I love flight sims and have been playing them for a long time, and the thing that many flight sims get wrong is not paying enough attention to facilitating the Virtual Pilot's Situational Awareness, or "Ability to tell what the heck is going on".
Here are some essential features for any combat flight sim:
Padlock Toggle: Padlocking is when you may visual contact with a target and don't take your eyes off it. In a flight sim this translates to the target always being in the center of your screen and the cockpit interior moving across your POV. This is incredibly important, especially in a dogfight. Now most slightsims have this, but sadly most flightsims on consoles assign this to a button that must be held down. This is very awkward and uncomfortable. If it's a toggle, then it works much better. Also, padlocking should take priority on incoming missiles!
Lift Line/Orientation Markings: One of the drawbacks of using padlocking with a bubble canopy is that it is very easy to loose your bearings and lose track of where the nose of your aircraft is. This results in pilots maneuvering their aircraft in the wrong direction to out-maneuver their target. To help prevent this, markings are put on the inside of the bubble canopy. Sometimes this is a line that is drawn lengthwise along the top, or transparent chevrons along each side pointing to the nose of the aircraft.
Immersive Camera: This is a very rare in flightsims, probably because it's hard to impliment, hard to tune, and is only appropiate in a 3d cockpit view (which most rookies avoid). This is basically using the game camera
in the 3D cockpit view to give the sense of speed, motion, G-force, inertia, etc. For example: Afterburners or low speed buffeting = camera shake, Pulling up = point camera up slightly, roll left/right = oint camera left/right slightly, Break left/right = slide camera left/right. Speed up/Slow down = pull camera back/push forward. If kept subtle this greatly adds to the immersion of the flying experience, and helps people understand basic aircraft motion.
Radar lock bearing: When someone has a radar lock on you, the pilot should know from which direction the lock-on is coming from. This can be displayed on the HUD or instumentation.
Bullseye: It's very hard to tell a pilot where something is. As a pilot you could be pointing in any direction at a time, so everyday bearings don't work. Basic direction, clock references, and compass bearings are all very subjective when your spinning around and flying very fast all over a map. A bullseye is a predetermined geographical location in the combat zone that all pilots know the location of. This is helpful for informing pilots about the location of something. For example: "Target it North west Bullseye, 047 degrees, 5 miles".

These are just a few examples. Basic situational awareness not only helps people play better, it makes your game more fun!

do you know what would be fun? EMP attacks, that would shut down all those blinking and flashing electronics temporarily. I would love to see people flying blind, giving the oportunity to use a LOMAC feature of helmet mounted sight, firing and locking through the heat seeking missile eye.

Wait aren't those already in flight combat games? Like the ability to tell where you're being locked on, and the compass thingy those I know should already be in the game.

a bullseye is a point on a map that is predetermined and is normally set as a steer point so the pilot can tell where it is. EMP is not realistic unless you have the F-111 and put a genie on it to sum it all up, situational awareness is important and useful. everyone should get a trackir so you don't need padlocking. XBOX get a trackir compatibility update!!!

As far as radar locks go, your EWS system detects radar emissions from other aircraft and also detects when an enemy aircraft is actively painting you. There is also a launch warning if the aircraft in question releases something(with the exception of IR guided missiles).

P.S. there are constant audible warnings that will annoy the hell out of you as you consistantly have to deal with:whaaah-wha-wha-wha-wha, blip, pull-up, over-g, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and my favorite the famous ACS failure, FCS failure, radar failure, hydaulics failure, right engine fire left engine fire...

quote:

Originally posted by netflame5:
a bullseye is a point on a map that is predetermined and is normally set as a steer point so the pilot can tell where it is. EMP is not realistic unless you have the F-111 and put a genie on it to sum it all up, situational awareness is important and useful. everyone should get a trackir so you don't need padlocking. XBOX get a trackir compatibility update!!!

As far as radar locks go, your EWS system detects radar emissions from other aircraft and also detects when an enemy aircraft is actively painting you. There is also a launch warning if the aircraft in question releases something(with the exception of IR guided missiles).

P.S. there are constant audible warnings that will annoy the hell out of you as you consistantly have to deal with:whaaah-wha-wha-wha-wha, blip, pull-up, over-g, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and my favorite the famous ACS failure, FCS failure, radar failure, hydaulics failure, right engine fire left engine fire...

F-111s don't use the AIR-2, they use the SRAM. Ace Combat has made it very easy to swivel on a target since AC4, you don't need the right stick to look since you are padlocked and you can use the tip of your finger on Triangle and the joint to select Guns or Missiles as needed. AC6 takes care of most of the *****in Betty functions aside from audio cues if you are in the cockpit as you take damage. The EWWS works with the RWR to sort inbound threat profiles, if the RWR can pick it up, it's Radar and the EWWS deploys Chaff, if not, then Flares. The Pilot is warned in either fashion to take evasive action until the Aircraft determines the inbound object is no longer a threat. (This is of course ignoring the already constant humming of *****in Betty to tell you have either a Mud Spike or Hard Spike.)

quote:

Originally posted by Silver-Hawk-Red:

quote:

Originally posted by netflame5:
a bullseye is a point on a map that is predetermined and is normally set as a steer point so the pilot can tell where it is. EMP is not realistic unless you have the F-111 and put a genie on it to sum it all up, situational awareness is important and useful. everyone should get a trackir so you don't need padlocking. XBOX get a trackir compatibility update!!!

As far as radar locks go, your EWS system detects radar emissions from other aircraft and also detects when an enemy aircraft is actively painting you. There is also a launch warning if the aircraft in question releases something(with the exception of IR guided missiles).

P.S. there are constant audible warnings that will annoy the hell out of you as you consistantly have to deal with:whaaah-wha-wha-wha-wha, blip, pull-up, over-g, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and my favorite the famous ACS failure, FCS failure, radar failure, hydaulics failure, right engine fire left engine fire...

F-111s don't use the AIR-2, they use the SRAM. Ace Combat has made it very easy to swivel on a target since AC4, you don't need the right stick to look since you are padlocked and you can use the tip of your finger on Triangle and the joint to select Guns or Missiles as needed. AC6 takes care of most of the *****in Betty functions aside from audio cues if you are in the cockpit as you take damage. The EWWS works with the RWR to sort inbound threat profiles, if the RWR can pick it up, it's Radar and the EWWS deploys Chaff, if not, then Flares. The Pilot is warned in either fashion to take evasive action until the Aircraft determines the inbound object is no longer a threat. (This is of course ignoring the already constant humming of *****in Betty to tell you have either a Mud Spike or Hard Spike.)

I was thinking of the F-101 not F-111... it just came out F-111 for some reason.... besides, the SRAM wouldn't make any sense as it is an AGM not an air to air rocket...

quote:

Originally posted by gd01skorpius:
I love flight sims and have been playing them for a long time, and the thing that many flight sims get wrong is not paying enough attention to facilitating the Virtual Pilot's Situational Awareness,

All good points. They can probably just mimic the situational awareness available in IL2 for all skill levels and be just fine

Oh! One thing I noticed, is that external 3D views for AceCombat, the planes were just too big.

I think they can have an external menu in Options for setting all these things up for the views. So the 'hardc0r3' pilots can turn everything off and fly blind and rlstic and other people can make choices about what they want on/off.

Similar to any top racing game on the console such as Forza 2, or Gran Turismo 5.

quote:

Originally posted by gel214th:
I think they can have an external menu in Options for setting all these things up for the views. So the 'hardc0r3' pilots can turn everything off and fly blind and rlstic and other people can make choices about what they want on/off.

Still you might need the fancy stuff at some points in the game because without the assistant mode turned on, you probably won't be able to perform a precision strike and as we all know precision strikes can be vital to the success of a Mission.

Not to mention, only in assistant mode, you'll be able to stay in contact with the Ghosts and Flight Control.

wtf, I should be able to yell at anyone through whatever voice channel I want manually. I do not want any help doing it either. I should be able to communicate just fine without help from a dumb computer that insists on making flying "easier" for me... besides, precision strikes are what air-ground radars and steerpoints are for...