about icons

[Zigrat]

right now there is really no benefit from a visibility standpoint as far as being below your enemy

IRL, it was hard to pick up bandits against "ground clutter" since it was difficult to filter out the plane from the background, so many times flights that wanted to remain undetected would fly relatively low level.

this was also a reason people did not fly fighter sweeps at 25k feet in ww2: they would likely not even see the enemy

finally, airplane size made a difference in terms of who spotted who first, a b17 was easier to spot than a spitfire.


so...


1) we need to have icon visibility ranges vary with angle, wrt horizon, to the bandit. IE for 2 identicle planes, the lower bandit will get the icon before the higher, as a function of angle.

2)  would be nice if icon range was a function of mabye wingspan.. a major weakness of the large fighter (me110, p-38, etcera) were their large visibility

[715]

By "icon" I presume you mean the little black dot at long range which often stands out much better than the rendered image of the actual plane or vehicle shown at shorter ranges?  How about doing away with the black dots entirely and just go with rendered images (perhaps turning them on at slightly longer ranges)?  Then each planes size and camoflauge would come into play as would the above vs below issue.

OK.. I admit.. I was a big fan of War Birds no icon arena.  It wasn't really THAT hard to find enemies :-) and I thought it gave a much more exciting feel not having every plane dragging a big neon sign.

715

[AKDejaVu]

I think he is referring to the range/plane id icon.

Zigrat, The advantage to being below is the difficulty the higher plane has seeing your aircraft attitude.  That's about it.

I'm not really a big fan of adding a "gaming the icon" element.  I'd prefer to see them either on or off for every situation.  Really, the icons highlight the aircraft unrealistically no matter what the position is.

AKDejaVu

[funked]

Plenty of 25k+ fighter sweeps in the pilot accounts I've read.

Agree that the icon system could be improved.

[1776]

In RL you can see planes and id them easier and at greater distances.  How do you translate that to a rendered image?  If that can be solved then there will be no need for icons in the sim.

Registered member IDSA(icon dependent society of America)    

[This message has been edited by 1776 (edited 12-30-2000).]

[Downtown]

I kinda think what Zig is getting at is....

Some of the planes are camoflauged on the upper surfaces.  The idea behind this was so that you looked down, it was more difficult to spot the aircraft against the terrain.

That was the reason for camoflauge as far as I know.

With that neon sign attached to your plane it is pretty difficult to get lost in the ground clutter.  A plane flying above you can easily pick you out against the terrain by following your neon sign until he can get close enough to visibly target your aircraft.

------------------
"Looks Mean as Hell! Clare Lee Chenault.

When?
"Downtown" Lincoln Brown.

[Zigrat]

what funked said  

a few weeks back i was flying no icons and i noticed how when dogfighting a zeke in my hog i couldnt track him well went he went under me because of the green below... when he was above i saw and spotted him easily... but this kinda effect really doesnt come into play in AH.

i agree i would not want a "gaming the game" icon setup and thats why i didnt provide specifics. But I think icons afford too great of SA because..

even in modern battles, often the manouver you choose will be based on whether you can keep the guy in your sights. I know i dont practice manouvers like this because i know i can easily re acquire him visually once he opos back into view. but this style of fighting that i have developed hurt me greatly in a no icon environment where my defensive manouvers often lead me to losing sight.

because i would like to think that being a good stick in ah means i could be a competant one in a real airplane (i know i know pure fantasty   ) i would like to be rid of these "crutches" that cause me to fly in a way not similar to RL. But if i just turn off icons with everyone else having them on, well i would be cannon fodder ..

as a secondary thing, one advantage of a plane like the a6m over say the f4u was its smaller size, which might lead to "getting the bounce"

just rambling  

[Tac]

remove icons and make planes of a lighter color. its hard as it is now to see the planes even with icons when they are diving. Maybe its just my color blind imbecile self, but I cant hit squat unless my target is over the horizon =P

[snafu]

Hi All,
 I think the main problems with the Icons as they are at the moment is they show to much information (I don't care if it's Bish or rook I just want to know if it's red i.e. enemy), Also the size is constant so if a plane/vehicle is 5.9K away the Icon is the size of a small city in comparision with the object it represents. If you are next to the target it appears much smaller in relation to the object. Another idea would to be to place the Icon under the plane etc this would mean that the Icon would remain invisable for longer for very low flying goons etc until you got in close it would also dissappear when flying along ridges etc

Just my opinion

Oh yes and lose the icons for the troops  

TTFN
snafu

[This message has been edited by snafu (edited 12-31-2000).]

[Thunder]

I am in agreement with zigrat to some degree on the icons as they currently exist. However, I do not think that a lower plane should be anymore identifiable than the higher plane as far as text. The higher plane is easier to see against a solid blue background so the advantage to a lower camouflaged aircraft is already there anyway. If this were not so a plane that was camouflaged that can turn and operate at low altitudes would pick up an advantage. The aircraft that perform well at higher altitudes should retain there particular advantages too. But I agree with you Ziggie that if the icons were not present until say 2 or 3 that it would make for a better simulation. The area radar and the fleet activities now give a good general idea of concentration and the new elements that HTC has created make it really doable now. I hope the the text icon range will be reduced as well.

Salute

Thunder



[This message has been edited by Thunder (edited 12-31-2000).]

[Gunslayer]

Here is one noone has touched yet. I don't see any way you could turn the icons off in aces high for two reasons.

1) In RL Nikis, 109, p51, Yaks, and zeros never flew for the same side. Part of knowing that someone was a bad guy in RL was that big Cross, or Red Sun, Or Star or whatever country marking was on your plane. Also just knowing what kind of plane it was told you it was a bad guy, which brings me to my next point.

2) In RL you could make a better ID at long distances. Now I am not saying you should be able to tell at 6k what an enemey is. But in aces high you are hard pressed to tell exaclty what an enemy plane is til they are 300 yards away, maybe a little further if you use the "realistic" zoom feature. This is a problem with you screen. No matter how high a resolution you run aces in , your screen can't render enough pixels to really represent a fighter in the distance with the same detail it would have in RL. Many of you may scoff at the idea of being able to tell what a plane is at 2k away but here is a test you can try which i have done myself. If you can, go for a flight in a small plane (a large plane would work, but they gain alt so fast) Then look outside the window at the cars below when you reach  about 2-3000 feet. You can still tell what many of them are, and you definitly would be able to tell if the had a big swastika or red sun painted on them. And cars are much smaller than WW2 airplanes!

I do think the icon could be improved. I agree with the simple good guy or bad guy icon, as i can usually gauge range by thier size on my screen.

Gunslayer

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