Steam deck feedback

[Pardy]

Got the game today and played for a few hours. Below are just some of my initial thoughts and feedbacks, some steam deck specific and some general.

Firstly, performance. Generally ok, but not great. With no AA, AO off and running at less than full resolution using the decks FSR upscaling the game still looks good and runs at a consistent 40fps. However, it still uses a lot of power and will only get about 2 hours of a full charge. Compare to something like tiny combat arena (I know not a fair comparison but it's a useful benchmark) where I could get about 7 hours of battery. I'm well aware "just optimise" is a silly request, but some more graphical options would be appreciated. The whole time the graphics card was running 100%.

The game as a newcomer feels great. I'm no flight sim veteran, but I do like flying helicopters in the games I play. By my 2nd flight I was already comfortable. The default gamepad controls felt good. The MFD interactions were surprisingly intuitive, from watching gameplay I thought they'd be a nightmare. I rebound a back button to esc so pausing is easy. AP alt changing felt slow but there might be a menu option for this I overlooked.

Menus are a different matter though, they are quite difficult to navigate with trackpad or touch screen. A fully controller interactable menu system would make it feel much nicer. A particularly bad screen for the deck is the loadout screen.

I will say I found it difficult to ID what my TGP was pointing at. This may be due to the resolution of the deck but I feel some sort of readout of what you're looking at would help? Maybe only for radar equipped helis?

A fast AP mode would also be appreciated. The hover that's there feels fine, but a different "fast" mode would make the long travels to objectives (I had some over 30km) a bit smoother. The way I envision it, collective would be set to 100% and pitch is used to maintain altitude. Maybe a minimum alt of 50m to prevent mishaps and make it less desirable in the vicinity of enemies? Minimum speed rather than maximum would probably be necessary too.

Are R variant Hellfires strictly only targetable with the radar? I feel like I should be able to fire them using solely TGP and the missile then acquires radar after the fact. Precise control using the radar/map is a bit tricky if units are close together.

I prefer to fly first person as (strangely) I lose my bearings in 3rd person. However, after cycling view, the first time you press a SOI button (start/select) the screen straight away goes full screen and I have to use the MFD button to shrink it. This only happens the first time after cycling and only in first person. It does not feel like intended behaviour and is quite annoying.

Overall I've enjoyed what I've played so far, and I'm looking forwards to flying some more and seeing where the game goes.

[Jimmy Arcade]

Originally posted by Pardy:

Got the game today and played for a few hours. Below are just some of my initial thoughts and feedbacks, some steam deck specific and some general...

Thanks for the feedback. I did give the game a quick go on my deck just to make sure it actually ran.

There will be some incoming performance enhancements which should help the deck as well.

I do need to do something with the UI so that it is more easily usable on the deck.

IDing targets via the TGP is going to be a thing, your gunner will eventually be able to tell you exactly what you're looking at and it will then be marked on the threat display allowing you to build up a picture as you target things.

A full autopilot is a very good idea with pitch controlling desired speed and the autopilot maintaining altitude and heading for you. I'll see what I can do :)

The R variant is radar only. This was a design choice as I believe in real life it can be targeted via the TADS. The reason was to make you think a little more about your load out and not just grab the best missile each time. However, once the IDing system is in place then you will be able to ID a target and then lock it up on the threat display just like a Radar signature.

I wanted to keep all weapon systems viable so they all have some kind of advantage/draw back.

I'll take a look at the SOI button as it shouldn't be going full screen - I've not come across that issue myself so I might need a bit of help to replicate it.

Glad you're enjoying it - hopefully it will only get better

[Pardy]

Thanks for the reply!

Originally posted by Jimmy Arcade:

The R variant is radar only. This was a design choice as I believe in real life it can be targeted via the TADS. The reason was to make you think a little more about your load out and not just grab the best missile each time. However, once the IDing system is in place then you will be able to ID a target and then lock it up on the threat display just like a Radar signature.

I wanted to keep all weapon systems viable so they all have some kind of advantage/draw back.

Yeah that's fair. I wasn't sure where on the game/sim line you would draw this one. In a similar manner though, I feel like the designation of range of 4km for support artillery is lacking. If I am well within Hellfire range, surely I'm close enough to provide good enough spotting to artillery? Bumping it up to 5-5.5km would be nicer. Armed only with TOW, 4km is a dicey range!

Originally posted by Jimmy Arcade:

I'll take a look at the SOI button as it shouldn't be going full screen - I've not come across that issue myself so I might need a bit of help to replicate it.

Reproducible steps, confirmed now PC with xbox one controller and Steam Deck natively (I thought it could have been a deck input issue):
1. Spawn in missione
2. Observe you are in third person
3. Observe that pressing start/select simply switches/cycles the virtual MFDs.
4. Press right stick to enter 1st person.
5. Press start.
6. Observe that the right MFD is now in full screen zoom mode.
7. Pressing start/select now cycles/switches MFD in full screen zoom mode.
8. Press left bumper and UP to bring the MFDs down.
9. Observe now that pressing start/select simply switches/cycles the virtual MFDs again, as expected.
10. You can then cycle to gunner position and correct behaviour is retained.
11. Cycle to third person. Correct behaviour again.
12. Cycle back to 1st person pilot. Start/select now brings up the MFD in full screen mode again.

This is repeatable every single time.

[Jimmy Arcade]

Originally posted by Pardy:

Thanks for the reply!
Yeah that's fair. I wasn't sure where on the game/sim line you would draw this one. In a similar manner though, I feel like the designation of range of 4km for support artillery is lacking. If I am well within Hellfire range, surely I'm close enough to provide good enough spotting to artillery? Bumping it up to 5-5.5km would be nicer. Armed only with TOW, 4km is a dicey range!

I'll almost certainly revisit weapon settings etc. For artillery having it a 4km was again a balance choice so that you couldn't cheese your way through with just artillery strikes. The cheaper helicopters can easily take 4 artillery strike support cards which, at least at the moment, have unlimited uses.

I found 4km meant you had to carefully sneak to close the distance and you'd better be sure you scouted the area out well as it would put you well within Strela range.

I think I'll probably add different artillery support options for example 255mm MRLS would be a good option that has an extended range but limited number of uses at maybe a higher Deployment Point value.

Also, there will be many other support options too e.g. Drone strikes which would work similar to a standard Laser Hellfire - again the downside is limited uses and that the drone could get shot down!

Originally posted by Pardy:

Reproducible steps, confirmed now PC with xbox one controller and Steam Deck natively (I thought it could have been a deck input issue):
1. Spawn in missione
2. Observe you are in third person
3. Observe that pressing start/select simply switches/cycles the virtual MFDs.
4. Press right stick to enter 1st person.
5. Press start.
6. Observe that the right MFD is now in full screen zoom mode.
7. Pressing start/select now cycles/switches MFD in full screen zoom mode.
8. Press left bumper and UP to bring the MFDs down.
9. Observe now that pressing start/select simply switches/cycles the virtual MFDs again, as expected.
10. You can then cycle to gunner position and correct behaviour is retained.
11. Cycle to third person. Correct behaviour again.
12. Cycle back to 1st person pilot. Start/select now brings up the MFD in full screen mode again.

This is repeatable every single time.

Thanks - I will look into that and fix it

[Jimmy Arcade]

Originally posted by Pardy:

Reproducible steps, confirmed now PC with xbox one controller and Steam Deck natively (I thought it could have been a deck input issue):
1. Spawn in missione
2. Observe you are in third person
3. Observe that pressing start/select simply switches/cycles the virtual MFDs.
4. Press right stick to enter 1st person.
5. Press start.
6. Observe that the right MFD is now in full screen zoom mode.
7. Pressing start/select now cycles/switches MFD in full screen zoom mode.
8. Press left bumper and UP to bring the MFDs down.
9. Observe now that pressing start/select simply switches/cycles the virtual MFDs again, as expected.
10. You can then cycle to gunner position and correct behaviour is retained.
11. Cycle to third person. Correct behaviour again.
12. Cycle back to 1st person pilot. Start/select now brings up the MFD in full screen mode again.

This is repeatable every single time.

Fixed in the latest version of the Front Lines Beta.

I've also added an extra option into the Game Settings menu so that you can configure whether the "Resize MFD" control zooms into the in-cockpit MFDs or not.

This option, together with the "Auto Hide Virtual MFDs" option, gives you 3 different modes for the MFDs when in cockpit view....

1. Virtual MFDs are shown in the in-cockpit view and continue to work as normal. Using "Resize MFD" simply scales their size on screen.

2. Virtual MFDs are shown in the in-cockpit view but using "Resize MFD" zooms you to the physical MFD screen.

3. Virtual MFDs are disabled when in cockpit view and using "Resize MFD" zooms you to the physical MFD screen.

[FERdeBOER]

The full autopilot thing is not even unrealistic in my opinion, it's like giving control to your co-pilot. If I'm not mistaken, in all helicopters the co-pilot is also a pilot.

But also, even if it weren't the case, it was very common in "old" sims to have full AP and a very good option to have for us more... not-too-good at flying XD.