S! All!

I'll tell you what my favorite 'crutch' is. I like the External View format of RB3D. I could look very quickly for enemies, friendlies, whomever just shot at me, and could pick one and stick a key on him. Was that realistic? REAL pilots thought it did a good job of making up for the limitations of computer monitors.

Externals are not the perfect answer. I'd like to see them modeled such that you lose a plane briefly if it is underneath you or in another position where you would not be able to see it, but then you pick it up again when it comes back into view. I'd also like to see externals done such that you can't use them like a radar.

Externals in these cases give you a good perspective of where your plane is relative to another plane. You get a sense of position, direction, track, and speed. Real pilots say they can do this from within their cockpits.

Track IR works pretty well for those who have it, but newbies don't have it. Padlock doesn't help you if you have Track IR. I see no reason to disable Padlock. Track IR works better anyway! In fact, Track IR works pretty darn well. But not quite well enough - I have a very hard time re-centering my view with Track IR... Maybe I should try Track IR 3...

But the real be-all end-all for flight sims will be goggles that pan as you move your head. These will work in a 3-d movement cycle, such that moving your head laterally and horizantally will change your view just as much as turning it or looking up.

Imagine leaning over your chair and looking down around your wing. The technology is there. If we had that, we wouldn't NEED help with anything other than identifying planes. And with goggles, you could make a true 3D view (with depth perception) so it would only be a matter of time before even identifying planes became easy.

But we have to keep our genre alive until this kind of technology makes it into flight sims.

I'm going to stick to my original statement that the 'hardest' settings should not make a flight sim harder than real life.

I remember reading a review shortly after RB3D came out where a real pilot flew it and said 'Yeah. That's right.' I really took that compliment to heart. A real pilot was saying that the game felt to him the same as the real thing.

I'm an armchair pilot. I have no idea what 'real flight' feels like from the pilot's chair. I'd be talking out of my bottom-side if I said I did. I can't tell Oleg or anyone else what real flight 'feels' like. What I can ask for though is legitimate criteria. I can ask that the game be made to feel 'right' to REAL pilots instead of a bunch of armchair pilots like myself.

I fly almost entirely online. I'm not big on AI. They just don't move right - they don't fly smart. I like a challenge, and I only find it online. RAF74_Taipan, I_JGI_FourShades and I have been working on an online dynamic campaign system for years now for IL2/FB/AEP. It should also be compatable with PF and BOB when they come out (provided Oleg doesn't make major changes to his log file and mission file formats). Our campaign system lets the players control the flight assignments, and will eventually let them control the ground war as well. And I think this is the FIRST time a group has tried to do this sort of thing ONLINE.

When Taipan and I started this project something like three or four years ago we envisioned something pretty grand. We made great strides for a while, but then my free-time dried up and our progress slowed. When FourShades joined our group we started picking up our progress again. Now we are getting VERY close to having a real multiplayer dynamic campaign where the PLAYERS control the war.

If you guys want something to work on that is close to completion and that can make a real impact on immersion, take a look. Our website doesn't give much info and the 'program' you can download is quite old and does not work with the current version of FB/AEP. But you can look at the forums, and you can track our progress on SourceForge. We are working under the GPL Open Source license. Anyone who wants to help can. Just look for the 'Scorched Earth Online War' and you'll find us...

But our project doesn't address the root-problem either. I think our project will revolutionize online wars, but it won't make the game more accessible to new players.