Friday 2011-02-04 Dev. update and Discussion

[W32Blaster]

Originally Posted by swiss

There are people out there with 10'000s of kills and several thousand flying hours - even if you had an AWACS you wouldn't stand the slightest chance. It's the pilot not the pixels.

Maybe I want to make a decision, if I want to attack?!

Aireal combat is all about seeing the bogie or bandit first and move yourself in an good position for either retreat or attack.

It´s crucial to have the ability to realize a contact as early as possible.
I just dislike to screw down my resolution to visually recognize a bogie - because it might be overseen with higher resolution.

Therefor I ask for a mechanism to show contact in a comparable size.

Thus not having to cope with the downside of unrecognisable dots in higher resolution.

I think thats not to complicated to understand!

[kendo65]

I think we all understand what you're saying and that it is a disadvantage - but it's an unavoidable (?) consequence of using higher-res screens.

[MikkOwl]

Originally Posted by W32Blaster

Maybe I want to make a decision, if I want to attack?!

Aireal combat is all about seeing the bogie or bandit first and move yourself in an good position for either retreat or attack.

It´s crucial to be have the ability to realize a contact as early as possible.
I just dislike to screw down my resolution to visually recognize a bogie - because it might be overseen with higher resolution.

Therefor I ask for a mechanism to show contact in a comparable size.

Thus not having to cope with the downside of unrecognisable dots in higher resolution.

I think thats not to complicated to understand!

Ideas:

1. Make the dot have some transparency on lower resolutions (more the further away).
2. Make dot larger, or some other effect to slightly increase its visibility on very high resolutions.
3. Permit larger field of view in higher resolutions (makes sense since they are probably physically larger anyway). With high FOV airplanes will pixellate from a further away distance than otherwise.

The only one I can support is number 3. This due to the impossibility of knowing how big the person's display really is and how far away they are sitting from it.

I want to add that physically, most screens with lower resolution aren't really lower resolution - it is the same. Just that the display itself is smaller (like having a smaller window into the world). The pixels are about the same size as the larger monitors. The problem is more with people setting lower resolution than their monitor can handle. I personally don't care about this at all. Having low resolution means it looks terrible and they miss out on a lot of useful information from instruments, gunnery, identification, landscape.

[Sturm_Williger]

While everyone is asking/talking about dot visibility and so forth, could I perhaps ask Luthier if you have been able to do anything about aircraft visibility up close - ie. sometimes in IL2 you're on the tail of an enemy at about 250m and he dives ( you're at about 1000m or so altitude ) and simply vanishes in the ground textures.

Now I know camouflage wasn't that good and it's more to do with the limitations of a 2D screen and so forth, was there anything you were able to do in CoD to help make the enemy stand out better from the ground ? Or is this a problem that has no real solution ?

[swiss]

Originally Posted by W32Blaster

Maybe I want to make a decision, if I want to attack?!

Aireal combat is all about seeing the bogie or bandit first and move yourself in an good position for either retreat or attack.

Sure. But here we are talking about the moment where the plane is still a tiny dot.
What do you do with this information?
At this stage you don't know whether it's friend or foe - all you know is there's an aircraft.

(the direction of the plane doesn't help too much, I often penetrate hostile airspace just to stab them in the back on their way to the front )

[swiss]

To all of the guys having super high res and trouble spotting enemy planes:

Have you tried to reduce AA? Maybe that helps bit.

Now I know camouflage wasn't that good and it's more to do with the limitations of a 2D screen and so forth, was there anything you were able to do in CoD to help make the enemy stand out better from the ground ? Or is this a problem that has no real solution ?

Yep. They call it it wonderwoman view and icons!

Just kidding, sorry.Couldn't resist.

[Sturm_Williger]

Originally Posted by swiss

...
Yep. They call it it wonderwoman view and icons!

Just kidding, sorry.Couldn't resist.

I understand about the icons, natch, but I'm not talking about the e/a diving under the nose, I'm talking about following him, but you can't distinguish between the e/a and the ground textures - not for longer than perhaps 2-3 maybe 4 seconds, but that can be a long time ...

So I was wondering if they've found a way to make it stand out a bit better ( not asking for a glowing target, just want the object 200m away to stand out somewhat better from the ground 1000m away... ) - or is it just my eyes and monitor and no one else has noticed this ?

[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by Sturm_Williger

or is it just my eyes and monitor and no one else has noticed this ?

Quite possibly it is your monitor. I had a CRT monitor once that made seeing enemies against the ground impossible. With LCD monitors it's better, for me.

[swiss]

Ok, it get ~6.5km at 1680*1050
-4.10
-Forgot to note alt, I think it was 8km, clouds off.

[HFC_Dolphin]

Actually, we do have to have better visibility than in IL-2.
Those who have flown and took a seat in a real cockpit know that visibility and awareness is much better in real life than what we've experienced in IL-2.

I hope that we never experience again those invisible green planes that could just fly over a forest and never be seen and other similar cases.