Recurrent topic: playable backseat
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Greeetings Community.
A quick search on that topic, with the underlying great memories of Microprose’s F15 Strike Eagle III 2 players mode with null-modem connection, makes me rise the topic again. Since we have, I suppose, some time yet to dream of BMS’ future versions while many are still waiting to download the current one, I was wondering if there was any official info about backseat simulating.
I read somewhere that it may sound strange to be wanting to play a WSO. Nevertheless, more than the station itself, it is the teamplay that makes the experience really enjoyable. I tend to love asymetric cooperation, and I believe I’m not the only one in that case, considering a number of people who seems to enjoy playing as an AWACS operator. Having these four MFD right in front of me and asking the pilot to slightly deviate from our route to update our targeting (we couldn’t use the ground radar straight ahead, it was a featured limitation apparently), and give him exactly what he needed to concentrate on piloting, was really a blast.
Having played
, I can even imagine an AWACS operator being virtually present in the plane with his own console, but I suppose it’s another story in term of simulation… and probably classified info.So… I was just curious about any progresses in that direction.
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Not official but I’d say never going to happen, brother.
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There are ways to do this, but with some limitations - the first being that your MFDs can only be used as repeaters. Second being that you could use a KVM switch to hand off stick/throttle/rudders/HOTAS between to virtual cockpits.
But I’ll never say “never”, as it looks like the provisions for multiple displays are being put into BMS and for some of the jets in the sim other than the Viper that’s going to be a must-do in order to have decent representations of those aircraft. No telling about multi-controls…but there are still hardware ways to do that.
So…3-4 weeks, tops.
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Making an F-16D cockpit would be awesome. If you could do it with 360 degree projection, and a working ASHM and SSC, it would be a pretty cool way to teach initial F-16 AHC techniques.
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Greeetings Community.
A quick search on that topic, with the underlying great memories of Microprose’s F15 Strike Eagle III 2 players mode with null-modem connection, makes me rise the topic again. Since we have, I suppose, some time yet to dream of BMS’ future versions…
This would be certainly be one of the wetter dreams to become true!
The topic is brought up again every once in a while but until now it was always considered as somewhat out of scope / unrealistic development goal (in terms of too much effort required). Unfortunatly.But thanks for mentioning it once again. Always enjoy reading (and dreaming) about this feature
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Are you saying that there is a different cockpit on the F-15 for BMS If so where can I find it? the one that comes with Bms now is good but I can not figure out where the AA and AG buttons are
By the way I really loved F15 Strike eagle III Wished it could play on my computer along with Janes F-18
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Making an F-16D cockpit would be awesome. If you could do it with 360 degree projection, and a working ASHM and SSC, it would be a pretty cool way to teach initial F-16 AHC techniques.
Goofy over on VP has a backseat pit that is on par with RedDog’s front seat…droool…I’d be more than happy to be able to take the two of those and rig them to play together as one using some of the methods I’ve described…droool…
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It’s called multicrewing, and yes it would be great in BMS for training friends that you’d like to get into the sim… but from what I’ve read, it would be too difficult to implement in BMS.
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We would love to have a feature like that, “shared cockpit” with a backseater, someday in BMS.
It would help us very much with our detailed training, and then with missionised cockpit operations…
Since BMS is so close to realism and always gets closer, training goes more and more demanding.
So as the need for more effective and realistic ways to train our teammates. -
Goofy over on VP has a backseat pit that is on par with RedDog’s front seat…droool…I’d be more than happy to be able to take the two of those and rig them to play together as one using some of the methods I’ve described…droool…
That would be awesome
I dream of this as well gents and I am sure that if it was easy it would have already been done.
Unfortunately It is far more complicated that it looks -
Goofy over on VP has a backseat pit that is on par with RedDog’s front seat…droool…I’d be more than happy to be able to take the two of those and rig them to play together as one using some of the methods I’ve described…droool…
The SSC would be relatively simple. You’d need to have BMS use a virtual joystick, and have both SSCs input to that virtual stick based on the position of the paddle switches and the seat control switch. I think the AP could mess it up a little though. That might just be the price paid.
The ASHM could be done with a small CRT displaying the HUD view? Really the big problem is that as far as I can tell BMS does not allow multiple simultaneous views like FSX does.
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Actually to do it as things stand now I’d use hardware - just handoff from front to aft using a switched USB hub to input either set of controllers as an isolated set - and the fwd/aft displays would have to be simple repeaters, but the MFD buttons could be switched like the flight controllers. Then it would become a matter of crew coordination, similar to if not exactly like RL. Though I can think of a way to write some software that could work with BMS - like MFDE does - to do all this too.
I’m not sure how Goofy does his ASHM…I think he just uses an LCD, but it does look good when it’s running - I’ll have to go take another look at his pit. I really think the Devs have this path in mind…I see hooks right now. 4-6 weeks, maybe?
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That (switching between hardware controllers) would be unrealistic. For one thing, it would prevent mixing control inputs, which is a feature of the real jet.
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In a real jet they do a positive handover by shaking the stick before the handoff…only diff would be that positive handover would be verbal and not with two hands on the stick(s)…which for this particular type of stick might not b such a big deal.
Anyway, post handover the other guy is supposed to keep his hand off the stick anyway…so form a coordination standpoint it’s only a minor annoyance…if you want two seats NOW. It can be done.
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Only in jets with a moving stick. You can do it now with as much effort and less hardware than your solution anyway.
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The only hardware I’m suggesting is a switched USB hub…and some sort of video splitter to get the extracted MFDs into both cockpits. That’s not a lot of hardware…outside of building the cockpits.
I’ve done two seats using just a keyboard for the backseater and full HOTAS for myself, but the two of us approached the operation in a Navy crew-coordination manner (no stick in the back - hand controllers only) because that’s what we were both familiar with. Takes some discipline, but that’s the point. It worked (works), and it was a lot of fun.
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You dont need the video splitter, either. Run one cockpit on BMS CDE, and the other on MFDE.
You can do two seats now from a software point of view. The biggest blocks to it are still the projectors, and that isnt a two seater specific issue. Cant get 360 degrees vision…