Vincemus: Air Combat - My take after around 8 hours of gameplay

[SkyStriker01]

Hi. I've recently purchased Vincemus: Air combat and here's my take on game.

First and foremost, let me start by saying this: The game being a one-man effort is incredible, in terms of gameplay, in-game physics/mechanics & details in aircraft variants.

This is the kind of game that's easy to learn but takes time to master. I wanted to purchase this game for quite along time but only did so after HOTAS support was finally added.

While I laud @Zer0 for his efforts, may I request the following suggestions to be incorporating into the game in some future updates:

1) The addition of a mini map or perhaps a caret/arrow to indicate the designated flight path & direction to the next waypoint/objective

2) Take-offs & landings for player controlled aircraft

3) Although the airplane models are fairly well detailed, the terrain looks really basic, even on all the settings maxed out (i have a 14th Gen Intel processor, an nVidia RTX 40 series GPU , 64 GB RAM & a 4TB SSD.)

4) Re-classification of certain aircraft; E.g. The P-38 & Me262HG, being fighters, are classified as attackers;

5) May I request some of the AI aircraft to be made flyable by the player like the F6F Hellcat, DeHaviland Mosquito, Fw200 Condor

6) It's impossible to control gun turrets while flying your plane using a HOTAS joystick. there's an apparent bug linked to controllers and Planes with gun turrets. When AI gunner mode is active, the gunners target enemy planes, but when I cycle through views using the 'V'key the gunner view doesn't work, and i can't seem to point the guns at the target. and when I click the LMB, the main guns fire but not the turrets. I'm posting this based on flying the A-26 in the gunner training mission.

7) Kindly consider adding certain aircraft like the FW190A-8, F4U-4 Corsair, Hawker Tempest, P-61 Black widow, Bf110G-4 Night Fighter/Interceptor, SBD Dauntless & Avenger Torpedo bomber

8) In the first training mission may i request that a proper terrain be used instead of a generic grid-like pattern? like maybe the Britain/Dover map?

9) Please consider adding a padlock view/Player to selected target view or at least an on screen-arrow pointing to the direction of the currently selected target.

10) In the database, some of the models are incorrectly displayed: when the Fw200 is selected, a Gladiator biplane is what shows. and when the A-26 is selected, a gray blob covers the screen and the game locks up and has to be closed using alt+F4

11) Radio voice-overs/radio comms to guide the player to the next objective and to help assess situational awareness.

12) Please consider adding common convergence point aim crosshair/ lead points for all guns and weapons equipped on the player aircraft instead of of having individual lead points foe each gun/cannon type...

I don't meant to be critical but please consider the above posts as humble suggestions to improve gameplay experience. Thanks.

[Zer0]

Hello SkyStriker

Thank you for playing Vincemus and giving out some feedback :D I’ll give out some answers in return for your suggestions with whether its possible, feasible and with some I’m sad to say it may not be possible to do with how Vincemus was developed.

1. A Mini-map although is do-able, In the early stages of Vincemus development I did add one in, but after a while favoured for its removal. The aim with this was to stray abit away from the player's reliant on a mini-map for their awareness so players need to be abit more aware of their surroundings and it also allows the enemy AI to sneak up on them more easily. So I personally would prefer keeping the MiniMaps out of the game.
- I’m happy to create an Arrow on the Player’s HUD that has the aim of guiding the player towards waypoints if they are too hard to see. Is this for the Goto waypoints? Or as something to help understand where all the action is?

2. Take-Off & Landings will not be a thing in Vincemus, I’ve never rigged/animated the aircraft for landings & takeoffs, so a majority don’t have the undercarriage modelled with the intention of landing or take-off in mind. The code used in Vincemus was also made with the intention of landing and taking off being excluded from the game. So if it was to be added, alot of the game’s components would not work properly.

3. Yes sadly I will admit the Terrain quality has a lot left to be desired. Vincemus is using an out-dated version of Unity’s Terrain Component and to top it off at the time of making the terrain it was definitely not one of my strong points. The newer terrains I’ve made would be the islands you see in the last 5 missions of the Pacific, but other then those I think a lot of the terrain in Vincemus does need an overhaul, although it means the missions will also need to be changed as well to compensate for the change in terrain and as much as I would like to remake them. I think it will just take too long to do for the time being.
- Maybe later with future content patches I’ll slowly remodel the different terrain’s with each content patch.

4. The P-38 was use in a large variety of roles, Initially built to be a long range Escort Fighter and as an Interceptor and then later being used for attack missions starting with the G variant.
- In Vincemus though, it has one of the largest payloads possible to carry on an aircraft and in comparison to the single engine aircraft it’s a rather large aircraft. So I’ve marked it as an Attacker as it’s one of the better aircraft at the role.
- The fighters tab is already very large imo compare to the rest of the aircraft filters. If others disagree with my decision I’m happy to change it.
- 4.1) Me262HG was designated as an attacker variant of the Me262 twice the payload capacity of the standard Me262.

5. The Ai aircraft although not hard to make as player flyable aircraft as the Ai now use the same flight controls, The models aren’t of the best quality being that your not next to them 24/7 their quality is that of maybe 10% of the player models. And I doubt people would love to fly aircraft of that quality. If there's enough demand for them I'm happy to add them in as flyable.

6. Yep, I believe you told me on Discord about this issue, I have it in my notes to investigate the problem.

7. I have a bit of aircraft in the making at the moment,
- (Spoilers*) The FW190 and the BF110 I have ready as the next aircraft to come to Vincemus. My intent is to add more German & Russian aircraft into the game as part of a DLC.
- The SBD Dauntless & Avenger Torpedo bomber, we do have an aircraft already in the game of similar qualities being the TBD Torpedo Bomber, there’s not much torpedo action in Vincemus, so I’m not sure, if there’s some demand for them to be included into the game then sure I’ll consider those 2
- The Hawker Tempest isn’t a bad Idea, I’ll consider adding it after I create the Eastern Front DLC. Maybe the commonwealth tropical variant.
- The P61 is such a cool aircraft in my opinion, Funny enough you are able to see it somewhere on the ground in one of the Europe missions(Secret). I haven’t finished it completly but hopefully we get some time to add it as a flyable aircraft.
- The F4U, I was thinking of adding the F4U-5n into the game but I never got around to doing it when releasing the Pacific missions, Maybe one day I'll add it into the game after the next DLC.
8. Hmmm, Sure that can be done. I’m guessing it breaks the immersion a tad for you, I’ve been asked that a few times but not in great numbers but it wouldn’t hurt.
9. Sure I can make an Offscreen marker for the selected target. I’m not sure what a padlock view is? Is that when a you can lock a target and the player’s camera tracks the target?

10. Oh okay, thanks for letting me know I’ll get it fixed in the next patch

11. Sure I’ve been looking at adding Voice Comms chatter between Ai based on their current state, I’ve always loved a game called Freelancer, a space game where the Ai would talk with each other.
- I’ll have to see what’s involved with doing it and I’m not sure about cost of hiring voice actors, but I’ll have to see if i have the budget & time to add it into Vincemus.

12. We did have this but it was common for all your guns to miss in this case due to aircraft carrying multiple types of weapons. If we had the average convergence for all guns and you use lets say the P38, using the 7.7’s, 50cals and the 37mm cannon. Or the A-26 with the 5cals + 75mm cannon, the difference between all weapons is so large you will most likely hit nothing which was a very common occurrence when we had this previously. So a good way to make sure all your weapons hit the target is to make sure all your guns have a similar velocity or stick to one primary weapon so all guns are 20mm Hispanos or all M2 Brownings for example.

I hope this response helps, There is a bit I said no to which pains me, but its just how Vincemus was made with Vincemus being my first game I never thought Vincemus would be as big as it is to be honest, it was planned to only have 7 planes and 15 missions, but now Vincemus has 26 aircraft in the game and over 30 playable missions with 60 extra playable scenarios. xDD

Although it had a rather large overhaul to how Vincemus handles, Vincemus V1.2 still relies somewhat on the original core functionality the game was built upon in the first place which has its limits to what we can and can’t do :C

To be able to make something that allows for a more detailed Flight System, better graphical fidelity and better optimisation techniques we will have to make a new game as Vincemus just doesn’t support a lot of features due to the underlying code I made when I first started making Vincemus.

Cheers,
Zer0

[SkyStriker01]

Hi Zer0.

Thanks for the detailed response; Thanks for considering some of my suggestions. I'll also respond to your questions for added clarity as to what I meant to say:

1. Zer0:- I’m happy to create an Arrow on the Player’s HUD that has the aim of guiding the player towards waypoints if they are too hard to see. Is this for the Goto waypoints? Or as something to help understand where all the action is?
SkyStriker01: A bit of both actually: Mainly Go To waypoints, and a waypoint marker in a different color to show areas of the mission objective.

2. I was hoping to see Takeoffs& landings, but if it's gonna break the game for many players, that's okay.. no worries.

3. Yes Please, a terrain update would be more than welcome, even if it's gonna be gradually remodeled with every patch, that's also fine.

4. Yeah Okay I can agree with this. As once the P-51D & later variants of the P-47 entered the European theater of WWII, P-38s shifted to ground attack & recon roles..

5. I understand that remodeling those aircraft can take up time & resources but please consider making the F6F Hellcat flyable (with a revised 3D model), please, as a post 1943 Pacific air battle isn't complete without one.. And the Mosquito model looks pretty good.. please consider making it flyable considering that it played a significant role in the European theater of WWII esp in night intruder raids....

6. Yes please, Thanks a lot. looking forward to see this fixed.

7. Regarding The FW190, Bf110G, Tempest, F4U-5N & P-61 - Thank you. I hope to see these in the game sometime in future.
About the TBD, considering the aircraft was an operational failure at the Battle of Midway, Whereas the Dauntless & Avenger were more successful, that's the reason i requested.

8. Yeah, exactly..It does break the immersion factor, please do consider adding a proper terrain map (such as Britain/Dover) for this mission.

9. Yes please, an arrow/marker pointing to the selected target would be welcome. A padlock view is an external/internal view where the camera tracks the selected target from the player's perspective.. Most air combat games have this view. It's also called the player to target view' i think.

10. Yes please. Looking forward

11. Okay sure. as per your discretion, if the time and budget permits, of course.

12. Would it be possible to adjust a common convergence point for each aircraft's built-in guns & cannons. In games like Il2 Great Battles, Wings of Prey, prior to commencing a mission, the convergence point for the ammo fired from all the mounted guns/cannons could be adjusted in meters.

Although you said that some of my requests may not be possible; I should be thanking you for taking the time to patiently read my review and respond accordingly.

Just two more things and I'll close: Would it be too much to ask if the reward points at the end of a mission be increased or the price of new aircraft be reduced / adjusted? On second thoughts, let me rephrase that, can the reward points/aircraft cost be (re)balanced so that there's not much of a grind? And also would the early access reward planes like the P-47D & the BF109F be made unlockable by regular players at some point? The only reason I didn't purchase the game during the EA stage was because of lack of controller support & purchased it once that was added.

Thanks.

Cheers to you too,
SkyStriker01

[Zer0]

I do like myself a Mosquito, I’ll consider adding the F6F and the Mosquito as playable. I’ll look into getting their models ready to be used as flyable by the player.

Player to Target view, I’ll add it into my notes, maybe after the next 1 or 2 patches I’ll add it in.

For the convergence, I’ll probs keep it the way it is mainly cause there’s already a lot on my plate XD, if it helps, I’ll put it into my notes that this was a requested option for the game cause I kinda like the idea of doing something like that but it might be a while till you see it.

Sure, I can reduce the price of stuff if it's abit too grindy. maybe the cost of upgrades and what do you think of increasing the rewards of some of the earlier missions, I think the later mission give a decent amount of rewards? There is also the possibility of increasing the bounty reward for every enemy destroyed.

The EA aircraft such as the BF109F and the P47D will come with a future DLC coming.

[SkyStriker01]

Yes, please.. a player flyable Mosquito & Hellcat would be most welcome.

Thanks for considering to incorporate the player to target view

Regarding the gun/cannon convergence distances thanks for considering. Given that you're constrained with regard to time and resources, it's fine if we can see this feature sometime in a future patch.

Yes please, reducing the cost of upgrades, increasing the rewards for the earlier mission and adding bounty points for every enemy destroyed would be welcome altogether.

Thanks for taking the time & patience to read my posts and respond accordingly.

[Zer0]

Hello SkyStriker,

I've doubled the rewards from destroying enemies and if it helps you are able to increase your rewards by increasing the difficulty.

The 2x rewards is present in the V1.2.1c patch which is currently in the Beta branch once testing is complete I'll move it to the public branch.

Cheers,
Zer0

[Zer0]

If it's not enough I'll reduce costs,

as I asked some others about the decision and they said the grind is fine and they also said if you are in need of cash there are certain missions that you can re-play to easily gain some quickly.

[SkyStriker01]

Originally posted by Zer0:

Thanks a lot. I'll test out the new patched game and get back to you. P.S. I'll be able to test it out either tomorrow or the day after...

[VirgoCompany]

Chiming in about mission rewards: Sometimes a mission will "softlock" in a way where the player's plane can land somewhat safely, mostly with the Swordfish and Cr.42, and enemies will not target them in favor of shooting either other allied targets or just not being able to shoot at all in case of unarmed trucks. How this is a softlock is that players cannot die or be killed, but they cannot advance the mission or continue due to not having even the engine power to lift off the ground again (fully loaded Swordfish with bombs + rockets tends to start falling at around 60% engine power or so).

Which leaves the player with one option: quitting the mission and forfeiting ALL rewards earned up to that point. Even a mission fail will reward points that have been earned from objectives and kills, but a quit mission does not reward anything. Probably unintended since the only way to get into this state is to have a plane that could land with their always-deployed undercarriage and be damaged enough to not be able to fly upward, and the game wasn't designed for take-off and landing to begin with. But I thought it'd be something to bring up.