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Spotting Distance... again


bell_rj

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I've been flying the F-14 today. It's absolutely epic. I've been going through the training missions and got to the AA missions and the awful spotting experience ruined it for me a bit. It shouldn't be that hard in a game to find an SU-25 that Jester is telling me is right in front of me.

 

I really do appreciate the improvements in comms over the last year but reading the regular updates on all the frequent Hornet fixes are making me somewhat bitter. Where are the frequent updates to the fundamental, core features?

 

WVR air combat should be the showcase of this game - it should be as epic an experience as launching the F-14 off the carrier to Meteor's soundtrack is. ED should be embarrassed by the current fitness for purpose of the spotting system and spotting should be up there on the highest priority list. It would be really great to hear Wags talk about this because frankly, hearing about the new shiny stuff is starting to wear very thin when core issues seemingly aren't being addressed.

 

Mods: This is not a bug report, or wishlist item, so please don't bury it in those subforums. I hope that Wags will pay it some attention instead.

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I know it's a longstanding issue, but I'm not convinced ED realise how impactful a problem it is on the enjoyment of the game. They should really - because Nineline has responded to posts about it. But where's the progress, or even some sort of comment from Wags?

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The "learn to get better at the game" argument can be permanently discounted as the dev's have already acknowledged the issue by enhancing label options not that long ago.

 

I would like to suggest an interim enhancement that would hopefully be fairly easy to implement. It would be good if labels could be set to disappear within a user configurable range. So I could have labels on to generally locate a target, and then once within guns distance the labels disappear.

 

Why bother with this you might ask? Well having a label obscuring part of an airframe when you have it in the crosshairs looks a bit ugly and immersion breaking so having it disappear automatically would be nice. Admittedly, I could press the key combo to turn them off but that's difficult when in combat and my HOTAS is out of buttons. Anyway, it's not a spotting fix - but something to make labels more flexible.

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the awful spotting experience ruined it for me a bit. It shouldn't be that hard in a game to find an SU-25 that Jester is telling me is right in front of me.

 

 

spotting should be up there on the highest priority list. It would be really great to hear Wags talk about this because frankly, hearing about the new shiny stuff is starting to wear very thin when core issues seemingly aren't being addressed.

 

 

+1

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The trouble with this topic is that most of the “spotting” problems people have are the result of gameplay habits, inadequate hardware or the wrong settings. Or just unrealistic expectations. Devs can’t solvle any of that.

 

I personally experience great visibility in this sim. I can see and identify other aircraft very well.

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The trouble with this topic is that most of the “spotting” problems people have are the result of gameplay habits, inadequate hardware or the wrong settings. Or just unrealistic expectations. Devs can’t solvle any of that.

 

I personally experience great visibility in this sim. I can see and identify other aircraft very well.

 

Not everybody have a 32" 4K monitor as you have, according your firm. If a monitor of 80 cm. ultra HD is a recommended requisit for this simulator in order of seeing and identify other planes in the distance, DCS should say it.

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The "learn to get better at the game" argument can be permanently discounted as the dev's have already acknowledged the issue by enhancing label options not that long ago.

 

I would like to suggest an interim enhancement that would hopefully be fairly easy to implement. It would be good if labels could be set to disappear within a user configurable range. So I could have labels on to generally locate a target, and then once within guns distance the labels disappear.

 

Why bother with this you might ask? Well having a label obscuring part of an airframe when you have it in the crosshairs looks a bit ugly and immersion breaking so having it disappear automatically would be nice. Admittedly, I could press the key combo to turn them off but that's difficult when in combat and my HOTAS is out of buttons. Anyway, it's not a spotting fix - but something to make labels more flexible.

 

 

It IS possible to configure the label to disappear at a set range. The ranges identified in the lua are the stopping point for that configuration of visibility.

 

With a line like this:

 

AirFormat = {
--[distance]    = {format, alignment, color_blending_k, opacity, shift_in_pixels_x, shift_in_pixels_y}
[860]   = {"", "CenterCenter", .01, .01, 0, 0},

 

 

 

This sets the label to be blank UP TO 860 meters (about half a mile). Then after that, you have your lines setting the visibility parameters that you wish up to those established ranges.

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Not everybody have a 32" 4K monitor as you have, according your firm. If a monitor of 80 cm. ultra HD is a recommended requisit for this simulator in order of seeing and identify other planes in the distance, DCS should say it.

No a large 4K monitor isn’t required. But many complaints come from people using small low res (sub 1080p) or laptop screens. Those are obviously not sufficient for playing without icons.

IMO the minimum display required is 24” 1080p capable of 16.7 million colors.


Edited by SharpeXB

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No a large 4K monitor isn’t required. But many complaints come from people using small low res (sub 1080p) or laptop screens. Those are obviously not sufficient for playing without icons.

IMO the minimum display required is 24” 1080p capable of 16.7 million colors.

 

I have a LG IPS 27" full HD 1080p monitor and track IR, and I find dificult to spot the enemy planes to start a dogfight.

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Spotting its wrong! period. always has been wrong, its not hardware problem nor settings, its not "game habits" its the way that the sim renders the objects in the distance, and always appears people that says "i have not problems spotting i have a super vision 20/20 and a super monitor" or the most common "its the way IRL you need to have a 20/20 vision to spotting planes at 0.5 miles" they just justifing a obvious fail in this sim...Spotting its just wrong!

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[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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I concur with Grizzly comment. I play various sims (modern and WWII) and DCS is the only sim of the three to give me headaches at spotting. It needs a serious revamp of the rendering system.

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There are only two types of aircraft, fighters and targets. - Major Doyle "Wahoo" Nicholson, USMC

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I have a LG IPS 27" full HD 1080p monitor and track IR, and I find dificult to spot the enemy planes to start a dogfight.

I had a monitor just like that and found spotting and visibility to be fine. I could see and identify armored vehicles on the ground, at night with NVGs on, in that mono green hue and still see them. I could see ground targets visually in the A-10 that were 14,000’ below me. It takes practice but it’s possible.

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Phil style posted some good videos on this subject:

 

 

 

Yeah but this stuff about seeing a fighter sized contact at 50km is baloney. At any resolution when an aircraft gets within the range that you’d see it at IRL, maybe at the most 7-8 miles. It’s already rendering at more than a single pixel and is visible. Not easily visible. But if you know where to look you’d see it.

I can see other modern fighters at a range before their icons even appear which I think is 10 miles.

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I seem to remember reading some where that (part of) the problem with spotting at resolutions greater than 1080p (I have nothing really to say to people who think that 1080p spotting is hard) in DCS is model .LODs of different aircraft. I was flying yesterday in the Hornet with some of the beautiful new F-14B AI's. When the tomcats got within half or 3/4 mile from me, sections of their aircraft seem to actually become invisible, like pixels are missing. This is all at 4K on a 55 inch screen. Maybe this is an MSAA issue (I play with it off), but I've heard people speak of this elsewhere.

 

I'm still of the opinion (could certainly be wrong here as I'm not a combat pilot) that the difficulty of 4K spotting in DCS is actually pretty close to real life. When I played in 1080p, I was accidentally spotting other fighters in the 1-5 mile range while looking in their general direction. In 4K, you don't accidentally spot anything unless it's 1/2 mile out or less (speaking of smaller fighters here).

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Yeah but this stuff about seeing a fighter sized contact at 50km is baloney.

 

 

Watch the very first video in the link you were given. The "baloney" you reference is a straw man.

What is "realisic" is discussed in the first video. Reliastic range for single engine aircraft is put around the 10 to 15km range - not 50km. This is about the 10nm you are also referencing.


Edited by philstyle
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When the tomcats got within half or 3/4 mile from me, sections of their aircraft seem to actually become invisible, like pixels are missing. This is all at 4K on a 55 inch screen. Maybe this is an MSAA issue (I play with it off), but I've heard people speak of this elsewhere.

Having MSAA off will certainly cause pieces of other aircraft to alias out of rendering as the screen is choosing one color or another and not blending them. I have AA set to 2x in 4K to smooth out jaggies.

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Having MSAA off will certainly cause pieces of other aircraft to alias out of rendering as the screen is choosing one color or another and not blending them. I have AA set to 2x in 4K to smooth out jaggies.

 

If I had a 2000 series GTX, I'd turn up MSAA too. :thumbup:

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@OP

Sorry, I've been gaming on everything from a 27'' 1080p to a 35'' 1440p, and furthermore in many other games, too, as well as training other pilots.

 

Spotting almost entirely comes down to your methodology of searching. Protip #1 stop looking for airplanes or ''out of place'' pixels. Sit still and watch for movement, concentrating on one sector of space at a time.

 

With pilots I've trained with, teaching how to see their hand in front of their face is one of the first big hurdles. ED renders objects to scale, just like 99% of other flight sims. It is a user issue. There is no mathematical wonder magic or render flaw that changes how things look, nor is it THAT big a hardware difference.

 

And saying ED should be 'embarassed' or shamed for ''the state of things'' just makes you sound like a pretensious jackass, especially comsidering the core reasoning of your argument is fundamentally flawed.


Edited by zhukov032186

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