Improved Spotting

Using the zoom to spot things is no preferred seriously and real bad in VR, we do not zoom-in period.

Not being able to use the zoom easily in VR is a reason that it's going to need much better resolution in order to be really usable in a CFS. At least on a 2D screen you can use it.

How do the MV sprites look in VR?

@56RAF_Talisman Zoom in with Track IR is bad habit.. rather keep your axis to move your head forward in the cockpit instead and map (view tab ) to have a zoom quick sight on a key.

Thanks for the information. I have the zoom in/out function mapped under my thumb on the joystick, but it looks at such a small area on maximum zoom. This is ok if you know reasonably well where you want to look, such as the reported place of a target on the ground, but trying to use it air-to-air to scan the sky around you on maximum zoom is just plane crazy, LOL; it looks at such a tiny area on maximum zoom :((

Did you try to have just like two positions on the joystick like one mid and far zoom ? no zoom in slow ?

I use 3 my far out normal sight view position which I spend all my time on at a max fov of 95 one mid at 70 and the other 20 or 30 max.

Yeah I prefer the variable zoom an axis provides, without having to dedicate any of my stick axes. The only "spare" one on my warthog get used for antenna elevation.

Now what DCS really need to help the spotting is what i was hoping is the material/ fuselage / canopy light reflection. Reflection are bigger than a dot ;) really count on this .. we talked about it ( at list I ) long ago.

Spotting is much easier when light fluctuate on an object close by or far away ( real life ) DSC should emulate this.

Any objects. Military use camouflages, special mat paint etc for that particular reason.

Yeah an axis for the zoom is the best way, with that you can vary it infinitely and zoom in and out at different speeds. Sometimes you might need to look quickly in at something and quickly out again to scan. I don't like the 30/70/90 snap thing that CoD had because snapping can make you lose a faint target, it's better to transition smoothly. DCS needs the zoom-out amount limited and that can be accomplished in the axis tuning.

Now what DCS really need to help the spotting is what i was hoping is the material/ fuselage / canopy light reflection. Reflection can be bigger than a dot ;) really count on this .. we talked about it ( at list I ) long ago.

 

Spotting is much easier when light fluctuate on an object close by or far away ( real life )

Any objects. Military use camouflages, special mat paint etc for that particular reason so DSC should emulate this.

I am hoping 1.5 gives better reflections off the painted surfaces. The matte finishes on the WWII planes don't seem correct.

-----Agreed :) hope is coming when this is reported and letting Devs knows about it ( I'm sure they know but good to be reminded by many) "Edge" to me was this hope and performance ).

I hope we have a system that requires you to do this:

http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Visual_Scanning_Technique

And not one that lets you do this like previous games in the past until DCS came along.

Glancing out and 'giving the old once-around' without stopping to focus on anything is practically useless; so is staring out into one spot for long periods of time.

:megalol:

I hope we have a system that requires you to do this:

 

http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Visual_Scanning_Technique

 

And not one that lets you do this like previous games in the past until DCS came along.

"Proper scanning requires the constant sharing of attention with other piloting tasks, thus it is easily degraded by such conditions as distraction, fatigue, boredom, illness, anxiety or preoccupation."

We might be at a disadvantage compared to real pilots in having to perceive the world through a computer screen. But we aren't facing such real world distractions as above. I'm sure that's why getting jumped by an adversary was much more likely in real combat than in sim games.

:megalol:

"Proper scanning requires the constant sharing of attention with other piloting tasks, thus it is easily degraded by such conditions as distraction, fatigue, boredom, illness, anxiety or preoccupation."

 

We might be at a disadvantage compared to real pilots in having to perceive the world through a computer screen. But we aren't facing such real world distractions as above. I'm sure that's why getting jumped by an adversary was much more likely in real combat than in sim games.

I dunno about that - even sitting in front of a computer screen it's possible to feel the effects of any of the above, except the end results won't be as dangerous (hopefully)! :joystick:

This Mayday episode on the effects of fatigue is interesting...

And here's a chart showing the approximate size of a small, single-engine aircraft at various distances; the times to collision will usually be a lot quicker during WW2 air-to-air combat.

Friedrich-4/B that's kind of what it looks like now in DCS with Visbility Normal. This means that ED is doing something right.

Friedrich-4/B that's kind of what it looks like now in DCS with Visbility Normal.

Yes if you are using the smallest FoV, but when zooming out it's not so easy to see it anymore and that's where the problem is.

So what are your thoughts? It's an improvement for the WW2 birds in my opinion. I tried out normal, and then enlarged. You can see a transition from the icon to the regular 3d model and it is not always pretty, but now it is not so easy to loose a bandit in the ground clutter.

 

Maybe in the future the effect will get cleaned up a bit. For now I am content with the improvement. Thank you ED.

:thumbup:

If I have a bandit on my tail, I go for the ground, be it city buildings, hills, trees or zig-zagging the power line towers. I'm looking for any way to get more separation from him so I can go at him again and try to get on HIS tail. Once they make the trees real and collidable should be interesting for both me and him. Yeah, I have lost the bad guy in the ground cover. Usually he slips up and runs into something...

I was on the Open Beta 1.5 update, some new WWII era, USA (low ping) server today. When I got near the F10 map's bullseye I noticed very small circle open dots out the cockpit at about 2 or 3 miles out where the enemy aircraft were. Is this something new? Is this deliberate? Nice feature!

See my attached screenshot

(re: Message #16)

So, that's what that setting is for.

I set mine at normal, not knowing what it did.

Thanks for the pic.

 

I was on the Open Beta 1.5 update, some new WWII era, USA (low ping) server today. When I got near the F10 map's bullseye I noticed very small circle open dots out the cockpit at about 2 or 3 miles out where the enemy aircraft were. Is this something new? Is this deliberate? Nice feature!

Sounds like the Dogs of War server, running "King of the Hill."

The circle is a ring of towers and derricks surrounding Poti. Is that where you were?

Now what DCS really need to help the spotting is what i was hoping is the material/ fuselage / canopy light reflection. Reflection are bigger than a dot ;) really count on this .. we talked about it ( at list I ) long ago.

 

Spotting is much easier when light fluctuate on an object close by or far away ( real life ) DSC should emulate this.

Any objects. Military use camouflages, special mat paint etc for that particular reason.

I agree with TheGozr. IMO the Ver.1.5 has improved graphic quality, but lack of reflections effects, makes it harder spotting contacts than reality.

Some friends who are RL pilots are agree with me, about this issue in this sim.

There seems to be a bit of reduction of contrast between aircraft and their background, which increases with distance... which makes it rather harder to spot aircraft at long distances than it used to.

I feel like medium-range spotting is much easier, short range spotting is the same, but long range spotting is somewhat harder than 1.2.

However, I can say that as soon as I realized that the game wouldn't play full-screen mode unless I used control-enter, the experience improved. For some reason, my game seems to run a slightly different color palette (or shaders?) in full screen than in windowed borderless mode. Colors are brighter and there is somewhat more contrast in full screen, and it makes spotting significantly easier. Pretty happy with it in full screen mode.

I like the ideas that sunlight reflections are a big part of spotting.

The BOKEH effect you can turn on for the external view could be a very valid effect to apply to the visibility sprite.

Of course the effect would need to be a turned down a lot BUT the idea of taking reflective intensity of small but VERY bright specular highlights on a distant object and blurring it a little might achieve the goal.

From an internet conversation on the blurring that happens with the human eye ...

boke for the human eye is similar to that of a higher end P&S, with an additional degree of indistinctiveness outside of a 2-5° FoV.

In other words if you aren''t looking right at a distant object then a slightly blurred reflection of sunlight is probably how you end up spotting something. It is the motion and flash in your peripheral that catches your attention. This would work so well in VR :)

I just noticed that, this "model visibility" settings works as it should with ground units. Not with the aircraft's, at least not in my computer...

Does the blur setting impact visibility?

I believe it does

What setting are you using out of interest?

That was one of the main perk or improvement that I was looking for with 1.5, but it does not work with crossfire. It give my freeze frame or massive shutter, I am not sure if they're a fix and if they are working on it.