A very bad learning tool.....

[Pursuivant]

When practicing off-line, I find it handy to have unlimited ammo, arcade mode and external view with the ability to view enemy planes.

After a fast pass on an enemy, I pause the game and toggle to the enemy view, cycling through the various planes to view the enemy I've just attacked to get a sense of where and how my shots hit.

I also find external view of my own plane extremely helpful in assessing the weaknesses of the plane I'm flying and catching problems with the IL2 damage models.

For example, when I get killed, I pause the game, switch out to external mode and check the path of the bullet that killed me. That's helped me realize that most single-engine fighters in the game have a small gap between the forward cockpit firewall armor and the armor glass.

In any case, things like plane ID tags and padlocking corrects for the game's rendering limitations and for the limits of computer monitors.

I'd also point out that we're simulating the exploits of men who usually had 20/20 or better vision, excellent peripheral vision, and extremely good object recognition and reaction times. So, arguably things like padlocking, plane ID, etc. allows IL2 to model a "human factor" that most people (and probably most players of IL2) don't have.

Viewed in this light, it is no more unrealistic than allowing out-of-shape, middle-aged civilians to have the same resistance to g-forces and injury as a highly-trained and athletic 20 year old.

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

In any case, things like plane ID tags and padlocking corrects for the game's rendering limitations and for the limits of computer monitors.

I'd also point out that we're simulating the exploits of men who usually had 20/20 or better vision, excellent peripheral vision, and extremely good object recognition and reaction times. So, arguably things like padlocking, plane ID, etc. allows IL2 to model a "human factor" that most people (and probably most players of IL2) don't have.

Viewed in this light, it is no more unrealistic than allowing out-of-shape, middle-aged civilians to have the same resistance to g-forces and injury as a highly-trained and athletic 20 year old.

I agree. Unless you have a three-monitor setup of 25+ inches each, your vision is so much limited in comparison to RL that visual aids like plane IDs and the like cannot be considered 'unrealistic' IMHO. And I think a 2D 'flat' instrument panel (like UDPSpeed) would be closer to RL experience than the present-day 3D one, even if you use it with a TIR and a stereoscopic mod.

[Janosch]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

In any case, things like plane ID tags and padlocking corrects for the game's rendering limitations and for the limits of computer monitors.

These cheats create more problems for gameplay, balance and immersion than they supposedly fix. Now, a "friendly icons only, at close range" - type of solution is acceptable, if only to prevent friendly fire, but that is generally needed only for non-historical planesets.

Originally Posted by sniperton

Unless you have a three-monitor setup of 25+ inches each, your vision is so much limited in comparison to RL that visual aids like plane IDs and the like cannot be considered 'unrealistic' IMHO.

There's no point in comparing Il-2 to RL in the first place, and speaking of limitations in general, the only "limitation" a player may have is in a completely different place than eyes or hardware.

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by Janosch

There's no point in comparing Il-2 to RL in the first place.

Errr, Il-2 is generally considered a simulation game, and what the heck a simulation is about if not compared to RL?

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Janosch

These cheats create more problems for gameplay, balance and immersion than they supposedly fix. Now, a "friendly icons only, at close range" - type of solution is acceptable, if only to prevent friendly fire, but that is generally needed only for non-historical planesets.

I think that compromise is possible.

First, there should be an easy server or mission option to set the range at which bogies become detectable and identifiable. That allows mission builders and server hosts to easily limit balance an immersion problems. Yes, I know you can change these ranges in the conf.ini, but it's a hassle. Better to get it set up in the FMB or server settings.

Next, there need to be more detection and identification levels than currently exists once the "dot on the horizon" comes into view. These levels should be friend or foe (friend/foe), then plane type (e.g., 4-engined), then exact plane type (B-17), then confirmation of friend or foe due to national markings (e.g., American B-17), and a final level were exact plane type, unit markings, pilot and other details become obvious (B-17F, DF-A, 324th Bomb Squad, "Memphis Belle").

The mission builder or server admin should be able to control the range at which these various levels of information become available, and some potential for error could exist at lower levels of information, especially in poor visibility conditions (e.g., mistaking SBD for A6M2 due to sun glare) or when friendly or hostile planes "aren't where they should be". (e.g., friendly planes far behind enemy lines, or vice-versa)

That would set up the possibility that you can't always trust your icons! Realistically, this would represent bad information reported by radar operators or ground observers.

Since icons represent the "human factors" of eyesight and target identification skills, these ranges should vary not just on visibility conditions, but also pilot skill.

Veteran or ace pilots should be able to pick out other planes in the sky sooner and more accurately than rookies, while completely untrained pilots should almost never get full information and might mistake unfamiliar or easily confused allied types for hostile, and vice-versa.

The mission builder or server host should also have the option of making certain planes "unfamiliar" or "familiar" making it harder or easier to identify (but not detect) them.

This would help to create realistic missions where pilots encounter new or rarely encountered aircraft types, such a missions where Western Allied pilots encounter Soviet aircraft.

Additionally, the ranges at which you learn details about particular planes should vary. A big plane with a distinctive silhouette and no camouflage, like the B-29, should be easier to detect and recognize than a smaller plane which could easily be mistaken for another type, such as the Typhoon and the Fw-190 or the P-51 and the Bf-109.

Finally, the amount of information you should get should also change based on the angle from the pilot of the observing aircraft to the aircraft to be spotted. For example, it should be easier to detect and identify a plane silhouetted against clouds below it when seen from above than it is to detect the same plane based on its horizontal or frontal profile.

Tweaking these factors would help AI behave more realistically, better simulate the many "human factors" that are absent in the game, and provide a better compromise between reality and the game's graphical limits.

[TheGrunch]

Server admins can change these settings using mp_dotrange:



There is no randomness, though, and the ranges are very much fixed independent of direction.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by TheGrunch

Server admins can change these settings using mp_dotrange:

Nice tool! It looks like it would be very easy to allow this information to be customized in the FMB or official serving settings.

I wonder if it is possible to change the order in which information is presented? Realistically, it should go like this: dot (i.e., detectable) > type (i.e., general plane type) > color (i.e., friend or foe) > name (i.e., exact plane type and unit id).

Range information should be separate from the other icon information and should be based on pilot skill for AI.

There should also be the option to disable it or "dumb it down" so that you don't get precise range information.

If Range information, rookies should get inaccurate information or no information about range at all. Veteran or Ace pilots should be able to more or less accurately range planes out to several miles, but never with better than +/-10% accuracy, or maybe +/-5% accuracy within 500 meters. Average pilots might be able to predict range out to several miles with +/-20% accuracy, and out to about 500 meters with +/-10% accuracy.

[JtD]

These settings can be adjusted in the server console. The command is mpdotrange.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by JtD

These settings can be adjusted in the server console. The command is mpdotrange.

Good to know.

Is there any way for a mission builder or someone flying offline (other than setting up a "server for one") to get the same functionality?

[TheGrunch]

Server admins typically set these settings in the server's server.cmd which is loaded once when the server is started, or using FBDj (which initialises these settings when it connects to the server). These settings are the same for all players on the server.

Offline, you can create a file which Il-2 will load periodically to refresh these settings (offline they are reset when a mission is loaded). Most people call it something like icons.rcu. This means that it is not in the control of the mission builder, rather the player can alter these settings on their own machine if they wish.

The contents should be your chosen icon settings, followed by a timeout which loads the file again, e.g.:

mp_dotrange FRIENDLY TYPE .1 ID 2 RANGE 00.1 COLOR .01 DOT 10
mp_dotrange FOE TYPE .01 ID .01 RANGE .01 COLOR 0000.01 DOT 10
timeout 60000 file icons.rcu

The timeout is in milliseconds so the above represents 60 seconds.

The DOT setting determines the distance at which the dot model of an aircraft first appears. The ALTCOLOR and ALTSYMBOL are relatively new, I believe and allow aircraft to be highlighted by a symbol without providing extra information. The others are all fairly self explanatory. Looks like there's also a NAME setting which probably shows the player's callsign.

The above settings would make the dots appear at 10km. For friendlies the type (aircraft model) will appear at 100m, the markings (e.g. RS -A) at 2km, the range at 100m and the color (red/blue) at 10m. For enemies, the type will appear at 10m, the ID at 10m, the color at 10m. 0.005 or 5m is I think the lowest setting the game will recognise and basically means that the defined info doesn't appear, for all intents and purposes. 25km is the maximum setting for any value.

Once you've chosen your settings and created a file to load, open the game's existing rcu file and paste the following at the end:

@file icons.rcu

Source: Airwarfare

The single player defaults are as follows:

mp_dotrange DOT 14.0 COLOR 6.0 TYPE 6.0 ID 6.0 RANGE 6.0 ALTICON 0.1 ALTCOLOR None ALTSYMBOL +
mp_dotrange FRIENDLY NAME 6.0
mp_dotrange FOE NAME 0.005