I Can See For Miles and Miles

[US103_Baer]

So it seems a recent update has introduced 'Enhanced Visibility Lite' as standard. Aircraft at very long range are large specks and when you zoom in they get smaller.

I dislike it intensely as it destroys the art of long range stalk, makes a mockery of skill and experience, and breaks immersion as you struggle with zooming-in to ID nearer contacts and zooming-out to track far contacts.

 

To estimate the distance at which aircraft are now visible i ran a quick test on our training server with Enhanced Visibility OFF. 

 

The result is aircraft were easily seen at over 25km distance on a 1440p 32" monitor. I believe that's the same pixel density as 1080p  with a 24" monitor.

 

1. MAP - Field No. 7 is at Bellevue. Furball area is over 25km to South East.

2. Looking South East to an AI area over the mud near the the single/twin lakes. Aircraft are highlighted in the red circle. Field No. 7 is visible in bottom right of picture. This is max zoomed-out and no post-pro zooming, but it is cropped to make the whole image smaller.

3. Post-pro zoomed in to accentuate.

 

Could WW1 aircraft be seen 25km away?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2020 by US103_Baer

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Best tactics are developed when you and enemies sees ich others,  no easy surprise victories at most.  

[J2_Drookasi]

You are right Baer so it is. This is a feature introduced some updates ago which if I correctly recall had been a request from the WW2 community. The same is happening to WW2 servers, you can see the contacts from more than 10 km away. Still, even with this feature, one can surprise his victim both in WW1 and WW2 as I have recently discovered. So, I would not dramatize it so much as to say that this is a game killer. You just get a bit less opportunities to totally surprise your target.

[US103_Baer]

Yeah, the game's a game for sure, but is seeing WW1 planes at 25km logical in real life? Seems a helluva long way to me.

[JGr2/J5_Baeumer]

@US103_BaerI am interested to know what graphic card you use and if you have any graphic injectors in use.

Edited November 23, 2020 by J5_Baeumer

[NO.20_Krispy_Duck]

I think it's a huge improvement. I use a 25 inch monitor and was struggling to see much of anything before. It's more playable now on smaller monitors.

[JGr2/J5_Klugermann]

I thought Baer's screen was dirty.

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

1 hour ago, NO.20_Krispy_Duck said:

I think it's a huge improvement. I use a 25 inch monitor and was struggling to see much of anything before. It's more playable now on smaller monitors.

I still can't see shit on my 21". Be upgrading soon, 32" should be good I hope.

[40plus]

13 hours ago, NO.20_W_M_Thomson said:

I still can't see shit on my 21". Be upgrading soon, 32" should be good I hope.

 

I'm using a 43" and still can't see bubkus

[76SQN-FatherTed]

I don't mind being able to see planes that are seemingly too far away.  I think it makes up for our lack of SA compared to RL and adds to the tactical side of air fighting.  What I don't like is narrowing the field of view and having them all but disappear.  That makes playing harder and breaks immersion for me.

[40plus]

Despite not being able to see bubkus, I actually despise the alternate visibility. It destroys my ability to determine distance to the rare thing I do see. The target looks to be 1km away when in fact i's greater than 10.

I also question the validity of being able to se targets so far away and much preferred the visibility model before the latest training wheels were added. It SHOULD be hard to see targets ..... just my opinion though.

[J2_Trupobaw]

So, no way to turn it off?

[76SQN-FatherTed]

3 hours ago, 40plus said:

It SHOULD be hard to see targets ..... just my opinion though.

I guess the change has happened in order to make the WW2  MP stuff more playable in terms of spotting at higher closing speeds.  As we're part of the same engine, we just have to take those lumps.  Though I have to say that in my (albeit essentially inept) experience in MP recently bounces and surprise encounters are still pretty much par for the course.

[40plus]

4 minutes ago, =CfC=FatherTed said:

I guess the change has happened in order to make the WW2  MP stuff more playable in terms of spotting at higher closing speeds.  As we're part of the same engine, we just have to take those lumps.  Though I have to say that in my (albeit essentially inept) experience in MP recently bounces and surprise encounters are still pretty much par for the course.

 

Totally agree. For what it's worth, I primarily fly the WW2 stuff and my opinion is the same. It's too easy to spot now. feels gamey, less realistic but the majority have spoken and I'm not going to take much issue with it.

[Guest deleted@83466]

On 11/22/2020 at 2:56 AM, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

Best tactics are developed when you and enemies sees ich others,  no easy surprise victories at most.  

 

 

Surprise -IS- the best tactic in aerial combat.  Something like 90% of real-life shootdowns occurred on enemies that didn't know what hit them.  

 

On 11/22/2020 at 3:39 AM, J2_Drookasi said:

You are right Baer so it is. This is a feature introduced some updates ago which if I correctly recall had been a request from the WW2 community. The same is happening to WW2 servers, you can see the contacts from more than 10 km away. Still, even with this feature, one can surprise his victim both in WW1 and WW2 as I have recently discovered. So, I would not dramatize it so much as to say that this is a game killer. You just get a bit less opportunities to totally surprise your target.

 

I've not gotten a chance to play IL-2 for a couple of days since the last update and honestly I don't play Flying Circus at all (in other words, it is of no concern to me what settings the Jasta 5 Flugpark is using).  But you're saying this "enhanced visibility" is now enabled on World War 2 servers, such as Combat Box, as well?  I've not seen any changelogs or announcement of such.  Can you cite a source for this information that you are putting forth?

 

Since a couple of updates back, spotting has indeed been slightly better than what is was before.  I was of the understanding that the "Enhanced Visibility" is still the same unrealistic arcade game crap that it always was, but that there were some improvements to make the "standard" visibility more realistic (and slightly better) than it was before.  This is not correct???

 

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by SeaSerpent

[J2_Drookasi]

Neither Combat Box nor the Flugpark are using 'Enhanced visibility'. The fact that one can see much further than before is an effect implemented after this update. Please refer to it for details.

[Guest deleted@83466]

40 minutes ago, J2_Drookasi said:

Neither Combat Box nor the Flugpark are using 'Enhanced visibility'. The fact that one can see much further than before is an effect implemented after this update. Please refer to it for details.

 

Ok, thanks for the source.  Seems we are on the same page, for the most part.

 

We have:

 

Quote

............

3. The long-range LODs scaling system for aircraft has been adjusted. Aircraft spotting at short to medium distances, especially when using wide camera angles, is greatly improved. The visibility at distance has been adjusted to be closer to reality.
4. Alternate Visibility has been renamed Enhanced Visibility: this mode gives a much greater increase in aircraft visibility at long ranges compared to the new standard visibility. At medium ranges, visibility is also significantly improved compared to the old Alternate Visibility option;
............

 

I now see that the original poster was not saying that Enhanced Visibility is now standard, he was simply being sarcastic when he called the standard (more 'realistic') setting "Enhanced Visibility Lite".   Glad to hear that the Combat Box server is still using the more difficult of the two visibility options.  I guess it is a matter of opinion of whether this is better or worse from a realism standpoint.  

 

We can all walk outside and look at a plane in the sky or any distant object for that matter and determine for ourselves how close the visibility in game is to reality.  From what I've seen since the 4.501 update, the spotting ability using the Standard viz is closer to realism than it was before.  I welcome it.  I don't think I'm seeing things at 25+ kilometers on the WW2 servers I play on unless the lighting conditions are just right.  Last time I was on, I might have spotted a formation of B-25s at that distance or farther but ony because there were several of them and they were contrailing.  Obviously we can see flamers out even farther than that.

 

If people are seeing Spad-sized things at what they claim is over 25 kilometers, and you are sure that Jasta 5 flugpark is not using the Enhanced viz setting, then I don't know whats going on.  I can only say that on the servers I'm playing on, I'm not under the impression that I have Bionic Man vision. Better spotting yes, but certainly not "Enhanced Visibility Lite" as the original poster phrased it.

 

 

Edited November 24, 2020 by SeaSerpent
corrected some things that were stated previously

[US103_Baer]

3 hours ago, SeaSerpent said:

 

If people are seeing Spad-sized things at what they claim is over 25 kilometers, and you are sure that Jasta 5 flugpark is not using the Enhanced viz setting, then I don't know whats going on.  I can only say that on the servers I'm playing on, I'm not under the impression that I have Bionic Man vision. Better spotting yes, but certainly not "Enhanced Visibility Lite" as the original poster phrased it.

 

 

 

Yeah, calling it enhanced viz lite might have been a bit confusing. Its the standard mode but now standard mode has this enhanced viz effect and I showed the map so ppl could verify the distance.

With this current STANDARD viz model, WW1 aircraft are visible at over 25km. All our squad could see them on their variety of monitors. I used a 32" at 1440p which is same pixel density as 24" 1080p.

 

Tellingly, if you're able to switch icons ON, the icons don't display at that distance, only the aircraft!

Edited November 24, 2020 by US103_Baer

[Guest deleted@83466]

Well, OK.  I also use 1440 res, with sharpen filter, and looking at your screenshots, I'm not seeing those big blocky pixels like that at such a range in most lighting conditions.  If I see something at such a range, I've noticed it is typically in morning or afternoon, and I'm between the sun and the bogey, and he is reflecting.  Happens more with a bare aluminum skin.  In these situations, I typically lose the bogey again forever on the intercept as the sun angle changes.  So I don't know how to account for your experience, only that In the several weeks since 4.501 I've not found it to be anything at all like the horrible "Enhanced" visibility (I remember coming back to IL-2 from DCS when some of the servers were experimenting with it, and thinking "oh shit, we've got a SAM launch at 2 o'clock!").  Maybe the LODs are off for the WW1 planes or something.

 

Doesn't Yeager tell a story of losing the rest of his flight in a furball, and being able to see a miniscule dot at a range of like 30 miles, which turned out to be his wingman?  That is exceptional, and not typical.  So it happens.  If this is your regular experience, I don't know what to say.  It isn't mine in the World War 2 servers.  Frankly I think they found the sweet spot, trying to render realistic spotting distances within the confines of a pixels and relatively small computer screens (think how large a computer screen you would have to have to inflate things to the size of real life).

 

I agree with the posters who say spotting should be hard, and I still find it hard, but not ridiculously so anymore.  If too many people are finding it too easy, then maybe there is an issue there, regardless whether I perceive the same thing, or not.  

 

 

Edited November 24, 2020 by SeaSerpent

[No.23_Gaylion]

I tested it out this evening on our server and I could see dots (one pixel) at 50km. These dots flicker on and off. You zoom in and they stay the same.

 

At 25km you can clearly see big dots that stay solid and at times you can see what look like wings and such.

 

You zoom in and they turn into dots like they are 50km away.

 

I dunno. Before it wasn't like that. All planes that were far, looked far no matter what. Now it does the zoom in disappear thing that "enhanced visibility" does.

 

Suppose I better get used to it though.

Edited November 24, 2020 by US93_Talbot

[Zooropa_Fly]

I would suggest that the scaling should be unaffected by the zoom function.

The telephoto end of the zoom is more akin to normal vision, widening out the view is there to partly compensate for screen limitations.

In real life our eyes don't have any zoom function, therefore the object should be visually unchanged by our in-game zooming.

 

S!