Training test results

[sasquach]

I ran through the training sessions up to and including Basic Armor (this was on the Brit side). Following are some results so far, but first an issue that may or may not be fixable. I have a CH CombatStick and a CH ProThrottle. The throttle unit has a mini thumb joystick. The basic problem is that the pro throttle gets assigned as joystick #1 and the mini joystick gets assigned the default X and Y coordinates requiring redefining all my axis and button assignments to joystick #2 (the CombatStick). It would save a lot of trouble, especially for new players, if the joystick could get assigned as #1 instead of the throttle... or a simple function provided to swap joystick #1 & #2 assignments. This is also the case in version 3.0. That being said:

The primary issue I found was that "Basic Combat Training" could not be executed. The START button was greyed out.

All training sessions seemed to work OK until I got to the "Basic Armor" training. In there I found several sections that skipped or didn't pause long enough to be read. These include:

After parking behind berm it says something like take a moment to look down the range, but then jumps on to next part.

When viewing through the Commander binocs it quickly displays a message but doesn't pause long enough to be read. Checking version 3.0 I believe it is supposed to tell about rotating Commander view but not sure.

The next faulty part is when using magnified gun sight. It quickly skips a section. Checking version 3.0 it seems to pass by stuff where it tells you about firing the main gun and the secondary machine gun. It skips on to the part that discusses aiming and using range indicators. A note here: With 3.0 I noticed that if I fired a round while it showed an explanation with the note to hit space to continue, there was a beep and when I moved to next section, which asked me to fire the gun, it didn't pause because the previous beep when I fired apparently indicated the shot was applied to the requirement of the next section (I hope this makes sense). I couldn't go back to beta and try this a second time because the beta server was down by then.

At any rate, I'll try this some more and go through the remaining training next time beta is up.

sasquach

[sasquach]

I got into the beta just long enough today to retry the Brit Basic Armor training. If I was very careful to not hit any key other than requested it worked better, except for the section after using the gunsight. It very briefly showed the next section apparently about rotating the turret and immediately skipped on to the next section.

I also tried the training on Fighter Preflight in the current version (3.0). I had a lot of skips in the sections testing aileron and rudder controls, and it wasn't consistent (sometimes working and othertimes not). There is basically an instability in the training for both 3.0 and beta 3.1 that causes the training to skip sections and not pause long enough to be read. This should be corrected in general because it is the newer players (who are forced to do the training) that are impacted the most.

Another small problem in the Basic Armor training in beta 3.1 is at the beginning where it shows a circuit view of the tank. The camera is zoomed out too far.

Finally, setting up the game controllers, both the sensitivity and the key mapping. (These are old problems so it might not belong here.. but what the hell.)

The sensitivity section says to move the left and right green bars to set deadband and highband (whatever that is). The left bar can't be moved, only the right.

In keymapping a more serious issue. When setting keys, as soon as you hit a key it's activated, which is sweet. However, when trying to program views on a tophat, it was impossible to program the angled views (like NE and NW) on my CH (which I had to do because the darn game got my prothrottle and combatstick mixed up). The problem is that if you don't move the tophat perfectly into the corner without touching the adjacent views, it grabs the first view that you happen to hit, not the corner. Example: I could not program the NE view without having it catch N or E first. I suspect this might also be a problem with programming key combos, since both keys have to be pressed at the exact same time. A suggestion would be to allow the user to depress the key(s) or button(s) desired and then hit another seldom used key to accept it, or perhaps a time delay. Just a suggestion for some lazy day when you guys got some free time on your hands. =o)

sasquach

[sasquach]

Finished training session tests. Just as in the current release, the Basic Fighter training has a problem skipping over the sections for checking ailerons and rudders. It shows an external view of the plane and is supposed to have the trainee activate his controls to check if the ailerons and rudder move. It briefly displays the lesson but then skips to the next section.

I only tried two of the combat training sessions, infantry and fighter, and then only briefly since there was no one around to kill. These seem to be alright.

OS - Windows 7 64 bit

CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz

RAM - 4 GB

Vid - NVidia GeForce 8800 GT

CH controllers

sasquach

[GOPHUR]

Thanks Sas. I'll send this to bloo.

[bloo]

I'm sorry about the problem but I can't replicate that. It sounds like some extra input is being read, particular the Space key.

[sasquach]

I'm sorry about the problem but I can't replicate that. It sounds like some extra input is being read' date=' particular the Space key.[/quote']

It would mostly show up with the space key because that is predominantly the key used to move on to the next section.

There are two separate issues, which I can replicate (or at least happen quite often for me).

First, in some cases where a message is displayed momentarily and then moves on to the next section, the pause isn't long enough to read the message. I don't know why this would vary between players, perhaps the pause length varies based on CPU speed or something. But as there are so few of this types of sections, it may go unnoticed.

In the second situation, where extra input causes a problem, it seems the extra input is retained when you move to the next section and can trigger the next section to move on. Ab example is when instructing about panning using the X axis of a controller. There are sometimes two sections. The first section explains the panning, requesting hitting the SPACE key to continue. The second section invites a person to try scanning by moving the joystick sideways, and the movement of the joystick triggers that section to move on. Should a person move the joystick during the first section, when he hits SPACE to proceed to the next section it immediately skips that section, apparently because it remembers the stick movement from the previous section. Two locations I noticed this in were in the tank tutorial were the instructions on panning the binocular view and the turret (but this seems to be also true of other similar sections). An indication of this happening is the beep heard when moving between sections. When pressing a key or moving the joystick there will sometimes be a beep. Although it may not have caused a move to the next section, you can be certain that the next section will be skipped. The remedy I believe would be to erase from the input buffer all inputs that do not apply to moving from the section you are currently in.

In the case of viewing the deflection of the horizontal stabilizer and rudder in the external view of the plane tutorial, I believe the skipping is likely due to inherent fluctuations in the joystick X and Y axis values. (I did notice in a recent update notice that some adjustments were made here, but haven't checked it out.) I tried to alleviate this by increasing the deadband setting in the controller axis adjustment area of setup, but couldn't. The instruction for setting deadband said to drag the LEFT green bar to the right, but I could not move it. I could move the RIGHT green bar, but the instructions say that this is for adjusting something else, which I don't quite understand. This is problematic.

sasquach