Active pause - for real?

[mazex]

Hi,

 

Just restarted my DCS career and I do not know if there is any way to make the active pause stop everything in the world accept my wobbly VR head and mouse trying to flip some small switch in a corner?

 

If it is a technical issue based on the fact that the game engine needs to "run" for me to change stuff I can accept it. It may be that it's to tedious to loop over all movable objects att stop them...

 

How ever, if it is some "fair play" thought then it would be nice to give us a "Complete active pause". Kind of annoying when having started the engine, poked around with everything and then when taxiing I paused for 10 seconds to change something and my Viggen wingman drives right over me while "paused" ;)

Edited April 27, 2019 by mazex

[Fri13]

I don't really get the "Active Pause" feature if everything else keeps running and my aircraft is stopped in the air

[Exorcet]

I've never used active pause and I don't know much about it. I didn't know things around you would still move, and it would probably be nice if those things around you would pause as well, however I might suggest as a workaround until something is added to slow the sim down with L Ctrl Z I think. You can slow time to 1/64 speed, which is nearly paused.

[mazex]

I've never used active pause and I don't know much about it. I didn't know things around you would still move, and it would probably be nice if those things around you would pause as well, however I might suggest as a workaround until something is added to slow the sim down with L Ctrl Z I think. You can slow time to 1/64 speed, which is nearly paused.

Awesome, did not know that. Thanks a lot... Then it would be great with a shortcut toggle between 1/64 time and 1:1 if they can't do active pause :)

 

In 1/64 time I'm sure I will be able to find those pesky buttons trying to keep my VR head steady to not move the mouse pointer ;)

[HiJack]

You see the Active Pause used many times in Wags training/information videos. Always it is used to make you able to set things up in your advanced cockpit. For instance Bombing settings that you normally would do while cruising to the target area. It's a feature to spawn close to a target and still be able to use much time to adjust your settings.

[mazex]

You see the Active Pause used many times in Wags training/information videos. Always it is used to make you able to set things up in your advanced cockpit. For instance Bombing settings that you normally would do while cruising to the target area. It's a feature to spawn close to a target and still be able to use much time to adjust your settings.

I don't know if you have tried it, the problem is that it really does not feel useful if the rest of the world continues at full speed while only your aircraft pauses.

 

Kind of a reverse Matrix effect, Keanu would not last long with that one ;)

 

The only thing that I would see it useful for is active pausing while landing or similar to change ILS settings. While taking off it certainly does not help as explained in my initial post ;) And while engaging the enemy it feels like suicide using it...

 

Having quite a few IRL hours myself I don't put goggles on my head that move my hand while trying to adjust the frequency knob (referring to the rather awkward problem trying to mouse click a button in VR where you need to keep your head or mouse still and click a tiny spot). And IRL I find the gear or flap lever in 0.3 seconds without looking. I press a button in 0.4 seconds - and don't miss it once... Just like the ones on our Hotas (this naturally is harder in VR than IRL as you don't see your hand but muscle memory is impressive and works fine). But even a Virpil T-50 throttle has only a few percent of the buttons on the left side of an A-10C. So when we suddenly need to look down to start the emergency APU with VR click it takes ages. For fun while driving earlier today I realized that my BMW has more buttons, levers and knobs than my Virpil Hotas ;)

 

For us that still are learning it really helps if there is a possibility to read the text under the buttons and think for a while which one is which as well :) And in VR it simply is an unrealistic time to push 5-6 buttons that might be needed in the last part of the attack run when it takes 5 times longer in VR than IRL. Mid mission is OK.

 

So, if I can just find out a way to toggle between 1:10 and 1:1 speed in one press for the whole world I'm fine. Don't need a complete freeze.

 

And if there is no way to do it I think that would be a good feature for us greenhorns to not loose interest in these complex beasts and go back to IL2 instead, where the Hotas buttons are enough for all core functions.

Edited April 27, 2019 by mazex

[HiJack]

The active pause is designed just for doing what Wags is doing in training videos, it is completely useless for anything else. If you really are into learning the aircraft then start cold every time and use the time on the ground (or in orbit) to set up the systems.

[Flagrum]

I find active pause useful. It gives you time as it prevents your aircraft from crashing or from changing attitude (i.e. keeps your sight where it is) while keeps the simulation of your avionics, ballistics and everything around you running.

 

And that is important: a lot of stuff, that is going on, is time dependant - the sequence of flipped switches, the duration of certain actions, etc. is often important.

Imagine a cold start, while in complete pause mode. You flip a dozend switches and do all kind of stuff for 5 minutes. Then you unpause - how shall the simulation handle that - without any turbine spool up time happened, warm up times happened, etc.? Just from 0 to 100% in just a milisecond that passed in DCS World between pause and unpause?

[Worrazen]

Active Pause is a nice bonus, if it's possible, why not, may come handy, I think there were some videos the community made they used active pause when reading some of the gauges mid flight when doing benchmarks, beta testing probably uses it more as well.

 

I had training recently, and heads up guys, it spends fuel, throttle down!

[mazex]

And that is important: a lot of stuff, that is going on, is time dependant - the sequence of flipped switches, the duration of certain actions, etc. is often important.

Imagine a cold start, while in complete pause mode. You flip a dozend switches and do all kind of stuff for 5 minutes. Then you unpause - how shall the simulation handle that - without any turbine spool up time happened, warm up times happened, etc.? Just from 0 to 100% in just a milisecond that passed in DCS World between pause and unpause?

 

Mmm - you are right about that. If messing around with the radar it would be hard to get any feedback on changes done if it stops sweeping, the range is not changed or you move the TDC and lock it and then fire a missilie while paused... But like you all mention, good stuff for tutorial videos.

 

I think that changing the simulation speed to 1:64 as mentioned by Exorcet is what I am looking for, when starting the generator there it will take 64 times longer for it to spin up. I am fine with that, and that the TDC moves 64 times slower over the MFD etc.

 

But great for finding the nose wheel floodlight switch while taxiing without getting rammed by your wingman ;)

[Worrazen]

Here's an example of heavy active pause usage, it's not that uncommon:

Edited May 6, 2019 by Worrazen