Really disheartened.

[erupter 1]

I thought focusing on just one kind of vehicles would allow for an easier implementation.

I thought providing just 3 variants would allow for a more realistic representation.

Boy was I wrong.

1st of all the instrumentation: it's unusable.

VORs, DMEs are nonexistent, the artificial horizon is so small, but the worst is the compass in the light heli, I can't read anything unless zooming.

And all of this gets even worse when you turn and the cockpit is shadowed: no illumination at all, so you just see black.

And I'm not talking night flight! I'm talking daylight flying when you turn and the helicopter body shadows the cockpit.

Then my main grief: no sideslip indicator.

How is one supposed to coordinate turning, sideslips, aerobatic manouvers?

A plane (that goes more or less straight) has a sideslip indicator, and an helicopter simulator doesn't?

I don't know but this really hursts as I don't know what my helicopter is doing.

2nd dynamics

I still can't understand why you deliberately chosed not to simulate retracting landing gears on the heavy: it is not only a graphical gimmik, it affects dynamics too.

All the more because the mi24 has retracting landing gears, as do most of Arma2 vehicles.

The medium heli is unflyable for me: it jumps everywhere, it's itchy as a nervous cat. Is this by design?

I can do whatever I want with the light, and with the heavy too (providing allowance for its enormous intertia), with the medium I don't risk anything.

A slightly harder pull on the collective, and most often than not you're piroetting in the sky.

I have doubts on the heavy mountainous stance too, but having never piloted an NH90 I can't really say.

Although available videos would make me lean on a less stable flying machine.

Then we have the infamous advancing/retracting blade thing: I've never seen a (real) heli flying tilted.

And I see a lot coming and going above my head, but they are usually flying leveled unless turning.

But in this simulator I have to be tilted to fly straight.

I think TakeOn should have been a kind of testbed for new technologies for Arma3 rather than a standalone (and even pricey) product.

At least as it is now.

So I think that in the future you should focus on doing what you advertise.

Maybe advertise less, but do better what there is.

You make 3 choppers? Ok, small number but acceptable IF... you do them in the outmost quality.

The light is ok, the medium stands its point, the heavy is just stitched together: dark instrumentation panels, empty instruments...

The instrumentation suffers from the points I already explained: can't sell a simulator if it lacks on instrumentation guys.

Even the infamous (for rotorwings) MSFS did a better job with the instrumentation!

It really gives me the impressions of a sold attempt: it was not a finished product, not even in the product specifications, but you sold it anyway.

This makes me sad :(

Edited November 10, 2012 by erupter

[Serclaes 0]

I know what you mean. It's sad that a few tweaks here and there could have made the game so much better. I mean, I enjoy it now but I could enjoy it more.

[Sven2157 1]

...can't sell a simulator if it lacks on instrumentation guys....

Ahh... There's the problem. This is not a simulator; it is a game. I have never seen any documentation stating otherwise, nor was I under the impression that it was a simulator when I bought it. Here is how Steam has had Take On Helicopters listed since I bought it:

The brand new helicopter game from independent developers Bohemia Interactive – creators of the award-winning military-Sim series Arma 2. Built upon over 10 years of experience in cutting-edge simulator development, Take On Helicopters immerses players within beautifully rich landscapes and an authentic flight model.

The player takes on the role of a civilian helicopter pilot. Harry Larkin’s aviation business has fallen on tough times. Built up over decades, it’s now only days away from closure. His sons face an uncertain future, struggling to save the company their father spent his whole life building. Together, they must take on contracts and competitors; together, they take on helicopters!

Take your first steps towards mastering rotor-wing flight across a massive range of enjoyable challenges, or create your own missions using the powerful easy-to-use mission editor.

Take to the air above two beautifully rich and expansive environments, based upon real-world North American and South Asian terrain-data.

Take on cutting-edge technology, helicopters modeled in stunning detail, a large-scale, open-world sandbox and authentic flight dynamics…

Sorry you feel differently, or were under the impression that this was anything but a game. However coming here and talking down to the developers, and community for the most part, because you saw what you wanted, and then discovered that it was not what you saw, is not really fair.

You are the one that could have read a review or two. You are the one the that failed to read the game's description properly. You are the one that saw what you wanted, bought the game and then was disappointed because it wasn't what you were looking for.

No worries, we have all done that. Hell, I even did that with this game. I wanted, and still want, a GOOD helicopter simulator; TKOH, is a great starting point, and will hopefully nudge other Big 'House' developers to start to compete for this market.

Sorry you feel let down, but give TKOH a chance. There is still a lot that WE as a community can do - i.e. the Modding tools.

Welcome to Take On Helicopters!... :)

[erupter 1]

Sven I feel you'd make a nice addition to BIS marketing dep :D

Here, have a look at GameStore UK's description of Microsoft Flight Simulator X

Flight Simulator X will immerse players in a beautifully rich and realistic world, offering a completely new and innovative gaming experience

[...]

Flight Simulator X offers players a rich and innovative gaming experience with new technological advancements, incredible graphics and added realism including weather, time of day and seasons.

So not even MSFSX was ever marketed as a Simulator in the professional meaning, still it has perfectly working sideslip indicators, instrumentation lighting and landing gears.

And it dates back to 2006.

Well even FS98 had better instrumentation and landing gear...

I'm not new to BIS, but this endeavour has really lowered my esteem of them: if feels unfinished, barely put together. And yet sold for real money (and not even small money!).

[Mattressi 10]

if feels unfinished, barely put together. And yet sold for real money (and not even small money!).

Yes, unfortunately this is how I feel about it. It can be fun at times, but it really doesn't feel like a solid effort at making a game or a sim. Ignoring the lack of necessary indicators and other "sim" features, this game just isn't that great as a game anyway. The campaign is incredibly short and quite broken after all of the patches (some missions are extremely difficult to complete because flight dynamics have been tweaked in patches and mission requirements haven't been lowered to adapt to these tweaks), one helicopter is completely useless (the medium - don't bother trying to say it isn't; it's the only helicopter where you need to greatly reduce the collective before even being able to use the anti-torque pedals in order to not damage it), and a good majority of the interesting features are completely useless. FLIR only works in multiplayer, night vision and spotting lights only work in a time trial (and maybe multi?), cameras can't be controlled and are just scripted mission items, helicopters which can be bought are useless (air ambulance, executive helicopters) - not opening up new missions or adding functionality, and the variety and number of missions is severely lacking. Multiplayer is completely dead for ToH, so it is sad to see so many features completely unutilised in singleplayer missions/campaign.

This kind of stuff might be excusable in Arma, where the community fixes everything and makes use of everything which isn't added, but ToH has too small a playerbase to rely on mods and custom missions to make the game good. Besides, vanilla Arma still feels much more complete than ToH.

This game is the reason I didn't buy Carrier Command on a whim and I'm very glad that I didn't now, after reading the CC forum. I really hope that BIS picks up their game and starts releasing games which work relatively well on their own and are fun without mods. All games have bugs and issues, but BIS games really take the cake, and are often incomplete and/or need mods anyway.

[[frl]myke 14]

Take on Helicopters is a game, not a Flight simulator. It's flight model is authentic but not realistic. It may go further than much other games with Helicopters in it (which includes ArmA 2) but if you're up to the real thing, you're wrong here at BI. What you're looking for you can find here.

Here, have a look at GameStore UK's description of Microsoft Flight Simulator X

How MSFS X is marketed is up to MS Marketing Departement, not BI's. BI never marketed ToH as Heli sim with realistic flight model but a Helicopter game with authentic flight model.

[h=3]Take On Helicopters offers:[/h]

• An authentic helicopter flight experience
  
• Richly modelled helicopter & cockpits
  
• Stunning and expansive environments (Seattle and South Asia)
  
• Story-driven career mode, random challenges, time-trials and free flight
  
• Multiplayer – co-op & competitive scenarios
  
• Powerful & intuitive mission editor
  

Source: http://takeonthegame.com/about-the-game/

So I think that in the future you should focus on doing what you advertise.

Well, BI can't be made responsible for Customers "interpreting" advertisements wrong. You exactly got what was advertised, sadly you expected something completely different. Not BI's fault.

[dwringer 45]

I'm not sure if it's just not obvious or what, but MSFS WAS actually marketed as a flight simulator; it's just that they didn't really bother marketing it at all as MS canned the entire team before they even finished implementing the expansion pack.

But if you look at what MSFS stands for ... uh, well I'm not gonna spoon feed that part ;p

The problem we have here is that everyone expects every product to include every innovation from every preceding product in a lineage arbitrarily decided by the customer's fickle desires at that given time.

I still think TKOH is a good simulator. Is it a technical helicopter operation simulator? Hell no.

[erupter 1]

I still think TKOH is a good simulator. Is it a technical helicopter operation simulator? Hell no.

I never tried to paragon TKOH with the likes of falcon4, Jane's longbow or any dcs products.

I'm asking the instrumentation to follow the flight model, otherwise why not making it an apache2000 clone?

I'm asking that if you go to the extent of modeling a 3D cockpit, you go as far as actually filling it with even fake instruments (as most games do and did) instead if leaving empty spots.

I'm asking that if you SELL a product with a model depicting an helicopter with retractable landing gears, those gears are made actually retractable.

Even Orbiter simulator does retractable gears, and its free.

I don't understand your attitude people: to me it looks like I payed a sum of money which is far higher than the actual value of the product.

You have a nice time shoving the responsibility of the decision on the customer (me), but the reality is that such a high priced product entitles to high expectations.

You wouldn't pay a modern smartphone something like 500€ and yet get away with a single core and low res display with 4 gb, would you?

Anyway I see there is no point in criticizing if the user base is the most ardent defensor: if you guys think the product is so good... well good for you.

For me it's not.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[jblackrupert 14]

TOH has never been advertised as a sim, at least by Bohemia.

They even say so on this forum and videos shot at various shows.

[EagleEye-GER- 0]

I thought focusing on just one kind of vehicles would allow for an easier implementation.

I thought providing just 3 variants would allow for a more realistic representation.

Boy was I wrong.

1st of all the instrumentation: it's unusable.

VORs, DMEs are nonexistent, the artificial horizon is so small, but the worst is the compass in the light heli, I can't read anything unless zooming.

And all of this gets even worse when you turn and the cockpit is shadowed: no illumination at all, so you just see black.

And I'm not talking night flight! I'm talking daylight flying when you turn and the helicopter body shadows the cockpit.

Then my main grief: no sideslip indicator.

How is one supposed to coordinate turning, sideslips, aerobatic manouvers?

A plane (that goes more or less straight) has a sideslip indicator, and an helicopter simulator doesn't?

I don't know but this really hursts as I don't know what my helicopter is doing.

2nd dynamics

I still can't understand why you deliberately chosed not to simulate retracting landing gears on the heavy: it is not only a graphical gimmik, it affects dynamics too.

All the more because the mi24 has retracting landing gears, as do most of Arma2 vehicles.

The medium heli is unflyable for me: it jumps everywhere, it's itchy as a nervous cat. Is this by design?

I can do whatever I want with the light, and with the heavy too (providing allowance for its enormous intertia), with the medium I don't risk anything.

A slightly harder pull on the collective, and most often than not you're piroetting in the sky.

I have doubts on the heavy mountainous stance too, but having never piloted an NH90 I can't really say.

Although available videos would make me lean on a less stable flying machine.

Then we have the infamous advancing/retracting blade thing: I've never seen a (real) heli flying tilted.

And I see a lot coming and going above my head, but they are usually flying leveled unless turning.

But in this simulator I have to be tilted to fly straight.

I think TakeOn should have been a kind of testbed for new technologies for Arma3 rather than a standalone (and even pricey) product.

At least as it is now.

So I think that in the future you should focus on doing what you advertise.

Maybe advertise less, but do better what there is.

You make 3 choppers? Ok, small number but acceptable IF... you do them in the outmost quality.

The light is ok, the medium stands its point, the heavy is just stitched together: dark instrumentation panels, empty instruments...

The instrumentation suffers from the points I already explained: can't sell a simulator if it lacks on instrumentation guys.

Even the infamous (for rotorwings) MSFS did a better job with the instrumentation!

It really gives me the impressions of a sold attempt: it was not a finished product, not even in the product specifications, but you sold it anyway.

This makes me sad :(

I feel youre pain and I have the same impressions like you have. Though, I bought it and I learned to overlook the worse things and just started to enjoy the career mode. I thinks it`s very well done and it have atmosphere (most game/simulations lacks). Just use auto hover function more often and you will start to enjoy. Yes, the helicopters sometime behave really weird and it seems that no input can stop that behavior.