VR Impressions

[fightin6]

Hello All,

I am a real world pilot and flight instructor with over 4000 hours over 20 years of flying. I don't claim to be the most experienced pilot in the world, but I've flown in real life a bunch of warbird trainer types including the AT-6, T-28, BT-13, L-39, and others so I have a general sort of feel for the real aircraft.

I've been playing war thunder on and off for a few years and in general have been flying flight sims since the mid 1980s. Again, none of this makes me an expert, but It does give me some background.

About 3 months ago I got an oculus rift system. To go along with this, i have a wheestand pro stand, a TM Thrustmaster HOTAS system, and Saitek "combat pro" pedals. I also have a custom keyboard/mouse stand on the side of my wheelstandpro but that is neither here nor there.

Anyway, after a couple of months of playing with War Thunder, mostly offline, I gotta say - I just can't figure out how to make it feel like flying. Maybe there's something I'm not getting, but even in the most realistic modes, while it feels like I'm sitting in a cockpit, the flight physics and control responses seem very wrong. When I was playing this as an arcade game with keyboard andmouse I didn't care, but in the virtual world it is becoming quite annoying. Other games do not have this problem.

Maybe "that's just how it is" in a sim/game aimed at casual audiences. Maybe there are things you guys can give me pointed on. Here are some specific areas of concern:

Trim: I have tried for a long time to map (elevator, especially) trim to my TM stick. Nohing seems to work well. There are silly options in WT for storing and retrieving trim settings, but nothing like a good trim wheel that wouuld let you trim for level (or other) flight attitude naturally. By contrast, this is easily doable in FSX using a keyboard on a flat screen.

"Air movement" - there's nothing in the game that suggests the feeling of flight. No wind, no ground effect, etc. It just doesn't feel like flying. By contrast, the little oculus game where you fly a little ultralight and then a rocket powered glider and then an aerobatic plane (sorry i forget the name) actually feels like flying (though with some big asterisks).

Single-engine-operations - turn off or lose one engine in a twin, and you quickly understand that the flight models are total hacks. Nothing about it feels like flying a real airplane with an engine out.

Ruddeer - i think maybe there's something wrong with my controls, but i've struggled with tis a lot - there's always a bit of a dead zone with the rudders and the control is imprecise and unrealistic. its as if the programmers are not really sure what it's for.

Ground Operations - this is chaoit - maybe i have some settings wrong. sure, there are turning tendencies on the ground in propeller aircraft. but there are times where i press on the right rudder (and i can see the right 'foot' go forward) only to have aircraft go to the left under minimal torque as much as or even more than if i stepped on the left.

Landings bear little to no resemblence to the real thing.

I've so far only played DCS, WT, and that island gamey thing as flight sims in oculus. THe feeling of flight in WT is easily the worst. While different aircraft indeed have individual relative differences (some historically plausible, some not - the Wildcat IRL was incredibly well built or at least overbuilt in the game it feels junky. and of courrse the less said about soviet OP nonsense the better), overall It feels vaguely like a WW2/war themed space simulator.

If you're a pilot and are not convinced of what I'm saying, take up a small basic airplane - perhaps a biplane. Put in full aileron and opposite rudder. Now tell me that feels anything like a real aircraft. It doesn't. It's not even vaguely close.

I want to emphasize: I am really excited about and really enjoy being able to virtually fly some dream aircraft in WT. Being in the cockpit of an F3F or TBD is a dream come true. Some planes feel and fly a bit better than others. But I just wish there was some real 'physics' to flying in WT rather than the sort of hackneyed, nausea inducing (because the physics is wrong) what I'm guessing is old-school-table-lookup flight models that are at the core of WT. It's a pity.

[Jeruzalem]

Thread number 3.

[fightin6]

i have no idea what you are talking about amzeing. the threads are not numbered here. if you're trying to direct me to something, try not to sound like a smarmy neckbeard.

[GoroMajima]

Originally posted by fightin6:

i have no idea what you are talking about amzeing. the threads are not numbered here. if you're trying to direct me to something, try not to sound like a smarmy neckbeard.

feeling status = hurt

[Smetrix]

The devs don’t read the forums, so your essay will fall on def ears.

[fightin6]

dont care about devs. i was asking the community if i was doing something wrong. based on the lack of response, i'm guesisng that no, i'm not, it's just the flight models are not serious. again, when it's a flat screen game it's kind of acceptible in a gamey way, but in VR, it's just not.

[Smetrix]

Originally posted by fightin6:

dont care about devs. i was asking the community if i was doing something wrong. based on the lack of response, i'm guesisng that no, i'm not, it's just the flight models are not serious. again, when it's a flat screen game it's kind of acceptible in a gamey way, but in VR, it's just not.

Where did you ask us if you were doing something wrong?

[Ponto]

Originally posted by fightin6:

i have no idea what you are talking about amzeing. the threads are not numbered here. if you're trying to direct me to something, try not to sound like a smarmy neckbeard.

You'll need to excuse this particular individual.....or just get used to his **antics**.

[Smetrix]

Originally posted by Ponto:

Originally posted by fightin6:

i have no idea what you are talking about amzeing. the threads are not numbered here. if you're trying to direct me to something, try not to sound like a smarmy neckbeard.

You'll need to excuse this particular individual.....or just get used to his **antics**.

You two need to resolve this “thing”, and get over yourselves

[fightin6]

all i see here are a bunch of much too involved people doing anything but reading and commenting on the points in my message. and smetrix is obviously illiterate. so, im going to leave you to your little self important world. buh bye.

[Smetrix]

Originally posted by fightin6:

all i see here are a bunch of much too involved people doing anything but reading and commenting on the points in my message. and smetrix is obviously illiterate. so, im going to leave you to your little self important world. buh bye.

And you wrote an essay about a video game, good on you bud.

[Happyguy22]

Originally posted by fightin6:

all i see here are a bunch of much too involved people doing anything but reading and commenting on the points in my message. and smetrix is obviously illiterate. so, im going to leave you to your little self important world. buh bye.

>OP writes a essay, complains about people commenting about it
>GG WP GJ m8

You do understand that people will TALK about specific parts of your 400+ word essay.

Complaining about WT being bad in VR is like complaining about the fact that the local fat person is having a cardiac arrest after going for a 10 hour run - it's because it is not built for it. War Thunder is a massive multiplayer online combined forces simulator, not the next FSX or VRchat.

Second thing is that it is probably your stick. This game is picky about joy's I've found as I've had hell trying to get my stick to run smoothly with it. It is either the stick itself or hardware.

I will ask though: you were playing realistic and/or simulator, right?


And before you complain: no, I didn't read through it. I went by estimation and short snips of it. I didn't realise this was GCSE English and I had to skim through a document to find information to write down later. Let me just get my notepad ready, Miss/Mrs/Mr/Master!

[Xoho]

From what I've seen, DCS offers the most realistic aircraft combat, compared to that, War thunder is a clunky, arcadey game that doesn't really model a lot of things correctly, or at all even. The kind of physics that allow a b17 to start doing backflips instantly with a minimal amount of damage to the fuselage (not even light yellow), and make stalling out feel rigid and just strange in general. War Thunder was never really meant to be a sim game. Gaijin even tried to "kill off" sim mode a few years ago. (I don't believe they actually tried to, but their lack of action when it came to fixing major issues drove most of the sim community away from WT. Landings are quite strange sometimes, and can be ridiculously bouncy even below stall speed on certain aircraft with an approach so smooth that I'd sleep with it.


EDIT: Almost forgot to mention the glorious PO-2 mach 2 glitch from a while ago. Along with the fact that losing your wings allows you to fly faster without too many consequences in certain aircraft, ignoring the increased drag from the screwed up surfaces, and the higher AOA/controls surface corrections. And yes, I understand aircraft can fly without wings at high speed, but that was not my point.

[Xoho]

The flight models are also only partially based on the real aircraft, e.g. the P51 which has been through so many different versions that varied greatly in their performance since the start of this game. War Thunder isn't really supposed to be a simulator, as I mentioned before. A long time ago they decided to go the gamey route, and it's definitely not the wrong choice, as a full simulator would drive away those who would otherwise enjoy this. That being said, I do wish there was an alternative to WT with DCS level physics and WT's numbers of aircraft. Unfortunately you can only really have one or the other, as it's quantity vs quality when your time and money is limited. Because of this, VR in WT isn't really a great idea, as it's hard to play for fun, and be immersed at the same time if you're comparing it to real world experiences. (Or so I believe, seeing as I'm not a pilot)

[Xoho]

TLDR: War Thunder isn't a sim, and shouldn't be thought of and judged as one. Even though I love sim mode and RB.

[Happyguy22]

The flight models do need updating, and the game is still ridden with model errors. Nothing can be perfect though. I would argue that they would likely begin to update them after they have decieded that they have enough, but I would doubt they would ever stop. At least until they have every aircraft in game. It's good enough for the time being at least, I don't think anyone has asked for the game to introduce wind, stress and heat (Not as in coolent heat, I mean as in heat from reaching high velocities caused by air resistance. It is possible, but it requires a space plane pretty much).

Overall, most players come to play tank battles now. Infact, tanks alone probably drawns more income in rather than aircraft I'd say. If a person who wanted to play aircraft in a true simulator setting were to choose a game, they would probably go to IL-2 or, as you said, DCS. The problem with DCS is that most aircraft are behind a steep pay wall and IL-2 is old. Really old that it doesn't work well on modern screens (at least in my experience).

Originally posted by Xoho:

TLDR: War Thunder isn't a sim, and shouldn't be thought of and judged as one. Even though I love sim mode and RB.

It's not a flight simulator as you said; it's more of a combined forces simulator. Planes provide CAS, help teams win. Soon naval ships could provide bombardments (Hard to do, but it's possible most likely) and tanks can capture points. That was what I was getting at.