Beta Patch: Spotting planes

CH_RoadDogg · #1 05-19-2012, 01:02 PM

I read this today.

" I havent bothered to compare FPS, but I will say that the game looks so much nicer for me, plus the biggest improvement is how much better/easier it is to spot planes and identify as friend or foe at a further distance."

Can anyone confirm this and expand on it.

I would fly around forever at alt not seeing anything below me and chasing dots only to have them disappear when I got close.

Can you spot lower flying planes from a higher alt now and has the disappearing dots\distant aircraft been fixed?

macro · #2 05-19-2012, 01:07 PM

i have a lod sproblem with spitfires, the disapear when they first go 3d the appear again when up close. this is the only plane i get this with luckily enough i fly red

McFeckit · #3 05-19-2012, 01:58 PM

Well personally, I can make out dots against the sky background which disappear if I zoom view them. However I simply cannot see planes beneath me against a ground background, even if I'm chasing them. Against a sea background it's a by hit or miss. It's a little easier if they have a yellow nose but 90% of the time I lose sight of a contact even if I'm on it's six....if only camouflage was as effective as this in real life.

HR_Naglfar · #4 05-19-2012, 02:11 PM

I didn't see any improvement on this aspect with the beta patch.

However you can try this for the disappearing contacts: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=28085

ElAurens · #5 05-19-2012, 02:42 PM

I saw no difference in the (difficult) ability to spot aircraft at a distance.

The successful guys are running low resolutions to get around this. I already run one step down from my native desktop resolution, and have extreme difficulty spotting aircraft at range. The last time I flew, the ATAG guys were calling out targets all around me and I never saw anything till some Do-17s popped up in front of me at fairly close range.

Very frustrating to have a game that looks so good at altitude, then to have to hobble it visually just to ID incoming bogeys.

There has to be a better way.

arthursmedley · #6 05-19-2012, 02:48 PM

I did think there was a definite improvement. Aircraft were generally more visible as solid objects rather than just materializing and de-materializing at certain distances as they did before. However, what CoD gives with one hand it takes away with the other. The new prop effect is awful.

I haven't had much chance to test further as my game now refuses to launch since the application of the hotfix. Ho hum............................................... ..........................

icetbag · #7 05-19-2012, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CH_RoadDogg

I read this today....

...Can anyone confirm this and expand on it....

Your quoting me there.

Pre-Beta patch I had numerous ghost plane incidents where id see a dot and fly towards it to identify it....only to have the dot disappear as I closed in....never to be seen again until they were some distance past me.

With the beta patch and hotfix I don't get this now. I see dots, fly towards them and they stay visible till I'm close enough to identify, I can now also identify from a further distance (ie. Easier to see yellow noses and crosses) which gives me a bit more time to take appropriate action.

I always fly RAF, either in a spit or hurri. Can't say I've had issues spotting other spits as a previous poster mentioned.

It is still a challenge to spot aircraft below you when over land, more so over houses but if you've been tracking them they are easier to see.

I'm running native resolution on my monitor (1680x1050) with no AA. My PC spec is in my sig.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

Blackdog_kt · #8 05-19-2012, 04:58 PM

I also find it easier to spot contacts. A big deal however is time of day and ambient light conditions, it affects spotting quite a bit (which i think is probably realistic).

I'm not usually very good with picking out contacts, but with the testing patch it's a lot easier.

It seems that now there's a bit of reflection built in at distance, so you get a bit of white on the dot that makes it stand out and helps you track it until you can close in.

I saw this flying one of the two missions on ATAG server 1 (also, no more ghost dots) and had a chance to compare when the mission rotated to the second mission. The second mission is an early morning type of affair that gives bombers the ability to somewhat sneak in undetected.

I can also confirm that it is much harder to spot them at those light conditions. However, i think it's not bad as it gives users a bit of room to play with tactics, just like it was in reality.

In general, the sunnier it is the easier i can pick out contacts. When it's bright the higher contacts stand out well, lower contacts over sea are also much easier to spot than before.

What's difficult is to spot contacts over land, but i don't think it's too far off again. In fact, if you are already tracking a contact and know where to look, you can keep tracking it even when it goes low (or you go high), because your eyes snap to the moving part of the picture. It's the initial spotting that is difficult, but once you get a visual you can keep tracking.

I think it's much better than before. I don't know exactly how realistic it is, but reading about general aviation pilots losing big jest in the traffic pattern a mere couple of miles away from them, i think it's pretty close to the real thing. It seems that in the real world too it's easier to track something that is already spotted, than pick it up initially.

CaptainDoggles · #9 05-19-2012, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CH_RoadDogg

I read this today.

" I havent bothered to compare FPS, but I will say that the game looks so much nicer for me, plus the biggest improvement is how much better/easier it is to spot planes and identify as friend or foe at a further distance."

Can anyone confirm this and expand on it.

I can confirm. Since the alpha patch was released I've found it significantly easier to spot aircraft at a distance. I've always been pretty decent at aircraft ID so it's hard to say if it's easier to ID them or not.

I will say that the LOD on the G.50 is not good, and you can't see the yellow stripe on the engine cowling until you get very very close, which means it often gets mistaken for a Hurricane.

Quote:

I would fly around forever at alt not seeing anything below me and chasing dots only to have them disappear when I got close.

Those are ghosts of AI bombers and is related to the net code, not the rendering pipeline. They still exist.

Quote:

Can you spot lower flying planes from a higher alt now and has the disappearing dots\distant aircraft been fixed?

From 5000 meters (16000 feet) I could see little dots scooting over the airfield at hawkinge last time I was online.

SEE · #10 05-19-2012, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by macro

i have a lod sproblem with spitfires, the disapear when they first go 3d the appear again when up close. this is the only plane i get this with luckily enough i fly red

The Mini fix seems to have made this worse for me - except it is the same for all the fighters. Dots are no problem but at the 3d rendering they vanish.