Request: Remove flight timer
 

If it isn't too much to request, I would like to ask for a way to disable the flight timer, I prefer to use another and more precise indicator, than having the big carbonite arrow in the middle of the screen. (The Carbonite arrow is wildly useful in other situations, so its not as if i hate it :)

i agree the carbonite flight timer isnt acurate because it the timer is dependant on the direction the taxi is going which is why the timer keeps fluctating i use Inflight cause the layout is alot better and the timer stays constant regardless of the direction your gryphon is going.

Two things: If you do not like where the HUD is positioned, you can always move it to somewhere else on your screen. Also, if you just don't like the HUD showing you where you are flying to, and the time to get there, try this: Open Carbonites options to the "Tracking HUD" page, and the last group of options is "Auto tracking options". Just uncheck the "Taxi destination" option.

I also noticed you state "having the big carbonite arrow in the middle of the screen". You can adjust the size of the tracking arrow on the "Tracking HUD" page also, using the "Arrow Size (number)" option (unless, of course, I'm taking your statement too literally).

My guess (and it's just a guess, mind you) is that Carbonite uses the Blizzard flight timer. It's been so long since I've used the default interface that I don't remember how well that timer works. I'm guessing (once again) that is about as inaccurate as the one used by Carbonite.


Personally, I don't really care how inaccurate the flight timer is. My problem is that I can't understand why they fly you all over the map when it is quite often shorter to just go directly between where you are and where you are flying to. IE: The other day I was at the Valley of the Watchers (Tanaris) flight point, and had to go to Marshal's Stand in Un'Goro Crater. However, to get there the flight path went through Gadgetzan. Why? I could have rode my trike there faster, if I had known something like that would happen. That extra flight leg added almost half the distance (and the time to do it) to the trip. I can't wait for my Goblin to hit 60. (Sorry for the rant, guys.)

You're not the only one who feels this way, Jeffy! Instead of flying you from Point A to Point B (the shortest/quickest route), they stretch it out to being more like from Point A to Point B to Point C to Point D to Point E!

and what blizzard dont understand is a bird will ALWAYS fly in a straight line between point A and point B the ONLY time they chance course is if they are being chanced by a predator.

It's really only a modern quirk that aircraft fly directly to their destinations. In prior ages you had to fly around mountains (as your aircraft flew more poorly at higher altitudes) and dangers such as national boundaries and weather.

You also have the other modern strangeness of being able to have absolute reckoning navigation via radio beacons, stargazing, or now GPS.

Traditionally you'd fly from one landmark or beacon to another, which would not be a straight line - things over the horizon would be invisible and their bearings would often be uncertain. You needed to fly over, under, around weather as required by your navigation beacons or landmarks. And you had to not fly into zones that had oncoming traffic - which is why we have 'flight levels' in modern flight - so some areas, altitudes, or passes would be off limits if you were flying the wrong direction or speed.

Also, birds aren't automatons, they like to see the sights, too.

-Crissa

In addition, originally you could not connect flight paths together. You had to talk to the flight master to choose your destination for each leg of your trip. Connecting the flight paths and paying to each flight master as you go (yep - you don't pay all at once) was put in as a convenience to players. Does this help you understand the routes you must follow?

Also, there is no flight timer in the default UI. Addons collect that data themselves.

yeah i remember those days /shudder its awesome how you can fly from point A - Point D and not have to worrry about B and C. but there really shouldnt be a B or C... i wonder what the longest flight is probably silvermoon - BB.

The way it's supposed to work is that Carbonite records how many seconds each flight takes, then uses that as an assumption for future flights. Let's say you fly from Stormwind to Westfall for the first time, or vice versa. Carbonite records it as taking, say, 63 seconds. It'll from that point assume that all flights Stormwind to Westfall to Stormwind will take 63 seconds, unless a new calculation shows it as 65 seconds or 69 seconds, in which case the newest number will be used instead.

If there are no times recorded for the flight path you've chosen, Carbonite assumes the time will be roughly v * d, that is to say, the speed you're currently traveling in (which with flight paths can vary from +50% to +500% movement speed) times the distance to the target in a straight line.

what it should do on new flight paths is instead of showing a constantly fluctuating number is show....

"New Path"
recording...

or something like that.

Yeah, that would be nice.

Sorry about the misinformation. I really had absolutely no idea how Carbonites flight timer worked, so I took a guess. Many thanks, Seerah and Jigain, for setting that straight.