Project Reality Forums

Hello Everyone!
Today as I made my rounds from blog to blog I was treated to a surprise when I clicked on "realitymod.com", the new update. I am thrilled at all the new features and the CAS/JADAM/Overall air improvements are what excite me the most. Things seem to be leaning toward (as would be expected) reality. This got me thinking (as it does every release) as to all of the things that I want in a realism mod. Currently (no disrespect to the devs intended) I do not enjoy flying aircraft in PR. To me, it feels more like a game than a flight simulator, that’s just it, it is a game. But I want it to be a flight simulator, that’s my definition on realism and ultimately, fun . For me, someone with an interest in things that fly and make loud noises, I would love to see things built into the game such as VASIs, Meatballs, Call signs, VORs, VFRs, IFRs, ATCs, and PAPIs. But then again, should use of a major part of the game only be accessible to people who enjoy decoding 3 and 4 letter acronyms? I’m sure there are people who find themselves drawn to this game with hopes of extreme realism in other aspects of the game. My question to all of you is how much is too much? Should it get to a point where flying a jet is possible only for those who, when not playing PR, can be found playing a flight simulator? Or do these random crazies only make up a small percentage of the community, so it should be done away with? Or is there some kind of middle ground, in witch there is a space for the casual gamer as well as the hard core specialist? What do you guys think?
-Gigman

P.S: For my own curiosity: if think that you fall under the category of the “random crazies” who craves unreasonable realism (kind of an oxymoron) in PR, let us know.

I think Jets should be so complicated that it takes some effort and brain power to use them effectively. I doubt that VOR's IFR's and ATC's would be brought in due to there simply not being enough ppl to fill those rolls (who wants to be ATC on Kashan)? Armor and Jets are like the upgrade to the battlefield. Only the elite and Experienced should fly. One thing I've noticed is that with the jets is that I can fly 90 degrees straight up and lose like no airspeed, pretty messed up imo (things may be different in the next patch).

Flying is an addition. PR is ultimately infantry-centric, and therefore jets are sacrificed for the good of helping overall gameplay.

If you want a flight simulator, I suggest you go play one. BF2 just is not capable of supporting that kind of communication.

A poll would be good here

I'm one of those who loves realism, the more the better; but i'm also one of those with an insatiable knowledge of the military.

If I were the devs, I would be careful of not scaring every1 away with a learning curve too steep.

And in regards to aircraft, remember they decided long ago, to do them last.
Anyway, i only play medic anymore

Bodybag2224 wrote:I think Jets should be so complicated that it takes some effort and brain power to use them effectively. I doubt that VOR's IFR's and ATC's would be brought in due to there simply not being enough ppl to fill those rolls (who wants to be ATC on Kashan)? Armor and Jets are like the upgrade to the battlefield. ...

I agree, I was instinctively looking for a combat flight simulator here, not really thinking I equated realism to military flight sim. Im not just talking about aircraft though, should a sniper need to properly range there rife and draw a map of the environment? Most of the things that I am talking about here I never expect to see in PR (but devs, if you wana turn it into BFlightSim, im all ears) but I mean this more as a discussion of how much is too much? Or is there a middle ground?

Dr2B Rudd wrote:A poll would be good here

I'm one of those who loves realism, the more the better; but i'm also one of those with an insatiable knowledge of the military.

I agree, as soon as I figure out how to make one.... But you bring up an interesting point, Im not a military nut, you are, did you find that you had subconscious expectations the first time you played? And what do you think the line is between realism (synonymous with fun for some) and the importance of game flow and dynamics?

On a separate note, can I make a poll after the fact?

flight characteristics are having a large overhaul and most of the air assets will fly decidedly different than they do now..

...more difficult to be sure..

If you like realistic flight simulators, then chances are you're not gonna like aircraft in PR. I know I don't.

The fact is, PR is built on top of BF2, and because of that some things cannot be changed. Cockpits don't have working gauges, you cannot use a hat switch to look around while simultaneously controlling your aircraft (nevermind those crazies who own a trackir), and throttle control is rather wonky, as if it was obviously made for mouse and keyboard instead of a proper throttle. So, integrating anything more complicated into the planes is rather out of question. Even then, on top of that you're restricted to rather small maps, where your aircraft will operate from airfields so close to the frontlines that you'll be in battle 3 seconds after takeoff - and that's something that's not really realistic in the first place.

Personally, though, I'm a fan of realism, to a given degree. While I do like combat to be as realistic as possible, I still recognize that this is, after all, a game, and there are certain concessions that have to be made, that by some might be perceived as detracting from realism. After all, people who are playing the game don't all have military training, are usually inhabited in multiple ways when it comes to communication, and are staring at monitors and listening to sound provided by their soundcards.

to be honest, as daranz already said, there is no way of modding bf2 into a completely realistic flight simulator.

If you must have extreme realism when flying then go and play a flight simulator. BF2 engine just isn't capable of giving you a realistic experience like (for example) the falcon 4.0 engine can.

As for general realism, the more the better. However it's a game and it must be fun and balanced, so it's obvious that some things can't be completely realistic without destroying gameplay.

[quote=""'[R-DEV"]IronTaxi;561506']flight characteristics are having a large overhaul and most of the air assets will fly decidedly different than they do now..

...more difficult to be sure..[/quote]


Good to hear IronTaxi, Ill make sure to give 'em a try when this next update rolls around.

[quote="daranz""]... Personally, though, I'm a fan of realism, to a given degree. While I do like combat to be as realistic as possible, I still recognize that this is, after all, a game, and there are certain concessions that have to be made, that by some might be perceived as detracting from realism. After all, people who are playing the game don't all have military training, are usually inhabited in multiple ways when it comes to communication, and are staring at monitors and listening to sound provided by their soundcards.[/quote]

Not really sure if I could agree more. Without trying to get into too much detail (not another ADD THIS GUN/F35TR0PZ NOW thread), what do you think that PR should strive to be? To me, although not a dev and not privy to their roadmap, I think that PR is reaching a stage in its development where we need to tread more lightly onto what is going over the line in terms of realism (satisfying the few) or into the realm of unrealistic and more importantly what compromises must be maid to achieve your "Perfect Game". I have been playing PR for quite some time and it seems that the community has (as would be expected) different ideas as to what the "Perfect Game" would be. I think that in previous versions of PR there really was the obvious to contend with, IE You cant get into and pilot a plane if you have been trained as a infantrymen and not a pilot. I think that .6 was the point where most of these large infractions into reality (and sometimes common sense) were done away with. So, to you, what is your ideal game of PR? I'll start with me: I would like it to be a game that had realistic features, both on the ground and in the air, without being to complicated but also more realistic than now. I would like it to be teamwork centric (Pretty sure we already got that covered) I also would be playing it on the Crysis engine (Just Kidding). And, what the hell, why not? I would be playing with fastropes.

ArmA has a lot more possibility's for realistic Air power but sadly PR does not due mainly to engine limitations.

I'm hoping that in .7 planes will have far lower turn rates and faster lock on times, to stop this buggering about spinning in circles trying to catch each other.

I'd also like to see it taking far longer to take off, as this hasn't really changed since vanilla.

If you want more realism now go and get that aircraft patch thing on the community modding forums, it rocks.

CAS343 wrote: ...I think I might need to post some numbers on the different aircrafts performance and speeds ect in the wiki later.

I would be all for that! Is there a way to find out the stats in BF2 and not in real life (more useful for bf2 pilots)

-Gigman

As everyone has said the engine limits the potential realism of flying. Another problem is, due to the limited amount of players per server and size of maps, jets and helicopters are only secondary assets to infantry combat.

Obviously there is a point where too real becomes a hindrance and not a bonus feature. While it would be nice to have aircraft flown by those avid simulator fliers the percentage of those people finding a game such as this are not as great. However I don't see the flying in this game being bad either. I see it taking quite a bit of skill to accurately drop munitions and maneuver in PR already from what I have read on it. Truth be told we aren't professional pilots who clock over 100 hours air simulation with professional trainers and then clock hours flying. Is there a tutor on board to show us exactly how to make runs and exactly how to drop munitions? Until something like that exists it's all about trial and error. Watching videos doesn't nearly come as good as having an expert walking and talking you through your every move. So you have to draw a line someplace in order to appease a larger majority of good pilots while ruffling the feathers of the minority. Can't have your cake and eat it too.

I could go into realism in ground warfare also but we know the same holds for that as well. Too real and you won't get any players at all and might fill a small handful of 16 population servers if you are lucky.

CAS343 wrote: I am convinced that certain RL helicopter pilots think the choppers now are realistic at least in the handling capacity

Ahem except for there being no torque, the very essence of helicopter flying

As mentioned above, we are confined in what we can do in terms of (1) making it actually playable, (2) making it 'fun', and (3) what we can do with the engine.

Spending half your time taxiing, waiting for clearance from ATC to take off, flying a sortie, then returning, stacking, getting clearance to land, then taxiing to the AVGAS point for another player with the 'refuelling' kit is not fun for 99% of the people out there. We need to concentrate on the combat side of things, not the anal side of things. Otherwise we'd have each SL filling in multiple contact reports and debriefs for their OC/CO each time they returned to a RP

You need to remember that we can just about expand the engine's code to include things that cover the all arms combat within the mod, we cannot try and tunr PR into a flight sim alone. There are plenty of those already ont eh market, and it's not really something we have ever wanted or tried to compete with in terms of emersion. It simply cannot be done with the BF2 engine compared to FSX.

Well as it is already said. The main problem we have is the limitation of the engine and not the limitation of what we want to do. If there was the possibility I'd like to have an engine with a large scale area for airports and flying and a small scale area where the actual air-ground and ground-ground combat takes place. Basically lock on with a small area having the bf2 detail... oh what a dream