My concerns over possible visibility "corrections"

In 1965 (published Dec 1966, technical report 66-19), the US army commissioned a study which found, if a ground observer on the flat desert terrain used (Dona Ana Range Camp) was given prior notice that an aircraft was about to appear at an altitude of 300'-500' above the observer (so essentially co-altitude), and given angular directions to within 15 degrees of where the target would appear, then in perfect visibility conditions, the observer had a 50% probability of tentatively recognising an aircraft (choosing between an F4, F-100, F-33) at 6,500m (3.5 nm) & a 50% probability of 'positive' recognition at 3,250 m (1.75 nm).

The mean slant range for 'detecting' an aircraft was 13 km head on, and dropped to 8.4km with a 1.4 km offset.

10nm is 18.5km. That's 40% more than the mean detection range under ideal conditions for a smoky old F-4 when the person searching knows where the aircraft is...

In 1965 (published Dec 1966, technical report 66-19), the US army commissioned a study which found, if a ground observer on the flat desert terrain used (Dona Ana Range Camp) was given prior notice that an aircraft was about to appear at an altitude of 300'-500' above the observer (so essentially co-altitude), and given angular directions to within 15 degrees of where the target would appear, then in perfect visibility conditions, the observer had a 50% probability of tentatively recognising an aircraft (choosing between an F4, F-100, F-33) at 6,500m (3.5 nm) & a 50% probability of 'positive' recognition at 3,250 m (1.75 nm).

The mean slant range for 'detecting' an aircraft was 13 km head on, and dropped to 8.4km with a 1.4 km offset.

 

10nm is 18.5km. That's 40% more than the mean detection range under ideal conditions for a smoky old F-4 when the person searching knows where the aircraft is...

+1

I am almost sure, at 10nm you cant see a thing, even if it was a C-5 Galaxy.

I often watch Fighters doing ACM above my head for training...you need eagle eyes to spot them at less even less than 10nm LOS...and I loose visual contact to a starting C-5 long before it reaches 10nm iirc.

Correct, the argument that "zoom is cheating" only works if your monitor is 1:1 with real life in terms of FoV, which it is not.

It works because we need to accept such a simple fact that in real world you are not zooming anything without optical devices. Yes, we have a worse capability to spot things with a computer display than in real world, but computer displays as well have the PPI ratio.

https://designcompaniesranked.com/resources/is-this-retina/

Examples:

28" 4K (3840x2160) display becomes "retina limited" at 22"/56cm viewing distance.

60" 4K monitor becomes "retina limited" at 47"/119cm viewing distance.

60" is 2.14x larger than 28" and so on "retina limit" is as well 2.12 times further.

While achieving a 2.14x increase in the size, the area the display covers in human field of view is as well 2.14x larger, but so is the cockpit elements 2.14x larger too.

So it can end up to situation where one is feeling like an baby in a cockpit and needs to either take display further.

The point is that after those distances, you don't really benefit from increased pixel density (increase in resolution) unless you do that and get the display closer.

And that means it becomes very difficult to spot something that would be smaller than that unless there is a very clear contrast.

Example: If I place a single black dot on a pure white background on 60" television and then I ask someone to stand front of that television even at 1m (3ft) distance, it takes lots of time usually to spot that single black pixel. If I reverse that so it is white pixel on black background, it becomes far more easier even at 3m distance.

But if I place two pixels at one pixel between them in same situations, it is about exactly that "retina limited distance" where they can't separate the two pixels from each others, but they will spot more easier the position of the two pixels where they are.

Now, if someone zooms in to generic area of the pixels, they will spot them way faster and they will as well recognize the pixels separation!

It is same as if they would step in the same zoom factor in distance and look the same generic area of the pixels.

In real world if we can lean in a cockpit, but we don't see any better the distant aircraft as our leaning is nothing compared to distance we are looking outside.

But then is again one thing, how much can pilots lean in after strapped to their seats?

Sorry, I don't see a change for a such A-10C pilot to lean even 30cm forward in their seat, instead everything is set so it is in arm reach and everything is designed so average sight can read and spot cockpit instruments, labels etc even in light G-load.

With 4K monitor, I don't need to lean anywhere when I keep a 28" 4K display at 70cm or I have 60" at 150cm distance. I don't either need to zoom at all to read every label and every text in the cockpits.

Now, when using Rift (or when used Vive) I can't even read 1/2-2/3 of the labels or gauges in a A-10C, Mig-21Bis cockpit without heavily leaning forward.

Should I zoom in? No. It is unrealistic.

Should I zoom out for wider FOV? No, it is even less realistic!

The same thing is with the VR HMD FOV. It is only about a 55-60 degree, not even 90 or the marketed 110 degree because that is calculated both eyes together. And that is where a problems start that we can't even sit in a cockpit and look around in realistic manner as our eye balls can't see outside of the "scuba mask" and our head can't turn around well over shoulder so we could see at our rear at corner of our vision range.

So many VR fanboy is promoting the 1:1 head movement with VR over trackIR acceleration. Yet they are ready to throw all the realism out of the window with the zooming?!

No, the visibility system needs to be designed so that you can spot the targets, identify the targets, read the labels and gauges with default FOV in a default seat position (or any other realistic movement you could do in a cockpit when strapped on it).

And that is the challenging task for the graphics artists, 3D modelers and graphics engine developers to get fixed.

As one part of the immersion and realism "being in a cockpit" is that you are not zooming and leaning and feeling like you are half-blind or like you would be nearsighted person who just lost contacts....

Just a week or two ago I saw the USAF technical chart for the BVR detection and identification range scale between different aircrafts. Where ones like a F-5E was the shortest range and Mig-21 was second shortest, while F-15 and F-15 were the furthest. The differential was that the one of the old calculation ranges were set to 5nm where the BVR starts, that is just 10km. But then again based different testings the size was little over that like F-15 was around a 8-9nm so about 15km. Now a C-130 vs F-15 it is about:

30m vs 20m in length

12 vs 6m in height

That is about the side profile. Meaning that spotting F-15 from 15km distance, means that you are about to spot such from 30km distance by average. Some could do it far further in optimal situations, but that is about the distance scale.

Getting the immersion in VR, means that we are investing money for many things to really do that.

• Seats
  
• controllers
  
• Displays
  
• and now VR HMD
  

We are as well investing to computer performance to get the graphics and such up so we can spot and see things better.

Yet then when we talk about immersion and realism (that so many are fond of), we want just to forget all that with the unlimited zoom range from super-wide angle to super-telephoto vision with a press of a button or slider?

How about just getting the realism and the immersion once and for all?

So how about giving us something like a 4x or 7x binoculars? (Or do they have even 10x, as those are already starting to be difficult to hold steady even at the ground). To be used like a helmet visor so you need to "pick them up" (if we ever get a VR cockpit gloves/hands) and get a narrow FOV with black surroundings while trying to keep them steady and move with the target....

While we can easily spot things that has good contrast from the surroundings, pilots can't spot things well when there ain't a contrast or motion that would reveal target to them. So being able to zoom in and out middle of the combat, aim more carefully via HUD or look closely to some targeting instrument is just totally unrealistic.

We need to overcome some of the display hardware limitations like the VR HMD are suffering and terribly at the moment by modifying the cockpits, 3D models and textures, but we shouldn't either to go and try to use a other features like view FOV change to cheat, as it is similar to enabling labels in a dogfight. As so many hates it, realism is that you can very easily lose a sighting to enemy aircraft with visual range combat and need to do your best to fly so that you can keep them in your view.

The DCS is lacking a lot in the graphics at the moment because there ain't contrast, there ain't enough differential ground elements and many modules are having historic museum windshields and cockpits with enough dirt and weathering that it is like 20-30 year old aircraft rusting in a yard sale. Making difficult, if not possible spot things you should be, like the ground crew important task is to maintain (just like to keep IR missile seeker heads clean, pilots to keep their visors clean and unscratched).

But oh boy, we are flying with museum level dirty cockpits that haven't seen a rag for years... Like it is "immersion". https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=129189 (Why every module should come with a two official cockpit textures, one for the "clean" as year after factory and with maintenance team doing their jobs meaning flying Mig-21Bis, and one with weathering like it is to fly a 50 year old aircraft at 2017, with last service couple years back).

Even a average drivers end up to accidents because windshields gets reflections because lack of maintenance and get dirty or vision is bad because snow/water... And deaths happens because so simple things as you couldn't spot in time that little girl crossing a street as you didn't see the red light....

But we are suppose to be simulating a fighter pilots, fighting for their lives too... Against other ones that are there to kill them... Not just cross the road... Be it a mud speckle size of a 2cm or hundreds of them, blocking the vision and making more difficult to spot things, or be it a camouflaged aircraft flying below us against fitting terrain to conceal it from our spotting eye...

Or simply a incapable 3D model rendering the model invisible...

+1

 

I am almost sure, at 10nm you cant see a thing, even if it was a C-5 Galaxy.

 

I often watch Fighters doing ACM above my head for training...you need eagle eyes to spot them at less even less than 10nm LOS...and I loose visual contact to a starting C-5 long before it reaches 10nm iirc.

So you can't example spot a average passanger airliner that is flying at 11km altitude and 30 degree from your position but not contrailing? That makes it about a 20km/11nm distance.

And I really mean "spot" in the hence word, sitting on the ground and just scanning the sky randomly to known area in about 90 degree angle as airliners fly "somewhere there". Of course contrailing ones are very easy to spot if they leave kilometers long trails, but some leaves nothing and some leaves just a few hundred meters (and those are very easy to spot too!).

It is similar thing as spotting example in the aircraft at 11km altitude a air turbine (30m diameter) at about 20-30 degree angle down. Or a little bit larger bridge from a 30km distance.

It is so much about the contrast when you *can* spot things, and when you really usually then do (being difference like 30km vs 3km) as the change ratio can be like 0.1% vs 45% when you even know "there is something".

Now the DCS offers this "0.1%" change, but it as well offers that "45%" change same way, unless you start using VR or play around with model sizes and zooming.

Until VR gets to the resolution of monitors, people will have to make do with work arounds. That or ED adds a different rendering system for VR

ED better have a new graphics engine in development for VR and texture artists making simplified textures with better contrast, enlarged labels and lines etc. As the future VR HMD will have a foveon rendering technology so only a very small proportion (like 5% of the FOV area) of the world is rendered in full 4K fidelity and everything else like at 640x480 resolution with low end textures.

Right now just making things simpler, cleaner and enlarged for VR would help a lot in cockpit operations, and help even a lot in 3D rendering performance. This is one thing why it is a joy to fly something like L-39 where you can see many cockpit gauges, compared to A-10C or Mig-21Bis where you are almost half-blind.

I'm curious how well the zoom helps this in VR, not many have commented on that feature.

I don't even have it binded, as I didn't have it with TrackIR either. Just a cheat feature that got obsolete.

And especially against ground targets such is very much cheating as spotting a concealed armored vehicle that is stationary and near a forest is suppose to be near impossibility as its shape, coloring and motion isn't revealing it. So you are aiming such vehicles based your knowledge of the surrounding area (left side of that building, about 200m from it, just after that opening in forest).

And why it makes so critical to use all the aids you can get to be efficient, like carry a one smoke rocket pod so you can mark the general area yourself if possible. Have a ground forces to aid you, use the targeting systems to help you and at least if not final thing, watch out for the muzzle flashes :D

In my opinion. The labels are pretty close to RL spotting. For example: In WWII and Korea, height advantage was an essential key for success. Diving down on unsuspecting enemies far below.

Now try tactic in DCS with vintage aircrafts. The visibility without labels aint really suited for that type of stick and rudder combat. Modern planes gets by with radar, rwr and awacs. In the merge the aircrafts involved are generally bigger with visible afterburners helping out to spot aswell.

I still think spotting is an area that can still be improved.

In my opinion. The labels are pretty close to RL spotting. For example: In WWII and Korea, height advantage was an essential key for success. Diving down on unsuspecting enemies far below.

 

Now try tactic in DCS with vintage aircrafts. The visibility without labels aint really suited for that type of stick and rudder combat. Modern planes gets by with radar, rwr and awacs. In the merge the aircrafts involved are generally bigger with visible afterburners helping out to spot aswell.

 

I still think spotting is an area that can still be improved.

In the modern aircrafts we are so unrealistic situation that it ain't even a joke:

• AWACS should have about a 6 updates per minute (every 10 second) so not so accurate at all where someone is, but good estimation where someone should be when not maneuvering or hidden, how quickly they really answer and have data available.
   
  
• Fighters radars doesn't have lags and resolution problems example TWS lag making trouble to guide missiles at maneuvering target or echoes.
   
  
• RWR being constantly awake without limitations
   
  
• Ground radars being constantly up and running regardless situation
   
  
• SAM systems shooting even a burning fighter as far as it ain't in a million pieces
   
  
• TV targeting systems seeing, locking and tracking unrealistically
   
  
• Missiles guidance having own problem case already, but already boosting players at low altitudes instead those at high.
   
  
• No even theoretically working IFF, better have none than that how it in theory works?
  

The problems in "visibility" and "identification" is not just visual, it is as well electronical. Where visually we might be limited (yet we really are in fairly good situation no) then in electronic warfare we are in very bad shape.

We don't even have a dynamic and variable contrails, we just have a hard-level ranges where they start and that's it. Instead having situation where you don't contrail at all and some cases where just other side does it or just one in the flight does/doesn't etc.

In the modern aircrafts we are so unrealistic situation that it ain't even a joke:

Well, let's see:

[*]AWACS should have about a 6 updates per minute (every 10 second) so not so accurate at all where someone is, but good estimation where someone should be when not maneuvering or hidden, how quickly they really answer and have data available.

Depends on the AWACS and its hardware setup. There's absolutely no problem with only scanning a sector instead of 360 degrees.

[*]Fighters radars doesn't have lags and resolution problems example TWS lag making trouble to guide missiles at maneuvering target or echoes.

Mostly made up problems ... unless you're talking about very old TWS implementations.

[*]RWR being constantly awake without limitations

Generally not an issue.

[*]Ground radars being constantly up and running regardless situation

 

[*]SAM systems shooting even a burning fighter as far as it ain't in a million pieces

Neither of these are necessarily unrealistic.

[*]TV targeting systems seeing, locking and tracking unrealistically

And you will never get them to do those things realistically either. Ok, maybe not 'never' but don't hold your breath :)

[*]Missiles guidance having own problem case already, but already boosting players at low altitudes instead those at high.

It's true that missiles have issues, but so do missiles in all games.

[*]No even theoretically working IFF, better have none than that how it in theory works?

Really? You'd rather have no IFF instead of working IFF? Especially considering that you have almost no other avenues of information gathering in the game, no battle manager in an AWACS or GCI spot, realistic goals/missions/targets etc?

The problems in "visibility" and "identification" is not just visual, it is as well electronical. Where visually we might be limited (yet we really are in fairly good situation no) then in electronic warfare we are in very bad shape.

... what? :)

We don't even have a dynamic and variable contrails, we just have a hard-level ranges where they start and that's it. Instead having situation where you don't contrail at all and some cases where just other side does it or just one in the flight does/doesn't etc.

We do have variable contrails ... ever try changing the temps in the mission editor? :)

Other than the contrails though, what does any og this have to do with concerns about visual detection distances? WW2 players don't care about any of the electronics, nor should they need to.

Based to that, we should be able to spot a F-14 from a 12.2-12.3nm what is 23km when it is from bottom/top part. Meaning no matter at what altitude above us, we will be able to spot it (below us, it just easily gets masked by terrain unless shadow or other shape reveals it)

From a sideview a F-14 is at 7nm so 13km distance. This is the most likely situation to spot it at long distance, as not so often does a fighter turn so its belly gets visible and when it does, it is fairly short times unless already in a combat maneuvers.

A Mig-21 from front being only a 2.5nm so a 4.7km while F-14 has 4.5nm so 8.4km, that is fairly huge difference when you consider what are the IR-missile launch ranges, detection probabilities electronically and visually, so one Mig-21 can sneak easily at you even from a clear blue sky in good interception path.

And these are fairly well in DCS already, while some transparency modeling and such could be improved so more pixels could be used for models but make them just less obvious.

So considering the sizes of different larger aircrafts, how can it be that some consider that spotting a C-130 from over 30km distance in perfect conditions is so unrealistic?

Now if we would have a C-5 that slips out of the spotting range in 15km, it would be big joke.

Well, let's see:

 

Depends on the AWACS and its hardware setup. There's absolutely no problem with only scanning a sector instead of 360 degrees.

No mechanical I believe, but limiting your scanning to small area in war era is very unlikely to risk surprises unless you have something else to cover your blind area now.

Mostly made up problems ... unless you're talking about very old TWS implementations.

Does 10-15 years be now considered very old?

Generally not an issue.

Oh how I wish the ED forum would allow multi-quote so I could see what you are replying....

And you will never get them to do those things realistically either. Ok, maybe not 'never' but don't hold your breath :)

You are little mistaken.

- We can't lock TV systems to everything, only to a specific objects like known vehicles. We couldn't even lock to a destroyed target anymore.

- A TV system can lock on automatically to vehicle inside a forest, totally hidden from anykind visual detection.

It's true that missiles have issues, but so do missiles in all games.

That is just an excuse for top military combat simulator.... "Because those arcade games doesn't get it right even in believable manner, so we should get slack too!"

Really? You'd rather have no IFF instead of working IFF? Especially considering that you have almost no other avenues of information gathering in the game, no battle manager in an AWACS or GCI spot, realistic goals/missions/targets etc?

Again, you are misreading.

I question that why we don't get a IFF at all, even when we SHOULD have a even semi-believable system instead just based to the knowledge what the system SHOULD be doing?

It is after all way better than not having it at all like now.

... what? :)

Yes, what?

We do have variable contrails ... ever try changing the temps in the mission editor? :)

Yes, but different aircrafts, like even different F-15C flying in formation doesn't get differential to contrails or contrailing just from one wing for a while etc. There should be possibility to have a flight flying and have just one contrailing or everyone else than one. Have a different contrailing efficiency.

Other than the contrails though, what does any og this have to do with concerns about visual detection distances? WW2 players don't care about any of the electronics, nor should they need to.

The point is, we are all in the same boat. The detection systems, targeting systems all are having problems, realistic or unrealistic ones.

Visual search is the main way to detect any threat in a modern fighter, not the radar and all the fancy systems. The radar system to detect something is far less capable than a human eyes. And those human eyes are very limited by capabilities in even that.

The electronic systems has own serious flaws, like the TWS lag in modern fighters that you are so denying totally from existing or a RWR flaws:

Ie: Document from 1990 covering May 1988 - Aug 1989 period.

The flaws are so serious, why the spotting targets visually is so critically important.

And visual search, spotting, identification etc are in very important role regardless what equipment you are carrying. The benefits of the electronic equipment becomes superior when the visual conditions gets worse so the eyes can't do it well (night, clouds etc) anymore. And that is just a case when it is like flying with 7x binoculars taped on your face, very limited situational awareness regardless all the fancy technology.

Now we have even more challenges when the VR is back in the gaming trend as our visual capabilities are terrible compared to typical displays, because the technology used in VR headsets are so limited that we can't even read the cockpit main instruments well, so how are we suppose to even have a change to do something visually where we should even have a change to do so?

Like with the C-130 being able to be spotted from over 30 km distance in DCS that so many say is impossible in reality (regardless that many pilots say they have been able to spot well in that class), forgetting that it just is possible when you exactly know where to look and in optimal situation (against blue sky etc) and even then it is difficult, but possible.