cockpit labels barely readably

[LowGlow]

I understand that there are no plans for a factory new cockpit skin option (as offered in the A10C for instance), but could you please tweak the text labels a bit? Quite a bunch of these labels are so worn out that you can barely read them at all, which can be quite frustrating for new users of the Tomcat.

Thanks for consideration!

[razo+r]

 

 

[1Arc]

As for now the "F14 Clean Label Cockpits" is your best friend:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3303911/

 

Enjoy.

[LowGlow]

Hmm, so that mod needs to be installed into the DCS directory, not just in the user's saved games directory. Which means it needs to be reinstalled manually with every DCS update?

[Hotdognz]

9 hours ago, LowGlow said:

Hmm, so that mod needs to be installed into the DCS directory, not just in the user's saved games directory. Which means it needs to be reinstalled manually with every DCS update?

If you use OVGME that will help with what you asked.

 

[LowGlow]

Interesting, I wasn't aware about this modding tool. Thanks!

I play around with these when a find more time. I'm curious whether that label mod would also fix the readability problem with the RIO upfront buttons, because those don't have white labels around them, but rather labels on or inside the buttons.

 

[Jeeve79]

I do not want to use mods to be able to read cockpit labels. The F-14 cockpit is filthy. They overdid it.
It doesn't need to be factory new bling bling but come on. I like some wear and tear. Looks more realistic. Love the plane, but if they planning on having custom cockpit stuff, at least give us a cleaner option with more readable labels.

[draconus]

On 3/31/2023 at 6:48 PM, Jeeve79 said:

They overdid it.

No, it's realistic and it's readable.

Edited April 7, 2023 by draconus

[Spiceman]

22 hours ago, Jeeve79 said:

I do not want to use mods to be able to read cockpit labels. The F-14 cockpit is filthy. They overdid it.
It doesn't need to be factory new bling bling but come on. I like some wear and tear. Looks more realistic. Love the plane, but if they planning on having custom cockpit stuff, at least give us a cleaner option with more readable labels.

It’s not overdone and it’s absolutely perfect. You may not like, or believe, that F-14 cockpits looked that way, but they absolutely did and  it would be a disservice to change it. 

[Lionheartwolf]

On 3/31/2023 at 3:28 PM, draconus said:

No, it's realistic and it's readable.

I don't want to get too far down this rabbit hole. This has become a bit of a toxic discussion as of late, and I'm aware this can contribute to it, but I think its a fair criticism.

First and foremost, personally, I like the worn look. I'm in that camp, but I'm also willing to admit that it's not always readable, and some veteran players like yourself might be taking a lot of muscle memory, and previous knowledge for granted.

I don't want to get into a cherry-picking argument, but it doesn't take long looking through Chuck's guide, or the HB manual for the F-14A/B to see some buttons that are worn away either entirely or close to. It's fairly common in the RIO cockpit specifically.

Maybe it's a little more fresh for me since I am currently in the process of learning the RIO and I'm currently playing on a Reverb G2 (which admittingly has decent resolution, not perfect but I can read what I need to and use context clues, or previous knowledge for the rest) but it can be difficult to locate a button if somebody is using readable labels next to or on the buttons to do it, and since my head is in a headset and not always looking at a separate monitor to cross reference with a guide I can see how reading labels can be important to some users. 

Some notable examples are: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep in mind these are high quality images from the manual, and only look worse in VR, or at varying graphical settings. You can zoom in as much as you would like, but you will just not be able to argue that the IR/TV mode button in photo 1, or JAM STROBE from photo 2 are readable. Depending on the quality of your image in game it only gets more difficult to read the different labels along the Pilot/RIO cockpit. Again, this isn't about cherry-picking, but these examples show how difficult it can be to read some labels in the best case scenario. 

Now, I'm 100% sure you know what all four buttons shown as #12 in photo 1 are, or all eight labeled #8 in photo 2, but you didn't read all of them, and if you did it certainly wasn't in this game, in that cockpit as you were flying. I'm also 100% sure we are not all you, and we don't know as much as you, we might need to read them. Heck, I'm sure no real F-14 crew had this issue, after all they were probably the person that wore the button out, but some of us are not that guy. There is a reason why the F-14 engineers decided to label the buttons after all.  

It is a legitimate criticism to say that it is not always readable. You can argue that people should just memorize the cockpit from studying manuals first, you can argue that you can figure it out just by pushing it and seeing what it does, you can even argue that it's realistic. I agree with all of those things because that's exactly how I have to do it, but what you cannot argue is that it's always readable.

I don't see the harm in offering more readable buttons if the main reason for them being less readable is for realism. I do see some harm in trying to invalidate other's opinions because they would like to be able to read the labels on the buttons though.

Form follows function: how you use the space should prioritize over how it looks. Some buttons could be more readable because quite frankly, they are not. It doesn't need to start a war between the community. Not every criticism needs the veteran players coming out of the woodworks to discredit it because they dont have that issue. This isn't a complex conflict with a NATOPS or a game engine, if it's possible to add dynamic bits of tape and string to the ACM for more realism, it's possible to make slightly more readable labels to the buttons that are already there. 

Edited April 7, 2023 by Lionheartwolf
Formatted text.

[draconus]

2 hours ago, Lionheartwolf said:

I don't see the harm in offering more readable buttons if the main reason for them being less readable is for realism. I do see some harm in trying to invalidate other's opinions because they would like to be able to read the labels on the buttons though.

OK, you're right that not all of them are readable or easy for beginners but if they were like that IRL they should stay like that in the sim.

You have plenty of tools to use if the manual is not your way: zoom, cockpit labels, mods...

[Temetre]

Am 7.4.2023 um 12:52 schrieb draconus:

OK, you're right that not all of them are readable or easy for beginners but if they were like that IRL they should stay like that in the sim.

The realism argument doesnt make sense. You have to consider that these are F-14s from museums; its about as bad as an F14 can ever look, at the end of their life-span. Idk if they degraded from decommissioning to museum, I hope not.

So this kind of wear seems out of place, even unrealistic, if we might fly the F-14 in a 1990 scenario or so, or really any scenario that isnt directly before comissioning. I doubt F-14As were even that long in service?

 

Real question is more, is it worth the cost for Headblur to make new, less weathered cockpit textures? I assume modeling with this level of quality would be quite expensive, and they could put that effort and money elsewhere. 

And additionally, could they make less weathered cockpit textures with a level of realism and believability, since they cant just scan a better cockpit?

 

I dont really got an opinion on this, you can get used to the wear, but I think its more useful to not make absolute statements as to what is realistic.

 

[Golo]

57 minutes ago, Temetre said:

The realism argument doesnt make sense.

Except it does as people who flew/serviced them already said, that factory new aircraft will degrade into "museum state" very quickly in service.

[LanceCriminal86]

41 minutes ago, Temetre said:

The realism argument doesnt make sense. You have to consider that these are F-14s from museums; its about as bad as an F14 can ever look, at the end of their life-span. Idk if they degraded from decommissioning to museum, I hope not.

So this kind of wear seems out of place, even unrealistic, if we might fly the F-14 in a 1990 scenario or so, or really any scenario that isnt directly before comissioning. I doubt F-14As were even that long in service?

 

Real question is more, is it worth the cost for Headblur to make new, less weathered cockpit textures? I assume modeling with this level of quality would be quite expensive, and they could put that effort and money elsewhere. 

And additionally, could they make less weathered cockpit textures with a level of realism and believability, since they cant just scan a better cockpit?

 

I dont really got an opinion on this, you can get used to the wear, but I think its more useful to not make absolute statements as to what is realistic.

 

On the contrary to your first statement, it's already been stated more than once by the HB team that they didn't leave the cockpit panel scans from the museum jets "as is", they had to clean them up to the level that matched SME input on what in-use fleet jet cockpits would look like. Especially if we're talking about the late fleet As and Bs portrayed currently. At the latest they were built between the early 80s and around 1987-1988, so they've had at least 10 years of constant, heavy usage at the point they are modeled between 1996-1998.

To your second statement, yes the jets being seen by the 90s had been in service for quite a while, even the jets in service in the 80s. After even a single cruise for a fresh jet they've been exposed to months of salty air and sea spray, constant operating tempo of flights, pilots and maintainers climbing in and out of cockpits, panels being removed for servicing, corrosion control checks. Even when squadrons got brand new jets before a cruise, they typically were flying them heavily during workups and carrier qual/traps, live fires, and whatever other operations the wing performed to prepare for the cruise. Even by that time, you're already putting a lot of hours on the jet with the same maintenance, checks, and high tempo of usage even if they aren't at sea yet.

During the cruises, corrosion control on the outside and inside of the jet meant touchup paint after sanding, blasting, or chemically removing any oxidation or rust, and then covering it with fresh paint. The same would happen inside the cockpit as needed, and as needed cockpit labels would be touched up or redone, sometimes with paint or apparently even Dymo labels.

It's tough to find good examples of the actual cockpits during the cruise, there really aren't a lot of photos out there, videos are older VHS or camcorders with not the best resolution, and most photos with film grain may be covering up scratches and imperfections that would be present. If you look at the outsides of the jet though, You can see where what were briefly brand new, glossy, hi-vis Tomcats at the start of a cruise, and they come home at the end of the cruise a patchwork of corrosion control paint.

Even better, sometimes their "new" jets had already been at VF-101 or VF-124 for a year or so, getting flogged by the RAG and students. Add that extra wear and tear before they even got the jets and again, it was not really a thing that a squadron was going to depart with a perfect, as delivered Grumman factory jet, and have it be that way still even a few months into the cruise.

On the count of doing mods or reworking the cockpit textures, the problem is that even with the work and labor being done to freshen up or redo labels, they're working on DDS files that have already been compressed down from the source textures, which will then again be compressed, further losing some quality. Which is a shame because I know a lot of work is going into it, but it'd probably be a lot better with uncompressed PNGs as a base to start the work on. We've had the same issue trying to help rework the engine nacelle textures, roughmets, and normals because we're not starting with the uncompressed source files and losing fidelity.

 

The common thread I seem to see is VR. And it seems that the issues with VR are focused around 1) How the headsets handle resolution and clarity, and 2) How DCS handles and projects the textures for the headsets. Yes, VR seems to be THE way to go for these kind of flight sims for the future, same with racing and space sim/games. But the arguments about readability versus reality tell me that maybe the frustrations should go back to how the core DCS engine is doing the rendering and how it interfaces with VR headsets and GPUs. The same goes for longstanding spotting and rendering complaints, visibility from cockpits, and other elements that are trying to mimic the human eye and how we see.

[Sup_Bigans]

IMHO the amount payed for these Tomcats are enough to set a readble cockpit and some used ones, instead of wasting time in the Eurofighter, a plane still in service and without operative history.

[Wingmate]

13 minutes ago, Sup_Bigans said:

IMHO the amount payed for these Tomcats are enough to set a readble cockpit and some used ones, instead of wasting time in the Eurofighter, a plane still in service and without operative history.

If the tomcat were to never get another update (which would suck a lot) I would still feel as if I had gotten my money's worth for the Tomcat. The amount of time I have put into it both flying and working on liveries for it makes it by far one of the best price to hours enjoyed ratios of any electronic entertainment I have purchased.

[Frosty2124]

20 minutes ago, Sup_Bigans said:

IMHO the amount payed for these Tomcats are enough to set a readble cockpit and some used ones, instead of wasting time in the Eurofighter, a plane still in service and without operative history.

The aircraft has been designed with SME input, we got what we paid for, a realistic representation.

also, the tomcat is still in service and the typhoon does have a substantial operational history.

[Temetre]

vor 17 Stunden schrieb LanceCriminal86:

On the contrary to your first statement, it's already been stated more than once by the HB team that they didn't leave the cockpit panel scans from the museum jets "as is", they had to clean them up to the level that matched SME input on what in-use fleet jet cockpits would look like. Especially if we're talking about the late fleet As and Bs portrayed currently. At the latest they were built between the early 80s and around 1987-1988, so they've had at least 10 years of constant, heavy usage at the point they are modeled between 1996-1998.

To your second statement, yes the jets being seen by the 90s had been in service for quite a while, even the jets in service in the 80s. After even a single cruise for a fresh jet they've been exposed to months of salty air and sea spray, constant operating tempo of flights, pilots and maintainers climbing in and out of cockpits, panels being removed for servicing, corrosion control checks. Even when squadrons got brand new jets before a cruise, they typically were flying them heavily during workups and carrier qual/traps, live fires, and whatever other operations the wing performed to prepare for the cruise. Even by that time, you're already putting a lot of hours on the jet with the same maintenance, checks, and high tempo of usage even if they aren't at sea yet.

During the cruises, corrosion control on the outside and inside of the jet meant touchup paint after sanding, blasting, or chemically removing any oxidation or rust, and then covering it with fresh paint. The same would happen inside the cockpit as needed, and as needed cockpit labels would be touched up or redone, sometimes with paint or apparently even Dymo labels.

It's tough to find good examples of the actual cockpits during the cruise, there really aren't a lot of photos out there, videos are older VHS or camcorders with not the best resolution, and most photos with film grain may be covering up scratches and imperfections that would be present. If you look at the outsides of the jet though, You can see where what were briefly brand new, glossy, hi-vis Tomcats at the start of a cruise, and they come home at the end of the cruise a patchwork of corrosion control paint.

Even better, sometimes their "new" jets had already been at VF-101 or VF-124 for a year or so, getting flogged by the RAG and students. Add that extra wear and tear before they even got the jets and again, it was not really a thing that a squadron was going to depart with a perfect, as delivered Grumman factory jet, and have it be that way still even a few months into the cruise.

On the count of doing mods or reworking the cockpit textures, the problem is that even with the work and labor being done to freshen up or redo labels, they're working on DDS files that have already been compressed down from the source textures, which will then again be compressed, further losing some quality. Which is a shame because I know a lot of work is going into it, but it'd probably be a lot better with uncompressed PNGs as a base to start the work on. We've had the same issue trying to help rework the engine nacelle textures, roughmets, and normals because we're not starting with the uncompressed source files and losing fidelity.

Youre making good points and thats interesting stuff. But I feel part of my comment is basically self-evident: Not every F-14 is as dirty as this, so having an F-14 always in this state isnt strictly "realistic". Though in retrospect, maybe the person I quoted just ment to say the aircraft "can" look as worn as this; in that case, hes probably right.

That said, Im actually kinda curious about this. Weve got a lot of aircraft in DCS, with many showing wear. But nothing is even close to what we got with the F-14. Some of the F-18s we fly have been around for 20 years as well, I think? And its not like every F-14 we fly has been built in 1970, I think last one was built in the early 90s?

So why is the F-14 cockpit then in such a worse state than any other plane? Especially around the rear side panels, it looks like people splattered fluids on there and left it to rot or so. People originally told me it was because they scanned a museum plane in poor condition, and I just believed that because it seemed to fit.

vor 17 Stunden schrieb LanceCriminal86:

The common thread I seem to see is VR. And it seems that the issues with VR are focused around 1) How the headsets handle resolution and clarity, and 2) How DCS handles and projects the textures for the headsets. Yes, VR seems to be THE way to go for these kind of flight sims for the future, same with racing and space sim/games. But the arguments about readability versus reality tell me that maybe the frustrations should go back to how the core DCS engine is doing the rendering and how it interfaces with VR headsets and GPUs. The same goes for longstanding spotting and rendering complaints, visibility from cockpits, and other elements that are trying to mimic the human eye and how we see.

I do have a VR headset, and yup, the resolution for VR is too low even in 4K sometimes. The issue is that you got a screen that covers ~100-110 degrees of your field of vision, its like having a 3m curved screen in front of you. Thats not enough pixels, and the first thing to suffer is readability. That said, it also helps because everything is bigger, eg the F-16 screens are way more comfortable to use.

The issue isnt just VR, reading cockpit text on a flat screen is also very difficult. That why we have to zoom so much all the time. It doesnt hurty my ability to control the F-14, but im also mostly sitting in the pilot seat and have jester flip switches.

On a sidenote, I think its gonna be quite some time till VR is "the way" to play games like this. Still to many problems with VR, both hardware and software. And thats not even counting performance. You'd really want 8k screens for VR, but good luck running games with that res.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Temetre

[draconus]

6 hours ago, Temetre said:

And its not like every F-14 we fly has been built in 1970, I think last one was built in the early 90s?

So why is the F-14 cockpit then in such a worse state than any other plane?

Did you even read the replies? It doesn't matter how old the jet was. Even the new one was like that after a few months into tests, cquals and finally deployment - this is when we usually fly missions and this is the look which the devs and SMEs have choosen as most realistic and how average jet would look like on a mission, not a museum piece.

Edited April 9, 2023 by draconus

[Temetre]

vor 39 Minuten schrieb draconus:

Did you even read the replies? It doesn't matter how old the jet was. Even the new one was like that after a few months into tests, cquals and finally deployment - this is when we usually fly missions and this is the look which the devs and SMEs have choosen as most realistic and how average jet would look like on a mission, not a museum piece.

Do you read my replies? Because, then theres questoins like, why doesnt any other aircraft look that way? This is literally the only aircraft looking like that in DCS. So if a plane looks like this after a few months, then every other plane is wrong. I also dont see any evidence for that actually being true. Even on images of other IRL fighter aircrafts ive seen they are rarely this worn down, as long as theyre in service.

I havent touched on the details because the answer admitted that its hard to have exact information, but the comparision to other planes is the first thing thats relevant.

Frankly, it sounds like youre just trying to swat down and downplay anyone questioning if its that simple. Im not even saying this is necessarily wrong, but theres some open questions then.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Temetre

[lunaticfringe]

3 hours ago, Temetre said:

Do you read my replies? Because, then theres questoins like, why doesnt any other aircraft look that way? This is literally the only aircraft looking like that in DCS. So if a plane looks like this after a few months, then every other plane is wrong. I also dont see any evidence for that actually being true. Even on images of other IRL fighter aircrafts ive seen they are rarely this worn down, as long as theyre in service.

Majority of tactical aircraft on the planet are land based; the Tomcat as exampled in Navy service was not.  Compounding this is the specific amount of flight hours and usage US aircraft were getting through the Cold War, into the 90s, and even now.  US flight hours per type and aircrew outstrip *everybody*; whereas the Soviet Union were getting a hundred a year or less (and similar rates in the Pact), NATO double that, the USAF and USN were generating an average of 300 flight hours per year per crew member. 

It's easy to keep your machines looking pretty when they're not being flown, compared to the jets getting rode hard and put away wet, sometimes quite literally.  

Compound this with a smaller production run and subsequently smaller spares depth at the depot amd supplier level, and you're going to see more Navy line F-14s in a state of wear than essentially any other contemporary type (including the Hornet- which had the benefit of substantially more aircraft built and more exports, which keeps spares availability higher).  Pilots have expressed this, and Tomcat maintainers have validated this.  Doesn’t matter what some random Air Force tech wants to say- US, Canadian, or somewhere else in NATO; spend five minutes watching an F-14 cruise video and you'll spot the idiosyncrasies of these cockpits, specifically because of the conditions they were used in, the requirements of availability, and the limitations of getting replacement hardware- even in the 80s. 

So no- it doesn't conspire that the Tomcat is right and other jets are wrong.  It simply is a product of its working environment and its greater relative usage on an airframe by airframe basis, shaded by lower amounts of spares. 

[Temetre]

vor 47 Minuten schrieb lunaticfringe:

Majority of tactical aircraft on the planet are land based; the Tomcat as exampled in Navy service was not.  Compounding this is the specific amount of flight hours and usage US aircraft were getting through the Cold War, into the 90s, and even now.  US flight hours per type and aircrew outstrip *everybody*; whereas the Soviet Union were getting a hundred a year or less (and similar rates in the Pact), NATO double that, the USAF and USN were generating an average of 300 flight hours per year per crew member. 

It's easy to keep your machines looking pretty when they're not being flown, compared to the jets getting rode hard and put away wet, sometimes quite literally.  

Compound this with a smaller production run and subsequently smaller spares depth at the depot amd supplier level, and you're going to see more Navy line F-14s in a state of wear than essentially any other contemporary type (including the Hornet- which had the benefit of substantially more aircraft built and more exports, which keeps spares availability higher).  Pilots have expressed this, and Tomcat maintainers have validated this.  Doesn’t matter what some random Air Force tech wants to say- US, Canadian, or somewhere else in NATO; spend five minutes watching an F-14 cruise video and you'll spot the idiosyncrasies of these cockpits, specifically because of the conditions they were used in, the requirements of availability, and the limitations of getting replacement hardware- even in the 80s. 

So no- it doesn't conspire that the Tomcat is right and other jets are wrong.  It simply is a product of its working environment and its greater relative usage on an airframe by airframe basis, shaded by lower amounts of spares. 

To be clear, I didnt say that jets are "wrong", Ive said that if every jet just gets worn down that quickly, then it would mean something is wrong.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. The F-14 certainly has a strange history.

[LanceCriminal86]

Within DCS there's also the assumption that every module has been made to the same accuracy and standards, references, crew interviews, etc. Other module developers may choose to present their modules differently, may have limited or different access to cockpits or aircraft to scan, may choose newer aircraft with less years on them or a lower optempo of usage, or they may choose simply to make clean cockpits.

[WinOrLose]

I think we are running two arguments under the same topic. 
 

1. is the cockpit realistic - yes for an aircraft with a few years service. 
 

2. are the buttons readable - not for all users, predominantly those in VR. 
 

The solution I opted for was a mod that improved the text on the buttons and warning lights. The result a cockpit that looks realistic but with readable buttons. 

[draconus]

9 minutes ago, WinOrLose said:

1. is the cockpit realistic - yes for an aircraft with a few years service. 
2. are the buttons readable - not for all users, predominantly those in VR. 

#2 is the same as #1 - it's realistic that some are not readable