Different Outside-World size/distance perception among modules?

Hi

Since I am flying the Tomcat (which is basically from day 1) I always had the feeling during case 1 aproaches that the ships (prominently the carrier itself as i am focusing on it the most) appeas different in distance when compared to the Hornet. At least i perceive it as farther away. It is like if I zoomed in when flying the Hornet and zoomed out when flying the Tomcat. Obviously this can not be in RL as canopy glasses don't act as such lenses (beside some minor optical phenomena when the view is slightly distorted at glass edges etc. but this is not the subject of this post)

To actually see if this is a thing i made the following test. I set up a mission in ME with the carrier on my port side and I fly such that my path goes parallel to the carrier at exactly 1.2 nm abeam distance. I keep flying at 600 ft MSL and I made a screenshot at the position when the sun reflection on the water is at about the middle of the carrier (for having a reference). I carried this out with both the Hornet and the Tomcat to have a direct 1vs1 comparison. The first picture is from the Hornet, the second one with the Tomcat. Of course the shots were taken with reset zoom (i.e. Numpad enter)

Does anyone notice the same? Is it actually intended? Am I doing something wrong or is there a clue in a configuration which i missed?

cheers

press rctrl+pause and then compare the FOV numbers from both modules. Num5 doesn't reset FOV afaik.

What are field of view numbers?

I didn't press num5 but num enter to reset the standard zoom (whatever this is.. can obviously be different among modules)

I don't know exactly what it is but my feeling has always been that DCS does a very poor job with scaling when you get below 1,000 feet. I always feel like once you get below that threshold, there is very little difference in how height is represented. At 450 feet ASL behind the boat, it may as well be 50 feet. Visually you always look way too low. In my (limited) real world flight experience, the visuals in game don't seem to match real life.

FOV numbers, numbers that indicate how big (in degrees) your field of view is. They are located somewhere on the top left if you press that combo twice.

Yes, didn't read it correctly. NumEnter resets it, but then the question is, is the default one the same on both?

FOV numbers, numbers that indicate how big (in degrees) your field of view is. They are located somewhere on the top left if you press that combo twice.

That makes sense, the angle obviously changes at different zoom levels.

[...] but then the question is, is the default one the same on both?

I did the test again and you are right: they differ indeed. The Hornet has a FOV angle around 65° when NumEnter is pressed, the Tomcat has 85°. This explains the difference in size.

This brings me to the question about why this is (apparently) arbitrarily different among modules? I mean, human eyes have (with neglected anatomic variations among many people) the same FOV (unless you are drunk :D ) but as demonstrated, this brings way more discrepancies and problems than only a wider in-cockpit view when everyone cooks his own soup in terms of FOV.

It’s so they can fit more cockpit in view while having the viewpoint in a realistic location

This might very well be the devs' point but you get that at the cost of a weird looking scene outside. To me it sounds like a trade-off between either good looking cockpit and distorted outside world or the other way around. Why is it not possible to have both?

I understand that everyone is trying to find an optimum in this regard but the question still remains: why is it necessary at all to tweak? Shouldnt one FOV apply to all planes for two reasons: it is more realistic, FOV doesn't vary too much among people (at least not in the range between 85° - 65°) and the world-perception is the same among airframes.

I don't want to criticize heatblur in their design decisions but a distorted world for the sake of a wider cockpit view seems to be a questionable trade.

It's probably for the guys with unnatural FOV screens like 32 and up : 9 so those still can see the gauges while looking through the wind shield... or those who want to see both their wings swept back at the same time in the corners of their screens while still looking forward without actually having a ponish FOV IRL. Weird if you ask me.

[...] or those who want to see both their wings swept back at the same time in the corners of their screens while still looking forward without actually having a ponish FOV IRL. Weird if you ask me.

Pffff .. Real fighter pilots had scarfs to not get a stiff neck because if they were not able to turn their head to look back, they were dead! :sly:

Jokes aside (and also slightly looking towards heatblur with a humble expression on my face): would it be possible to implement an option for setting a default FOV in special options? I know that i can change it by doing some LUA magic but then the integrity check fails. I could also just zoom during flight but it is inconvenient if i need to change the zoom level for some reason and go back to the default one.

In your Mods\aircraft\F14\Input\F-14B\keyboard folder, edit default.lua with an actual editor (like Notepad++, not that old Win 3.11 program that still comes with 10) and add this block:

-- COCKPIT VIEW FOV / ZOOM PRESETS
{down = iCommandViewZoomAbs, value_down = [b]-1.000000[/b], name = _('Cockpit FOV [b]30[/b]'), category =  _('View Cockpit FOV')},
{down = iCommandViewZoomAbs, value_down = [b]-0.600000[/b], name = _('Cockpit FOV [b]60[/b]'), category =  _('View Cockpit FOV')},
{down = iCommandViewZoomAbs, value_down = [b]-0.200000[/b], name = _('Cockpit FOV [b]90[/b]'), category =  _('View Cockpit FOV')},

Make sure you put it before this part (especially the brackets) in the end:

[b]})[/b]

return res

This will add a category "View Cockpit FOV" to the keybindings with 3 entries in it that will instantly set your FOV to 30, 60 or 90°. These are the values for the Tomcat, most other planes have a FOV range from 20 to 140 where you'd have to adjust the bold numbers accordingly (-0.833333, -0.333333, 0.166666) to get the same FOVs. -1 is always the min. FOV and 1 the max. FOV. Everything in between is linear, so in a range from 20 to 14, the value 0 would set the FOV to 80 whereas in the F-14 it would be 105 instead.

I'm using this for all modules because I just was so used to the zoom system of a well known WWII sim that had those levels mapped to Del, End and PgDn, I just had to find a way to have the same system in DCS and in the end I was glad to find out how it's done. I just have to recheck those files from time to time to see if they got changed by the devs and redo my edits. I created a JSGME mod for those so I can always revert to the default files for updating and throwing in my modded ones afterwards. Of course it's also possible to map those to a stick or HOTAS, but the changes have to be made in the respective file instead then.

Thank you Eldur, that is indeed very useful!

Do you know by chance if it breaks the integrity check? Do you know if it is also possible to do these steps with a file in the .../Saved Games/... folder to prevent it from being overwritten?

thanks!

It wont break the IC and you have to mod the files in the DCS folder which is why I built it as a mod for myself (made changes to practically every module including some default mappings for views, time acceleration and other global settings).

Alright, thank you very much!

Do fov changes have any effect in vr? Just curious.