Contact Spotting

[Tomsk]

This.^. Soon as I see icons I'm out. I don't care about the reasons, to me it's pure arcade and poor visibility affects everyone equally anyway.

 

Personally I kind of disagree with the "everyone is in the same situation so it's all fine" argument. The issue is that not being able to see as well as people realistically could in real life, leads to a change in tactics. For me this was really highlighted in War Thunder FRB mode that had a lot of spotting issues. In real life BnZ was an important tactic, so much so that planes such as the FW-190 were virtually designed around it. BnZ happens very rarely in WarThunder FRB. Why? well because you just can't see well enough to do it. As a result most matches end up as low level turn fights, because that's what works well when nobody can see anything. From unrealistic spotting comes unrealistic behaviour, which gives unrealistic gameplay.

 

I've posted it before, and I'll post it again. When you do the math you can work out that the resolution of a human eye (if the pilot has good vision), is about 4x what can be achieved with a normal 24" 1920x1200 monitor. For a comparison of what a difference of 4x resolution looks like, here's some pictures:

 

 

I'm not saying icons is the best solution ... they are definitely an immersion buster. But as I've posted before, something like Falcon 4's SmartScaling might work really well.

[HagarTheHorrible]

I think I noticed a big, big difference between following a contact from above and from below the horizon.  I found it far easier to follow a bandit that was flying below the horizon for far longer so the engagement envelope was much greater and if I looked away I could be far more certain of reacquiring the contact.  Above the horizon was a completely different story, the white band about horizon level was bad enough but as the bandit moved just above that he would just vanish, even if I was following him visually or after momentarily losing him behind a canopy spar, zooming in didn't help either, he just vanished and I would have to flap around trying to avoid being shot before I could reacquire him again.  Originally when I first encountered this I thought it might be the aliasing making aircraft less solid, now I'm not so sure it's anything to do with that.  It might be the developers attempt to have a very bright sky and aircraft being lost in the general glare, it's difficult to say.

[II./JG27_Rich]

Icons = out for me, isn't this why we have icon dogfight arenas and fullreal dogfight / online war arenas? It would be great if we could turn icons off like you can in IL-2 even if you are in an icon server. That way you don't have to stay at a bunch of numbers.

Edited December 8, 2013 by II./JG27_Rich

[II./JG27_Rich]

I don't want to be flying in  an alphabet soup like this

 

Edited December 8, 2013 by II./JG27_Rich

[-MG-Cacti4-6]

I don't want to be flying in  an alphabet soup like this

 

thankfully there is virtually no ramming in FRB's. but i havent played in about two weeks since I got this....war thunder and IL-2 could be case studies in quantity over quality/ quality over quantity. some people like the assortment of airframes even though by and large those airframes are broken. not me, if i only have a handfull of a/c to fly I'm happy so long as they handle as they should...which i think may be a predominant mindset here..

Personally I kind of disagree with the "everyone is in the same situation so it's all fine" argument. The issue is that not being able to see as well as people realistically could in real life, leads to a change in tactics. For me this was really highlighted in War Thunder FRB mode that had a lot of spotting issues. In real life BnZ was an important tactic, so much so that planes such as the FW-190 were virtually designed around it. BnZ happens very rarely in WarThunder FRB. Why? well because you just can't see well enough to do it. As a result most matches end up as low level turn fights, because that's what works well when nobody can see anything. From unrealistic spotting comes unrealistic behaviour, which gives unrealistic gameplay.

 

I've posted it before, and I'll post it again. When you do the math you can work out that the resolution of a human eye (if the pilot has good vision), is about 4x what can be achieved with a normal 24" 1920x1200 monitor. For a comparison of what a difference of 4x resolution looks like, here's some pictures:

 

 

I'm not saying icons is the best solution ... they are definitely an immersion buster. But as I've posted before, something like Falcon 4's SmartScaling might work really well.

very thoughtfull post. I will say that my FlightFX settings have helped aircraft stand out a touch more against surroundings. but yeah the spotting range by and large is way to short

[II./JG27_Rich]

I can't disagree with you -MG-Cacti4-6. What I think War Thunder has done has brought tons of people back into the world of WWII combat flight sims witch is fantastic. Eventually if BOS takes off and I'm guessing it will we will see more and more aeroplanes with more theaters with those huge beautiful maps. Guys and gals over at War Thunder will easily become so skilled I'm thinking that they will be wanting a bigger challenge and that's where the ego inflamed IL-2 guys and gals come in   We will be seeing War Thunder converts coming over to BOS and we should welcome them with Vodka and Schnapps

Edited December 9, 2013 by II./JG27_Rich

[II./JG27_Rich]

I was just talking to Apeoftheyear in a reply to my youtube video and he said that it must be fixed but not with icons so I thought for a second and said he was right because mainly of this. In a full real Online War witch they all are it would almost be impossible to find an enemy, it's that simple. So with that in mind they'll fix it I'm 100% sure

[=RvE=Windmills]

One more point where copying the Il2 1946 mechanics would fix 90% of the problems.

[-MG-Cacti4-6]

I can't disagree with you -MG-Cacti4-6. What I think War Thunder has done has brought tons of people back into the world of WWII combat flight sims witch is fantastic. Eventually if BOS takes off and I'm guessing it will we will see more and more aeroplanes with more theaters with those huge beautiful maps. Guys and gals over at War Thunder will easily become so skilled I'm thinking that they will be wanting a bigger challenge and that's where the ego inflamed IL-2 guys and gals come in   We will be seeing War Thunder converts coming over to BOS and we should welcome them with Vodka and Schnapps

Oh but dont get me wrong, I am glad to see the genre beginning to regain life. But i may just wet myself when I see the first "zomg 109f4 too op, pls nerf, this game needs to be balanced." thread.

 

I mean, WW2 wasnt balanced, a game depicting a ww2 front in a combat flight simulator fashion should not balance its airplanes either. now if we are talking about asymetrical maps in MP, were one team gets more units (russians) and another team has the better equipment (germans) I am all for that for sure. 

[II./JG27_Rich]

Oh but dont get me wrong, I am glad to see the genre beginning to regain life. But i may just wet myself when I see the first "zomg 109f4 too op, pls nerf, this game needs to be balanced." thread.

 

I mean, WW2 wasnt balanced, a game depicting a ww2 front in a combat flight simulator fashion should not balance its airplanes either. now if we are talking about asymetrical maps in MP, were one team gets more units (russians) and another team has the better equipment (germans) I am all for that for sure. 

As time goes by though remember that the Russians will get superb aeroplanes......big gulp. Did you ever play IL-2 and fly up against an La-5 in an F4 or G2? You have your match up or a little over matched. They're fast the turn very good excelleration the only thing I can think of is they may be a little weak in the wings and have to be careful in fast dives and 109s performe better up high.

Edited December 9, 2013 by II./JG27_Rich

[-MG-Cacti4-6]

right, which i am also totally fine with because its historically accurate. but a fabricated balance thing between a/c, not a fan 

 

 

back onto this spotting issue though. if anybody wants to use my flightfx settings file, let me know through pm or a reply here.  the side on the right is active, left side is stock game.

 

 

 

 

 

[II./JG27_Rich]

I went and lost 50% of my 2000 109 pictures when I formatted my system 

[ACG_KaiLae]

right, which i am also totally fine with because its historically accurate. but a fabricated balance thing between a/c, not a fan 

 

 

back onto this spotting issue though. if anybody wants to use my flightfx settings file, let me know through pm or a reply here.  the side on the right is active, left side is stock game.

 

Playing with postFX settings to make it so you can see things would be a severe dissapointment. This is what you have to do with war thunder because it's just bad, there's no reason that BoS should be this way. CLoD seems to work fairly well with the TF4.0 patch (which has both reflections and contrails enabled) and they are still working to improve it. It would be...subpar...if the game from the previous generation outperformed the next one in this area, which is literally a make or break type of one.

[Fifi]

 if anybody wants to use my flightfx settings file, let me know through pm or a reply here.  the side on the right is active, left side is stock game.

 

Even if i find your incockpit quite dark to my taste, go ahead mate please! 

I'll try it, to see if it's better than mine was (had to give up because snow reflection was very bad)

 

EDIT: it looks like the pilot is wearing sunglasses...but i think it could be historical accurate, isn't it?

They had sunglasses in WW2!

Edited December 9, 2013 by Fifi

[HagarTheHorrible]

Nobody have anything to say about my post regarding the difference spotting contacts above and below the horizon ?

[Finkeren]

the contact spotting must be better i see the dots at 1500m it is to low

in the dogfight mission we have good weather with sun and no clouds, so we must spotting the enemy at 10000 m

10 km is a bit much for a fighter sized aircraft. 4 - 5km would be adequate I think with contrails being visible at longer ranges.

[HagarTheHorrible]

Should contacts have the same contact visability regardless of FOV.  At the moment there is a big difference, with bandits disapearing at the wider FOV angles.  It ends up with a constant zooming in and out during dogfights.

[SKG51_robtek]

Zooming is not a option, imo, as it absolutely destroys your situational awareness.

One uses it to get the sniper shot and in the next moment one is trailing smoke and going down in flames,

surprised by a enemy one never saw.

Of course most victim pilots experienced that, but they weren't forced to concentrate on a small spot of the sky.

Edited December 9, 2013 by robtek

[Primus_71]

I had no issues spotting contacts in RoF. But in BoS, they are very difficult to spot, especially F4 against blue sky. This is a critical issue. Hopefully, it will be resolved by final version launch. 

[6S.Manu]

10 km is a bit much for a fighter sized aircraft. 4 - 5km would be adequate I think with contrails being visible at longer ranges.

 

Should contacts have the same contact visability regardless of FOV.  At the moment there is a big difference, with bandits disapearing at the wider FOV angles.  It ends up with a constant zooming in and out during dogfights.

Sure.

 

Still they should make a dynamic rendering for the 3D models, so that the far contacts can appear only if the pilot look at the right narrow spot.

 

[=RvE=Windmills]

 

 

Still they should make a dynamic rendering for the 3D models, so that the far contacts can appear only if the pilot look at the right narrow spot.

 

Well since the game can't tell what part of the screen I'm looking at, this would be rather annoying.
 

You can move you eyes in real life, but for the same effect ingame you'd need to swing your head around way too much.

[-MG-Cacti4-6]

Well since the game can't tell what part of the screen I'm looking at, this would be rather annoying.

 

You can move you eyes in real life, but for the same effect ingame you'd need to swing your head around way too much.

this.

 

the dynamic rendering idea is good in theory, BUT in order for it to work properly people would have to zoom in on a specific area, that way the game would be able to tell presicely what area you are looking at. plus there is the added situational awareness loss to using the zoom features. 

[AndyHill]

Luckily the focusing feature is automatic as your eyes focus on a spot on the monitor pretty much as they would when scanning the skies. 

[=RvE=Windmills]

Luckily the focusing feature is automatic as your eyes focus on a spot on the monitor pretty much as they would when scanning the skies. 

 

I think the suggestion was to have aircraft not be on the monitor at all unless it is in the center of view.

Edited December 9, 2013 by iLOVEwindmills

[AndyHill]

Yes and the good point made by someone earlier was that there's no way to know where the center of view actually is unless you do eye tracking. But that's not really much of an issue IMRO, since your eyes will take care of any focusing issues automatically.

[Krupi]

I have to say Track Ir is not implemented as well as I had hoped, compared to other sims there appears to be an invisible wall that stops you leaning so far forward... I hope they change it. 

 

+1 For the no zoom to see contacts...

Edited December 9, 2013 by Krupi

[VR-DriftaholiC]

I have to say Track Ir is not implemented as well as I had hoped, compared to other sims there appears to be an invisible wall that stops you leaning so far forward... I hope they change it. 

 

+1 For the no zoom to see contacts...

 

I nestle my self to an imaginary gun sight when I hit F12 then adjust the zoom. After that when you sit back it's just about perfect.

[Capt_Hook]

Personally I kind of disagree with the "everyone is in the same situation so it's all fine" argument. The issue is that not being able to see as well as people realistically could in real life, leads to a change in tactics. For me this was really highlighted in War Thunder FRB mode that had a lot of spotting issues. In real life BnZ was an important tactic, so much so that planes such as the FW-190 were virtually designed around it. BnZ happens very rarely in WarThunder FRB. Why? well because you just can't see well enough to do it. As a result most matches end up as low level turn fights, because that's what works well when nobody can see anything. From unrealistic spotting comes unrealistic behaviour, which gives unrealistic gameplay.

 

I've posted it before, and I'll post it again. When you do the math you can work out that the resolution of a human eye (if the pilot has good vision), is about 4x what can be achieved with a normal 24" 1920x1200 monitor. For a comparison of what a difference of 4x resolution looks like, here's some pictures:

 

 

I'm not saying icons is the best solution ... they are definitely an immersion buster. But as I've posted before, something like Falcon 4's SmartScaling might work really well.

I applaud this post, and was going to make something similar (but not as well worded and without the awesome visual aids!) when I was still reading the first page.  Icons are a visual immersion killer, but dramatically limited viewing distances are worse.  Nothing breaks immersion more than being unable to execute historical maneuvers and combat responses. 

 

My favorite IL2 server back in the day was the old Warclouds server.  They ran icons showing plane type that appeared at roughly the correct distance for a pilot with good vision (can't remember what that was... something like 2.5K?), but that was it.  Made historical tactics possible.

 

In the real thing, you couldn't fly if you couldn't see well.  If the draw distance can be fixed without icons then great, but even though I'm in the minority I'd go for immersion-breaking icons over immersion-breaking myopia any day. 

Edited December 10, 2013 by NervousEnergy

[6S.Manu]

Well since the game can't tell what part of the screen I'm looking at, this would be rather annoying.

 

You can move you eyes in real life, but for the same effect ingame you'd need to swing your head around way too much.

 

You can have the model rendered after x seconds as you're looking in its possible direction (based on an average number of fixations): in reality you can be lucky and spot the guy within the first seconds, or miss him since it's at the end of the fixations' path. So make it random in a range of 1 to 10 seconds.

Edited December 10, 2013 by 6S.Manu

[6S.Manu]

Introducing a random element to a MP game is always a bad idea!

 

Is it realistic to have contacts who pop out instantly?   

Anyway I disagree with you opinion: I don't think bomber pilots are going to whine about the random clouds covering the target area. Its simply bad luck. Luck is part of many MP games... have you ever played with dice?   

 

Edited December 10, 2013 by 6S.Manu

[Tomsk]

So I can see the logic of fading in icons with time, as a person looks at an area of space so they take in more and so the icons become more visible. Apparently WWIIOnline used a similar system to that.

 

But as far as I can tell people are currently talking about fading in the rendering of the actual objects over time? I don't really see why you would want to do that? It's not as if a model in game is easier to spot than a plane in real life ... indeed, it's quite a bit harder to spot a model in game for various reasons. Why does the model need to be rendered only after a certain time looking at a particular place?

[SR-F_Winger]

I am running 2560x1600 resolution all maxxed out and i can spot enemys at aproximately 2-3 km. Its OK but i also think that it would be nice if they would be rendered further away.

If there is a way to increase the distance WITHOUT adding BS like clod dots or stupid arcademarkers i am all for it.

[Maico]

I cant see the contacts unless I zoom in also. This is counterproductive as it makes me look through a "straw".  A very limited field of view.  Here is how I dealt with this.  I turned on Icons (I devoted a button on my throttle to this) till I get close enough to see him with my eye then I turn them off.  Yes, its not realistic but It kept me from getting blasted in the face by the ace over and over. 

  Hopefully there will be a better dot in the next release.... 

 

Please put it on the list devs. 

 

Maico

[6S.Manu]

this.

 

the dynamic rendering idea is good in theory, BUT in order for it to work properly people would have to zoom in on a specific area, that way the game would be able to tell presicely what area you are looking at. plus there is the added situational awareness loss to using the zoom features. 

 

I don't think so. If you search using wide FoV you can see more airspace around the plane, but the area of high visibility (the center of the view) is going to be narrower (it's relative to the used FoV).

 

Luckily the focusing feature is automatic as your eyes focus on a spot on the monitor pretty much as they would when scanning the skies. 

 

Human eyes focus on moving objects: on screen you have a moving pixel between other moving pixels (the landscape). It's not the same thing.

 

Most people consider multiplayer gaming to be about skill, not chance.

 

Imagine the whining if your solution was implemented.

"You only shot me down because your random-spotter-effect kicked in first"

 

I don't dispute the need for better contact spotting.

 

I believe many real pilots died in that way. Most of the kills were claimed against unaware pilots (being that an ambush or simply teamwork).

 

Having to look at the right direction is still about skill: for example a light skilled pilot know to look at his six every 10 seconds. A very skilled pilot knows the probable position of the enemy and he can put himself in the right one (using the sun for example).

 

I don't like this random aspect too, but it's a solution between the unrealistic instant spotting and the impossibility to simulate eye's movement scanning at an area. Based to the distance and the position of a target, and the area you're scanning, then you have different ranges of random spotting (from no spot-table to 8-10 secs, from 4-6 secs to 1-2 secs for near contacts).

 

I'm just saying that having to zoom for spotting a contact is more realistic than in other sims: the problem is that you lose peripheral vision and you can't track the contact once spotted.

 

But having to "focus" on airspace to get a contact is realistic.

 

 

Edited December 10, 2013 by 6S.Manu

[Tomsk]

I don't like this random aspect too, but it's a solution between the unrealistic instant spotting and the impossibility to simulate eye's movement scanning at an area. 

 

I still don't understand. We don't need to simulate the eye's movement scanning an area ... that's something people actually do in game ayway! My screen is too big to fit the whole screen into my (very small) focal zone ... so I scan my focus around the screen looking for contacts. How is this unrealistic? 

[Mogster]

IRC older sims used to make distant aircraft artificially large, making them a bit easier to spot. I know ROF doesn't do that so BOS won't either. I'm not sure about IL2.

 

Just something to think about.

[HagarTheHorrible]

It might be suggested that linking zoom to FOV is problematic in this instance, if the two had no correlation it might help towards resolving some of the issues ?

[racingslippers]

Anyone with a dev kit Rift able to zoom in?

[6S.Manu]

I still don't understand. We don't need to simulate the eye's movement scanning an area ... that's something people actually do in game ayway! My screen is too big to fit the whole screen into my (very small) focal zone ... so I scan my focus around the screen looking for contacts. How is this unrealistic? 

 

You talk about smartscaling or icons and I agree that's the best solution for the unrealistic visibility we have ingame. But since ...

 

Should contacts have the same contact visability regardless of FOV.

 

... we now have the problem that, with a wide FOV, we can see ALL the contacts around us. And with smartscaling some models will be rendered with the same size even if the planes are at different distances.

 

So a possible solution is simply to not render those planes at all (no smart scaling and not icons) if the virtual pilot can't see it.

And this is going to take the simulation on another level since a real fighter pilot needs more than 40 seconds to scan all the airspace around him (with no guarantee of spotting a contact) while in game we need only 3-5 seconds to gain a good SA.

Edited December 10, 2013 by 6S.Manu

[AndyHill]

Human eyes focus on moving objects: on screen you have a moving pixel between other moving pixels (the landscape). It's not the same thing.

 

Granted, looking at the screen differs from looking out of the cockpit window, but what is the major difference in focusing? Even on a computer screen you still have to focus on one small area at a time, the majority of a human's visual sense is focused on about 2 degree area, which is very small. The feeling of having a large, focused area is a combination of brain trickery and the eyes' fantastic ability to scan around quickly. 

 

The good thing is that no matter how high a resolution or how huge a screen, you never have to worry about exceeding real pilot ability, because the human eye will always be the ultimate limit. In fact the only thing that can go above human ability is the apparent size of the objects if the game allows for a huge zoom-in. Most of the time, however, the resolution, framerate and viewing area are so massively inferior to the real thing that it's not even funny.

 

I haven't flown real fighters so it's kind of hard to relate, but for me the real eye opener was when I was in the process of reviewing a truck simulator. Now I'm not the best driver out there, but driving around with a truck in the small towns with little traffic, equipped with a nice 3D cockpit, TrackIR, racing pit and a nice screen (all the bells and whistles we use for flight simming) I aws absolutely lethal. The towns I visited would've been out of pedestrian and small car life in a few years if it had been reality. I had such great trouble maintinaing situational awareness in very simple situations that I might as well have just floored the pedal and closed my eyes knowing that my big heavy truck will plow through most of the stuff that dares get in the way. And that was with crazy enthusiast level simming equipment.

 

The thing is, if you put me in a real fighter plane with real bullets in it and sent some real targets for me to shoot at, that still wouldn't be real, because in a real shooting war, due to my poorish eyesight, I wouldn't have got near that fighter (well maybe if the aircraft is a HS129 or something like that and the situation in war as bleak as it was for Germans at that point). I've been building cockpit stuff as a hobby for years now and every now and then I manage to get an inch or two closer to the real experience with hardware additions, but still I'm so desperately far from the real experience. I've always felt that the "full real" option wasn't exactly worth the name, but the experience with the truck simulator made me think it's actually more like air combat for the seriously blind (thinking about  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmyz_f8Sx14) than anything realistic.

 

Note that I'm not saying "full real" flying can't be fun or interesting, I've done quite a bit of it and will continue to do so. However, I think it's very important to have good options for different people and it's important to be on a level flying field - the server must enforce the maximum level of assists available. Flying with different levels of assists will provide for different kinds of experiences, none of them more real than the other (not counting extreme no-cockpit full icons to eternity -level assists), since we will in any case be so far from the real deal.

... we now have the problem that, with a wide FOV, we can see ALL the contacts around us. And with smartscaling some models will be rendered with the same size even if the planes are at different distances.

Note that this is only a problem if we can at some point see a greater part of the sky than we could in reality (about 180 x120 degrees plus eye movement) with equal resolution and framerate.