Originally Posted by
Teldae
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Greetings!
I'm quite enjoying my gaming experience but the helicopter interaction banishes all immersion every time I fly. What you really, really need, is a selection between Arcade and Realistic control modes. The current setup is 100% Arcade. For context, I play on PC with keyboard and mouse. I'm a military helicopter pilot with 1500+ hours of heli flying time.
It is clear that you did not consult with a helicopter pilot during the design of the game. If you did, you either didn't pay attention, or it was someone who wanted a free copy of the game and claimed to be a helicopter pilot who had a cellphone with google open during your conversation.
This post is mainly based on the transport-type helicopters (eg. Overseer), but some points apply to all helicopters in the game.
1. Pitch/roll/yaw interaction. Currently, if you hold the button for Pitch forward/down, the helicopter flies forward, in level flight, until it reaches cruising speed, and then maintains. The explanation for how this works in reality will need a lengthy post and multiple links to helpful youtube videos and resource material. The TL;DR version: pitching nose forward causes both acceleration and descent. It needs more 'power' application to maintain level. I see the game has auto-throttle toggle, and depending on your final design on control modes, it will likely belong to Arcade mode. For real-world helicopters, you fine tune the amount of nose down and power applied to choose your constant forward flight speed. I would recommend a mode for keyboard for flying inputs and mouse for free-look, or keyboard for yaw and collective, and mouse for cyclic inputs, with the option to hold right click or alt for free-look, or such.
2. Blade rotation direction. See the little metal strip on one edge of the blades? That's the Leading Edge and is the edge that is supposed to be hitting the air. It has the metal strip for protection from sand, dust and other particles so the blade doesn't deteriorate quickly while flying in harsher environments. You have quite a few main and tail rotors turning the wrong way. How they fly is simply black magic at this stage. Also please check up on rotation direction for the fancy BERP tips you decided to include.
3. Missing collective lever. Helicopter controls consist of cyclic (held in right hand, horizontal front/back/left/right), yaw pedals (foot controls, nose left/right) and collective (held in left hand, up/down). I'm yet to see a collective lever installed.
4. Fly from either seat. The vast majority of real helicopters either have permanent dual controls installed or the option to have it. This means that either front seat occupant can fly the helicopter. Currently, when the passenger gets in, they put their hand on the cyclic and does nothing with it. Maybe they're just holding onto something to alleviate their fear of how the flight is going to go, seeing as there's no collective. See point 3.
5. Helicopters are right-hand-"drive". The primary seat in real helicopters is on the right. This is because the accepted norm is that the collective is held with the left hand, and the primary control is considered to be the cyclic. Therefore the pilot's right hand is permanently committed, leaving the left hand free for radio selections, navigation inputs, and other cockpit necessities. Some helicopters don't have controls on the left, depending on design or mission configuration. Relates to point 4.
6. Yaw sensitivity in hover. I'm not sure if the current control setup was intentional in order to make it harder to sit and snipe with a heli, or just bad design. Either way, real helicopters can achieve very fine yaw control both in hover and forward flight.
7. Rotor start-up time. I'm frankly amazed at the mere seconds needed to get into a stationary helicopter, start up and get airborne. This will have to be included in the Arcade vs Realism setting. The current speed is 100% Arcade.
8. Landing. So many hard landings are conducted from 1m above the ground. Really? You have auto-throttle, so why not allow some control override when close to the ground, in order to allow a soft landing? It's impossible to establish a rate of control with keyboard (button is pressed or not), unless you rework the game interface where button presses increase and decrease the rate.
9. Infinite ammo. I have renamed my brother's Overseer Rockets Mk2 as an Airborne Loot Generator. He went in on foot, I took the heli and we literally cleared an entire compound without firing any bullets or CQC'ing any enemies. Some of the people in buildings took some fine flying but the missiles went through open doorways just fine. 100% Arcade. And OP AF.
10. Rockets are unguided. Related to point 9. Rockets are aimed and released, much like a gun. Missiles are guided munitions that have manoeuvring capability and may be locked onto a target before release. However missiles may also be fired without a target, then it behaves like a rocket.
Hope this has given you some areas for improvement, but even if ignored, I feel better for having vented a bit :-)
Regards,
Teldae
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