Page 6
Falcon 4 Plus
by Bob "Groucho" Marks
Xis makes some beautiful panels- fast, too.
The Xis Beta 6A cockpit is a real beauty- crisp, clean, and sharp. Like the default MicroProse panel, Xis’s cockpit sports the “narrow view” perspective. Any similarity screeches to a halt here, however. The Xis ‘pit is nothing short of gorgeous, with painstaking attention to detail evident throughout. Even the shading is carried out with style. This cockpit is easily readable and pleasing to the eye. It also shares Paul Wilson’s “six” view.
Not just another almost anal-retentive rendering of the LockMart Block 50-52 cockpit, this cockpit is also akin to a Swiss Army Knife. Like that ubiquitous camping implement, there are several tools folded away inside. And, also like a Swiss Army Knife, some of those tools are of limited usefulness- apparently put there because they could put them there.
The Tactical Reference page of the Xis Beta 6a cockpit
I think that these “special” views are part of an experiment by Xis to see what kind of info could be packed into the cockpit view. I understand the thinking involved, but I’m not quite sure what good it will do anyone to look up the burn time of an SA5 while said missile is about to barrel up your arse. More useful is the airfield reference chart.
Airbase runway alignments
And this MFD view is kind of cool, but again I’m unsure as to what good it is.
Special magnification MFDs for the nearsighted pilots
Again, it’s neat what can be done, but it brings on a shrug. Might I suggest a more useful screen add-on in the cockpits, like your package line-up and targeting window from your briefing. Dunno if it’s possible, but that would be cool.
The Xis cockpit is also the speediest of the group. One of the two ‘pits compatible with F4Turbo v2, it is capable of 17-19 FPS in our controlled scenario with F4Turbo installed. That, by the way, is 70% better than the default panel gets, and again around 28% faster than the pre-F4Turbo install.
It’s for this reason that I normally use the Xis Beta 6a cockpit. It’s pretty and fast- a rare combination indeed. Too bad that it’s not available in a Wide View format! Xis- are you listening…?
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