Small Ground Targets

[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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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..

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.