Hinds DLC - my thoughts

[Derbysieger 11]

It's Monday morning and frickin' summertime (CEST) again which sucks and serves no real purpose apart from tormenting students, causing accidents and irritating cows (you know, the ones that are responsible for milk). To make things even worse I got up early for nothing. Now I'm back home, sitting in the garden and I thought before I do the real work I clear my head and lighten my mood by writing down my thoughts about Hinds DLC.

The Mil Mi-24 has always been one of my favourite aircraft in Arma 2 - that is until TOH ruined Arma 2's helicopters for me (I haven't touched one since TOH Beta). So I was really excited when BIS announced Hinds DLC and I preordered soon after it became available at Sprocket.

My first impression of Hinds is very positive even though there are things that need improvement which became more noticable after I got familiar with the new flight characteristics.

Now let's start with the positives. I put about 5 flight hours into Hinds over the last weekend - that's at least 3 hours more than I should have which just proves that you guys at BIS have done a great job recreating the flight experience of a heavy gunship. This brings me to the point I most like about Hinds DLC - I simply love the handling. Now I'm not a helicopter pilot and I'm not going to analyse the flight characteristics in detail but the general feel of the helicopter is very convincing and seeing that the Hind pilot who helped BIS with the FM is truly impressed by the final result one can assume that it doesn't only feel convincing but that it is actually very close to the real thing.

The cockpits are a big step up from Arma 2. The textures of the working gauges are very good and even the non-functional parts of the cockpit have better textures than the models in Arma 2 - still, I always have to remind myself that TOH doesn't have the same focus as DCS when I quit DCS and start TOH. The biggest improvement over Arma 2, visually and gameplay wise, is certainly the SuperHind's cockpit with working displays that can be used for targeting if you play as a gunner.

But here is the first thing that I think could use some improvement. Using the PiP display it is very hard to target vehicles with guided missiles because it is missing a crosshair in the middle. You can bring up the optics like in Arma 2 using numpad 0 but then we are back to Arma and I just love using the PiP display to do the job. There already is a small indicator but that is not enough to reliably paint targets for missiles from a distance of 2km-3km.

Since there already is this small indicator present it should be possible to get something along these lines:

If you play as a pilot with AI as the gunner, the pilot's display becomes way more than a pure gimmick. You can see where the gunner is looking with a glimpse of an eye. For example: When you order your gunner to target a vehicle using missiles you can confirm that he is targeting the vehicle by looking at the display and then order him to fire. You don't get the green box around targets as a Pilot in the Mil Mi-24 Mk.III when using missiles so this confirmation is essential . I don't know if the missing box is intentional but I like it very much (if it is a bug please don't 'fix' it!). To make things a little easier it would be nice to get an audible feedback when the gunner has locked the target.

There is no question about it that the SuperHind is my favourite of the three variants but I also like the challenge the old Mil Mi-24P offers. Lining up that mighty gun isn't easy at all and if you manage to bring down an enemy chopper with that thing you just feel like a boss.

Now to the things that in my opinion definitely need improvement. First of all there is the pilot's HUD. The most annoying thing about it is that it isn't collimated. Something you should expect from a dedicated helicopter simulation game. But apparently it's not only that. As others pointed out, the one we get in TOH isn't even the standard HUD for the Hind - it's the backup sight in case the other system fails. This definitely needs attention and I think BIS is already looking into it.

Then there is the "magic radar". I wouldn't mind it as much if it didn't display the position of units (vehicles and static defenses) and only worked as a RWR. A functional RWR as proposed by Yoyo here would be the icing on the cake. If it is too complicated to animate it soonâ„¢, I would suggest that we get the option to use the current solution as a RWR only. I like to find targets on the battlefield myself or in cooperation with friendly (ground) forces (with Take On Arma Patch and other players operating as FAC that should be epic!) but the radar takes that possibility away for the most part (doesn't work for infantry). As a pure RWR it would be a very usefull game mechanic but in the current state it displays too much information for my taste.

I enjoy TOH: Hinds a lot but there are times when I really notice the presence of the radar and the non collimated sights. I think the latter will become more noticeable or even really annoying once I can afford to get TrackIR. Maybe someone who owns TIR can comment on that. When these two major things get addressed I'll be absolutely happy with this already very enjoyable DLC and I'm so much looking forward to the Take On Arma patch, I literally cannot wait:

Now back to Hinds! eh.... I mean homework :D

Cheers

Edited March 27, 2012 by Derbysieger

[daikan 1]

Good review! Sums it all up nicely ;)

The RWR of course is a joke (a perpetual one throughout the whole ArmAverse unfortunately). I would very much look forward to have this at least more customizable using difficulty settings, so the kids can keep playing their arcade game while the grown-ups can enjoy a real challenge ;)