[the_dark_light]

The 3D radar is quite an interesting feature of Freespace SCP and I was wondering how many people here use it and is it worth trying to get used to?

I've always found it difficult (if not impossible) to see if I'm being followed (when using conventional raday), short of using being fired upon as a cue (and helpful wingman comments)

[Dark Hunter]

It does take a bit of getting used to, but I find it much easier to read than the 2D one. The only thing that's tougher is determining where a "sporadic contact" (Where the dot jumps around) is, but with practice you can discern that as well.

[colecampbell666]

I would never go back to the original.

EDIT: As for the sporadic dots, I find it helps to turn the ship randomly (slowly) until you can discern their location.

[Jeff Vader]

Otherwise it's quite funky, but in 'As Lightning Fall' it's just one of those features that can cause severe damage to your keyboard and surroundings. Trying to find those nav beacons with a 3D radar, when you can barely see those sporadic grey blips, with heavy lightning **** and sensor and radar interference going on... you just gotta have the 2D radar there.

[colecampbell666]

Otherwise it's quite funky, but in 'As Lightning Fall' it's just one of those features that can cause severe damage to your keyboard

Do you not have a joystick or mouse?

[Jeff Vader]

A mouse, yes, but unless you can get it working like in Freelancer, I'm so not using it. Real men play FreeSpace with laptop keyboards.

[Admiral Nelson]

I stopped using the 3D radar specifically because of the sporadic contact issue.  It is very easy to line up on these in the 2D radar but I found it absolutely impossible in the 3D.  I think I've seen screenies of Imperial Alliance with the x-wing style front and rear 2D radar.  I think I might like that better than either the two options we have now.

[the_dark_light]

A mouse, yes, but unless you can get it working like in Freelancer, I'm so not using it. Real men play FreeSpace with laptop keyboards.

Well, technically, real men play FreeSpace with a HOTAS controller (F-16 layout) with a spring so stiff you need arms like popeye to manouver (sorry for the poor spelling)
How I wish I had one of those

Thanks for all the input people, from the advantages you've described I'll have a go at getting used to it.  I'll fly a few nav point/bouy locating based missions to see how much trouble I'll have.

[colecampbell666]

The easy thing to do would be to try out each one, and see what you like. It's all personal preference

[BlackDove]

The 2D radar gives you the entire three dimensional spacial information about your targets, if you know how to read it.

The 3D radar is completely useless, and just takes you out of the experience with its insane coloring scheme and look.

[Mustang19]

I never made any sense of the 3D radar. So 2D all the way.

All you really care about in this game is whether the bad guys are in front, behind, or to the side of you. Maybe if FreeSpace had some real need for tactical thinking you would benefit from 3D situational awareness, but it's an arcade game and until someone comes up with a way to change that it always will be. So I neither understand nor see the point of the 3D radar... which shows how clueless I am to be posting in this thread.

[Marcus Vesper]

I tried it out for one mission and instantly went back.  That sort of situational awareness isn't really useful most of the time, simply knowing which direction to turn to face enemies/allies usually suffices.  I have to agree that the color scheme was definitely a factor, it just doesn't look "Freespace" at all.

[BlackDove]

There is no situational awarness to be had from the 3D radar. The same thing is offered by the 2D one, and better.

[IceFire]

I MUCH prefer the 2D one...I'm not really sure why everyone liked the 3D one so much.  I remember one of the other space games...I-War maybe...had the 3D version and I found that confusing as heck.   2D or "Wing Commander style" as some know it is the best of the options for representing the information at a glance.  Thats my thoughts anyways.  The good thing about SCP is that people can have it both ways so if it works for you...by all means

[colecampbell666]

The 2D one is easy to read, but I like the 3d one better. It could use a color change, though. I believe that it was made those colors because they are standard to indicate pitch, yaw, roll. At least I think.

[Unknown Target]

I don't like the 3D radar at all, I find it's unintuitive and it's hard to discern target location, I use 2D.

[BlueFlames]

I very much prefer the turn-that-way-and-shoot simplicity of the 2D radar display.  Still trying to get past that, "Your instructor is not a valid target," part of the game, though.

[Excalibur]

2D, because you can actually tell whether a ship is in front of you. Nothing more annoying than shooting at something that isn't there because you think it's in front of you when it's not, it's just the radar.

You don't need the 3D one to see if something's attacking you - you have thosse bleeping things and what else.
And the R key. Then you get used to killing the AI without a targeting it.

[S-99]

Oh man, the 3d radar is a big help. You get used to it. It's the same kind of radar independence war 2 uses. If all of the blips are in the very back center of the sphere, those blips are actually behind you, if all of the blips are in the very front center of the sphere all of those blips are actually in front of you. That should help you out. After that navigating those sporadic dots in fs2 especially when you're in the nebula becomes significantly easier with the 3d radar. Because the you can tell if the sporadic blips are in front of you or in back of you, or to your left or right. All in all, it's much better and more intuitive than the 2d radar. In the end you'll be thanking jesus and praying at the feet of the person who created the 3d radar. Oh man,  my first encounter with the fso, had the 3d radar, i went "boing" and knew that something for fs2 i was waiting for a long time finally came (that be the i-war2 orb style radar).

[Fearless Leader]

A mouse, yes, but unless you can get it working like in Freelancer, I'm so not using it. Real men play FreeSpace with laptop keyboards.

thats interesting....

how do you do it?

I couldnt re-map the keys so it was comfortable to play