Invisible plane bug

[wtornado]

Well tonight was the last online flight with getting shot down by planes I cannot see..

 

Offline the game runs super well with no trouble seeing the other planes.

 

The server constantly  losing the other players positions and packet loss non stop are probably the culprit.

It has to be the coding because it never went away.

 

Bodenplatte and Tank crew is the last games I have bought and I will buy no more.

 

This has plagued me since the very beginning years ago.

 

All the games I buy are online games.

 

I have invested and seen enough in this one..

 

[stupor-mundi]

From the recent posts here I gather that's still a thing.

I just flew for the first time in quite a while, on Finnish, and am wondering whether that's what happened to me.

I was at 5.5k first, cautiously, approached the friendly tank bases which were under air attack according to the map. There were many people on, but during my whole mission, I didn't see a plane.

Near the friendly tank bases, looking down, I saw the black air bursts of our AA, and deduced there must be enemy planes. I dropped down to 4k, then 3k, saw more air bursts, at my altitude. It looked like that AA was tracking a plane, but I could see no plane, even though I wasn't very far. I flew around there for a while, seeing more of the same thing, but never a plane. Eventually I gave up and rtb.

The only other explanation I can think of: does the AA on Finnish shoot into the air randomly?

 

[Garven]

28 minutes ago, stupor-mundi said:

The only other explanation I can think of: does the AA on Finnish shoot into the air randomly?

AA only shoots when there are enemy planes around to shoot at.  Once seen flak shooting at nothing on WoL only to have an enemy plane suddenly appear out of thin air.

Edited April 30, 2020 by US93_Furlow

[E69_geramos109]

There are a lot of post like that. Devs are well aware of that but if you have any track please send them to them. You can see a lot of videos from people reporting this isue. I have quite a few on my YT as well. 

Is a very important bug

[SvAF/F16_Goblin]

Unfortunately this happened last night on Finnish server online. Both friendly and enemy planes disappearing and reappearing randomly.
My wingman vanished from sight in when in formation and just after that while looking in the mirror to see if I overshot a 109 magically materialized in the view and down I went.

Unfortunately I don't record much and in this case there was no time to even think about it.

[SeaW0lf]

18 hours ago, stupor-mundi said:

The only other explanation I can think of: does the AA on Finnish shoot into the air randomly?

 

For some reason the AA sees the invisible planes (people say that AI gunners do as well), so if you see flak shooting at thin air, start some defensive maneuvers because there is a plane out there somewhere. Most of my invisible planes incidents ( I have a few tracks) were with flak firing at thin air.

[t-stoff]

I totally give up. boom and zoom are nearly impossible, you spot, you dive and it's gone, as soon as you do one simple move around you look again and it's gone. This on MP. 

[No.23_Gaylion]

Has anyone encountered this bug since last patch to 4.006?

 

I have yet to have seen (no pun intended) this bug since the big update and the new spotting/graphics settings. 

 

I was seeing this almost every sortie before. I am wondering if they finally solved it!

[NiiranenVR]

well ..... I donno ..... And don't know how the game FC is build up ..... But I have seen the flak in an area but  can't find the plane ....

But maybe that's another causality ??

[No.23_Gaylion]

1 hour ago, Niiranen-VR said:

well ..... I donno ..... And don't know how the game FC is build up ..... But I have seen the flak in an area but  can't find the plane ....

But maybe that's another causality ??

 

I think that the weird AA fires might be the WWII AA mixed in. We've been getting AA from the other side while over our lines.

 

So far I've yet to see the bug. I used to catch it all the time seeing contacts past the 10k bubble. 

 

I'm really holding hope that it's gone.

[Abdula]

22 hours ago, US93_Talbot said:

 

I think that the weird AA fires might be the WWII AA mixed in. We've been getting AA from the other side while over our lines.

 

So far I've yet to see the bug. I used to catch it all the time seeing contacts past the 10k bubble. 

 

I'm really holding hope that it's gone.

Spoiler

Sorry my man

 

[No.23_Gaylion]

Nooooooooooooooo

[Garven]

Hopefully this gets fixed in the next update, but I'm not holding my breath at this point.

[SCG_Vieira]

On 5/29/2020 at 3:15 PM, US93_Talbot said:

Has anyone encountered this bug since last patch to 4.006?

 

I have yet to have seen (no pun intended) this bug since the big update and the new spotting/graphics settings. 

 

I was seeing this almost every sortie before. I am wondering if they finally solved it!

Yes, definitely still happening and it is as common as always. 

[stupor-mundi]

A few weird things just happened to me on Finnish, which may be related to the invisible plane topic. Or not.

I don't want to spam the thread, so if it's deemed unrelated, I'll happily delete this post.

 

I had been on a few tank missions in the Caucasus (Kuban map), where everything behaved in a normal way. Then I respawned (as a tank) in the northern, flat part of the map to attack blue troops.

There were loads of AI tanks, trucks, etc. , and I was unable to hit them. First I thought my aim was bad, but eventually I got quite close and it was then very clear that my shots went right through the objects. Eventually the AIs started firing at me and blew me up, but it took quite long before they started shooting and I was unusually close by that time.

 

Then I saw that our southern (mountain) base was under ground attack. I spawned there as a tank, and saw a (player controlled, obviously) Tiger. I began to shoot at it, tracked it, and somehow the tiger failed to notice me (no trees or anything like that in between). I drove quite close to the tiger to blow it up, while it continued not to react to my presence. As I got closer, I saw that the Tiger was levitating, about 1 tank height above the ground. Then I shot it again and it blew up. Exactly when it blew up, it 'fell' to the ground, or rather, teleported to a ground-based position.

 

These weirdnesses, such as the Tiger not reacting to my presence, made me wonder whether I was the invisible tank in that situation.

 

---

 

P.S.: on another mission on Finnish, a few days ago, I had also seen a levitating blue tank.

 

 

Edited June 12, 2020 by stupor-mundi

[-DED-Rapidus]

@stupor-mundi, there were no problems with the Internet?

[stupor-mundi]

21 hours ago, -DED-Rapidus said:

@stupor-mundi, there were no problems with the Internet?

No, no internet problems on that day.

 

Something I noticed some more since then:

Teleporting of tanks, at the moment when I blow them up.

Rare in the vertical, but I remembered that I had seen horizontal teleporting on several occasions before, and since Friday, there were a few more instances when horizontal teleporting happened, at the moment when a (player controlled) tank blows up.

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by stupor-mundi

[Tattvadarzin]

Thank goodness I found this thread.  As a newbie to IL2 and its Multiplayer I found myself getting killed by invisible planes.  I also dove on a plane that disappeared.  I would look away from a plane and on looking back it had gone even though it was a fairly close friendly not doing defensive manouvers.

 

At first I thought it was me.  I flew on Air Warrior in the 1990s so I am used to ping problems of jumping aircraft.  But this is far worse and makes multiplayer unplayable.

 

I am not too bad on SA and looking around so I started to record flights to learn how I had been killed.  I also got TacView.  I think this might be relevant because on TacView and replay I see a lot more planes than I did flying live.  At first I thought it was my poor spotting ability but now I don't.  Yes that is subjective but I think visibility is worse flying live. 

 

I also thought that might be down to my use of TrackIR because I don't seem to have as steady view that I see other TrackIR users have (my head is still unsteady as I have to get used to it).  Perhaps the screen redraw obscures planes.

 

On CombatBox my ping was about 105, its load was about 80%+ and I had several forced disconnects without high ping warnings.  My CPU ran IL2 and TrackIR at a slightly higher priority although nothing else was running.

 

I keep running into some storage limit for saving tracks so my being killed is rarely recorded as recording stops, despite the recording symbol being on.

 

Sorry this is all anecdotal.

Edited June 28, 2020 by Tattvadarzin
Minor correction and clarification

[J2_Bidu]

7 hours ago, Tattvadarzin said:

Thank goodness I found this thread.  As a newbie to IL2 and its Multiplayer I found myself getting killed by invisible planes.  I also dove on a plane that disappeared.  I would look away from a plane and on looking back it had gone even though it was a fairly close friendly not doing defensive manouvers.

 

At first I thought it was me.  I flew on Air Warrior in the 1990s so I am used to ping problems of jumping aircraft.  But this is far worse and makes multiplayer unplayable.

 

I am not too bad on SA and looking around so I started to record flights to learn how I had been killed.  I also got TacView.  I think this might be relevant because on TacView and replay I see a lot more planes than I did flying live.  At first I thought it was my poor spotting ability but now I don't.  Yes that is subjective but I think visibility is worse flying live. 

 

I also thought that might be down to my use of TrackIR because I don't seem to have as steady view that I see other TrackIR users have (my head is still unsteady as I have to get used to it).  Perhaps the screen redraw obscures planes.

 

On CombatBox my ping was about 105, its load was about 80%+ and I had several forced disconnects without high ping warnings.  My CPU ran IL2 and TrackIR at a slightly higher priority although nothing else was running.

 

I keep running into some storage limit for saving tracks so my being killed is rarely recorded as recording stops, despite the recording symbol being on.

 

Sorry this is all anecdotal.

 

It is still a relatively rare occurrence. Being jumped by an invisible plane is not something you should expect to happen every night. If you keep getting killed by invisible planes, maybe you really are not spotting them.

[VBF-12_Snake9]

4 hours ago, J2_Bidu said:

 

It is still a relatively rare occurrence. Being jumped by an invisible plane is not something you should expect to happen every night. If you keep getting killed by invisible planes, maybe you really are not spotting them.

not true.  

We fly almost every night and it is very common.  Sad.

 

 

[PreyStalker]

The video in the previous post nicely demonstrates the issue of planes "popping in". I don't have video unfortunately, but as others have mentioned, I've had many cases of the opposite issue where planes are disappearing from view. last night it happened 3 times in one mission. It was in the Malaya Zemlya map in WOL, but this happens on Combat Box too. 

 

On 3 occasions I was beginning dives to boom lower contacts, carefully keeping track of them and "Pooof", they simply disappeared from sight.

 

In all 3 cases, the contact was still small and distant. I've not seen this happen with larger, more rendered contacts. On other occasions, I've noticed small contacts disappear close to clouds, not in them or under them, but as they approach and get near to a cloud, like the cloud obscures them from view too early.

 

Difficult to say if these are rendering issues or people having poor internet connections. Anyway, I hope these observations are of use to somebody.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by PreyStalker
Had the servers mixed up.

[J2_Bidu]

6 hours ago, VBF-12_Snake9 said:

not true.  

We fly almost every night and it is very common.  Sad.

 

 

 

You mean to happens to you every night you fly? Every mission? Once every 10 missions? How often?

[LLv34_Temuri]

On 6/12/2020 at 3:11 AM, stupor-mundi said:

There were loads of AI tanks, trucks, etc. , and I was unable to hit them. First I thought my aim was bad, but eventually I got quite close and it was then very clear that my shots went right through the objects. Eventually the AIs started firing at me and blew me up, but it took quite long before they started shooting and I was unusually close by that time.

This was an issue with the mission generation making crappy missions. It's fixed now.

 

I've had a couple of incidents where I was tracking a plane fully zoomed in, and the plane was coming closer to me, where upon coming close enough, the plane disappears for a moment. If the plane then e.g. continues the turn, you can guesstimate where its flight path goes and see the plane pop visible again. It's like there's a very narrow distance band where there's a gap in the plane LOD making the plane invisible.

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

7 hours ago, VBF-12_Snake9 said:

not true.  

We fly almost every night and it is very common.  Sad.

 

 

 

Good catch Snake.  Please post the zipped track so the devs have it.

[VBF-12_Snake9]

15 hours ago, J2_Bidu said:

 

You mean to happens to you every night you fly? Every mission? Once every 10 missions? How often?

Almost every squad night we have.  At least one pilot gets hit with this bug.  Sometimes the invisible plane is one of us.  If it wasn't game breaking it would be funny.  Six of us flying in formation and two pilots only see 5 planes counting themselves.  We say, ok everyone blip their lights and poof the invisible plane appears wing to wing with us.  

 

If you are flying lone wolf you would never know invisible planes are all around you.  Lol

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

And this bug has been present since 2015 and well documented to the devs. 

[No.23_Gaylion]

Yep. My experience has  been once every sortie for me in the WWI land. So once every 30 mins. It happens ALOT.

 

And its not a matter of "maybe you aren't seeing them". I've seen these planes, maybe a pair of them, hit the 10k bubble and one disappears. Or  see them magically appear behind you when they start firing. Or see them appear when your buddy fires at them. 

 

With that being said, since the last updates it has not happened to me yet. I have been flying alot less though.

[Giovanni_Giorgio]

On 6/29/2020 at 5:24 AM, VBF-12_Snake9 said:

not true.  

We fly almost every night and it is very common.  Sad.

 

 

Good one! Please post it in the "official" bug report thread: 

This invisible plane thing happened to me countless times in multiplayer. See flak but see no plane... Or just planes popping out of nowhere. The most bizarre occurrences were when out of a sudden I was in a head on with a fighter firing at me from 200 meters.

[J2_Bidu]

14 hours ago, VBF-12_Snake9 said:

Almost every squad night we have.  At least one pilot gets hit with this bug.  Sometimes the invisible plane is one of us.  If it wasn't game breaking it would be funny.  Six of us flying in formation and two pilots only see 5 planes counting themselves.  We say, ok everyone blip their lights and poof the invisible plane appears wing to wing with us.  

 

If you are flying lone wolf you would never know invisible planes are all around you.  Lol

 

I fly exclusively Flying Circus (currently). My experience is not so bad, and I believe my squad doesn't have it that bad either. So maybe WW2 with its higher speed planes increases the likelihood of it happening. Do you get it at takeoffs, or just when someone joins formation later, maybe coming from a distant airfield?

Edited June 30, 2020 by J2_Bidu

[No.23_Gaylion]

35 minutes ago, J2_Bidu said:

 

I fly exclusively Flying Circus (currently). My experience is not so bad, and I believe my squad doesn't have it that bad either. 

 

Maybe you just don't realize how bad it is because you aren't spotting the planes before they go invisible.

40 minutes ago, J2_Bidu said:

Do you get it at takeoffs, or just when someone joins formation later, maybe coming from a distant airfield?

 

There's been tons of discussion on this. So it doesn't all start over again, the factors are:

 

Two or more planes linking up from separate fields or times. 

 

Entering the 10km bubble is when the plane disappears.

 

The invisible plane firing his guns or receiving damage-something that alters the visual appearance, makes it reappear.

 

 

[J2_Bidu]

47 minutes ago, US93_Talbot said:

 

Maybe you just don't realize how bad it is because you aren't spotting the planes before they go invisible.

 

There's been tons of discussion on this. So it doesn't all start over again, the factors are:

 

Two or more planes linking up from separate fields or times. 

 

Entering the 10km bubble is when the plane disappears.

 

The invisible plane firing his guns or receiving damage-something that alters the visual appearance, makes it reappear.

 

Yes, I don't assume they disappeared just because I don't seem. I'm not the best of spotters, or maybe my setup is not configured optimally. So for me an invisible plane case is restricted to more flagrant cases.

 

I think it is unnatural that a bug should endure so long, so maybe it's time to consider the possibility of creating specific scenarios or tools for testing this, i.e., increase the testability of the game. Could mean more optional logging on the server, on the clients, could mean many things.

[No.23_Gaylion]

Yeah its crazy.

[norsetto]

1 hour ago, J2_Bidu said:

 

I fly exclusively Flying Circus (currently). My experience is not so bad, and I believe my squad doesn't have it that bad either. So maybe WW2 with its higher speed planes increases the likelihood of it happening. Do you get it at takeoffs, or just when someone joins formation later, maybe coming from a distant airfield?

I do get it a lot when I fly the FW so, yes, perhaps its the speed. More than invisible for me it seems to be a transition going from one lod to the other, kind of popping out of existence.

[J2_Bidu]

1 hour ago, US93_Talbot said:

Entering the 10km bubble is when the plane disappears.

 

Has the purpose of this bubble ever been explained by the devs?

[THERION]

1 minute ago, J2_Bidu said:

 

Has the purpose of this bubble ever been explained by the devs?

 

Yep, but it's some time ago - they said, they wanted this because it reminds them of their childhood - they loved to make soap bubbles...

[No.23_Gaylion]

9 minutes ago, J2_Bidu said:

 

Has the purpose of this bubble ever been explained by the devs?

 

You can see them beyond 10km but once they hit that 10k, they disappear. How do I know its 10km? Because when you replay the track and there are a pair the second the icons come up at 10km one of them disappears. 

[J2_Bidu]

2 hours ago, US93_Talbot said:

 

You can see them beyond 10km but once they hit that 10k, they disappear. How do I know its 10km? Because when you replay the track and there are a pair the second the icons come up at 10km one of them disappears. 

 

Yes, I understand what happens, but what is the purpose of the game bubble? What is it used for? What aspects of the game are dependent on it? What benefit does it bring? Is it to optimize the rendering? Is it to reduce the number of information flowing on the network? WHAT IS ITS SECRET?! WHOM DOES IT SERVE?!

 

 

I mean, it must be there for something, right?

[VBF-12_Snake9]

Talbot explained things perfectly.  S

[No.23_Gaylion]

Lol I dont know but its the distance that the icon turns on if you have icons on. 

 

It's not affecting a single type of plane, its all planes. We used to think it was nothing but fokkers, but that was just because everyone flies fokkers. Took awhile but we eventually got tracks of other planes.

 

Just go back and watch a track file and you'll probably "see" one in the background going vis/invis. 

 

What's weird is you can take the camera (F11) and go fly as far up in the sky as possible and see planes everywhere. But you start to go near them, they disappear at the 10k bubble. It's really weird. In one instance in a track recording, the icons on before or after the invisibility also played a factor. Like if you had the icons on, the invis plane would never show icons when it repaired or something like that. I couldn't nail it down. I've always wondered if it had something to do with the icon itself. Sometimes it seemed as if the plane went invis when it passed by the wingmans "icon" area, like where the icon would be if it were actually showing. 

 

Then again, maybe this is all nonsensical ramblings of someone who's been searching the skies for invisible planes for years, constantly in fear of his vlife.

Edited June 30, 2020 by US93_Talbot

[J2_Bidu]

Welm, I've experienced it a few times: jumped by invisiplane, invisifriend flying unseen alkng with me and another chap, etc. Chased by invisibSE5 in Bloody April. I don't know, maybe around 10 times total.

 

Everybody knows what happens, more or less.

 

But - if it's not a trade secret - it would be great to understand what the hell the bubble exists for, and what kind of role it plays, so we can actually help the devs sorting out the pattern in this. 

 

46 minutes ago, VBF-12_Snake9 said:

Talbot explained things perfectly.  S

 

The symptoms, yeap. The bubble, nope.

Edited June 30, 2020 by J2_Bidu