A AAR Visual Aid Concept

[Tank50us]

So, as it's been batted around the forums since DCS was LOMAC, I've decided that the best course of action is to "Screw it", and design the UI element that I've been harping on about every time the topic comes up.

This is just a concept image of the visual aid in action, and others can be made as well if people can supply me with some decent screenshots for drogue equipped planes, but I do have some ideas with some of my own screenshots.

 

Anyway, to explain the concept, it goes like this:

(Not Pictured, yet), when you first call to the Tanker your intent to refuel, a small, dot will appear on the tankers port side, indicating where you need to be to form up with the tanker. At the same time, the throttle bar (pictured) will appear, and give you an idea of the proper throttle settings your plane will need to be at to catch up to, and form up with the tanker. When it becomes your turn to get in position for pre-contact, the 'dot' moves to the pre-contact point, and all you need to do is get there, and call pre-contact.

 

Post Pre-contact: Once you're ready, and the drogue is out, or boom is down, a diamond will appear. Where it appears depends on the type of plane you're in, if you're in a boom-refueling jet (like the F-16 pictured) it will appear at the form-up lights, if you're a probe and drogue refueling jet, it'll appear on the 'reel' of the Drogue system. A second diamond with cross hairs will be present inside the larger one. This smaller diamond represents your plane, and a perfect alignment and positioning should result in the diamonds becoming a single diamond. In the picture here, the plane is slightly offcenter and slightly back, but still connected (as indicated by the lit up CTCT under the throttle bar).

 

The Throttle Bar: throughout the entire refueling process, from form up to peel off, a throttle bar will be on screen guiding you on the proper throttle settings for your aircraft to stay with the tanker. The yellow field will move up or down depending on the tankers speed in relation to your plane, and the red bar represents your throttle. The 'CTCT' at the bottom will inform you that you're connected to the tanker and taking fuel. The 'BRK' above the throttle bar is there to tell you if you need to use your air brake. In this image, it's greyed out, as the brakes aren't needed. However, they will change color depending on how much braking is needed. If it starts flashing, it is a warning to brake away from the tanker. This last bit made flash when you're fully fueled up as well, so don't worry.

 

Some things to note though.

• First: This is just a concept made using a screen cap, and a few minutes of Paint Tool Sai. It is not programmed in any way, as that is not my cup of tea.
• Second, the idea behind this item is that it is a localized training aid. Meaning, that even if you're connected to a server and flying a multi-crew aircraft, if someone is using the system, and you aren't, you will not see it.
• Third: it is designed to be 100% optional. elements of it can be turned on or off as needed.
• Fourth: This is a feature designed to increase accessibility to DCS. Right now, DCS has a bit of a learning cliff in some areas, something that Nick himself has expressed as a potential issue. This is designed to mitigate some of the issues people have with this very difficult task.
• Finally: Hating on people who may have to rely on such a system should be strongly discouraged at every turn. Those people who come down on those for needing a little help, or who are just too busy with their real lives to learn the systems should not be given flak. We should be looking for solutions to support them, and make the transition from arcady sim to real sim as easy as possible. If they're scared off, they simply will not come back, and if they don't come back, they don't spend money on the game, and improve its development.

 

Now, let's keep things civil.

 

Tank out.

[cfrag]

Huh. Welcome to another six pages of Sharpe's Trolling, and Tippis pretending to not understand the nature of a Troll  

 

Great idea and visualization, @Tank50us! It's a pity that ED won't look at this in the near future, but hope springs eternal.

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by cfrag

[Tank50us]

31 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Huh. Welcome to another six pages of Shape's Trolling, and Tippis pretending to not understand the nature of a Troll  

 

Great idea and visualization, @Tank50us! It's a pity that ED won't look at this in the near future, but hope springs eternal.

 

 

Eh, let the SHFGs come for me, I'm ready for'em

[SharpeXB]

I could almost… maybe… imagine having the belly light graphic on the screen, like the IFLOLS for the Super Carrier. But with this your attention is diverted off to the side of the screen and you’re gonna try to fly looking sideways at this and it just makes things worse. Also I think your graphic isn’t bold and clear enough for peripheral vision to pick up. The belly light graphic might be. And the other issue, if you want to keep this “real” is that those lights are really only used by 3 planes and not realistic for all the others. The lights or this graphic are only a position guide and don’t give you the immediate visual feedback needed to maintain formation. Your vision needs to stay focused on the tanker in the center of the screen, looking forward, and not distracted off to the side. And on a large enough screen the belly lights themselves are visible anyways. 

Trust me, when you finally “get it” and are able to do AAR you’ll realize stuff like this won’t help, it would just be a distraction for trying to learn. 

[Exorcet]

My suggestion would be to focus on the diamond, just having something simple to let the refueling player confirm their alignment. Once they're aligned via the diamond, they can then look at the tanker position as a second visual reference to aid them with unassisted AAR.

 

The throttle bar would be helpful as well, but it might be a little simpler to implement if it just showed your aircraft's acceleration, or maybe relative velocity to tanker. I'm a bit divided on whether to move it closer to the diamond. One on hand moving it would put all the info in one place, but on the other you do have to look away when refueling to see instruments etc, so having it on the side could help players get used to that. Maybe it could just be a setting in the options.

[SharpeXB]

See here we go… another 17 pages arguing about exactly what this helper would even look like or do

 

If you guys put all this time and effort into practice, you’d have mastered AAR by now. 
 

And maybe use the search function, this topic has already been debated to death, voted down in a poll and ED has responded that they have no plans for it 

 

[Tank50us]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

If you guys put all this time and effort into practice, you’d have mastered AAR by now. 

 

tell that to my job and my clients. Which I'm fairly sure applies to most of us as jobs and clients are very much a thing we have to work around.

Can we stay on topic? If ya want to offer proper critique I'm all ears, but if all you're going to do is spam any of these topics with "well, I can do it just fine with my $5,000 setup, why can't you?" comments, then please stop responding. If you're gonna comment, be constructive, or don't comment.

[maxTRX]

Seems like the closing arguments will never come in any of these threads.  My wish is that ED tribunal decides to introduce new realistic physics for inflight refueling, MANDATORY to learn in order to refuel in the air.  Get the discipline and drive to learn going.  The only crutch:  ED could get some pro's to make formal vids or even tracks that would allow the 'cadets' to ride in the cockpit and get the visual references or perhaps come up with better ways themselves. 

No 'equity' and inclusiveness and... you know where I'm going with this, lol.   The 'kids' with xbox consoles and such should be extra motivated to overcome the challenge... or scrounge some extra change.

[Fri13]

Elitism gets high octanes again...

[maxTRX]

1 minute ago, Fri13 said:

Elitism gets high octanes again...

 

Absolutely

[SharpeXB]

4 hours ago, Tank50us said:

tell that to my job and my clients. Which I'm fairly sure applies to most of us as jobs and clients are very much a thing we have to work around.

Yeah I have a life too yknow. I probably get to DCS once on a weekend. And I don’t even do the AAR stuff that much, because really it’s not needed for most missions and campaigns. 
 

I’m not deliberately trying to shoot down your idea, but I just don’t think graphics like that will help. 

[Exorcet]

15 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

but I just don’t think graphics like that will help. 

Whether or not they help you is irrelevant in the case of others though.

[SharpeXB]

26 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

Whether or not they help you is irrelevant in the case of others though.

Well like I said, I don’t think it will help. That’s my opinion… everyone gets one

I don’t think you could look sideways at a small graphic on the screen at the same time you’re trying to concentrate on the tanker itself. 
 

Here’s an idea for a training aid. Get one of those Tobii eye trackers and show the eye movement from an expert vs a novice doing AAR. That would be very revealing. 

Edited June 29, 2021 by SharpeXB

[Fri13]

1 hour ago, Exorcet said:

Whether or not they help you is irrelevant in the case of others though.

 

He is correct that the graphical assistant should be repositioned so that you focus on the important part. 

 

I would make it like a ironsight for a rifle, you align it with the position where you need to be and it stays fixed to the tanker model itself. Be it a ring at aft and smaller ring at the front. You fly by looking at the rings to keep them aligned and when you have them joined then you have a proper distance. If you deviate from the position, then you see it visually as the rings start to be out of alignment. 

 

Forget the visual indicator for a throttle and just give visual idea that does player need to move forward or backward by separation of the rings. 

 

This way player would be looking at the proper part of the tanker and have visual idea of the positioning.

 

The problem is just still that it doesn't help people who need the assisting because hardware or their skills. It would be just a assisting feature for those who in first hand can perform the air refueling task. 

 

1/3 of the respondent agreed that there should be a assting feature for those who have challenges for whatever reasons....

It doesn't mean that it is for them, or anything like that, just that they have a opinion it would be good to have and be opt-in feature for those who needs it.

 

Considering that in the previous thread there was multiple ideas, like mine was a "tractor beam" kind that has adjustable setting that allows player to adapt the effectiveness and functionality to their skills. 

IMHO when you do that, you learn as well visually to position yourself for it and start to handle the throttle and stick if possible. And those who would gain more skill from it would benefit from it. Those who would find a assisting to make them able do air refueling would enjoy from adding that task to their mission and doctrine.

 

This idea is about just a visual indicator like the flight path gates now in the editor, that are guiding you to fly a specific route through the gates without any assting.

 

But let's say that one has a slight hand shaking or one doesn't have a VR (that makes air refueling easier) or has just a one eye or have a joystick that has hysteris etc etc, the visual indicator wouldn't help them in that case.

 

ED has stated that their plan is not to add a such assisting feature for air refueling.

Relatively small take in that poll but if going against statistics, 1/3 is major audience proportionally.

 

It isn't away from me, it wouldn't be on the way for anyone who can do it already. But if it would help those who can't do it (for whatever reason) then why not?

We have easy radio, easy flight modeling, easy targeting, we have snapviews, trackIR etc. All kind assting features for those who need it or want it. But it is not away from those who do not want to enable them.

 

People just should not attack against those who supports the idea by claiming that they need it. As anyone supporting assistant for air refueling doesn't mean that they require it. So saying anything about others how they would already be able do air refueling if put the time and effort that was for writing support for new feature.... It is fallacy.

 

 

 

 

[Wrcknbckr]

Though I'm very skeptical on adding helpers for the actual flying, I think the idea of the two-sized, offset rings (or two rectangles) is spot-on for getting acquainted with the sweet spot. Both simple to add in a training session and, also important, easy to implement.

[Tank50us]

41 minutes ago, Wrcknbckr said:

Though I'm very skeptical on adding helpers for the actual flying, I think the idea of the two-sized, offset rings (or two rectangles) is spot-on for getting acquainted with the sweet spot. Both simple to add in a training session and, also important, easy to implement.

 

And even if it was part of the game proper, if it's something that can be turned off by people who don't need it, there shouldn't be complaints... but as you can see any time these topics come up, there's always some super-elitist "Stop having fun!" guy that comes out of the wood-works that busts out the "Git Gud Scrub" comment. Either forgetting what it was like to be struggling with the subject, or can't understand what it's like for someone who's barely able to play the game as it is to perform these complex tasks.

 

And let's face it, while it should be considered a major achievement to be able to pull off a flawless 3-wire carrier landing or a perfect AAR, most people are going to naturally be more interested in the Micheal Bay aspects of DCS... which let's face it.... is what many of us are here for.

[randomTOTEN]

Quote

Now, if someone can come up with a valid reason why this system wouldn't work, and has an actual critique and or better design, then I'll happily redesign it. But until then, I think I'll submit this to some of the ED guys I have talked to, and see what they have to say about it.

I guess you didn't like my critique the first time you posted this, as you never gave me a response...

[Exorcet]

20 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

I don’t think you could look sideways at a small graphic on the screen at the same time you’re trying to concentrate on the tanker itself.

 

I can already manage to look down at the cockpit while refueling. A graphic that's always on screen would be easier than that.

18 hours ago, Fri13 said:

 

He is correct that the graphical assistant should be repositioned so that you focus on the important part.

It's not the feedback I have a problem with. Moving the assist closer to your vision's focus is a sensible change to make. It's more than saying "this doesn't help me" doesn't amount to anything. Sharpe isn't interested in the assist. Other people are and find it helpful.

[SharpeXB]

3 hours ago, Exorcet said:

Sharpe isn't interested in the assist.

I just think it takes up resources and won’t really help. If you can’t develop the control to fly with the tanker how are you going to fly in formation with the screen graphics? You get enough cues from the game itself on what to do and where you’re supposed to be. It’s the practice part that’s hard. Icons or indicators won’t make that any easier. 

[Fri13]

3 hours ago, Exorcet said:

It's not the feedback I have a problem with. Moving the assist closer to your vision's focus is a sensible change to make. It's more than saying "this doesn't help me" doesn't amount to anything. Sharpe isn't interested in the assist. Other people are and find it helpful.

 

I apologize that I didn't read your original post but intervened with a suggestion that you had already made. 

 

IMHO DCS World should provide various assisting features and even gaming level features (I was happy first that Modern Air Combat was first coming to DCS World as "FC4", but sad it was later cancelled and made separate standalone game) as long it is not away from the priority of through level authentic simulation.

 

And air refueling assisting features ain't such that everyone needs, but it is not on their way either. And when it helps anyone else to learn and complete missions that requires/offers air refueling, then it is just great bonus for DCS World overall.

 

Why someone is against an idea that doesn't touch them is odd.

The argument that everyone can do it, or learn it easily is not logical.

 

And it is sad that ED has made a decision not to implement anything like this at the moment. Because your idea is easy to produce and would be huge help to start with.

 

 

[Exorcet]

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

I just think it takes up resources and won’t really help. If you can’t develop the control to fly with the tanker how are you going to fly in formation with the screen graphics? You get enough cues from the game itself on what to do and where you’re supposed to be. It’s the practice part that’s hard. Icons or indicators won’t make that any easier. 

 

Any future development of the game will take resources, but it's not just a binary yes/no thing, but how much. The AAR simulation in DCS can and should be improved, so as far as I'm concerned there should already be a budget for reworking AAR. In that case it would only make sense to also look at assists while reworking AAR in order to minimize resources used and maximize the improvement to the sim.

 

As far as the usefulness of on screen graphics I totally disagree. The graphics would be a better reference than the tanker itself because they can more clearly direct you than the tanker. This is just the same with something like landing. You can use the runway as a reference and that's all you need, but you will be more precise with ILS/glide slope/FPM/etc. The graphics also speed up the practice part by removing trial and error. If you just have the tanker to look at you don't necessarily know where the best position is until you find. A graphic directing you to a position will tell you where the optimum is on your first try.

 

2 hours ago, Fri13 said:

IMHO DCS World should provide various assisting features and even gaming level features (I was happy first that Modern Air Combat was first coming to DCS World as "FC4", but sad it was later cancelled and made separate standalone game) as long it is not away from the priority of through level authentic simulation.

Exactly. As long as DCS simulates the realistic situations, then assists or easy modes don't take anything away from the experience. Just disable them if you want realism.

[Fri13]

16 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

Just disable them if you want realism.

 

"Just keep them disabled"

 

I take you meant opt-in feature for simulator mode, and then opt-out when in game-mode?

 

As considering that how many hard core fan would get upset if they need to disable assisting features first after installation. Comparing to that those who would be first timers and they could enable it from settings, wouldn't find it bad as they already have the option. 

[Exorcet]

9 minutes ago, Fri13 said:

 

"Just keep them disabled"

 

I take you meant opt-in feature for simulator mode, and then opt-out when in game-mode?

 

As considering that how many hard core fan would get upset if they need to disable assisting features first after installation. Comparing to that those who would be first timers and they could enable it from settings, wouldn't find it bad as they already have the option. 

You are right, in sim mode they should be off by default. Although as of now I think DCS does turn on assists by default. I'm pretty sure I had to disable auto rudder and a bunch of other features when I installed on my new PC last year.

[SharpeXB]

2 hours ago, Exorcet said:

The graphics would be a better reference than the tanker itself

The problem isn’t the reference. It’s that people won’t put in the practice. It doesn’t matter if the reference is a bunch of green rectangles or whatever. If you don’t practice you won’t learn. 

[Exorcet]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

The problem isn’t the reference. It’s that people won’t put in the practice. It doesn’t matter if the reference is a bunch of green rectangles or whatever. If you don’t practice you won’t learn. 

If you don't practice you'll never get a chance to see the assist. No one is saying to not practice.