Vote your choice - Clickable Cockpits or Not

[ECV56_Lancelot]

I very much like your ideas Blackdog, and agree with your points. A little more insight from the developers of how clickpit cockpits will be handle by third party on SoW might help on releive this concern on those of us that like clickable cockpits, but i don't think it will happens since they are very busy.

[AndyJWest]

All that's needed is a 5-page pdf manual explaining how to add clickzones, which could be as simple as editing a .ini file with a text editor and specifying a set of coordinates with a "clickable" flag. To further simplify things, these coordinates could be the X.Y values for the top left and lower right corners of a rectangle.

Um, no. If you allow 6DOF head movement, a 'clickzone' needs to have 3-D coordinates. Simplest would be X, Y & Z plus a radius for a spherical zone. To position these correctly you'd need access to the 3-D cockpit model, and software to view it. Unless 1C:Maddox are going to provide the 3-D data, the whole thing is a non-starter for anyone but the most masochistic, or for those who are willing to 'hack' the source: not something the developers would want to encourage.

Once again though, this debate is getting sidetracked from how things are controlled to what controls are available - they are two different issues, and arguing one to support the other just confuses the whole debate.

[Blackdog_kt]

I was just giving a generic example, you're right that the end result would be a more complicated deal. Still, it's far from impossible and it's how companies like Aerosoft make a good deal of money.

As for hacking the source, i doubt it would be necessary. We've all read in interviews and other snippets of information that there will be tools for 3rd party developers released after the title hits the market.

My point is, that there are more ways than one to skin a cat. The reason people use FSX as an example is that modability is one of the things it does well. If you ever get the chance for some stick time on that, it's very interesting to compare a stock aircraft from the vanilla install with an aftermarket one. They are so far apart by leaps and bounds that the stock MS provided aircraft pale in comparison to certain 3rd party payware and even some freeware. The sounds are better, the graphics are sharper, the FM and systems modelling is better and on top of that all, they are not overly taxing the PC and frame rates are still reasonable despite the added detail. There are also freeware aircraft that are still better than the stock MS ones and nobody had to hack anything to make them. What it did involve was the release of an SDK and some talented hobbyists.

In any case, i think that the people who went through the trouble of modifying a closed engine like IL2 (and did it for free) will be more than willing and able to produce similar or better results with much more ease if they get their hands on officially sanctioned tools with built-in support. That's what i'm advocating in essence, giving the community access to certain tools will not only ease the workload of the development team and draw sales from the civilian sim crowd, it will make for a much more varied experience for all and result in better sales to fund the stream of future expansions.

Maybe i'm reading too much into it and being overly optimistic, but putting together what's been said from official sources during various stages i'm expecting something so modular that it will gradually evolve into a "flight simulator operating system" so to speak. That's pretty exciting if you think about it, especially if the engine is good enough to accomodate all of our possible simming needs as time goes by.

Plus, if there's lots of quality freeware around, competition will result in better and cheaper payware from 3rd parties as well. It's a win-win for everyone.