Next gen SoW needs next gen Icons!

[Borsch]

While the game is still in development, I wanted to attract attention to the Icons issue in WW1-2 flight sims. The status quo with icons at the moment - in IL2, but also more recent sims like Rise of |Flight and Wings of Prey is that we are given colored boxes/arrows with letters/numbers to help us identify planes.

I strongly believe that this a HUUUUGE immersion killer! Looking out from your Gladiator/I16 cockpit to see electronic ticking numbers with a box surrounding an opponent plane!?!?!!!!.....

Yes, an alternative is to turn them off, but that causes too much eye strain with lack of 3D depth (available to real pilots) also making it harder to spot planes. In any case, icons are a necessary option for beginners/etc so why not have a more creative approach than the blunt conspicuous boxes we have now

Suggestion:
Why not make planes easier to spot by increasing their contrast against the background? For example, we can have green plane displayed as bright white when at a distance above 1km and when it is against dark background.

Another option is an exaggerated sun reflections from a plane, maybe as some combination with the above.


What do YOU think? The "make it easier to spot" effects can have a slider in the options and thus be open to tuning to achieve immersion-usability balance.

It will be pretty pathetic to see dozens of beautiful SoW planes against beautiful SoW landscapes with columns of red boxes/names/numbers totally ruining the immersion. Lets throw some ideas to Oleg's team!

What do you think?

[Dano]

Good idea, anything that removes the need for textual labels would be a good plan in my opinion

[julian265]

I'd love to see some more options too. I became used to identifying 'dots' eventually, but beginners sometimes need a helping hand.

Perhaps a small red or blue dot, visible within X distance, to indicate the plane's team. This would be appropriate for some servers or new players, who would like more realism than text, whilst acknowledging the poor representation of medium distance planes with a few pixels, or average monitors.

More options regarding any text would also be nice. Distance and BRIEF name are OK, but some names in IL-2 were simply too long in this context.

[philip.ed]

Well, in BoB2 there is a button you can press to view the nearest enemy A/C or the formation you have been vectored to. Your player will turn his head to look padlock the A/C, even before they can be seen. This is useful when wanting to fly exactly on the vector heading, but in many respects unrealistic. What would be realistic is the ability, when the game calculates the A/C could be see by the human eye, for the player to either automatically padlock the formation, or be able to padlock them if they decide to press the key. Apart from TIR, I doubt that full peripheral-vision can be modelled in a sim. No matter how it's modelled, flying virtually will never be the same as in real life. Formation flying is certainly harder in a flight sim because in real life you know when you're in formation correctly, you can then turn your head and look around, but in a flight-sim you lose sight of the plane in front which makes flying whilst looking around quite annoying.

I suppose semi-transparent cockpits may be an idea, but I wouldn't like that.

[SEE]

There are no Icons in WOP (sim level) in SP or MP. In MP sessions, a/c are identified only by the Red or Blue team marking on the fuselage/wings but, the approx location of all a/c in the game is shown on the map. Niether can you view enemy a/c and ground targets during flight using the external camera, much better IMO.

[Matt255]

I've never been a IL2 online player.

But in Rise of Flight, almost every server uses no icons at all, which is a big plus for the flying and fighting experience imo.

When i fly in IL2, i don't use icons either. I know it's difficult to distinguish planes, especially for beginners (i flew IL2 for the first time since 2005 or so, a few weeks ago, so i consider myself a beginner), but they can get used to it. Especially with the BoB theatre, with german planes using yellow parts on their planes for ease of identification (i guess they had this problem aswell).

Of course i don't have anything against improved icons in BoB, but i would suggest other people to start using no-icons from the beginning and get used to it, instead of switching icons on. It feels a lot more realistic imo and i know it's about fun, but the more realistic a flightsim is, the more fun it is for me, especially in the long run.

[philip.ed]

I don't mind the small peripheral icons that appear at the side of the screen (although i only fly with them in BoB2) as they give one a sense of peripheral vision, but objects directly in front are still un-labeled

[Borsch]

Originally Posted by SEE

There are no Icons in WOP (sim level) in SP or MP. In MP sessions, a/c are identified only by the Red or Blue team marking on the fuselage/wings but, the approx location of all a/c in the game is shown on the map. Niether can you view enemy a/c and ground targets during flight using the external camera, much better IMO.

WoP has custom settings where you could fly with full sim realism (WoP style but still have icons. Playing without icons is almost impossible in that game as planes blend with the ground much TOO well, most "iconless" online matches I took part in, had most people crawling along the floor and spotting blind wanderers in the sky... Also, I heard that many people do not like to fly online on Il2 Slovakia map- the rich(er) ground environment hides the planes too much as well. SoW ground environment is bound to be rich (and it should be of course), so this problem could also be exacerbated- hopefully not to WoP level...


Back on topic of IL2/SoW, I do have TrackIR and absolutely love it to bits (biggest revolution in flight sims since IL2 imho) but my eyes just cant take the punishment of prolonged IL2 sessions with icons off...

Another idea I have, is to have a button that activates icons while it is held (to help with quick initial identification- often the hardest bit, the tracking of acquired target is usually easier), and when this button is released, the view goes back to normal realistic.
But this still wont save us from skies being FILLED with numbers/text/boxes when a formation of planes is coming - killing the atmosphere

I think that the "exaggerated contrast" approach is good alternative to traditional icons. I know that even some people who record .TRKs of their duels with AI ace bots assign "void" white skins to AI planes.

Adding hue (red/blue etc) to contrasting/overly reflective surface of a distant plane is good idea too. But I dont like auto padlock idea- there bound to be problems with padlock's "stupidity" when prioritizing lock ons, plus I dont like my head "forced" to be turned. BoB's "off screen pointers" is a decently executed idea, but still wont solve the problem of looking exactly into the right area, but seeing nothing but distant trees and shrubs...

[Letum]

On this "lack of real 3d vision" thing;
In real like you don't have any depth perception beyond about 10m infront
of your face.
The difference between what your tow eyes see just becomes too tiny more
than a few meters away.

[BadAim]

Don't forget guys that Oleg and the boys (and girl[s]) must have improved the LOD/Dot situation by now. Il2 is optimized for 1024x768 on computers from the early part of last decade. Modern machines and rendering techniques should alleviate much, if not all of the trouble with IL2 in high realism settings.

I do however like the Idea of perhaps a higher contrast setting for newer/more casual players, though I'm not sure how much help that will be. I think a less obtrusive version of standard icon types might be in order as well. Maybe icons that appear at longer distances and go away closer (impossible with IL2).