Posted By: ft
First career mission (aka bug report) - 07/17/09 09:31 PM
First, a list of bugs found
----------------------------
o Career missions not working as intended (see below).
o AI unable to perform deadstick landings in this mission (Albatros D.V).
- RoF does not prevent the windows screen saver from activating. Very annoying on a strafing run, to say the least.
- Targets of opportunity drawn in the mission briefing map. Seeing a big "attack recon flight" secondary mission icon over the home base kind of spoils the surprise at seeing an enemy recon flight in the vicinity of the home base.
- Ground targets popping in and out of existance. The LOD modelling is sorely lacking. E g attacking artillery you will have the artillery piece sitting in nice big berms with a command tent nearby. At a rather short distance, where the berms are still clearly visible and very large, they are suddenly replaced by small dots representing the guns. The command tent only appears when well within firing distance.
- Icons visible through the structure of one's own aircraft. While I consider icons a valid crutch to use for overcoming the fact that screen resolutions have a long way to go before approaching human vision (I can ID aircraft types out to a klick or two without problems and without straining), X-ray vision is not. The X-ray vision should be a separate option from the icons.
Then features lacking
---------------------
o Button for instant return to unaccelerated time missing, as well as good feedback on the amount of time acceleration in use.
o Can't seem to find a way of starting a career as flight lead. Flying on the wing of AI aircraft is not that much fun.
o A gun sight view sorely needed. A button which toggles to a view where your head is fixed in line with the iron sights of either machine gun, with TIR XYZ movement ignored. Yes, you can create such a view with F10, but then you're stuck there which is useless for navigation and formation flying. The configurable view buttons are just not working as they should.
o Better zoom mode sorely needed for accurate gunnery. A couple of fixed zoom settings accessible through keyboard shortcuts would be the thing. Zoom on an axis is currently all but useless as the zoom is still operating in discrete steps.
o For navigation, the ability to print maps in larger scale is needed. 1:800.000 is all but useless for visual navigation.
Finally a mission report of sorts
------------------------------
Allright, thought I'd try the career mode with the DV. Average mission length, 1917 etc etc and off I go to my first mission. Primary a recon aircraft 3 km north of Beaucamp, with AAA for secondary targets. Peculiarly the target icon wasn't 3 km N Beaucamp but rather on the SE side of Lille. Oh well. Takeoff 1000, TOT 1019. So far, so good. Takeoff, no worries.
Formation joined up and progressing towards the target area. Real crud weather, met briefing said low cumulus but what I saw was more like low stratus with precipitation and 3 km visibility. Good luck on finding that recon aircraft, but hey, you can always try.
We arrive at Lille and flight lead starts circling the city. And keeps circling. And circling. Formation flying in poor visibility with a bit of chop is rather demanding. Round and round we go. And round. And then round and round some more. Great patrol for finding anything in that exact area, but wouldn't it be a tad more useful to fly back and forth a bit? Oh well. Round and round for a bit more.
Eventually I have a nagging suspicion that something is not right. Furthermore, I get royally fed up with right circles. I decide to investigate, break out of formation and land at Houplin in order to observe the flight in external view and accelerated time. Round and round. Until they bloody well run out of fuel and crash. Every single one of them, not one being able to deadstick it in.
If they survived the crashes, they'd be right off to be court marshalled. Tommy infiltrators the lot of them, no doubt about it.
----------------------------
o Career missions not working as intended (see below).
o AI unable to perform deadstick landings in this mission (Albatros D.V).
- RoF does not prevent the windows screen saver from activating. Very annoying on a strafing run, to say the least.
- Targets of opportunity drawn in the mission briefing map. Seeing a big "attack recon flight" secondary mission icon over the home base kind of spoils the surprise at seeing an enemy recon flight in the vicinity of the home base.
- Ground targets popping in and out of existance. The LOD modelling is sorely lacking. E g attacking artillery you will have the artillery piece sitting in nice big berms with a command tent nearby. At a rather short distance, where the berms are still clearly visible and very large, they are suddenly replaced by small dots representing the guns. The command tent only appears when well within firing distance.
- Icons visible through the structure of one's own aircraft. While I consider icons a valid crutch to use for overcoming the fact that screen resolutions have a long way to go before approaching human vision (I can ID aircraft types out to a klick or two without problems and without straining), X-ray vision is not. The X-ray vision should be a separate option from the icons.
Then features lacking
---------------------
o Button for instant return to unaccelerated time missing, as well as good feedback on the amount of time acceleration in use.
o Can't seem to find a way of starting a career as flight lead. Flying on the wing of AI aircraft is not that much fun.
o A gun sight view sorely needed. A button which toggles to a view where your head is fixed in line with the iron sights of either machine gun, with TIR XYZ movement ignored. Yes, you can create such a view with F10, but then you're stuck there which is useless for navigation and formation flying. The configurable view buttons are just not working as they should.
o Better zoom mode sorely needed for accurate gunnery. A couple of fixed zoom settings accessible through keyboard shortcuts would be the thing. Zoom on an axis is currently all but useless as the zoom is still operating in discrete steps.
o For navigation, the ability to print maps in larger scale is needed. 1:800.000 is all but useless for visual navigation.
Finally a mission report of sorts
------------------------------
Allright, thought I'd try the career mode with the DV. Average mission length, 1917 etc etc and off I go to my first mission. Primary a recon aircraft 3 km north of Beaucamp, with AAA for secondary targets. Peculiarly the target icon wasn't 3 km N Beaucamp but rather on the SE side of Lille. Oh well. Takeoff 1000, TOT 1019. So far, so good. Takeoff, no worries.
Formation joined up and progressing towards the target area. Real crud weather, met briefing said low cumulus but what I saw was more like low stratus with precipitation and 3 km visibility. Good luck on finding that recon aircraft, but hey, you can always try.
We arrive at Lille and flight lead starts circling the city. And keeps circling. And circling. Formation flying in poor visibility with a bit of chop is rather demanding. Round and round we go. And round. And then round and round some more. Great patrol for finding anything in that exact area, but wouldn't it be a tad more useful to fly back and forth a bit? Oh well. Round and round for a bit more.
Eventually I have a nagging suspicion that something is not right. Furthermore, I get royally fed up with right circles. I decide to investigate, break out of formation and land at Houplin in order to observe the flight in external view and accelerated time. Round and round. Until they bloody well run out of fuel and crash. Every single one of them, not one being able to deadstick it in.
If they survived the crashes, they'd be right off to be court marshalled. Tommy infiltrators the lot of them, no doubt about it.