Navigating in Multiplayer?

[SeattleRex]

There are some maps, like Normandy, I know like the back of my hand from DCS ... Frog Legs, Urine Trap, Chaka Khan, etc ... but I have little familiarity with other maps, and when I try to to fly in MP,  I usually see nothing and nobody.  No targets, either air or ground.  This is compounded by the fact that I only fly in VR, so the built-in map is the best I can do, but there's no reference points as to where I am.

 

I try to plan missions beforehand with that line-tool thing, but it doesn't seem to work right for me.

 

How do you folks usually navigate to targets in MP?  Can you even do so without knowing the map really well and how do you even find ground targets in VR resolution?

 

I imagine they don't show our planes on the map for the sake of realism, but we're not trained fighter pilots with intimate knowledge of the surrounding area, and the real pilots had visual resolution well in excess of what we can currently achieve ... not to mention, they had wingmen and formations and whatnot to follow.  Unfortunately I don't know another human in meatspace who's into this stuff, so it usually ends up being just me taking off then not seeing another player until I run out of fuel and land (or more often, the mission ends ... I have terrible timing).

 

I'm going to see if I can find a river or something to follow, but if there's a trick that I'm missing, I'd appreciate the clue-in.

 

Thank you!

[Zooropa_Fly]

Wings Of Liberty server lets you see your plane on the map.. assuming you've that feature enabled in your settings.

 

If you're on a server without that, use : towns ; rivers ; lakes ; roads ; railway tracks ; forests.. anything else !

Obviously it's much easier to see where you are if you have altitude, even so some targets can be difficult to find - tanks for example.

 

You could plan your route in advance by selecting landmarks as waypoints and trying to follow them.

 

And personally speaking, if I'm after a target I'm delighted not to see anyone else !

 

S!

[AEthelraedUnraed]

The basis always needs to be dead reckoning, i.e. estimating your new position based on your last known position and heading (compass) + distance (speed and time). Then look for landmarks to finetune your position. Landmarks can be any landscape feature that stands out, but the most probable suspects are rivers, lakes, towns, large forests and strangely shaped roads. Also any combination of those; e.g. if you see a village at a fork in a river with a straight road leading up to it, you search on your map near your estimated position (by dead reckoning) for a village that has those features. Once you've found it, you can use the relative position of the landmark to your aircraft to improve your position estimate. Then rinse and repeat.

 

Although some people certainly have more talent than others (I'm one of the lucky ones), navigating is an acquired talent. Simply train it as much as you can, and eventually it will come natural

Edited June 30, 2024 by AEthelraedUnraed

[[CPT]Crunch]

We regularly fly below 50 meters all the way to target and back, never going much higher.  It takes practice, and some of it is just years of experience, you just know where you are on these maps, they're basically all the same.  You get to where you instinctively know where home is and automatically roll that way when you really need to run.  It takes time, but nothing about these maps ever changes, pay attention and memorize them, they're not that big, and much of the area on these maps is never used any way.  You can basically see the whole map of Kuban all at once at altitude, easiest map of all, several valleys and mountain passes I've flown so many times I can't possibly get lost in them.  Although objects and such are basically repetitive there's enough of them in there the patterns they create such as cities, coastlines, lakes, and mountain ranges are individually recognizable with enough exposure. 

 

Select a conspicuous initial point you can't possibly miss like a major city on a major river close by your route, than shift final course to target when you see it. To get home take a beacon along till you memorize the map well enough, but never fly directly home off the target, wait a bit, than line up your beacon.  The old salts will know your course direct to base and look for you there.  If your hunting alone for air contacts good luck on that, they're way too wary on most servers.  You want action, attack their ground targets, your going to run into all you can handle very fast, or even cross paths with other attackers.  Fighter bombers is where the real action is, and what this sim does best.

[R33GZ]

Like the others have said, over time you do start to learn and memorise landmarks, however, some maps are definitely easier than others in my opinion. Rheinland, Normandy and Kuban are relatively easy to navigate around, but stalingrad can be difficult at times and Moscow I regularly have no bloody idea where I'm going, especially in winter

[ACC_Bobo]

Navigating is fun.  
The map tool is a great tool, draw the line from where you take off to where you want to go and follow the heading.  Of course, you need to stay on the heading. 
Look at the map and see the landmarks on your path.  They can be towns, rivers, bridges, lakes and ponds, forests, road/railroads etc.  They are very faithfully represented on the map.  Pay attention to the details of the shapes of towns and forests, they will look like the map.  Location of bridges on rivers give a good indication of where you are.  
You can see more from high up, weather allowing.  Winter is tougher because the rivers freeze up and become almost invisible, as do the forests.  
Practice doing cross country flights with several waypoints.  We used to do a 'Triad' navigation for training in my unit, very helpful exercise.  Plan a route with three airfield stops and do touch and go at each one.
So, cross reference map items with stuff you see out the window, stay on course.

[[CPT]Crunch]

You mentioned flying in VR, for the full sized map you can put a curve in it and make it smaller to a degree, makes it easier to navigate.  Also set the transparent level down in the settings menu so it doesn't blind you in low light conditions and you can sort of still see the horizon and terrain through it, especially valuable down low.

 

    or_hud_rad = 0.30000
    or_hud_size = 0.50000

 

It'll be more like unfolding a map in the pit than suddenly throwing up a wall that blocks everything.

[ShamrockOneFive]

The map is actually pretty good for pointing out where landmarks are that you can navigate by: rivers, forests and cities primarily. I'll often plan a route around hitting a significant landmark and that giving me a good indicator of where I am and where I need to go.

 

For example maybe my target is located in a city the north west along a river. Often, because I don't want to fly a straight line in, I'll fly straight north (I'm making it up here) to hit the river, then turn left and follow it visually until it gets to the city and target area in question. A little practice and it becomes fairly easy to do. Sometimes I've gotten turn around being convinced that what I'm looking at it is somewhere else but usually you start to notice the discrepancy pretty quickly.