Saved views revelations

[IRFC Hawkeye]

Hi all, I hope this doesn't seem too stupid....some things I learned recently just because I had to take a closer look at things when remapping controls for new game controller hardware.  However, I've played RoF since the very beginning, and never truly understood exactly what the view save function was doing, until now.  The following are misconceptions I had, and what I learned.  Maybe you already know this stuff, or found it obvious;  I certainly didn't.

 

First misconception:  You can only save views to Numpad keys.

 

Revelation:  You're not actually saving views to the Numpad keys in and of themselves; you're saving them to "Pilot Head" functions in the Controls map.

 

Background:  By default, there are 12 "Pilot Head" views, which have some default keys and joystick buttons assigned to them.  These include Numpad keys, and also the 8 POV hat positions.  Now, I'm not sure if you can get rid of the Numpad keys in the controls map; you can certainly delete them....what effect that would have, I'm not sure.  What I do know is that you can get rid of the POV button assignments, and assign any other game controller buttons that you wish.  This all began to become a question when Hotlead told me that he mapped some or all of his views to controller buttons (his POV hat, I believe).  Well, I tried this, but all that it did was replace other saved views that I had already made, using the Numpad keys.  At that point I realized that the Numpad keys and the POV hat views were bound together in some way, and resigned myself that there were not more than the 10 views that I had already saved, to be had.

 

It was not until recently that I began to look more closely at the controls map, since I got a new set of controllers; and the problem that arose was that in the past, if I wanted to use a game controller to actuate a saved view, I assigned that game controller button, in it's software, to emulate that Numpad key.  However, I can't now do that, since the software that I have now does not yet have that capability.

 

In any case, in making a new controls map, I had to delete all references to my previous controllers, in places that weren't the same.  In my case, my new joystick does not have an 8-way POV hat (it has a 4-way POV hat).  Therefore, I thought it best to delete all references to the 8 POV direction assignments (0, 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270, 315) and decide how best to assign from there.  When doing that, it became obvious to me that all that was left assigned to those views, were Numpad keys.  Light bulb !!  Could I now just replace those with regular game controller buttons, without having to emulate Numpad keys?

 

So yeah, it works. Now I'm wondering if I could get rid of the Numpad assignments altogether; but there is no real reason to do that....they make a good reference, and a good way to create a saved view....so I left those as-is and added the joystick button assignments that I wanted.

 

Second misconception:  There can only be 10 saved views, Numpad 0 through Numpad 9.

 

Revelation:  There are at least 12 "Pilot Head" view functions that can be altered.

 

Background:  Since it's actually "Head: snap...." functions that you're altering when you save any view, there are at least 12....also included are the ones assigned to the Numpad Enter key, and also the Numpad Decimal key.  It's entirely possible the the Numpad + and Numpad - could be used....but because those two are assigned to pilot head zoom by default, I won't mess with them.

 

Anyway, I've always had saved views for every airplane in RoF that serve the same function.  Up until now, that has been so I can look closely at hard-to-see instruments.  However, I am now able to add a couple more to each and every airplane, so that I can do what Hotlead does....have some quick views that look out and around your nose to see contacts that are difficult to see within the cockpit.  All that can be confusing to keep track of.  Obviously, once you've gone to all of the trouble to make the saved views in each plane, it's very advantageous to make a backup of that Luascripts file.  But even so, if you need to alter anything, it's good to know exactly how things are set up now.  To that end, I made the following document that reminds me of how I have things set up, so I don't have to re-save any views.  The first column is all of the views that the game has which can be altered (saved).  The second column is (I believe) the default Numpad keys that are assigned (I don't think I've changed any of those, but I could be wrong).  The third column is what I altered that view to do....what it does now in each plane.  The fourth column is what additional game controller button I use to actually call up that view (these are all hat switches on either my joystick, or throttle.  I have plenty!)

 

 

 

 

Since these are standard things to look at, I'll probably apply the same logic to saved views in BoX, assuming that they work the same way....I'll have to see!  In essence, if you use TIR, the standard views are totally unnecessary, so you can reassign them to things that are harder to see easily using your normal head movements.

 

S!