Blackdog

Most of us realize you can have clickable cockpits and key commands that are parallel controls.

The mouse is currently slaved or tied to viewing. Maybe, it can be done differently. It's not in my experience.

The way I interpreted what was said in the interview... the ability to do the click thing or the key command thing will be switchable.

Maybe Oleg can provide us a better explanation in the near future as to how clickable and key commands will work with viewing ability, since the viewing even with trackIR is currently tied to mouse movement.

Face it this way:

We have been using IL-2 Sturmovik for a long time, it is the perfect flight simulator.

Have we ever need the mouse to click something from the cockpit? the answer is NO!

Do we need the mouse to control the airplane? the answer again is NO!

Do you (people) want to ruin the most beautiful of the cockpits, using a mouse? again the answer is NO! (Just watch the video from the spitfire's cockpit)

Program your JoyStick or create a console to represent the switches and controls.

Be creative!

What does having a clickable cockpit ruin exactly?

I think at this point, the most sensible thing to do is to wait until we see how the 'clickpit' is implemented, and then argue further. It is a done thing. It will happen. You won't need to use it, but it will be there if you want it. Try it, if you like it, use it. If you don't, don't. Personally I'm not entirely convinced that it will be necessary, but I'm in no real position to make a definitive judgement, so I'll wait untill I've got something concrete to comment on...

Thumbs up to Oleg for the clickable cockpit!

It's a great option for people who want it, and can be ignored by people who don't. I'll probably use it offline only, however I'll use it a lot when I do.

simple as simple can be... press a button.... any button... map it to anything u want... heck map it to a mouse button... that toggles between mouse look and mouse click mode

really... most people don't use a mouse to look around... super hard to keep one hand on the throttle, one hand on the stick and umm 3rd hand on the mouse? HOTAS joysticks are so cheap now... that if you don't have one... u don't like flight sims enough to even need to worry about this issue...

and/or your forgetting that SOW will be a simulator... not an arcade game... simulations tend to try to SIMULATE everything physically possible... that includes switches and buttons...

but all in all... clickable cockpits were stated to be optional... meaning if u really wanna spend 3,000$ building ur own cockpit and mapping ur own custom made panel switches and controllers... go ahead...

Now really, anyone truly believes they would let the mouse control view if using headtracking at the same time? I'm sure the mouse would then be independant, just moving on the screen as if in a game menu.

That's not a simple as you say it. It would be very tricky going back and forth as you say. Especially, in a combat situation. It probably wouldn't make much difference if you were flying around enjoying the scenery.

First in my situation I have a Kensington trackball for viewing, which I operate very efficiently with my left hand. I use fighterstick with my right hand. Most of the time I don't use the throttle, because I have throttle positions mapped to fighterstick. I also use free-track when I'm disposed to deal with setting it up. Fact is, I only use throttle when I use free-track, and I use trackball mouse when I use fighterstick only or with MFP, if I need more control.

quite an exaggeration... I have CHProd fighterstick, CHProd Pro throttle and I can do pretty well all key strokes I need for aircombat. I also have a CHprod MFP - with additional 25 buttons and toggle for 50 programmable buttons cost me $200 USD. I have rarely used the MFP, because I've got plenty of programmable keys with the stick and throttle.

It is pretty well a fact, if you do aircombat flight simulation you'll have to buy a stick with some buttons. Even the cheap Saitek Aviator has enough buttons to get the job done, and it's under $50. I'd say that's a long way from $3,000

It's is basic stuff, you don't really need all the controls for a WW2 air combat sim as you do for jets, with more complex operations.

One thing many clickable cockpit advocates don't think about....
The better sticks are fully programmable, and the programs can be stored and recalled at will. I pretty well have a very basic commands set I use between all the WW2 air combat sims I use. They are programmed for the keystrokes required by the sim, but I use the same buttons on the stick, throttle or MFP.

I'm fine with clickable cockpits, but I don't think they are an improvement for air combat. They sure won't be used, when you get into a furrball or you'll be partnered with old terra-firma very quick.

It is not possible to click things when in a dogfight for sure. But energy tactics or running away, or chasing someone, then it should be possible. But what would we need to click anyway at that moment? The most important stuff is on our controllers anyway.

EDIT EDIT EDIT:

Clearly this is something meant for start, take-off, normal flight (climbing, cruising), landing and re-arm etc. Could be fun. The most important factor affect this is - how many aircraft controls are there? In IL-2, tons of binds (most of them) are not aircraft controls, but view, AI and option controls. SoW will have more aircraft stuff, as we already know. Question is, how much? If a lot, then clickable cockpit is very useful. If just a bit more, then not very useful.

As stated in the last interview one must i.e. have a switch for windows de-icing, that is a important but seldom used switch, switching on and dimming the gun-sight is the same.
There one sees the dephts of the programming and can imagine how many important
but in a combat situation non-essential switches and levers there will be.
All the people which are talking of SoW:BoB as a combat simulation should be
aware that the combat is only a small part, just the climax, of this SIMULATION.

For those who aren't getting how it works in a combat simulator, please check these videos to see what we're talking about before bashing.

They're from the most advanced combat simulator released to date (only till October :mrgreen:), and almost all the players use clickable cockpits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_1rXqKJ6fg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awtCKKADT5s

I understand it's a matter of taste, but most (actually, all) of those against clickable cockpits in combat sims never ever tried it. I'd recommend actually trying before saying it's useless or anything :rolleyes:.

Those interested check other videos in the same channel, most show how do clickable cockpits fit perfectly into a high fidelity combat simulator ;)

I'm pro clickable cockpits cause if SOW is going to have a full realism option then there simply will not be enough keys to cover all the controls required just to do a startup.

DCS - Black Shark have´s a hell lot more switches and knobs that a ww2 aircraft, and every one of them have a key combination. :)
And still, with a HOTAS, you don´t need to use the mouse to click anything during combat, at least that you make a lousy programming of your hotas, and don´t remember a key combination of a button/switch that you need to use.

for a WW2 fighter is not necessary a clickeable command of cockpit , we are in action all the time, this is not like black Shark. Maybe cockpit clickeable in a B-17, He-111 or for the Radar in the ME-110 G. but not for Me-109, Hurricane or Spit.

Yea, the spitfires will attack you in your Bf-109 right after take off in France and you will be engaged in dogfights all the way to London and back.

Lancelot, they all have commands, true. But you have the option between 200 key assignments and 2 (left click/right click). I chose the easiest one :mrgreen:

Please let me remind you that not everyone has a fancy HOTAS.

Zakkandrachoff (now that took a while to spell), there will be DCS: A-10C soon, so you'll probably change your mind. In CAS, you have some intense action, specially when under fire. Usually, the dirty world of ground attack is way more dangerous than the ballet of dogfighting. When you're down low and alone in an attack helicopter hovering with MANPADs & SHORADs, trust me, you have way more action than at angels 20 with your squadron.

And in knife fights, you (usually) don't need to move much more than stick, trigger and maybe flaps, all these (usually) assigned to stick and keyboard.

'Switchology' isn't about action, but caring for little things. It's the same as appreciating every single line and rivet of a plane. The beauty is in detail, my friend :cool:

Anyway, it will be optional, so no reason for fighting over it when you can just disable it :rolleyes:

Thats my idea also.
The server settings will soon separate the simmers from the gamers.
Each one will find his niche.
I really hope there are enough enthusiasts to fill a "full real" server!

Count me in on one of those! :)

I'm sorry, but IL2 had maybe half the amount of controls and operating limits to manage than SoW will probably have. At some point you'll run out of shortcuts or be unable to remember them. Even if you don't, someone else will, so why not give these guys a different option?
Telling people to be "be creative" is like telling them to "go buy a $300 HOTAS set", or like me telling them "no, you go buy a TrackIR and click things".
On the other hand if both methods work, some can have their fun mapping a bunch of switches to their HOTAS and some can have their fun by not mapping them, but we'll all still have the same amount of control over the aircraft ;)

The thing is, if you don't like it don't use it. The only case were something is ruined is by not including this, because everyone who can't afford a HOTAS would be unable to fly full real. It's like making a sim where everyone has to have the same peripherals to fly effectively and that's definitely not fun. Some people have TrackIR, some have HOTAS, some have both and some have none and only use a hat switch or a mouse. Should the interface be so restrictive that they can't use it unless they have a specific piece of hardware? I think not.

That's the bottom line really. If anyone wonders about the amount of different controls, i've got the following links for you.

FW-190 manuals: http://www.classics-hangar.de/downloads_en.htm

P-47D Razorback manual: http://www.a2asimulations.com/wingso...27s_Manual.pdf

It's not an Airbus, but there's maybe 40 or so different switches in the P-47 cockpit. I don't want to have to map and remember each and every one especially since i can look at it with my TrackIR and, thanks to the high resolution cockpits, read what's what before activating it.

For me the dilemma always was: More in-depth modelling of the airframe even if that means a bit of a clunky interface at times? Or should we not model half of the airframe because we don't want to change our habbits?

I choose the first option.

shh!

http://blog.pucp.edu.pe/media/1120/2...ilence-k_m.jpg


you can call me Zak;)

correct.
But in the middle of a dogfight, you only have the joystick in one hand and the mousse in the other and you are locking inside your head the enemy and you need to change the mixture and that V12 engine staff of WW2 or just look temperature or something like that. Maybe if Oleg do a right config. Of the mousse that in when I press right button mousse, the view go immediately to the instruments and, keeping the right button of mousse, we can touch the think we want in the panel instruments whit the left button, all in a 2 seconds of time, and then let go the right mouse button, and I will continuing viewing up my head the enemy aircraft in the dogfight.

and i dont know what computer have you , but i am a only poor boy argentinish people, cant change my quad for an I7 just tomorrow. Is soo many thing you want in the game. I hear one guy saing that he want real life in the city and more staff like that. Honestly, the XFX 5850 B.E. is not so powerfull card. Stop ask and want so difficult staff that require impossible supercore and super videocard that is not in our range and is not in the market

sry my craPPY english

Have we or you ever needed the mouse click in the cockpit? Between We and You, there is a big difference!!

To those who still do not get it - if you do not like it, you are not obliged to use it.
That is the way the "clickable" feature in flight simulators worked since DID's EF2000 from 1993 (by the way DID are the real fathers of modern PC flight sim industry :twisted:).

O.

EF-2000 was fantastic, the game that got me into flightsiming. It had everything you could desire: virtual cockpit, dynamic campaign, great scenery etc. I hope somebody will make a remake oneday.

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shot...0541490-01.png

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shot...9614037-02.png

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shot...0541491-00.png

More screenshots:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/ef2000/screenshots

There was a very nice manual as well...good stuff!

yea 90% of the switches are for start-up and switching between combat/cruise mode... in a fight u should already have all the switches set so all u gotta worry about is throttle/pitch and maybe supercharger settings... if ur switching radiator or electrical systems in the middle of a fight then there's something wrong with you... not the game.... in a more realistic situation you can't micro-manage all the systems of your plane to keep it running maximum performance... like i said this is a simulator not an arcade game... so what u'd do is learn how to make it run as best as u can without needing to constantly adjust controls and... even tho u won't be getting the best performance possible out of it... at least ur paying less attention to ur plane than the fight...

and with this game... u'll probly need to constantly adjust things that were pretty much automatic in il2... such as prop pitch... i suspect we'll see a lot of spits with dead engines when the game first comes out, as they didn't have automatic prop pitch :P

I am late to this conversation, and I haven't read the thread the whole way thru. (13 pages.....) so sorry if this has already been said.

Surely it's not a mutually exclusive thing? By that, I mean that the cockpit can be clickable, and at the same time all clickable controls can be duplicated by keys.

I would like to click things on the ground, and maybe in cruise flight. Other times, I would probably use the keyboard command. I can understand that people with more basic setups may not be able to map enough functions through their keyboard, but we don't really know if this will be a problem with SoW or not.

Now I'm sure the poll was raised with SoW in mind, which probably makes this left-of-field suggestion irrelevant, but I'll suggest it anyway.

Mouse Gesturing! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_gesture

This is perhaps the most 'realistic' solution of all. (If we are talking about moving your hand in order to move a switch). Years ago I played the computer game Black & White which had this feature and it seemed to work well enough.

Source

I'm so looking forward to SoW now :cool:

The very early spits with the fixed pitch and two pitch propellors may be a problem but by 16th August 1940 the front line Spitfires had been converted to constant speed props. The 109E on the other hand had a variable pitch prop which may put the workload issues on the German side after this date.


I stand open to correction. My Wiki search was very quick and not very exhaustive. Has anyone got some numbers?

Cheers!

I would like both. Clickable and hot keys for most used comms!

Mix the mouse with the keyboards, for heaven's sake... "Be creative", as someone said.

In combat I don't click much stuff, only those I don't remember the mapping or aren't worth mapping, anyway.

You can still man flaps, gear, guns, pitch, throttle, view, radiator, can of beer & co. with keyboard all the time.

But uncaging the artificial horizon, for example, is something you don't need to assign a key to, but you might still need to do it sometimes, so it's better to be able to just look, click/turn it instead of remembering LShift+LCtrl+RAlt+U+H or something like that.

Another good point that I'm looking forward to, will be the ability to manage the fuel systems...especially certain aircraft that we may see sooner or later:mad:

please NOOOO

we dont nee another FSX....

@Tvrdi

face the reality, flying "full real" won't be as easy as we are used to.
Be assured there will be "semi real" servers also with easy management.

Question: What will lose the people, who doesn't like clickable cockpits?
Answer: Absolutely nothing! Clickable cockpit doesn't mean DISABLED KEYBOARD!
Question: What will lose the people, who like clickable cockpits?
Answer: One nice feature!

Question: Why there are people, that want other to lose one nice feature, after they will not lose anything?
............................................
ps. Sorry for my English.

Brainless

Nobody really cares either way at this point. Oleg has included clickable cockpits and that's a done deal.

I think most of us see no use for them in aircombat sim, but with all the new tricked out stuff in the upcoming SOW Oleg is looking at including more features that are "flight simulation".

Clickable cockpits work very well for flight simulator users than don't have controllers, programmable keyboards,i.e, CH Products MFP.

Or just prefer to learn and use real cockpit layouts if practicable.

What I find amazing is that this thread is still going.....I guess no one can resist whipping a dead horse. I personally don't see the point, but to each his own..... you may resume whipping now.

If people quit posting it will go away, otherwise is like the energizer bunny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGQPlTaT8d0

There is one thing though I like to know.

What does it take to make a cockpit click-able in terms of extra time involved?

There sure is a loss to some not having that feature, but otherwise, would it not limit the number of flyables just by the amount of extra work that goes into this and therefor make it a greater loss for the whole community?

Cause I think that it will be compulsory for any new flyable to have this feature and if it is already hard to find enough references for some types now, how hard will it be to find enough references to make the correct animation for each switch, leaver and what-not.

I may be wrong, but it sure is a point to think about.

waht a close game

Yes, neck and neck, very interesting race

Any vote after the public confirmation of clickable cockpits is worthless. Whoever felt like voting NO will now just not vote at all, cause he can't change the fact that there will be clickable pits.

Having clickable as an option (if it is there already, meaning nothing to lose at this point) is great. We have to understand that this will attract a lot of people who now stick to Microsoft Flight Simulator X, and with it, the professional third party makers of aircraft.

I look forward to trying it. I never tried it.

MSFS has clickable cockpits and there is still a great number of often rather obscure addon aircraft available. SOW will be much more open for 3rd party addons, thus nobody can refuse a plane if the accuracy is less than "perfect". I doubt anybody won't release his plane only because some animations are based on guesswork.

I think the bigger problem will be to find enough references about the internal structure of airplanes to make a high quality damage model. Olegs team is working with original manufacturer drawings. Only for most of the more popular planes these are available for sale and then rather expensive.