Perhaps we need a unified 2D drawing board page.

[KANGKANG]

In the recently released F4U and MiG-29 mods, I discovered two interesting items in the cockpit: the Mark 3A Navy Plotting Board and the NPL-M pilot logbook calculator. The addition of these devices greatly enhances the flight simulation experience. However, currently, both devices only have models and animations; they lack any actual functionality. The NPL-M, in particular, cannot even be used in the game; it can only be viewed in the 3D model viewer.

I made a video about this discovery and uploaded it to a video platform; one of the comments was very interesting.

“If this flying slide rule can be integrated into F10 and used to draw lines on the map like in Arma 3.5, it would be very useful. At present, it can only be used for fun and is not very useful.”

“If ED is willing to delve deeper into WWII and early Cold War aircraft, it is indeed necessary to release a 2D tactical map drawing page for players to use, similar to the various drawing tools and slide rules in Silent Hunter, and it will also facilitate other production teams to create innovative content.”

“Yes, there are quite a few ED World War II and Cold War aircraft that do not have modern inertial navigation and GPS. I think it is very necessary to release this so that players can draw routes, calculate wind deviation, and plan routes, which will improve the realism and convenience of the program.”

 

This made me realize that it's not always a good idea to make everything in video games into 3D objects; many operations still require a 2D user interface.

Looking back at my gaming history, I believe one game excelled in its 2D UI design: the Silent Hunter series.  Its tactical map interface allowed players to freely draw lines and mark tactical information with a pencil and eraser, and even use tools like rulers and protractors to measure distances and angles.  The Wolfpack mod further enhanced this by replicating the functionality of handheld devices like slide rules and various information tables. Through sophisticated graphics, this 2D interface still managed to create a highly immersive and realistic simulation experience for players.

Currently, the kneeboard in DCS can only display images, which is not a problem for modern aircraft. However, with the addition of more and more Cold War-era and WWII aircraft modules, pilots of these aircraft, which lack modern avionics, need to use pen and paper to record information and plot flight paths, and also need to use handheld devices for calculations, such as the E6B flight computer. This is clearly insufficient.

The community has already seen various attempts to implement these 2D features, such as the "Mk. 3 Plotting Board App" implemented as a Windows desktop application， "Scratchpad" implemented using parts of the NS430 code， and the bombing tables in the F-4E Phantom II module.

However, these methods seem to lack elegance and integration.

Therefore, if a 2D UI interface similar to a flight deck panel could be provided, along with some simple API functions for manipulation, that would be ideal. For example:

1. Rotate, zoom, and move images (for creating various 2D elements)

2. Set image transparency (for background maps)

3. Read flight data (to update the data displayed on the panel; players shouldn't have to manually calculate the aircraft's position in real time)

4. Draw lines, text, and vector symbols (implementing core drawing functionality)

...

Therefore, leveraging the creativity of the development team and the community, many interesting flight vehicles and functional mods will emerge in the future, while also avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort by third-party developers (such as the bombing tables created by the HB team), allowing the development team to focus more on the creative design of the features themselves.

This is my first post on the ED forum, and I think this interesting idea shouldn't go unnoticed. Please disregard any grammatical errors that might occur due to Google Translate.