I tried manning the rear gun on the bristol, and wow, unless I'm missing something, the system is terrible. All that cnrl T and C and the view swooping up and down and in and out. I could never get a clean look down the sites, nor a clean shot at anything. I realise there's a case for absolute authenticity, but this system, while perhaps more authentic, is unusable, and what't the point in having them if you can't really use them. I used to enjoy playing the gunnery position, but not here.

Please tell me I'm missing something.

Did you use Shift-T after you grabbed the gun, to align your view to the gunsights?

Mine has some sort of arcade HUD crosshair. I haven't been able to figure out how to make it go away. Any ideas? I'd prefer iron sights if possible.

The weird, floaty lag delay between moving the mouse and the gun actually moving makes the gunner position virtually impossible to use in my opinion. You're playing an unending guessing game. You move the mouse and guess where the gun will stop. If it doesn't stop in the right position, you move the mouse again and guess/hope/pray that the gun stops somewhere near where the bad guy is at that moment.

As the poster above suggested, I understand the desire for realism, and the fact that the gun didn't move instantly. However, if it's not usable, there's no point in making the gunner position man-able in the first place.

And I know Jason 777 refuses to acknlowledge the comparison, but Oleg figured out how to do it 10 years ago, so it must be possible. Even if it's not 100% 'realistic,' gunner positions in the IL2 franchise are functional, intuitive, easy to man, and even work with TrackIR. (How 'realistic' can it ever be when you're aiming & firing a machine gun with a computer mouse, anyway? Is 'realism' even a meaningful goal for the gunner positions?)

Another fun issue I discovered (at least in the Breguet) is that if I fling the mouse around too fast while I'm trying to gun a harassing bandit, somehow the rear gun gets stuck in a forward facing 180 arc instead of rearward facing. This makes my pilot rather nervous and anxious. I can't clear the condition unless I jump back into the pilot's seat, and then back to the gunner's seat.

[Note: no need to suggest that I report this on the RoF forum. I am not looking for a solution or 'bug fix.' Simply sharing an observation. Besides, if I want to be completely ignored while discussing a flight sim problem, I can just explain it to my wife.]

Disable mouse acceleration in-game, it was reported on the RoF forums (...) that this virtually solves your issue.

@Hedgehog

When the rear gunner was introduced, i read on the blog that the idea was to model the inertia of the gun, exactly not to make this gunning unrealistically EASY. Of course you can complain that it isn't easy, but why don't you simply say so? Perhaps because it's easier to blame the sim. Comparing with other sims, i could say equally well: ah but it was so easy to fly in Red Baron, why did RoF had the need to change those flight models? Basically if something 'just' works, it isn't necessarily enough.

It's easy to say 'why RoF does not do this and that? Advanced AI, landscape with cows and infantry etc. They want to do that, and in time, with enough support, they will hopefully be able to do this, but it's a small team which doesn't yet have funding for the whole next year, so before you complain and accuse of bad intentions, or compare RoF with sims that had a lot of money thrown into it (e.g. MS, CFS series), stay a bit and ponder about what you complain and what your tone is. Perhaps you imagine 'enemies' where you don't have any.

There are issues with the turret controls, Jason has said that they need a complete re-work though so it's not an easy fix.

There are some workarounds like switching your TIR off while in a turret and pressing the centre key, 5 on the keypad, if you get stuck facing the wrong direction. Pressing 5 re-sets your gun to the rear.

I don't use the gunsight view. I just watch the tracers and adjust my view accordingly. Manning the gun and flying at the same time is fun and it makes the F2B the best scout in RoF!

I'm not necessarily looking for an arcade solution, and I appreciate the work the guys put in, but I just find it unusable, which is a shame, because everything else, while difficult, is really well worked out.
Hopefully they'll fix it, and I'll wait with anticipation, but accusing me or other people who find it frustrating to the point of abandonment misses the point. I bought the planes with rear guns because I was under the impression they'd be usable, which I find, mainly because of the swooping view point, they are not, and while I appreciate it's a labour of love, probably with very little financial reward, I did pay for them with my hard earned money.

Right mouse click to bring up the menu along the top, one of the options is 'aiming help'. I think thats it.

Made some tests myself, just to be completely sure. If i set in-game mouse acceleration to 0, and mouse sensitivity to 1 (not 0), i have a good control of the gunsight. With TrackIR enabled. If the view gets stuck (but it actually happened before adjusting acc&sens), i quickly hit Numpad 5.

Thanks for that info, I'll give it a go and see if it helps.

All the best

Wander over to the RoF Forum, PM IRFC Vasco and ask him for a lesson.

He's an excellent instructor, the on-line lesson takes about a half hour and you'll come away really knowing how to use that Belgian Rattlesnake

Rise of Flight is still in the works today and a lot of ppl outside SimHQ and RoF forums are buying the addons too, with the core game now being free they must be selling a lot of addons by the looks of it..
I dare say they`re economically sound even without Hedge`s constructive remarks on rear gunner controls, but you blasted him for something that according to what you said must have been something like dragging RoF into the ground with some underhanded tactic and shattering its addon customer base by making his own WW1 sim.. Yeah, like people will try to destroy RoF, currently THE best standalone WW1 sim after a decade of Red Baron 3D, and since you probably agree that might seem slightly overboard (Like the worst case scenario I mentioned would be) so the only question I have for you is: Did you have your cofee this morning?


But for the sake of on-topic I havent noticed anything wrong with the rear gunner except when the gun suddenly starts horizontally traversing in one direction and locks there, so I cant move the gun at all (As if an axis or something is moving, except all my camera stuff is notched out exactly because I`m afraid stuff like this`ll happen) it`s mendable but annoying considering the AI gunners that blasts me to pieces never has that problem So if they could fix that I don`t care for the subject anymore, simple as that

VonHammer, when i answered i was also considering an earlier post, about "5 little changes which could make RoF etc."

And economically, what i said was based on latest Jason's announcement which dealt with such topic: http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=25324 Sample quote: "This is to be expected and is part of business, but for a special, niche product like ROF this can spell disaster. We have never had a big budget and we operate a very modest studio. What we lack is the capital to make certain long term development commitments and investments so we can tell you with high confidence that we can accomplish difficult development goals for you. What we need is more time. Every dollar you send our way, buys us more time to develop new features or fix lingering issues."

So, IMHO, even if RoF is the next Red Baron, flight simulations today do not enjoy such $$$ situation. And sorry if i seem to "blast" anyone, wasn't the intention.

Basically, what i want to say to anyone complaining is (and i don't say you should not complain!):

- don't assume that what seems 'natural' to have, because other sim(s) have it (example: lots of objects on the ground, infantry, cows etc.), is so easy to have in this sim, because you can't simply 'move' features from a sim to another, you have to re-make it from the start (reinvent the wheel, and not one, but 1000) and you didn't know how hard ($) it was in the first place.
- don't assume beforehand that the developers don't want to do it (because for example they didn't reply to your suggestion), because it's not about the intention (usually), but it's about the priorities, resources etc.

IMHO the older flight simulations, from an epoch when people & big companies would put their money to develop/sell it, created some expectations which today, when a flight sim is a niche, are even harder to implement. And the irony is that, the more realistic the sim gets, the more natural it seems to have such realistic features: what's implemented seems invisible, and the 'limit' line - the next features to have - seem more and more visible.

Turret and rear guns are broken, and the developer knows they are broken. Pushing more [broken] two seaters out the door instead of fixing something as fundamental as this tells me they care more about the bottom line than finishing this Beta game. I bought the damn game, now squash the bugs so I can enjoy it already. This Beta is what? three years old now?

Trying to use turrets and gunner positions is shear aggravation, and I don't fly two seaters anymore. I wont buy any new ones either until they fix them.

But they wont. You'll get more planes, broken planes.

You honestly think 3d Artists fix coding bugs? No? Okay, well, then why wouldn't the artists be making new aircraft, while the CODERS are fixing bugs? And I'm fairly sure it's been stated that the folks who work on aircraft coding are independent of those who work on the engine.

I totally love using the gun positions in RoF and find they work really well. You guys who cannot make it work must do something wrong...

In this very threads some solution/workarounds were presented; have you tried them?



Sounds like a record. Broken record.

I'll tell my buddy about the mouse accel thing, he too found issue controlling the gunner seats last night when we tried online.

Fair points. Like I said, I have every sympathy with them, being independent and occupying a niche market. Perhaps it's a sign of how good the sim is that such things are an aggravation. If it was less of a sim, I guess I'd drop it like so many before and move on, but I just want it to work flawlessly (I know, we live in the real world), so I can enjoy every aspect of it to the hilt.

All the best

Phil

This thread has little to do with the "5 little changes" thread, what is said in one thread usually stays in one thread in the RoF part of the SimHQ forums nowadays

I know what you mean, but 777 also said, in the same blog I believe, something about if 70% of its users buy one addon (No statement on the price range of the addon) they`ll be safe for quite some time?

Most of the people here buy the addons and I would think the same goes on many other forums, 777 probably had the statistics figured out before they started giving the game away for free and focused on money through addons, what I think they are saying is that the same amount of people that buy stuff now has to keep it up in the future? Most WW1 Air Combat sim buff`s thinks RoF is as good as it gets so no worries there

Bear in mind most of those that make loud observations havent learned too much about the beginning of RoF like many of us have, and they might not "love" the game or developer/publisher as much as us but they like it enough to buy an addon or two, and they spot a problem with the content they buy, they will be mentioning it on forums in a manner that is of course befitting of a disappointed customer, and rightfully so, same as YOU and I would have when it goes for any other game whose early history and development we arent as familiar with as we are with RoF (As I mentioned) but we still like it enough to contribute in buying addons, so we make a loud observation on the forum then suddenly comes.. lets just call them less pleasant remarks or theories our way, now even if its an unofficial forum for the game wouldnt that make you less pleased with the game whose development you contributed to only to be chewed out by the fancore (Who should be kissing your butt for giving the devs money to make the fancore`s game even better) for noticing ONE bug?

God knows I`ve made my fair share of ugly blasts whether they were unintentional or not, against fans, trolls and devs of RoF over the years, I take care to read the footnotes of every RoF blog so hopefully it doesnt look like I`m drawing my words out of thin air even if I put a few personal theories in the mix

Like many others I notice all the changes, been playing RoF since it`s release and I appreciate every bit of new content and tweaking


@Phil: They`ll fix the rear gunner so no worries there Meanwhile check the input settings and set some custom inputs to mend the issue temporarily!

The current gunner controls are buggy and not particularly intuitive but they are workable. Its not a deal breaker if you spend a few minutes getting used to the different view options and movement.

The 5 key is your friend

I completely understand the view options. The problem is the gun gets stuck, or moves in the opposite direction your commanding it to go. By the time your done pissing around figuring out whats wrong, your either shot down, or the plane you were trying to track and shoot is gone.

Loads of fun...not.

They know this is a problem, and they will not fix it.

Plenty of time to make new planes. Not much time for fixing game breaking bugs, which have been in the game since it was first released.

Of course they do. When was the last time you agreed to stop drawing salary for a few months while your current project was "perfected."

Having just redone my entire control scheme, I will say that getting the guns to work correctly with the mouse is just awful. In gunsite mode, even at the lowest sensativity setting in-game and on my mouse, it's nearly impossible to control the ring mounted turrets. Also, figuring out what "camera" controls the head view and the movement of the turret itself was a major PITA.

Also, it would appear that Invert Mouse and the Mouse sensativity settings don't really work for the turret controls.

I don't know, I always thought of myself as the pilot anyway. I've spent far more time in the cockpit flying the HP400 than I have in the guns of all the 2 seaters and multiseaters combined. The AI gunners seem far better shots than me anyway, so why not let them do it? Maybe in the future they'll get the code improved more, but for now it seems a minor part of the sim.



The Jedi Master

Guys,

I put together a 7-page manual covering most aspects of operating pintle and Scarff-mounted weapons in RoF.

http://combatace.com/files/file/12481-the-observers-manual/

I hope it helps.

Vasco

First off, I agree, and hate the current rear gunner controls, BUT have faith they will be fixed. Until then, I fly scouts.


What "game breaking" bugs are left from when first released? I know they listened to all the belly-aching and fixed the aircraft draw distance issue. I know they spent A LOT of time and resources to create the campaign and gave that away for free (even if officially just a beta) -- when so many of us said they would pay to support its development, hell, they even got pissed off when we said that!.

So, what "game breaking bugs" are left?

Try to use the next-to-lowest sensitivity (1, not 0), with acceleration set to 0, in game. That worked for me.

Thanks Laser, I'll try that! My buddy and I love to multicrew online.

To avoid trouble for the moment until it's fixed, don't hit "Shift T" to align the view to the site.
You can't shoot as accurately obviously, but you can walk the tracers into the target sometimes.

Otherwise just enjoy billion other things you can do in the meantime.