Always a pleasure to see a new batch up update screens first thing on a morning and this morning contained a nice surprise.
The first batches of switches have been added. I think Dave has redefined the role of technical artist since he also went and did the research. And this is the EASY panel. Anyway, here's a breakdown of the main components.
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| Looking hot. Making the cockpit database is going to to be too :/ |
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| Overhead panel |
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| Centre console from pilot side, collective in foreground |
Some of the switchology is going to be interesting to do. The crew station intercom of which there are 3 duplicate panels on this console won't have much use in game but could be assigned a switch to station command. We have the crew-chief/ramp gun, left/right door guns and loadmaster as possible player slots.
AN/ALQ-156
Top left on the centre console. Part of BAEs ASE gear (link)Below this...
AN/ARC-220
TSEC/KY-100
Found a diagram of the display board (link).
I don't know what this is for either, yet.
AN/ARC-164
10 Watt UHF AM radio that operates between 225-399.975 MHz and includes independent guard receiver for monitoring (link).AN/ARC-201
Frequency-hopping, FM communications transceiver. 30 to 87.975 MHz band (link).The research Dave subjects himself to is for visual accuracy, labels, layout and switch type.
I remembered to add a "reverse axis" options in the quick-start control settings. I got stung by that one before. There's a realism tab for tweaking settings but some more 'eccentric' options will still require a manual edit.
This weekend I'm going over the setup options fixing save/load issues and another pass on the MFDs checking the pages (I found some that link to nowhere, probably scale not set correctly and everything is getting drawn off the page).
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| You don't see this often, debug landscape texture for checking distance and movement |
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| At night the menu background switches to a FLIR mode effect. |
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| Added a 'lip light' so you can see what you're doing in a dark cockpit (all shadow details on). |
Selling out
A t-shirt store will be going up next week so if you want to show a bit of support you can grab one. They are similar to the ones I had made up last year for floor-shows/events but you'll at least get to pick what colour you want. Coming to a blog near you.
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| The new face of indie game development, alternate revenue streams, aka merchandise! |
I still have a Microprose F19 Stealth Fighter t-shirt, pink on black. (Why pink? We'll never know) one of the many freebies they would give away in first edition game releases. Hmm, they lost how much?
I really like banita's first T-Shirt idea... very "indie" with a South Park Tie-in.
ReplyDeleteAD, those panels are really coming along nicely.
Any idea if the in-game radios will be functional or be able to use TARS when MP is made available??
Great looking panels, those from the Chinook and also great info regarding those. Speaking of it, I knew that there were some active missile warning systems but I didn't know what aircraft carried those kind of systems (even because most Missile Warning Systems are passive).
ReplyDeleteRegarding the T-Shirt, yes I would also prefer the Banita's version.
Regarding radios;
ReplyDeleteHow would you make them functional exactly? You'll be able to tune them.
All radios will put out static, you can tune them to pick up radio masts (radio masts have 2 freqs and a URL for the audio source).
Game mechanics only require two radio freqs, the currently assigned mission and a guard channel.
If there's some nice way of making them of some practical use beyond the above mission use I'm all ears.
There will be no built in voice comms for sure, Ventrillo and Teamspeak do a much better job than any game I've played. Waste of time IMO.
Other shirt designs are available but I can't source Banita's cow. I don't know where it came from therefore no idea about copyright. You have to worry about all that stuff. Also any graphics need to be a minimum of 100dpi (ideally 300dpi).
Lol thanks gentelman, thats funny :) and sorry Flexman for trouble ;) here original picture
ReplyDeletehttp://www.zazzle.com/funny_pooping_cow_mousepad-144712177074833615 I know, there will be none of that.
I Think TARS works through .Lua files inside of A-10... but its buggy and although its great for immersion, you are right... its not worth the hassle.
ReplyDeleteLove the cow...we need an artist to make a new one for the shirts. needs the right eyes to really make it feel right. Its very funny and would be a cool inside joke.
Great work on the ch47.
ReplyDeleteAs for Radios you're right flex. People buy a mil sim and then generally bitch about how poor ATC comms are, or any for that matter. I think they completely miss the point. Amazing really, go play FSX or some other civ sim if you want to practice ATC comms & procedures! 'Knobs' like to turn knobs.
I remember programming the HAVEQUICK codes into the UHF radio, took bloody ages! In a war zone you generally keep comms to an absolute minimum so I won't miss playing with radios or programming freq jumping codes etc.
The various radio systems will no doubt find uses later. When we add ground forces there'll hopefully be an opportunity to listen in for support requests A la EECH. The ability to listen to other flights would warrant the usage of another radio/panel. Also being able to listen to enemy transmissions is fun and could occupy another radio/panel. The intercom could be used for switching between MP text chat channels (local/vehicle/flight/side/global). Although quite why you'd want to do that rather than just hit a key I'm not sure.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of comms possibilities, unfortunately none of them would really reflect the 'real world' usage of the panels in our cockpit.
Cheers