Flight - Instruments

Note to Editors: if this page becomes overly long, cut each section into a separate page… but be sure to create links to each section/page from the main Quick Guide page, under Flight School/Using the Flight Instruments.

Camera
The most important flight instrument is the “Mark 1 Eyeball,” or just moving your head without having to turn your aircraft. Open up the Settings - Controls, look under the “Actions” control selector, and map “Horizontal Camera Rotation,” “Vertical Camera Rotation,” and “Reset Camera Location” to convenient functions on your controller. If you are short on axes to assign you can map these as buttons; a D-pad or joystick hat switch is a good choice.

You can also move the camera through several pre-set positions around your aircraft. The camera defaults to above and slightly behind, but can also move to: Dorsal (directly above); Rear Cockpit; Front Cockpit; No Cockpit; Right Wing; Left Wing; and Rear View.

There are controls for “Next Camera Position” and “Previous Camera Position” but since the camera positions cycle around, the second control is a convenience, not a requirement.

HUD MiniMap



 * 1) Cardinal Compass Directions
 * 2) Your Aircraft
 * 3) Waypoint - The next waypoint in your route. See Interface - Map and Trade for information on setting waypoints and plotting routes.
 * 4) Targeted Base - A base that you have set as your target (destination).
 * 5) Hazard - An environmental hazard like a volcano or geyser.
 * 6) Base (not Targeted) - Other bases nearby.

Landing Camera
The Landing Camera ("Landing Cam") appears any time your aircraft is less than 100m altitude above ground level (AGL).

The Landing Cam is a little odd; currently it behaves as if it were mounted on a very tall pole above your aircraft. It looks down onto your aircraft, but more frustratingly, it also pitches and rolls with your aircraft’s pitch and roll. This means you could be directly above your landing spot, but if the aircraft is tilted it will look as if you were farther away from it. Hopefully this behavior will change in the future.

General advice is only trust the Landing Cam when you’re straight and level; and only look at it in short glances. You’re flying the aircraft, not the Landing Cam.

Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality is a HUD view which allows the pilot to see in the dark/through fog, and also highlights wind and atmospheric hazards. A split screen view — AR and normal vision — is below:

HUD - Horizontal Flight
TODO: Is an annotated image of the HUD for horizontal flight really needed?

When the aircraft transitions from vertical flight to horizontal flight, the HUD takes a few changes:


 * Vectored Thrust gets set to +100% of Engine Thrust - The engines are in their full-forward configuration, and the aircraft now flies like an airplane.
 * Pitch Ladder - A “ladder” appears in the center of the HUD showing the aircraft’s current pitch, in degrees.
 * Bank Indicator - Above the Aircraft Endurance Indicator, a curved indicator appears to show the aircraft’s current bank angle, in degrees.
 * Trim Tabs - To either side of the HUD, triangular arrows appear to show the current trim tab setting.