detailed landing description in the readme file in addition to the tutorials). The rest is ACM, and really that's a matter of practice.

The nice part about Maddox's sims is that they have a lot of scaleability which tosses most of the 'advanced' stuff straight out the window. i.e. I have no interest in the intricacies of engine management, so I just turn complex engine management off. WWII aircraft are relatively pretty simple machines - stick, throttle, rudder, and a trigger to shoot shit.

The tutorials sound about like IL2's or LOMAC's - more or less a waste of time. I would love to see a combat simulator come out with detailed, interactive tutorials - something like FS2004's - that teach a novice pilot all of the basics, but all of the flight simulators I have seen in the past few years are designed for those who already know how to play - they fill the niche, but make no effort to bring others in.

Well... wouldn't say they make *no* effort. The manual has a lot of newbie friendly things.

The nature of air-to-air combat is so fluid, variable and random that you can't really have a tutorial that says 'If this happens, do this', because you can't break it down to rules you follow in a given situation - if there were, you would get beat pretty quickly. The manual does describe the basic concepts of air-to-air combat, but as they mention, 'it is impossible to cover all aspects of aerial combat in one section.' I do think that the manual does a good job of explaining the basics in a way a newbie could understand - how to use your guns to best effect, how to enter an engagement, how to keep the advantages...

I dunno... maybe I'm not completely understanding your comment, but I think that there isn't that much to cover (without having a 500 page ACM manual), and that the basics that can be simply described (e.g. taking off and landing) are covered in a way that a newbie would be in okay shape.

I think the main thing that keeps new people away from realistic simulators (be they flying, driving, etc.) is that the learning curve is so completely removed from the kind of 'jump in and play' games that dominate most of gaming. It isn't something you can get good at in a night, or a weekend, or even a month - I think you need some real desire to practice and play, and play, and play until you get the hang of it, and that most people jump into a game like that, play for an hour, get really frustrated that they can't hit anything, and that they spin and crash, and that it isn't easy... I think that is what keeps people away.

[Kratz]

I am against solving problems by cranking down realism, by the way. I think that just builds bad habits, especially when you join an online game and try to figure out why you keep going into a flat spin with your favorite SP maneuver.

Yeah, I totally agree, to a point. For example, I think the flight model should be completely turned 'on', but I have no problem with turning off complex engine management, because the game for me isn't about fiddling with engine settings - and you won't find servers that have all of that sort of stuff turned on anyway.

I also think that people want different things from a game, and while I'm kind of a sim junkie and feel like a puss if I don't run realistic settings in a flight or driving sim, other people might be happier with things toned down if it allows them to play a sim more casually and not just be frustrated the entire time.

If you are having fun, you are having fun... and if you aren't having fun and can adjust a few things and have fun, go for it. For me, and for you, the fun is in the difficulty - for other people, maybe not.

[geezer]

Also, if you're used to flight sims with jets, this game does take some getting used to - especially when the planes cut engine power when you tip the nose because ( I guess) the fuel pump is wonky.

Yeah -- negative G's cause fuel starvation due to carbeurator issues or something similar...

BH -- I understand where you're coming from with regard to the online resources -- I guess I never quit ethought of it that way. Maybe the 4 of us could get together online sometime with some voice comms and kinda play through some of the issues..

[Kratz]

BH - and if someone has knowledge to the contrary, please feel free to correct me, I *think* that Pacific Fighters now has an autopilot option which can help you with taking off and landing - probably the two hardest things to get used to in this game.

Yes, it has the same autopilot as Il2 and FB. I haven't tried it on carrier take offs, and I haven't tried it on any landings, but I assume it might work - you can also just stop the mission after completing your goals and not worry about landing at all if you don't want to (though you get a 'hidden' mission goal for landing successfully (or at least not in a fireball ).

Also, if you're used to flight sims with jets, this game does take some getting used to - especially when the planes cut engine power when you tip the nose because ( I guess) the fuel pump is wonky.

Heh - flying the Ki-43, eh? Some of the early war planes didn't have fuel injectors, so negative G manuevers would cut off fuel flow to the engine. In the Battle of Britain, the Germans' Bf109Es had fuel injection, but the early british Spitfire and Hurricane did not, so the Germans would actually do abrupt negative G manuevers to escape from the British planes, knowing they couldn't follow.

The game lends itself to time invested. Spend time playing an you will get better. I learn the most online in MP, fighting co-op with someone. They die and watch me play. Either chatting or typing instructions to me as they follow the action. It's a great help and you'll find all different levels of players online.

Yeah, Teamspeak and a friend who knows his way around is the best learning tool around. Playing online in Aces High with people who are better than me improved my flying faster than anything.

[Smoove_B]

I totally agree - other than the ammo, I keep all the settings cranked up - even the complex engine management (you wussies! )

After playing the Sturmovik titles, I have such a profound respect for WW2 era fighter pilots. If flying the computer versions of their real planes is 1/10th of what it was like....I can't even imagine. Some of those planes...it's like being in a metal crate with a lawnmower engine strapped on the front.

And that's what so damn cool about it. Each and every plane has a different "feel".

Just spend some time in each one. Eventually flying and combat will come to you...if you have patience. : )

There really is nothing like a 15 minute dog fight with the computer AI...when you finally tag him and he spirals down to Earth. It's a great gaming experience - and I'm NOT a big flight sim kinda guy.

[Blackhawk]

Yes, but I don't think that the developers do anything to assist people with that learning curve, short of disabling difficult features.

It is 1) hard to figure out what is going on in certain tutorials, and 2) hard to find a situation that is just right for practicing certain skills.

Some examples of what would be in my ideal simulator for newbies:

~Interactive tutorials on basic maneuvers - rolls, split-S, immelman, strafing, skip-bombing, dive bombing, all the others. By 'interactive' I mean that you don't just sit in the cockpit and watch the computer do it, and you don't just sit there and fly and listen to a pre-recorded instruction track. There isn't any reason why it can't keep track of your attitude, altitude, speed, and so on and tell you when you're doing something wrong. Most tutorials either require you to memorize them for later use (no hands on) or let you do it incorrectly over and over while complimenting you on succeeding (time-based recording).

~Include a printable step-by-step for the above, because you aren't going to be able to memorize every detail as you practice:

1. Reduce speed to below 100kts
2. Set flaps to full
3. ... etc

~The ability to watch short looping, multi-perspective footage of these things in progress with techical subtitles. This could be in-engine or in video mode. Let me watch exactly how an experienced pilot lines up for a particular maneuver from inside the cockpit and from an outside, stationary camera. The subtitles would say exactly when certain adjustments were being made. Think ten to twenty seconds looping, focusing just on one maneuver so that I can watch it over and over. I've downloaded IL-2 recordings that do something similar, but stick the maneuver in the middle of three minutes of fighting, making it hard to even be sure when you've seen it.

~Target ranges. The most frustrating thing isn't missing your target and crashing - it is spending ten minutes getting there (or getting lost first) for one quick practice run, failing, and having to start again. Create a 'mission' with groups of bombers flying slowly along, a hundred yards between groups, one after another for miles, then give the player the option to start on the ground, above, or below the line. Turn down the AI. Nothing but a chance to practice boom & zoom over and over until you aren't slamming into a hillside every time, and without having all the targets disappear while you regain your bearings. Make one with endless lines of tanks. One with endless lines of various ships. Dogfighting scenarios wherein the sky is full of planes, but only the one you have targetted will engage you.

During this, make the player invulnerable, with infinite ammo and fuel, but have it tell you when you would have been shot down, when you would have run out of ammunition with a loud buzzer before resetting you status so that you can remain aware of these things.

All of this lets you practice one skill that you want to practice without having to spend ten minutes looking for a target to practice it on, and without having to turn on zero-feedback invulnerability.

~Practice scenarios. Just like the above, but for practicing non-combat skills. Put the player in a plane of his choice three miles out from the carrier, lined up. Three miles out from the runway. On the deck/runway with the engine off and a quick 'reset' option that puts it back that way whenever you like. Something like:

Scenario: Landing practice, carrier
Option: Miles, 3
Option: Time, noon
Option: Weather, clear
Option: Winds, 20kts, 3 o'clock

You set the options, land, hit 'reset' and are instantly back where you started - land, reset, land, reset.

Yeah, I know - dream on, right? Everything I suggested would amount to a half-dozen easy-to-design missions with no scripting or balancing, a .txt file, and a few interactive tutorials. No, it wouldn't make you a good pilot, but it would give you a chance to develop those skills and practice them without pulling your hair out trying to figure out what the hell is going on in the process.

The tough part would be that the engine would have to be designed to support it - short, looping demos from a stationary perspective, for instance. If, however, Maddox set aside some time to implement features like these in their next game, then they would have the opportunity to greatly increase their potential audience.

There are a lot of people out there who would love to play these things, but they are so unfriendly to new players that the intimidation is as bad as the frustration - and the games make no real effort to ease the difficulty curve. A few 'read while you watch' tutorials are just not enough to teach a new person how to play a complex game. If they would just say from the start that "15% of our effort is going to be devoted to teaching potential repeat customers how to use the product", they'd make a lot of future customers very, very happy. Right now, nobody even makes the least bit of an attempt.

[Blackhawk]

Oh, and sorry about the ranting - learning this kind of game has been a frustrating, plodding process for me, more so than it could have been with developer support for newbies.

Anyway, one last question - does PF include TrackIR Enhanced support?

[Smoove_B]

BH - have you tried the Microsoft FS 2004 tutorials? Granted, it's a different engine...and it's not combat...but you might pick up *basic* flight moves from it. Dunno.

I agree with you though - if Sturmovik had something like what you 're talking about , it probably would have more appeal. I guess because the community is so helpful, those that have problems with the game get guidance from people online.

In thinking about it, if I didn't have a friend that was into the game and willing to help me out when I'm stinking up the skies, I probably would have had a much harder time getting into it.

[Kratz]

ranting

Jeez, you want it to cook you breakfast too? :p

You can actually do some of those things with the quick mission builder, but yeah, those are all actually pretty good ideas... ones I doubt we'll see, sadly.

[geezer]

Anyway, one last question - does PF include TrackIR Enhanced support?

sure does

[Blackhawk]

BH - have you tried the Microsoft FS 2004 tutorials? Granted, it's a different engine...and it's not combat...but you might pick up *basic* flight moves from it. Dunno.

Yep - I've got my virtual licenses and all - that is where I got the idea for the 'interactive tutorials'. They are very, very well done, and make a complex game very approachable.

Unfortunately, it isn't too applicable to combat flying, about like driving to the 7-11 is applicable to race driving.

[geezer]

Yes, but I don't think that the developers do anything to assist people with that learning curve, short of disabling difficult features.

It is 1) hard to figure out what is going on in certain tutorials, and 2) hard to find a situation that is just right for practicing certain skills.

Some examples of what would be in my ideal simulator for newbies:

~Interactive tutorials on basic maneuvers - rolls, split-S, immelman, strafing, skip-bombing, dive bombing, all the others. By 'interactive' I mean that you don't just sit in the cockpit and watch the computer do it, and you don't just sit there and fly and listen to a pre-recorded instruction track. There isn't any reason why it can't keep track of your attitude, altitude, speed, and so on and tell you when you're doing something wrong. Most tutorials either require you to memorize them for later use (no hands on) or let you do it incorrectly over and over while complimenting you on succeeding (time-based recording).

~Include a printable step-by-step for the above, because you aren't going to be able to memorize every detail as you practice:

1. Reduce speed to below 100kts
2. Set flaps to full
3. ... etc

~The ability to watch short looping, multi-perspective footage of these things in progress with techical subtitles. This could be in-engine or in video mode. Let me watch exactly how an experienced pilot lines up for a particular maneuver from inside the cockpit and from an outside, stationary camera. The subtitles would say exactly when certain adjustments were being made. Think ten to twenty seconds looping, focusing just on one maneuver so that I can watch it over and over. I've downloaded IL-2 recordings that do something similar, but stick the maneuver in the middle of three minutes of fighting, making it hard to even be sure when you've seen it.

~Target ranges. The most frustrating thing isn't missing your target and crashing - it is spending ten minutes getting there (or getting lost first) for one quick practice run, failing, and having to start again. Create a 'mission' with groups of bombers flying slowly along, a hundred yards between groups, one after another for miles, then give the player the option to start on the ground, above, or below the line. Turn down the AI. Nothing but a chance to practice boom & zoom over and over until you aren't slamming into a hillside every time, and without having all the targets disappear while you regain your bearings. Make one with endless lines of tanks. One with endless lines of various ships. Dogfighting scenarios wherein the sky is full of planes, but only the one you have targetted will engage you.

During this, make the player invulnerable, with infinite ammo and fuel, but have it tell you when you would have been shot down, when you would have run out of ammunition with a loud buzzer before resetting you status so that you can remain aware of these things.

All of this lets you practice one skill that you want to practice without having to spend ten minutes looking for a target to practice it on, and without having to turn on zero-feedback invulnerability.

~Practice scenarios. Just like the above, but for practicing non-combat skills. Put the player in a plane of his choice three miles out from the carrier, lined up. Three miles out from the runway. On the deck/runway with the engine off and a quick 'reset' option that puts it back that way whenever you like. Something like:

Scenario: Landing practice, carrier
Option: Miles, 3
Option: Time, noon
Option: Weather, clear
Option: Winds, 20kts, 3 o'clock

You set the options, land, hit 'reset' and are instantly back where you started - land, reset, land, reset.

Yeah, I know - dream on, right? Everything I suggested would amount to a half-dozen easy-to-design missions with no scripting or balancing, a .txt file, and a few interactive tutorials. No, it wouldn't make you a good pilot, but it would give you a chance to develop those skills and practice them without pulling your hair out trying to figure out what the hell is going on in the process.

The tough part would be that the engine would have to be designed to support it - short, looping demos from a stationary perspective, for instance. If, however, Maddox set aside some time to implement features like these in their next game, then they would have the opportunity to greatly increase their potential audience.

There are a lot of people out there who would love to play these things, but they are so unfriendly to new players that the intimidation is as bad as the frustration - and the games make no real effort to ease the difficulty curve. A few 'read while you watch' tutorials are just not enough to teach a new person how to play a complex game. If they would just say from the start that "15% of our effort is going to be devoted to teaching potential repeat customers how to use the product", they'd make a lot of future customers very, very happy. Right now, nobody even makes the least bit of an attempt.

I haven't tried the tutorials in IL2/FB etc. for a long time.. but can't you jump in an take over at any point or are they just canned replays?

[Kratz]

Well, it's kind of weird... they are canned replays, but then there are training missions which you can fly that are the same mission with you in control.

[Jag]

Game looks great. I mean the best pacific eye candy ever. My biggest gripe is the time compression. Even with compression, it still takes forever to complete a mission. I've been to the official forums and it doesn't look like they will be fixing this since they say that while time is compressed, other actions are happening that require the CPU time. In other words, the speed of your processor directly affects the speed of compression.

It's too bad b/c this really kills the campaign section for me. I wish they had an Aces of Pacific type skip of to waypoint option.

[Kratz]

I did notice that there is a 'Time Skip' key that can be mapped... I haven't tried it yet, but... what does that do?

[Ramoz]

I played the crap out of Aces of the Pacific, so it looks like I might have to pick this up eventually. Something about flying hellcats and such in the Pacific always appealed to me.

and the water looks great.