Helicopters in AA

[bangtail 0]

First off, tx to BIS for a patch that sorted out a lot of problems! One problem that remains is the Helo handling. It's better, but it's still like flying on rails. One thing that seriously needs fixing is the gun camera on the Kamov. If you aren't going to allow us to "slew" it, then just get rid of it altogether because it is totally useless. As echoed several times in here, either A : Provide a proper rudder or just give us an option to have the old Flashpoint helo dynamics. This isn't a flight sim! Black Shark will take care of the attack helo sim market.

E

[MehMan 0]

Hmm, did anybody notice how the AI flies helicopters? Pretty shitty, the old OFP go to waypoint, stop, continue is still there. Makes some SP missions sucky.

[craigsa 0]

No offence - but who cares what a real pilot has to say ?? This is NOT a flight sim.  

We know what worked in OFP -we have been playing it for years so i think the community knows what was right and what was wrong.

The helo's were one of the things that were near perfect.

[Jigsaw 0]

No offence - but who cares what a real pilot has to say ?? This is NOT a flight sim.

I, for one, do care. It may not be a flight sim per se, but it IS a sim. Thus realism should be the main goal, and not some mickey mouse dynamics that make it easier but unrealisitc. That's why it's interesting what a real pilot has to say.

[craigsa 0]

Well i think thats what got us into this predicament in the first place.... . You think BIS didnt speak to army pilots ?

[funnyguy1 0]

No offence - but who cares what a real pilot has to say ?? This is NOT a flight sim.  

We know what worked in OFP -we have been playing it for years so i think the community knows what was right and what was wrong.

The helo's were one of the things that were near perfect.

Am I just missing something? Helos were shitty, and people complained a lot about them, there were many suggestions on the ofp2/game2 boards to make them more realistic. And they did, well at least they are trying. So what I don't get is how you can say that It was nearly perfect

It's not that I like the new flight model, It's weird sometimes, and I won't repeat what's wrong and what's nice about It, but It's 3x better than the ofp's one! And I have the polish version of ArmA without any patches!

@Mobious: Would be great if some of those guys actually tried flying helos in ArmA...Or at least show them some movies of the current flight model.

[craigsa 0]

Well i never knew that. Look what i am trying to say is that in OFP a person could get into any vehicle / air craft in the game and fly it fairly well. I could go and blow up any convoy after some practice and could have great air batttles on multiplayer.

At present i dont see the potential in AA as it standshowever once the model is "fixed" i think this game will be the best game out there. The issues with OFP may have been that people wanted a bit of realism but i dont see how anyone could have asked for what we got in AA.

I think i mainly have an issue with the cobra - on the single mission it seems almost to fast and very difficult for close quater attack on the convoy.

I must say that appart from the chopper issue so far this game is truly amazing and i think BIS are to be commended. I was in my little bird and noticed the artificial horizon dial- really cool. The attention to detail is to be commended and i take my hat off to the programers.

[Heatseeker 0]

No offence - but who cares what a real pilot has to say ?? This is NOT a flight sim.

We know what worked in OFP -we have been playing it for years so i think the community knows what was right and what was wrong.

The helo's were one of the things that were near perfect.

I care.. OPF helos were too simplistic. I hope one day we will have rotary wing, armored and infantry simulation combined in one single game engine, it would grab a very wide sim market and offer combined sim gameplay .

Too bad nobody is asking for more realistic tracked armor behaviour though .

[craigsa 0]

Heat, i hear you, it would be great to maybe have that with foot pedals for the choppers and maybe all the bells and whistles. Maybe one day soon it will be a reality.

I just think many OFP die hard fans were not expecting this kind of control. I loved OFP because of the gameplay. Yes i agree maybe the choppers were a bit unrealistic but why change such a big part of it ?

[Heatseeker 0]

Heat, i hear you, it would be great to maybe have that with foot pedals for the choppers and maybe all the bells and whistles. Maybe one day soon it will be a reality.

I just think many OFP die hard fans were not expecting this kind of control. I loved OFP because of the gameplay. Yes i agree maybe the choppers were a bit unrealistic but why change such a big part of it ?

I cant coment because i dont have Arma yet but what i've seen from 1.2 looks ok, if it is a little more challenging i will welcome the challenge since OPF flying became rather boring.

Maybe players should adopt new tactics to fire acuratelly and safely, more like real pilots do .

What i've seen from the armored vehicles disapoints me alot more than the helicopter FM .

[craigsa 0]

To be totally honest i prefer fighting in the air so i cannot comment on the ground vehicles

[Baff1 0]

I tell you i just "TRIED" the mission shoting up the convoy - OUCH. The Cobra is so sensitive. The speed is difficult to maintain (low speed) and you have to actually line up the white dot (from my understanding).

I still do not see how anyone can have a serious dog fight in the air??

you dont have dog fights with helicopters  

Somebody hasn't seen Airwolf.

[Jigsaw 0]

Well i think thats what got us into this predicament in the first place.... . You think BIS didnt speak to army pilots ?

They possibly did. But if so, they did one hell of job of making the helos not behave like real ones in v1.0, because I'm very positive that real helos don't have a binary throttle (full power or no power). That was the main problem with v1.0 that was fixed in 1.02. Now the throttle is actually usable for manual hovering.

Quote[/b] ]Well i never knew that. Look what i am trying to say is that in OFP a person could get into any vehicle / air craft in the game and fly it fairly well. I could go and blow up any convoy after some practice and could have great air batttles on multiplayer.

Well, that's exactly what v1.02 did. Before, the helos were almost unflyable, but now they are actually useful. Enhancing the rudder/tailrotor behavior would not only make it more realistic (as least as far as I know with my paper helo knowledge), but at the same time make the choppers more intuitive. You see, by enhancing the flight model we both get what we want.

[shadow 6]

Maybe players should adopt new tactics to fire acuratelly and safely, more like real pilots do

I think you're right. I'm getting the impression people think Hydras are precission rockets. In OFP you could destroy a BMP with one Hydra by point and click the mouse.

In reality the Hydras are more area-supressive ordnance.

A helicopter is such a powerful weapon-platform, it only makes sense to me that some skill should be required to use that platform effectively.

OFP's flight-model made any helicopter a flying super-tank (unless DKMM's Tunguska was nearby).

[Jigsaw 0]

I think i mainly have an issue with the cobra - on the single mission it seems almost to fast and very difficult for close quater attack on the convoy.

I made a video of me flying that mission. Really can't see any issue there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZg9nDJQIos

Don't forget that choppers are no planes. You rarely make high speed strafing runs with those. You move them into postion and take out the enemy from a quite stationary point, like a hovering/mobile weapons platform.

[Alpha-Kilo 36]

@ Mobius

A very good idea to ask a helicopter pilot for his comment!

I once had a chance to talk with a professional pilot about realism in flight sims. This discussion was about real life fixed wing aircraft and their counterparts in MS-FlightSim, so I won't go into detail but this might be interesting:

The pilot considered flight sims actually harder to fly than rl aircraft because certain sensations were not (or not properly) implemented in games. He mentioned things like the weight of the aircraft, vibrations, the feeling of the joystick, certain issues with limited viewing, wind, clouds. etc.

He thought the best way to compensate all this in games was - you might guess it - a significantly simplified flight model.

It would be interesting to know the opinion of your pilot colleague about this. By the way, if your pilot is kind enough to actually try out ArmA, it would be good to know what kind of controllers he uses: keyboard and mouse, a normal joystick, a flight stick with separate throttle and pedals, perhaps even Track IR?

[Jigsaw 0]

The pilot considered flight sims actually harder to fly than rl aircraft because certain sensations were not (or not properly) implemented in games. He mentioned things like the weight of the aircraft, vibrations, the feeling of the joystick, certain issues with limited viewing, wind, clouds. etc.

That's my theory either. The tunnel vision of only having a monitor in front of you already makes it a lot harder all by itself. Not to mention the lack of other input.

[funnyguy1 0]

I care.. OPF helos were too simplistic. I hope one day we will have rotary wing, armored and infantry simulation combined in one single game engine, it would grab a very wide sim market and offer combined sim gameplay .

Too bad nobody is asking for more realistic tracked armor behaviour though .

so, I'm not the only one who dreams about game2...

Some ppl are asking for more realistic armor though

@craigsa

I simply don't understand that...

Since I joined (and I can't say that I'm here for a long time) It seemed like those forums unite people who simply can't stand the ofp because of It's weak sides when It comes to realism, nevertheless playing the game because of the ammount of features that are realistic. Constantly posting ideas how to improove the game's realism (ofp2, game2 boards later) etc. Now, when ArmA is out, not being what game2 was supposed to be, I'm kinda confused, still waiting for the promissed revolution.

Even If we had a greatest flight model in the world, It's still the question of realistic missions, tactics, AA weapons, armor values etc.

[Garcia 0]

No offence - but who cares what a real pilot has to say ?? This is NOT a flight sim.  

We know what worked in OFP -we have been playing it for years so i think the community knows what was right and what was wrong.

The helo's were one of the things that were near perfect.

Lets say you got a limited knowledge of tanks, and I say that tanks in ArmA is shitty because they can't fly, and then I go talking about how tanks can fly in real life. And then you got the other, more sane people, who say tanks in ArmA at least isn't shitty because they can't fly, because it's impossible for tanks to fly in real life too. So imagine that you knowledge of tanks was low enough for you to wonder what is true. Wouldn't you like a actual tank driver to tell you how it really is to drive a tank?

(this was just an extreme example to show why I want to hear a chopper pilots opinion on the ArmA flight model)

[Speedy15 0]

IMO from what i have seen playing 1.2, it isn't modeled correctly at all. When you move forward and lean side to side you are leaning the entire aircraft, not moving the collective. It seems like in a way scripted and not dynamic as it should be. Look at some of the videos of the black shark expansion for lock-on. http://lockon.co.uk

[Journeyman 0]

If you check out my latest FSX video: FSX Robinson Fast & Low  .. (Right click and Save target as)

…you can see me making some low-level fast flights and turns in the default Robinson that is similar in size to the Littlebird. I found that the rudder (rear rotor) was needed together with the cyclic to being able to make effective fast turns, and there was a noticeable loss of banking response from the cyclic stick at high speeds. In fact I had trouble keeping the chopper from banking to the left at overspeed, and even though my stick was right over to the right I could not get the aircraft back upright without pulling back and killing speed. The response to cyclic inputs especially banking (rolling) was noticeably more and more sluggish the faster I went, completely unlike that video of the Littlebird released by Dslyecxi today!

In Dslyecxis video there seems to be no effect of speed on the rotors and the aircraft can continue to make amazingly quick banking manoeuvres despite the very high speeds. This doesn’t happen in FSX and I think I can understand the dynamics and reasons why!

[Dallas 9]

FSX and ArmA have differences. FSX has the advantage of being a pure flightsim with it's advantages. ArmA can't afford the same luxories. In ArmA you can do some very simple things that FSX can't do. ArmA allows you to enter and exit aircrafts!!! Why don't FSX allow you to do that? I'm not a pilot, but I'm pretty sure it's realistic.

All I'm saying is: ArmA isn't FSX. I own both games, but I play ArmA. If you want a flightsim, play a flightsim, or mod ArmA into one. But... ArmA is an allround sim, without the possibility to focus purely on only one kind of simulation.

[Jinef 2]

Dallas - please be quiet.

There are many people who would like to see ArmA slowly become a simulator.

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

No offence - but who cares what a real pilot has to say ?? This is NOT a flight sim.  

We know what worked in OFP -we have been playing it for years so i think the community knows what was right and what was wrong.

The helo's were one of the things that were near perfect.

I'm sorry, but they were far from perfect.  They were totally unrealistic.  But they were obscenely easy to fly, not quite arcade but very close to it.

ArmA has the chance to carve out a niche for itself as a realistic combat simulation in a market over flowing with almost cloned gameplay or FPS CTF games. If you want BF2 like gameplay got play BF2 and its clones.  ArmA is billed as "The Ultimate Combat Simulator", personally that means realistic physics, flight models and weapons.   Now that includes simulating real helicopters and how they fly.  (Hopefully BIS will realise that it also means realistic aeroplanes too.)

People say that this isn’t a flight sim.  That’s true, its not.  But it isn’t just an infantry simulator either.  It’s a Combat simulator; that means realistic planes, helicopters, tanks, boats, weapons and environments.  If you ask any hardcore war sim fanatic what they would want from an ideal ‘game’ I’m fairly sure the big four are:

1) Huge realistic environments

2) Realistic Weapons

3) Realistic Controls, planes helos, tanks  cars.

4) The ability to fly/drive/command at the same time interact properly with players on the ground.  And this means if you bail out when flying/driving around it isn’t the end of the game its just a complication that you need to work through to survive.

If you want to limit yourself to running around shooting at infantry with infantry weapons then that’s up to you.  BUT some of us; and i'm betting this is the majority, want a fully realistic simulation with all the bells and whistles that implies.  I like the fact that I can fly around in game, supporting my team-mates.  I like the fact than when I get shot down that I’m stuck in the middle of a huge map, possibly surrounded by hostiles and I have to get back to safety to keep on fighting.  I like that bit of realism.  OFP was good, ArmA has the capability to be better, If BIS give us a flexible enough game engine I’m sure it will be something truly special.

Face it if you want to play in a combat simulator you are going to have to accept that you cant play the same superman character that you play in other games.

/Rant

[Left-Skid-Low 0]

In fact I had trouble keeping the chopper from banking to the left at overspeed, and even though my stick was right over to the right I could not get the aircraft back upright without pulling back and killing speed. The response to cyclic inputs especially banking (rolling) was noticeably more and more sluggish the faster I went, completely unlike that video of the Littlebird released by Dslyecxi today!

In Dslyecxis video there seems to be no effect of speed on the rotors and the aircraft can continue to make amazingly quick banking manoeuvres despite the very high speeds. This doesn’t happen in FSX and I think I can understand the dynamics and reasons why!

I didn't know FSX simulated this, but the left rolling tendency at overspeed (Vne) must have been a retreating blade stall, though, it should have pitched up first then rolled left. I don't know why the robbie in fsx gets sluggish at higher speeds, I've never noticed that in real helicopter but I don't have any r-22 time either.