Post update 3.201: distant contacts disappear when zoomed in.

[Nolly]

Hi all!

 

Sorry if this is reported already, but I couldn't see it.

 

When flying online, I 've noticed that when a distant contact appears, the contact disappears when i zoom in.

 

Once the contact is closer all works as normal, it appears to only occur at longer ranges.

 

I have a recording I will post tonight, and have spoken to others who noticed it also, plus I 've seen it mentioned on discord and fb, so I can confirm it's not my settings or machine.

 

Awesome update,

Thanks

noel

[THERION]

Observed this behavior too - as soon as you zoom in for long distance contacts, they disappear. But actually not a problem.

At least you know your new heading, when you zoom out.

[RavN_Sone]

Seems like reflections are much less noticeable when in narrow FoV.

[SeaW0lf]

With me and several other players in a WWI server reported that the zoom is disappearing planes at mid point, not at the end. So from 30-40% to 70% zoom the planes are shrinking dramatically and some are disappearing. I saw the same thing at Berloga with WWII planes.

 

It is not related to far in the distance planes that flicker with light. It is related to planes that are perfectly visible and trackable, but if you zoom in, they shrink dramatically or disapear when the zoom is from 40 to 70%. The result is that you can't use the zoom, or if you use it, it becomes mayhem, since things disappear and reappear like they are teleporting.

 

Spotting here is already a challenge, so I just hope these things are looked at and fixed.

[JimTM]

Yes, I see this zoom behaviour too.

[von_Michelstamm]

Ah, this explains it. I play zoomed out and was wondering why I can’t see the enemies anymore, even with clear skies

[US103_Baer]

2 hours ago, SeaW0lf said:

With me and several other players in a WWI server reported that the zoom is disappearing planes at mid point, not at the end. So from 30-40% to 70% zoom the planes are shrinking dramatically and some are disappearing. I saw the same thing at Berloga with WWII planes.

 

It is not related to far in the distance planes that flicker with light. It is related to planes that are perfectly visible and trackable, but if you zoom in, they shrink dramatically or disapear when the zoom is from 40 to 70%. The result is that you can't use the zoom, or if you use it, it becomes mayhem, since things disappear and reappear like they are teleporting.

 

Spotting here is already a challenge, so I just hope these things are looked at and fixed.

 

Observe similar except that planes don't completely disappear in that 30-70% range, their main shapes like wings and fuselage get thinner, almost transparent.

They also didn't get any larger with more zoom. So its now actually easier to view distant objects zoomed fully out which is counter-intuitive at first.

 

Note it only happens at longer range viewing. Once i got reasonably close the zoom functioned more 'normally' - and planes got larger with more zoom.

 

We concluded it was an aid to picking up planes at long range without giving too much artificial 'zoom' aid.

 

 

[SeaW0lf]

29 minutes ago, US103_Baer said:

 

Observe similar except that planes don't completely disappear in that 30-70% range, their main shapes like wings and fuselage get thinner, almost transparent.

They also didn't get any larger with more zoom. So its now actually easier to view distant objects zoomed fully out which is counter-intuitive at first.

 

Note it only happens at longer range viewing. Once i got reasonably close the zoom functioned more 'normally' - and planes got larger with more zoom.

 

We concluded it was an aid to picking up planes at long range without giving too much artificial 'zoom' aid.

 

The problem is: this is happening at a very reasonable distance. A distance that you could normally track planes. And under the 10km radius, so this is something that we had before and it did not behave like this / teleporting. Now it is just impossible to track multiple planes using the zoom feature. So something went really wrong in the update and for some reason it wasn't noticed / or not perceived as a game-play killer / unrealistic behavior. 

 

Then I don't think it is "an aid to picking up planes at long range". Something went wrong and it needs a fix in my opinion. In fact it surprises me that the update was released with this bug. 

[Bullets]

+1 with this issue. 

[OBT-Lionel]

I have exactly the same problem. Problem that did not exist before this update.

[kalbuth]

As far as I remember I've always witnessed this, IL2 to me always do some sort of model scaling at distance to keep airplanes visible, and when zooming in, you could see the model scale back to normal (ie, not "big size" to be visible) so that they would not be irrealisticly big when zooming on them.

Perhaps I'm mistaken but that's really something I was seeing before.

Maybe they raised the upscale at distance, making the switch from scaled-up to normal model when zooming too obvious ....

Edited October 3, 2019 by kalbuth

[SeaW0lf]

From what I'm seeing, this behavior is on the middle of the zoom and it does not happen just with far away planes, but planes at a mid distance as well (under the old 10km radius).

 

So if I zoom in till the end, from 40% to 70% they shrink and almost disappear (some disappear) until they appear back again from 70% to 100% (they slowly increase in size). If I do the reverse path, they will shrink and almost disappear or disappear until the zoom gets to zero, and then they appear again.

 

It renders the zoom useless, since it creates an effect of teleporting, with planes appearing and disappearing as you use the zoom in combat.

 

As I said, several players reported this behavior online.

[SeaW0lf]

Looks like they 'fixed' the zoom bug, when the planes don't shrink in mid zoom, but now I can't see planes at 2km with 0% zoom. I have to zoom in to spot planes really close to me, which is also far from reality I assume. I need to login in a server to fly for a while and see what they did, but doing a quick test with 4 D7Fs at 2/2.5km, they just disapear if I retract the zoom to 0%. Even when they were at 1.8km.

 

Could someone check it to see if this is in general for everyone?

[SeaW0lf]

Yesterday I flew on a server and the zoom bug is gone, but there is another one now. From what I saw yesterday, and testing today, when you are looking at a plane with the Sun shining on it, your visibility with 0% zoom is mediocre, close to 1.8km. They made this flicker effect and it disappears intermittently. At 1.8km, I don't think you can spot the minuscule spot unless you zoom in and know where it is. Even then it disappears for a second and you won't spot it back, especially moving.

 

If you look at it with the Sun behind the plane, then you are OK. It looks like the silhouette is visible at longer distances, but not the surface lit by the sun (?). Yesterday I had planes popping on my screen (unadvisedly) at very close range. I'm not sure why this is happening, because the Sun can also glitter on the wings of airplanes and highlight them, not make them disappear.

 

Today I went for a walk and I was effortless spotting vultures at almost 1km (I crossed the hill they were circling). All this with the Sun almost on my back.

 

Spotting here is already a challenge. I hope this can be looked and fixed. 

 

Since this is another bug, I will open another report. Feel free to comment there if you are having the same problem.

[SeaW0lf]

Today I flew for a few hours on the Jasta 5 (Arras map) and unfortunately I'm experiencing everything back. It might be the last update (I tested only on the QM editor) or it is just the time of the day on the mission. Or perhaps the number of players and situations (I think we had almost 20 players at one point).

 

From my end, the zoom is now shrinking planes in several stages. At 100%, at two thirds, even at the very start, around 20%. Just off the charts. Might be more subtle than before, but I was having a hard time even to determine the distance of the plane that I was tracking. Got bounced twice because I thought he was far, but it happens that it was just a couple of secons to open fire. Depending on the zoom position, it can look to be at 4km, 3km, 2km, etc. With the glittering thing, the sun position, planes disappear for a few seconds and by the time you find it again, you don't know if it is him or another one that came by. Plus it takes time for you to find the right position in the zoom when they appear. Looks like it varies as well, because as the plane moves around in relation to the sun, they won't appear anymore at the zoom position that you were. All this I imagine happening in less than 5km (sometimes more), which is close, sometimes just about 2km. Just hysterical.

 

It is impossible to track planes and get in good position to engage. The mission was a mix of bumping around with people.

 

I really do like the physical effects that was implemented, but the new spotting system seems to need a lot of adjustment to be usable at this point, at least from my end. I don't have a super monitor, but the image quality of my IPS ultrawide is way better than a regular 1080p monitor (I have a couple more monitors at home). So it is not that I have an outdated / subpar monitor.

 

Since the problem could also be related to the sun position on the mission, it is hard to point where the problem is from my end. But it looks to be the new system that takes into consideration the sun position and the glittering thing. I even saw a couple of planes with wings lit up by the sun down below at the distance (not lit up, because BOX has this opaque tone to everything, but I could see that the engine was mimicking the sun on the wings), and this was a good surprise (never saw it before in BOX, a thing that is common and just beautiful in ROF). But in general the spotting went bananas from my end. The mission was stressful. 

 

Well, perhaps after a few missions I can see what's going on and why the inconsistence.

Edited October 6, 2019 by SeaW0lf