Spotting enemy aircraft (online)

[Redroach]

Recently, after flying many bomber missions, I've decided to try out the fighters, for some change. And after getting somewhat comfortable with the Hurricane and with the Spit Mk1a (both 100oct), I set out to get into combat on the ATAG server.
However, I find it quite hard to spot enemy aircraft; bombers in particular. Yesterday, I encountered several Me109s (and got pretty much outclassed by them ), but, I've yet to meet one or more bombers, be it AI- or human-piloted. I followed Vectors from Chain home, looked for AA explosions over the RAF's home territory, but nothing so far.

I don't want to cry "Bug!" on this, but did I do something wrong perhaps? Could it be the same issue as it is with the tree setting, where you have to change (and, optionally, re-change) the setting in order to have the trees displayed properly? Can I get some additional hints on where flak explosions are mostly positioned, in relation to the plane being shot at? Has someone had similar experiences? Or do I just have to look harder?
Reminder: I'm talking about online play now.

P.S.: I run a resolution of 1920 x 1080

P.P.S.: I remember actually getting visuals on AI bombers on the ATAG server quite some time ago... I believe it was in the timeframe of the second-to-last patch.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Hi Redroach,

On the ATAG Server you don't get radar reports of enemy a/c, but "sighting reports" from other friendly a/c (human and AI). Instead of vectors, you get the enemy a/c headings at the time of the "sighting" (subject to change), their position, and their altitude. Noting the time of this "sighting" and comparing it to your onboard clock will give you the means of interception when checking the in-game map.

I used to fly at much reduced resolution to get higher frame rates and found that it was easier to spot distant pixels. However, the graphics were IMHO pretty ugly, so with a video card and monitor upgrade I decided to fly at 1920 x 1080. It's freaking difficult at times picking up distant enemy contacts, and it hasn't been helped by the pixel to LOD transition causing the aircraft you're closing on to temporarily disappear at approx 500 meters range. (Don't know if this has been fixed in current beta).

The black flak is very inaccurate, but does indicate the presence of enemy a/c in the area. The little white flak bursts are very accurate and useful for spotting and tracking a fast moving enemy fighter.

Hope this helps.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Snapper, spotting and LOD issues are still the same. I use same resolution as you do and sometimes can spot the very distant dots but help me twiddelydoo when they get closer.. Instant loss of sight as they melt into the background.

[Redroach]

Oh.. didn't know that those were "sighting reports" - thank you for that hint!

And what I fear is really true... there is a bug! That's nasty! My appreciation for the recently-much-improved CoD suddenly took a big turn downwards!
Just as I thought we got rid of game-breaking bugs (my subjective view), another one pops up!
Why did I open the Thumbs-up thread again?

[ATAG_Snapper]

It's enough to drive ya nuts! LOL

The momentary plane-disappearing act is off-putting, but after awhile I found I kinda expected it and just automatically anticipated where the dot would suddenly reappear as...a plane. Usually. Sometimes I fail to reaquire it and curse the CoD gods!

I've found the plane-sighting reports work fairly well, as long as you keep track of your current location (usually pretty easy on the current Channel map). As soon as I see a report come up on a custom Server Window (since I can never understand what the helll the controller is saying), I pull up the ingame map, check the grid ref of the enemy a/c and its direction of travel, and roughly calculate the bearing and alt I need to take to intercept. Sometimes it's a no joy if the e/a changes its course and/or alt in the meantime, other times I experience an "aha" moment when a tiny dot(s) appear roughly where you predict.

Good luck and hope to run into you online!

Snapper

[Redroach]

Yeah, that's what I did so far, too! Looking up the Grid on the map, while keeping the target's course and alt in mind - but the success was limited, as I said
Additionally, I've found the target info from ground crew to be completely useless - it always says the same... judging by the dev's modus operandi so far, I assume they've just hard-coded some lines in and hope that nobody will notice!

How long does it usually take for bugged-out planes to reappear?

Edit: Tested again and I can confirm that but now... A juicy target (Bf110) just disappeared at some distance, and I just couldn't find it again
However, at least some people don't seem to be bothered by this - a Bf109 (human) tracked me for some time, as he proceeded to shoot me down...
Maybe there is some method to solve this? Like it worked with the tree LoD issue, with some setting needing to be changed (and possibly re-changed) - but I got no idea which setting, or even settingS that might be

[ATAG_Doc]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

I'm not entirely sure if the AI bombers attack mission objectives. The missions may have changed on ATAG (i remember talk of a new high altitude mission, that might be it), but i'm pretty sure that in the ones i flew last week the AI only attacks targets that are not required to end the map (usually they go for airfields where players spawn).

That being said, maybe the setting you enabled in your conf.ini is responsible for the ghost dots, as this problem had been largely fixed for the default installations. I think i haven't seen any ghost contacts at all with the two latest test patches (the current beta and the alpha before it).

I believe AI bombers just attack airfields and not mission objectives.

Someone who I can't remember said they believe the ghost are because of despawn scripts.

I personally believe they are caused by a secret weapon being developed and tested in an area on the map known as beer goggle ally.

[Blackdog_kt]

Thanks for the input guys