Airplanes visibility issue - pool after discussion

[Mr_Steven]

I've uninstalled this game because the spotting is so hilariously bad.

 

CloD has it right.

 

 

[[TWB]dillon_biz]

Copied from previous thread:

 

Difficulties, and the associated frustration, with the new spotting system is one of the major reasons I stopped playing the game. 

 

Hard =/= Realism.  We have to account for the fact that we are looking at a flat panel for tiny moving dots against a background of other tiny moving dots of similar color. It's inherently not realistic, which is where the realism argument kind of falls apart.

 

Several RL pilots have already chimed in that spotting moving objects like aircraft against terrain is fairly easy.  I have some limited time behind a yolk (stuff's expensive yo) and spotting traffic wasn't ever an issue.  

[SOB_Cptace]

Been flying IL2 since it came out a long time ago. This IL2 BOS is nice looking. I have spent a lot of money on hardware attempting to reach a point where I throughly enjoy the game. I have been just about forced to fly ground attack missions because I can see the targets. If I didn’t have a gunner I would hardly ever know enemy is in the area. I cannot track a spotted plane as it disappears. I am forced to fly reactively and respond when attacked. Very rarely can I initiate the fighter attack. While I love realism, I also love the ability to see. You have some servers the use shaders to help with spotting but then that opens up the game for super unfair setups.  

[Herne]

The IL2 community seems to have a wide age range in it's player base, and sadly the older we get the harder it is to see a pixel stand out from the crowd. Spotting might be ok for younger eyes. Spotting in IL2 has become so tedious lately that like the poster above I tend to do ground attack when I fly online.

From a VR perspective, you still need to be keeping a good lookout or you will not see the target no matter how big it is, but the Zoom feature is only there to ID something you have spotted. If you need Zoom to spot enemies as well as ID them, then I think something is fundementally wrong and should be adjusted.

[Charon]

I know you said "no replies, only votes", but one point I wanted to add is that, regardless of whether the current difficulty is realistic, the current high visibility tracer warp spotting ahistorically. I've read accounts from pilots who said they spotted tracers flying past them as they were bounced, but I've never read an account of a pilot who spotted tracers kilometers away during the day and used that to inform their piloting. Yet that's what we do every day. We lurk near objectives and look for tracers to signal that somebody is in combat. CloD feels like it gets this right.

[VA_chikinpickle]

Please also clean the cockpit glass! 

[TP_Sparky]

I've flown fast movers to canvas-covered Cubs and Champs.  It's far easier for the experienced eye to see a/c moving against the background terrain and sky in real life than it is in BoX.  Nuggets see very little but with experience you see other a/c everywhere.  With the Mark 1 eyeball (unlike VR) you catch movement better with your peripheral vision rather than in the center of the visual acuity in the middle of the retina.  You constantly scan in pie-shaped sections, stopping at 1, 2, 3 o'clock, etc., rather than sweeping in smooth, uninterrupted fashion.

 

I find aircraft unrealistically hard to pick up with VR and wish there were improvement.  Flat screens are better but I won't fly without VR for the immersion.

[Jack_]

Whatever solution you come up with, you should NOT let it be server optional. Don't let server admins undo the positive work you're doing just so they can be elitist gate keepers to this hobby.

[Mr_Steven]

It has nothing to do with younger eyes. My eyes were tested for a new job recently and I still have 20:10 vision at 33 years old and I cannot see anything outside of like 800m in this game

 

[JG1_Schulte]

~S~

 1 to 6km visibility realistic?

Probably?

Is it a realistic object Im looking at?

 

.

 

Moxy

 

 

 

[Ace_Pilto]

7 hours ago, VA_chikinpickle said:

Please also clean the cockpit glass! 

Yes, and not with a bloody rock this time.

[[CPT]Crunch]

If it were so hard, why bother spending billions to develop IR missiles which follow the pilots eye for lock.  Why have the radar slave to his view?  Maybe because within visual combat is called that precisely because visual is superior to all other current systems of tracking?  And might that be because its far easier?

[Lusekofte]

On 9/1/2020 at 1:12 AM, BraveSirRobin said:

To me the problem is not spotting.  Spotting should be difficult.  To me the problem is losing sight of aircraft while I am looking at them

THIS

[SJ_Butcher]

Looks like Sanity won, the numbers are representative and the tendency should remain.

[forktailedflyer7]

When it comes to spotting, I think we should be able to see as well as the best thats ever flown, if not better.

 

There is A LOT that is "unrealistic" when it comes to a sim.  Could a real pilot operate the plane with just a hotas?  We already don't have a fully clickable cockpit (not that I want one or think thats the best implementation) but my point here is that we aren't flipping every single switch that has to be flipped to start the plane.  Even in expert mode.  

 

Not to mention real pilots can't check their 6 by pressing a button or in general look around the cockpit as quickly as one can with a trackIR.  However, a lot of 3d spatial information is missing (less so in VR) that hampers us.  

 

Real pilot are not only able to spot a plane, but are able to generally identify which type of plane it is!  I can hardly even ever see the planes much less tell which plane it is.

 

Theres the argument that only elite individuals could become excellent fighter pilots.  Thats true.  This is a game though, if we all had to be 25 or under, in perfect shape with perfect vision to play il-2, it would be pretty pointless no?  

[Ace_Pilto]

This has to be the number one reason why I don't play this a lot. It's just so tiresome spending an hour and a half playing "pixel inspector" only to discover that you flew virtually through the entire player base without seeing anything but star wars tracers in the distance. 

 

To me the problem isn't the way the simulator deals with the realism of contact size and how difficult spotting is, it is a lack of definition to the contacts. They're all rendered as a vague grey blur at certain ranges and even though they conform to the realism of aircraft spotting in that they become more visible when in planform and less visible when viewed from head on or behind, I'm unable to maintain a tally on anything if it disappears behind a canopy bar for even a second. Multiplayer flights end up being a recurring loop of "where are you?" Marco Polo style gameplay and only the folks who know the habits of the map can reliably find any action.

 

To be fair, this spotting problem does improve if I play consistently. I get my "eyes" back but I find it very tiresome and it would be nice to see a bit more definition to objects so that they can be picked up more easily in my peripheral vision. The current model is good but the aircraft are just too vague, the lod's need to be sharper and have a bit more contrast so that you can pick up that movement more easily against the terrain. Once you've spotted another aircraft in the air you don't lose sight of it easily, any motion against a stationary background stands out and is immediately noticable. We've evolved with this trait due to spending millenia trying not to get eaten by things. I have a fair bit of experience air to air spotting, in this since when I flew gliders we'd always look for the other guys who had found lift. I also know how hard it is when you start off. I've been within 5 miles of a bright Yellow An-2 biplane and not seen it until it was about 2 or 3 miles away.

 

Finally, some sun glint would be excellent. If we're going to talk about realism then that should be a high priority. (Just below completely overhauling the stupid AI gunners)

 

tl;dr It's "realistic" but could be refined some more.

As an appendix to my post I'll also add, in response to Han's comments about new pilots not seeing the enemy (Which was a very thoughtful and well made post). That this was not always a pure matter of visibility.

 

One thing that isn't really conveyed to me is just how small these cockpits are. Track IR  and variable FoV make them seem a lot larger than they are. These are fully aerobatic aircraft and they are very cramped. A new pilot will tend to keep their harness straps very tight and, In my very limited experience with aerobatics, I immediately noticed that I could not lean forward far enough to see around the back of the cockpit to the tail of the aircraft with my straps tightened. Just another factor that would contribute people's lack of experience or confidence reducing their ability to spot other aircraft. 

 

Anyway, I say keep it generally the way it is but sharpen/darken the distant LOD's a bit and give them some lighting effects so they "pop" a little more. I think that this would go a long way to improving the very good foundation that already exists.

Edited September 5, 2020 by Ace_Pilto

[Livai]

On 9/1/2020 at 2:47 AM, 6./ZG26_Custard said:

Probably because fighter doctrine in the last few decades, particularly in the West is to fire a missile at high altitude from 20-40 miles away. Russian fighter doctrine still has to a large degree that dogfight mentality of engaging at close range with the highly maneuverable jets that they produce.

Spoiler

 

 

Can you see a plane 20-40 miles miles away? Maybe anything up to 747 sized aircraft. If the Aircraft's aspect is head on,... that distance comes down significantly. BTW Missiles are fired at radar range, unless it carries a contrail, fly in a big formation or a sized aircraft. To have better radar range and technology than the enemy gives you a very huge advantage. In this matter are west and east dogfight mentality the same. Russian technology mentality is "We didn't know it was a invisible plane" shootdown a superior F117 Nighthawk with a outdated S125 Neva. If it comes to plane design never changed much even Suchoi use the Mig design, where the west play with many different design.

 

Back to topic

Once you have flown the smart system in Falcon 4 its pretty hard to deal with Great Battles which is both highly unrealistic and maybe impedement to getting involved in the game with sim elements. On a 5k screen certainly not realistic in any manner.  CloD do this job better with better colors and contrast that help to seperate the plane from the ground or sky.

Edited September 5, 2020 by Livai

[6./ZG26_Custard]

2 hours ago, Livai said:

Can you see a plane 20-40 miles miles away?

Why do I need to see the aircraft when I have radar? I could fire an AIM 120 at it or if the plane was 75 miles plus away I could use an AIM 54.

 

2 hours ago, Livai said:

BTW Missiles are fired at radar range,

Well you learn something new every day

 

2 hours ago, Livai said:

In this matter are west and east dogfight mentality the same.

The  various air arms of the US sent the Phantom into Vietnam without a cannon maybe because McDonnell Douglas thought a missile only equipped aircraft would do the job? The MiG-17's and 21's had other ideas and they soon had the US bolting gun pods on their aircraft.  

If you look at the F-35 , it is designed as stealth platform that will stand off from the target, hopefully without the need to dogfight.  

 

Back to topic

 

Looking at the new video, the new spotting looks fantastic and I'm sure many in the community will be very pleased indeed.

 

 

 

 

[SJ_Butcher]

2 hours ago, 6./ZG26_Custard said:

Why do I need to see the aircraft when I have radar? I could fire an AIM 120 at it or if the plane was 75 miles plus away I could use an AIM 54.

 

Well you learn something new every day

 

The  various air arms of the US sent the Phantom into Vietnam without a cannon maybe because McDonnell Douglas thought a missile only equipped aircraft would do the job? The MiG-17's and 21's had other ideas and they soon had the US bolting gun pods on their aircraft.  

If you look at the F-35 , it is designed as stealth platform that will stand off from the target, hopefully without the need to dogfight.  

 

Back to topic

 

Looking at the new video, the new spotting looks fantastic and I'm sure many in the community will be very pleased indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

The early improvements are great, but I hope they still tweak colors, haze and a few things more to have a final solution on this matter.

[Oyster_KAI]

I'm looking forward to the initial improvement in visibility after the next update. This will be the first time in six months that I have the motivation to "fully" play IL-2 GB. During this period, I only played a few ground attack missions and redrew textures.

[Burdokva]

My humble opinion - I am shortsighted (main reason I never became a proper military pilot) so me commenting on "realistic" spotting distance is rather moot but I do not have problem spotting so much as tracking a plane. I can understand if spotting a typical WWII era prop fighter or recce plane at a distance of three kilometers is difficult but I've lost groups of bombers up close - when I know their heading and altitude!

 

Real escort missions had this issue. There are numerous accounts of Soviet fighter pilots loosing sights of the Shturmoviks they were escorting, as the latter flew very low and the camouflage blended in with the terrain. But I keep loosing track of planes against the sky, against the brightly lit midday steppe, against the sea, etc. And what's worse, after a couple plus hours multiplayer session today, my eyes are absolutely sore and I am really tired.

 

While the experience of actually being tired from a flight sim is as much criticism as it is praise (it is a simulator, after all!) I do not want to be routinely tired having strained my eyes even on short jabs at the single player campaign or a quick multiplayer game. Old Il-2 1946 never had me this tired. Honestly, tracking planes in 1946 was easier on the eyes. It was possible to loose a plane against the terrain, especially on the latter, more detailed (better textured) maps but I never routinely lost track of other planes around me during a dogfight.

 

Ironically, I think it's some of the graphical improvements that are to blame for this, though (unfortunately) I can't pinpoint what exactly.

 

Note I use a 2k 29 inch IPS monitor (high-end Dell U2913WM office series, not a proper gaming monitor). My previous one was also a high-end office Dell monitor but a "regular" 1080P 24 inch one - the lowered resolution actually allowed me to track planes better. 2k makes the sim look gorgeous but is an absolute strain.

[KoN_]

On 8/31/2020 at 10:14 PM, Didney_World said:

 

even in VR it's different, depending on the resolution.

 

I tried the Pimax 8Kx, which has a native 4k display per eye (!) and I could see the enemy plane 'pixel' much further out than in VivePro (1600x1440).  That's the same story with 1080p monitors vs 4k ones...

Have you tried else where in a flight sim . ? 

On 9/1/2020 at 1:45 AM, Diggun said:

I'm very sorry to say this, but my 20p is that honestly, I couldn't care less what the community think. 

 

The devs have access to resource which leaves all but a few of us embarrassed. I trust their conclusions in this matter. 

 

Do you know better? I doubt it. 

Sorry to burst your bubble . But there are alot of real pilots here and real taildraggers  military old and new  . Not wannabe youtubers .  Get my picture . 

[Livai]

On 9/5/2020 at 3:13 PM, 6./ZG26_Custard said:

Why do I need to see the aircraft when I have radar?

 

 

Radar, like life, is full of tradeoffs

 

On 9/5/2020 at 3:13 PM, 6./ZG26_Custard said:

Looking at the new video, the new spotting looks fantastic and I'm sure many in the community will be very pleased indeed.

 

In order to achieve this, rendering tricks are applied to the aircraft to make it more visible than in the standard rendering calculations. Without the rendering tricks an aircraft appear to be more difficult to spot in the game with sim elements than it would be in real life. While playing the biggest game of hide and seek in the world - maybe we need ATC ( who see everyone ) and TCAS  ( which stops everyone bumping into each other )

 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Livai