Various UI/HUD complaints Thread - Vector Thrust

TS, I hear you're easier to reach here than via PM, so:

Right now, the whiskey mark slews around with the velocity vector. It's actually supposed to stay pointed in the direction of the aircraft's nose (actually the chord line of the wing), which the rest of the HUD elements (altimeter, airspeed indicator) do right now. Fixing this would help with high-AoA maneuvers in first person view.

On a somewhat related note, will imperial measurements be introduced soon? The only military pilots that use the metric system are ex-Soviet or Chinese; NATO along with most of the world and 100% of civil pilots use nmi and knots, so it's weird only having the metric system in this.

Sorry about that, I'm usually sloppy in answering back private messages and emails.
But yes I do plan to fix the whiskey mark and add the imperial measurements soon, but this is a good reminder, especially the measurements.

Both don’t seem too difficult to add, but there are some things I need to finish before I can update the new build and I don’t what it to take too long to be available, but I‘ll see if I can still include them in it.

Edited by: timeSymmetry

Oh yeah, about that

A while back I came to the conclusion that the waterline marker is actually the real flight path marker, and that the current flight path marker in place doesn't actually indicate the path of travel. If you're going to fix the waterline marker in place, does that mean the flight path marker will behave like how the waterline marker is now and indicate the flight path, or will it still be "just for show?"

One other thing:

Could you move the gun cross towards the top of the HUD and make it constantly visible? That would allow players to keep the bandit more easily in view and also make room for a more HUD-integrated gunsight like the LCOS, EEGS, or whatever else might be found in Ace Combat and similar games

Sounds good, then. One idea I had that you may want to consider implementing is an arrow showing what direction the velocity vector is while off-screen. Without any indicator, it can be hard to figure out where you're going with the AoA limiter off.

And I agree with NoZoner that the gun pipper needs to be visible at least more often, if not all the time. The lead indicator for planes doesn't seem to work very well in its current state either.

Edited by: ZakuTwo

Perhaps you could look at the direction your opponent is in?

I hate to try and sound like a (simulator) elitist, but you shouldn't be told by the game how to fly, since it is a flying game, you'd think that your skills in such regard (observation, tactics & their execution, etc) would be the sort of things you'd want to raise the skill ceiling...

...Not completely drop it to the floor by such mechanics.

You're barking up the wrong tree if you're trying to call me a casual. Sims don't let you fly at 180 degree alphas, and in the few real planes with post-stall maneuverability close to what VT allows, you have physiological indicators to your momentum from G-forces that games can't replicate. It's inarguable that flying at a high alpha is harder in first person than in third person because there are fewer visual cues (that's why HAWX zoomed out for Assistance Off), and off-screen whiskey and velocity indicators like Ace Combat has when you look around in its HUD view would help to rectify that.

Edited by: ZakuTwo

Boogie_Van wrote: Perhaps you could look at the direction your opponent is in?

I hate to try and sound like a (simulator) elitist, but you shouldn't be told by the game how to fly, since it is a flying game, you'd think that your skills in such regard (observation, tactics & their execution, etc) would be the sort of things you'd want to raise the skill ceiling...

...Not completely drop it to the floor by such mechanics.

... Moving the gun cross to the top of the HUD?

In Vector Thrust, the gun cross is currently where the waterline marker is fixed - right in the middle. It is closer to the top in most modern fighter HUDs. I know it's meant to be more practical, but I sincerely don't think shifting the aim point of the gun several degrees would be enough to detract from aiming, shooting, or even target acquisition. This has nothing to do with the solution indicator.

Also when the indicated flight path is off the HUD, the flight path marker typically sits at the edge of the HUD and blinks
Edit: Actually I don't know if that's the case with flight path markers for US fighters, gonna have to check... oh, but even if that's the case i'm not trying to push for a super exact and realistic implementation, that was just a thought. being a scatterbrained individual is fun.

Edited by: NoZoner

I think the gun pipper shows up when you're in "gun range" which is around 500m, which is admittedly a little short for me, given how much I like to use guns.

For me, one problem I have with the HUD in AoA is that I use the tracking camera almost exclusively, due to the terrible view controls using my joystick's hat switch. It makes it really hard for me to tell what my speed and altitude are along with whether or not I am AoA at all. I wouldn't mind so much if we had something like an option for how quickly our tracking camera returned to zero, but if we're going to have an arrow pointing towards our velocity vector, then could we also have it scale based on speed? Doesn't need to be a smooth scale, but even a course indication of speed would be nice.

Also, I played Sky Rogue recently and found a pretty interesting feature to its tracking camera setup: you can use your look function while using the tracking camera to swivel your camera and then you can designate a new target with the lock button (curiously, the lock and the track camera button are separate buttons). Given the state of boresight in AoA and the way people seem to gravitate towards the camera's-center target-change rather than sorting target change once they're aware of it, it doesn't seem unreasonable that change target and tracking cam could become separate buttons.

Of course, these are both written from a very egocentric POV, since I have no idea whether it would improve the experience for mouse/keyboard players and gamepad players. I noticed this when talking with another player after a match, since I mentioned that AoA being toggle-able would be a nice feature, but he countered that it would be awkward on a gamepad, which was true when I thought about it. My complaints can only apply to other guys who insist on using a semi-cheap joystick to play VT.
___

lol, I should take less time with writing my posts....

Edited by: IbizenThoth

@NoZoner I believe you're right about the off-screen blinking velocity vector on some real HUDs, I think that would work fine for this.

ZakuTwo wrote: You're barking up the wrong tree if you're trying to call me a casual. Sims don't let you fly at 180 degree alphas, and in the few real planes with post-stall maneuverability close to what VT allows, you have physiological indicators to your momentum from G-forces that games can't replicate. It's inarguable that flying at a high alpha is harder in first person than in third person because there are fewer visual cues (that's why HAWX zoomed out for Assistance Off), and off-screen whiskey and velocity indicators like Ace Combat has when you look around in its HUD view would help to rectify that.

In my skim reading (and being slightly inebriated at the time), I was under the interpretation that you were talking about not the player's velocity vector, but the enemy's, which in my mind instantly equated to 'Wait, the poster wants to see his opponent's direction of travel if they're off screen while targeted? Well, that takes the 'knowing' part out of the battle and basically drills things down to the game telling you how to fly to beat your opponent,' which is absolutely not what you said at all, just what I interpreted.

But, as to whether or not there are more visual cues to being in third person versus first? Completely disagree there as that's a matter of personal opinion, there can be just as many cues, if not more (with proper avionics implementation), to tell how/well/what you're doing in the craft in relation to what's going on outside. It's a matter of personal preference, and quite frankly, I'm more aware of what's going on in first person than I am in third person, given that in the latter I tend to look at my plane/character/so forth rather than what I'm actually doing. As such, I'd never try to opine that any view is superior in the direct form of gameplay (completely eliminating any concept of tactics or strategy therein) but that some offer more information that would otherwise be unattainable (i.e., corner peaking in a third person shooter, zooming out to view the whole battlefield in an RTS, so forth) as compared against playing in first person.

NoZoner wrote:
... Moving the gun cross to the top of the HUD?

In Vector Thrust, the gun cross is currently where the waterline marker is fixed - right in the middle. It is closer to the top in most modern fighter HUDs. I know it's meant to be more practical, but I sincerely don't think shifting the aim point of the gun several degrees would be enough to detract from aiming, shooting, or even target acquisition. This has nothing to do with the solution indicator.

That's not what I was referring to, but while generally the CCIP sits 'high' for a fighter, it basically sits wherever it was set to sit by the designer: the A-10's CCIP for the rockets and gun is inherently 'low' by comparison to a fighter, and given that in layman's terms the American gunsight for planes is a lag indicator and not a lead indicator, the gun pip itself is basically all over the HUD.

Well, actually, despite the fact that the A-10 has a ground-oriented cannon, the bore line cross is still placed at the top of the HUD ._. The CCIP piper and gun funnel have more room to move around in the HUD like that, since gravitational pull and pitching movement are taken into account

I'm actually kinda hard pressed to find an example of a modern aircraft where the bore line cross is anywhere but close to the top of the HUD, but idk. Maybe it's not as common as I think it is

I still think something needs to be done about the positioning of the bore line, because otherwise the gun cross is going to stay right on top of the waterline marker forever and its kinda awkward to look at when the two are on the screen at the same time. If the bore line is going to stay in the center of the HUD, maybe get rid of the waterline marker altogether and replace it with a persistent, smaller gun cross? That was another solution to this problem I've had on my mind for a while and if people object to placing the bore line cross at the top of the HUD, maybe this is a better way to deal with the problem

Edited by: NoZoner

Sorry, I have more complaining to do about minor, unimportant things.

The abbreviation for knots is KTS, not KN or whatever it is right now.

thanks, I was having trouble figuring out what was the most common abbreviation used for knots

Alternatively, you could use "KIAS" or "KCAS" (indicated or calibrated airspeed) depending on how the HUD computes airspeed, but "Kts" is the best option in my opinion, and just generically refers to speed in knots in most aerospace applications.