Small Ground Targets

[Armchairpilot]

Am I the only one who thinks that the ground targets in this game seem too small? Normally I would just write it off as "That's just the way it actually looks like", but after playing Battlefield 1943 I have to think that tanks and trains and artillery are way too small.

In Battlefield, I can actually spot soldiers on the ground and shoot them in Corsair, let alone tanks. I know it's not suppose to be a sim game but everything in has to be a pretty accurate size, seeing how you can become a soldier and run up next to a tank or a plane.

It's just a little disappointing to be shooting at black specks on the ground that are suppose to be tanks in IL-2, while in 1943 I can clearly see that I'm shooting at a tank, or even a solder.

[Tudorp15]

I am thinking maybe the other games, the targets are too big, and that is what you got used to?

If you were in a real plane, 200 or more feet off the ground, moving at 200mph, you can not see much either as small as a 6 foot tall or smaller soldier. Even a vehicle at 200 + feet up is hard to spot, so, IL-2 is more accurate. being a pilot in those days, with not much for electronic assistance, it really did take vary sharp senses, and an eagle eye for sure.


In SIM battles, I have a hard time seeing a flea sized speck in the air, especially trying to see if it is friend or foe, but, in the air, at several hundred yards, maybe a mile or so away, that is exactly how they would appear... It is irritating to me sometimes, but, I appreciate the fact that it is more "real"...

[Ancient Seraph]

Tudorp may be right, but it's a fact not all scales are correct. Just fly below rooftop level, you'll see the houses are way too small. It's possible ground objects and air objects have non-corresponding scales.

[Ghillied raptor]

I was playing the russian campaign not too long ago.I had to bomb some german tanks.For the life of me I couldn't find the german tanks, this led to some frantic bomb/missile spamming and kamikaze runs.I know that wasn't very professional but I was getting desprate.

[Armchairpilot]

I am thinking maybe the other games, the targets are too big, and that is what you got used to?

If you were in a real plane, 200 or more feet off the ground, moving at 200mph, you can not see much either as small as a 6 foot tall or smaller soldier. Even a vehicle at 200 + feet up is hard to spot, so, IL-2 is more accurate. being a pilot in those days, with not much for electronic assistance, it really did take vary sharp senses, and an eagle eye for sure.


In SIM battles, I have a hard time seeing a flea sized speck in the air, especially trying to see if it is friend or foe, but, in the air, at several hundred yards, maybe a mile or so away, that is exactly how they would appear... It is irritating to me sometimes, but, I appreciate the fact that it is more "real"...


That's what I would've thought, too, if I hadn't played BF:1942. And you could be right, they may be fibbing the sizes. But in that game you can actually walk around as a soldier on the ground and everything looks fine, and I don't think that the scales change when you get in the plane.

Other airplane's sizes seem perfect, though. It's just everything on the ground from tanks to buildings don't seem right to me. It feels more like I'm flying over a scale model train set rather than a real town.

It's certainly not a deal breaker. I love the game. But I just wanted to bring it to the developer's attention if more people felt this way, too. If no one else does, then I'll just assume that it's all in my head.

[Lexandro]

The scale in BF games is perfect, the whole series has the best scaling of any title. As for BoP its obvious the landscape is at a totally different scale to the aircraft. You can tell this easily as said above by the buildings being tiny, and if you play a map with roads you can see how small the really are. The roads in BoP are barely big enough for a planes wheels to touch down on.

So the OP is correct.

[Draupnir2]

You are right guys, the houses etc. are off-scale.

I landed an managed to tax into a town before the misson ended. One side of a house was more or less equal to the winfspan of the 109. The houses in between dollhouses and real houses, but definately too small.

I would not say it destroys the immersion, but it makes hitting ground targets challenging.

[Doktorwzzerd]

Hmmm, I've gotten to be pretty good at finding the targets but it does seem way too hard. I think you guys are right about the scale, I haven't really investigated it, but it definitely feels like objects on the ground are waaay too small. Like ships for instance, they are tiny compared to how big they should actually be. Unfortunately thats something that can't be patched but hopefully in the sequel it will be fixed. I hope the devs take note of this thread.

Also compare landing on a carrier in BF:1943 and bombing a capital ship in BoP, the BF:1943 carriers are definitely smaller than real life carriers, but they are huge compared to any ships in BoP. Its definitely weird, I wonder why the devs did it?

[Skoll]

I landed an Il-2 next to a Panther tank. The Panther definitly feels too small . BUT the Il-2M is more than 50% longer than the tank is real life (6.87 m vs 11.6 m). I intuitively imgined the plane too be smaller compared to the tank. I've seen neither in real life. For camparison click on the image.

[Benrizz]

That's a nice pic. Definitely scale is not correct.

---
look at the wooden bridge in the port of Dover. You can easily land a bomber. It is far too big. Even the wooden barriers of that bridge are as high as a 5 floors building
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Maybe the big airport in Dover takes most of the peninsula because it has a correct scale with planes in comparaison with the rest of the landscape. Just look at it from 7000 m high. That's impressive.

[FOZ_1983]

It seems some buildings are a good size and some are not.

Next time you land, taxi near a house somewhere and look at it in comparisson to your aircraft.

In general i found the size to be acceptable, it was the camouflage that i struggled with. Made it far more interesting though. I had to circle around and look for the flash from the cannon/guns and then dive down with rockets and bombs. I must admit its a very satisfying kill.

[Doktorwzzerd]

I'm guessing the scale issue was a design compromise between giving us realistic/authentic scenery and good frame rates. If everything was 1/1 scale, I'm guessing it would slow the game down a lot, so the devs opted to reduce the scale of ground objects to improve performance. Thats just a guess though.

[InfiniteStates]

I'm guessing the scale issue was a design compromise between giving us realistic/authentic scenery and good frame rates. If everything was 1/1 scale, I'm guessing it would slow the game down a lot, so the devs opted to reduce the scale of ground objects to improve performance. Thats just a guess though.

I think you could be right, on the one hand...

I suspect they scaled it down to increase the sense of speed or for more optimal texture resolution. I doubt it is for performance reasons as scaling the ground down means you have to render more.

[Leweegibo]

The scales is definatly awful, I have been playing heroes over Europe along with BoP and on one mission you have to fly through the streets of Berlin to escape flak, it runs fine and the scale is pretty good so I can't see it being a performance issue, also you can spot individual soldiers on the ground and take them out, I miss that in BoP, there is nothing like strafing a group of troops! (I may be evil)

[InfiniteStates]

I do think they could do a lot more with the ground. It often feels very empty, even when you're over a raging tank battle. You tend to hear it more than you see it. Even some sort of civilian activity would be welcome.

I'd like to see more things like the original Mercenaries game (PS2), where you'd often find 2 factions just having a random ruck. Plus, strafing troops would be awesome, because strafing tanks is hugely unsatisfying...

[kozzm0]

ground objects being to scale might depend on how far away from them you are. They're mainly meant as targets so they probably concentrated on rendering them as seen from 50m or more in the air. Once you get closer than that, the size of the object multiplies dramatically and the engine may show a difference it wouldn't from a distance.

Also the ground mainly looks sloppy from close up, if there's a discrepancy between the ground targets and the ground, I'd lean towards the ground being wrong more than the targets. I haven't landed next to a tank and switched to external view though.

There's some people in Berlin, but they're just little plastic-looking things manning ack ack guns. Some of them are in the middle of the streets, if you want to mow them down...

[Tudorp15]

I'm sorry guys.. But, I have been actively looking more and more at the ground targets with an objective mind. For days now. I am sure there are some areas that the devs did not spend as much time on as others for obvious reasons, but I just still don't see the huge descrepancy that many of you do as far as size problems. I landed next to many buildings, and they may not be perfect scale, because it is hard to tell. But, they are not grossly undersized IMHO. I gauge it by the size I think the pilot in the plane would be. I just now, landed and taxi'd right next to an AA gun station, and looking at it with the plane right next to it, it looks pretty close to the size I would expect it to be. There is a soldier standing next to the gun, and I was looking long and hard at him, and picturing how he would fit in the cockpit as a pilot. He looks to be about the size of a pilot would be next to the plane..

I am still thinking that much of the perception is the fact that other games, the targets are way oversized to make them easier to spot and hit. Many developers I would think don't want to make a game too hard, because people would get frustrated. I however prefer it to be hard, just for my own competition with myself. I like the challenge, even though I do get frustrated too at times.. I like realism, and will gladly trade that for "ease". I am just not seeing the gross undersize many are complaining about. I still think that in an aircraft, several hundred feet in the air, it is not easy to spot ground targets.. I think that is just the way it should be, and takes a very keen eye to do so.. Just as I feel it was for the pilots without electronics we have today to aid in detection..

That said. I am not an aircraft engineer, BUT, was in the Air Force for many years, and was an aircraft electricians. I worked on B-52, KC-135, and also smaller fighter jets, (F-16). I have a fair idea on a wide variety of sized aircraft, what they look like up close in comparison to a person standing next to them. I think these are not that far off of scale..


Just sayin..

[Armchairpilot]

I'm sorry guys.. But, I have been actively looking more and more at the ground targets with an objective mind. For days now. I am sure there are some areas that the devs did not spend as much time on as others for obvious reasons, but I just still don't see the huge descrepancy that many of you do as far as size problems. I landed next to many buildings, and they may not be perfect scale, because it is hard to tell. But, they are not grossly undersized IMHO. I gauge it by the size I think the pilot in the plane would be. I just now, landed and taxi'd right next to an AA gun station, and looking at it with the plane right next to it, it looks pretty close to the size I would expect it to be. There is a soldier standing next to the gun, and I was looking long and hard at him, and picturing how he would fit in the cockpit as a pilot. He looks to be about the size of a pilot would be next to the plane..

I am still thinking that much of the perception is the fact that other games, the targets are way oversized to make them easier to spot and hit. Many developers I would think don't want to make a game too hard, because people would get frustrated. I however prefer it to be hard, just for my own competition with myself. I like the challenge, even though I do get frustrated too at times.. I like realism, and will gladly trade that for "ease". I am just not seeing the gross undersize many are complaining about. I still think that in an aircraft, several hundred feet in the air, it is not easy to spot ground targets.. I think that is just the way it should be, and takes a very keen eye to do so.. Just as I feel it was for the pilots without electronics we have today to aid in detection..

That said. I am not an aircraft engineer, BUT, was in the Air Force for many years, and was an aircraft electricians. I worked on B-52, KC-135, and also smaller fighter jets, (F-16). I have a fair idea on a wide variety of sized aircraft, what they look like up close in comparison to a person standing next to them. I think these are not that far off of scale..


Just sayin..

I would totally agree with you if (I hate to mention it again) I hadn't played Battlefield 1943. As unrealistic of a game that is, I think that the scales are pretty accurate between planes, tanks, and people.

I'm not saying that it's easy to spot people, or even tanks in that game. But once you spot a tank (usually by spotting it's muzzle flash) you can clearly see that you're looking at a tank. While in BOP you usually spot a tank by spotting it's muzzle flash also, but no matter how far off the ground you are you can almost never tell it's a tank. It's usually just a speck.

Even when looking at a tank or artillery gun compared to other other things on the ground it doesn't look big.

All that being said, you still could very well be right. I probably would've assumed that it was 100% accurate also, it if it wasn't for BF. But I can't convince myself that Battlefield is wrong, because it just looks so right.

[Leweegibo]

I totally agree with the battlefield argument, they have definatly set the bar, even if it is just being true to scale, I swear I have nearly landed on a tank when rocketing and it looked no bigger than say the engine section of the plane, I'm pretty sure panzers were a tad bigger!

Buy hey, the game still rocks socks n robots chocks (what?)

[kozzm0]

Well I would call it a graphics issue. Doesn't matter to me as long as the dev money is spent on the part of the game it should be spent on. I think mighty EA's graphical standards would be too much to expect from a sim combat game anyhow...

The last honest sim I remember from EA was their Su-25 game from 1990. Funny thing, the full title was "Su-25 Stormovik" even though it wasn't called that. It had crappy dos graphics, a decent flight model for its time and absolutely brilliant AI. I still play it sometimes under ps3 linux.

[philabong2]

i was getting so frustrated with this that i went out and bought myself a full hd 32" acl tv (yes, i was one of those who still was satisfied with the good old 27" bubble screen lol) and what do you kno, the ground targets are now quite easy to pick up. Of course the tanks u need to be close enough to see cause they are quite small and wear camo paint, but with the old tv, i couldnt see squat (even on the map screen for that matter). And im not even talking about some campaign missions and online dogfights were i use to fly around thimking I was alone out there until i was shot by enemies coming out of nowhere. Now those days are a thing of the past :grin:

Like this game should come with the tag "Full HD 32 inch tv MINIMUM REQUIRED"...seriously

[Tudorp15]

Dunno bout that.. My problem is that I am just blind in one eye, and can't see out of the other. My 360 is running true 1080p on a 42" HDTV. Of course I am 12 feet from it, and the blind as a bat thing. But, hell I play anyway..



i was getting so frustrated with this that i went out and bought myself a full hd 32" acl tv (yes, i was one of those who still was satisfied with the good old 27" bubble screen lol) and what do you kno, the ground targets are now quite easy to pick up. Of course the tanks u need to be close enough to see cause they are quite small and wear camo paint, but with the old tv, i couldnt see squat (even on the map screen for that matter). And im not even talking about some campaign missions and online dogfights were i use to fly around thimking I was alone out there until i was shot by enemies coming out of nowhere. Now those days are a thing of the past :grin:

Like this game should come with the tag "Full HD 32 inch tv MINIMUM REQUIRED"...seriously