Contact sight problem.. really something to patch!!
 

Until the contacts are only dots is not a real problem, we can talk alot about the distance of sight and that kind of things, the real problem, a big one, is that as soon as the dot disappears and the lods of the model substitue the pixel, simply you can't see anything.

Ok that simulation means approximation, ok that it is a well known problem of some airplanes in Il2, but that really ruins alot of the simulation, frustrating the best moment of the game, the one in wich you start to manouver the fight.

In Il2 that problem was bypassed enlarging the less polygon lods of a certain percentage, I really hope that there is a better way of solving it, if not at least that solution works.

The game is improved alot in the last patch, finally is something flyable, I really hope in the FM future modifications, but a perfect simulator that hide to you the targets at the worst moment is not something that works for me..

+1

Yep, it's really difficult to hunt in this way... Staying high is still a backfire and I hate joining fights at sea level. Many could like it, but still is not realistic.

IMO we still need a tool to help us since the hardware is limiting our sight.

I have complained about this several times only to be overrun by realism pilots. It's ridiculous playing online for 2 hours spotting maybe one enemy if i'm lucky. It simply kills the fun. I want to play on realism servers without icons and so on but i also want to have fun. I'm giving up and won't play online anymore due to this. I also see a lot of others complain about this when i'm on servers. Last night several players quit after flying around for an hour or two without spotting anything. Something has to be done and fast.

Staying high using B&Z tactics is the core play for a Bf109 pilot and with this problem it's impossible.

When Bliss changed the dot visibility distance from the default (?) 14 km to 20 km on the ATAG online server he got huge approval from the online players. It made a positive difference in gameplay.

Don't know if the 20 km value is still in place; I was having difficulty spotting distant aircraft last night including bomber formations.

+1
Tamat is spot on. LOD must be reworked to ensure some visibility at medium distance. I tried yesterday online, and even at short distance (400-500 m) the other plane literally disappears when it shows the minimum profile, seemingly it is a purely bidimensional object.

In RL having altitude advantage is the core tactic of every fighter pilot. BnZ is consequent upon this. ;-)

We were on flying on ATAG's server yesterday (Thks Bliss!) at 4-5km over the channel: there were ghost formations who seem to have only a long distance lod and then disappear on medium and short distance. Anyway in 40 minutes I've only seen 2 Ju88 at our altitude returning from England and I've seen a contact over our home base at 1km of altitude, but it was almost transparent and in fact I've lost him in a pair of seconds.

Here we have guys who want max difficulty, not max realism (don't care to explain to me how it's in real life: we have a military pilot in our squad and he claims that it's too difficult managing contacts).

The same thing is happening now with RO2: the game is a total failure but one of the few good things is the "zoom" improvement: now is not anymore as in RO where you were hunting pixels (at 150m), but you can shot at guys at 300m and more, and they still are not dots. Anyway it's an improvement on RO but there are guys against it (actually it's the lack of sway what is ruining part of the game, not the zoom).

We already have the zoom function in IL2 and Clod (FOV management), but it's easy to note that keeping SA as a pilot is a lot different as keeping it as a soldier (everything is slower, enemy is not passing over your head or underground as zombies). So FOV's increase in flight simulators is useful only on already acquired targets. The same thing happens in DCS A10 too: you zoom around you SOI, you don't scan the sky in that mode...

IMO we need something like an active "labels" function who has not to be invasive: you keep pressing a key (searching mode) and looking constantly in one direction and the labels appear after some seconds based on the distance and the weather condition (clouds, sun ect.) If you lose direct visual with the contact the label disappear and you have to research for it.

What I mean is that the application must simulate what the pilots see.

It's a lot different from the magic F6 on the old IL2 and labels are not ruining your flight experience... unpress the key and the labels turn off, press it again and you instantly see the contact that you have acquired (if you are looking at the right direction, of course)

Most agree this is a problem, I still don't get why ac suddenly disappear as you get closer? In the first beta version of this latest patch, the devs tried those small white discs (that ones that appeared through terrain). From above they gave the impression of cockpit or brightware reflections and I thought they worked quite well. Unfortunately, from below ac looked like flying saucers...:grin:

Also, the zoom function in Il2 and CloD makes you loose sight of the contact, because the zoom it is not centered. In other words you stare at a point, zoom, and you magnify another zone of the sky.

Ins

We need the same config we have in IL-2 1946: works like a charm!

1) Dots or some more refined "glare" or visual clue of distant aircraft or object;

2) Bigger LOD when planes change from "dot/clue" to 3D object.

Not so hard to do. What we can't live with is this situation now:

- We can spot planes far away, but when in RL will de much more easy to see them, they became nearly invisible ingame!